The Portland, Ore., police department's refusal to comply with the federal government's newly broadened powers to investigate the Sept. 11 attacks did not sit well with Foxnews.com readers.
In their emails this week, readers said that if the Portland police do not allow the Justice Department to interview 5,000 men suspected to be connected to the attacks, then the police were obstructing justice and posing a threat to the security of our country and increasing the chances of a future attack.
But readers views on the rights of citizens shifted dramatically in the opposite direction on the matter of a new measure recently passed in Montgomery County, Md., that would permit homeowners to be fined up to $750 if their neighbors complained about tobacco smoke odor coming from their homes. Foxnews.com readers felt the law was a blatant example of the government invading the privacy of its people.
The issue that ignited the most irate chain of emails was reports that a Taliban spokesman had said that the U.S. had evened its score with Afghanistan and should "forget about the Sept. 11 attacks."
Here's a sample of this week's mail:
— As a long time resident of Montgomery County, I can assure you that this is just one example of the lunacy of our county council. We're one of the areas with the worst traffic congestion in the country, I believe we're ranked fourth, yet our county council wastes valuable time and resources passing laws like this. Other examples of overbearing laws include a law requiring residents to shovel sidewalks adjacent to their property within 24 hours, laws regulating when developers can place signs up for new subdivisions, laws that ban on smoking in restaurants and outdoor areas, and they're even preoccupied with massage parlors. Given the exaggerated local coverage on massage parlors, you'd think Montgomery County had its own red light district, which of course isn't the case. This county is also going after gun shows, which only occurr twice a year. And in Maryland, they actually have a law that requires us to turn on the headlights of our vehicles if our windshield wipers are on. Montgomery County and Maryland is liberalism at its worse. Meanwhile, the vast majority of us taxpayers who end up funding this nonsense lose more and more of our time sitting in traffic.
— The city council is smoking something that is reducing their brain cells. These people need some Prozac...We are a free society. How can we possibly tell the person next door what or what not to do in their own house? What is next? No loud parties, no alcohol, no unprotected sex, only one child per couple because they make "noise," no fires in the fireplace, no barbecues? What else are these idiots going to try to legislate?
Marylanders, move to Virginia. Our tax base is lower, our schools are better and we don't have the Gestapo legislating inane and unconstitutional laws...We are still free to make our own choices and we don't snitch on our neighbors.
— Thank God these people do not live in the San Joaquin Valley of California. We are in the midst of cotton defoliation season. For two months many of us will have sore throats, a cough and other symptoms of the cotton defoliant. I guess in Maryland they would ban the defoliant, put the farmers out of business and feel very self-righteous. While I suffer during this time I remind myself that our cotton is some of the world's finest and provides income for many thousands of families.
It is my opinion that if/when I can no longer stand the defoliant it is up to me to move. It is not up to the farmers to quit farming.
— The Portland police department should be investigated by the justice department for obstruction of justice. How many races of people were directly involved on the airplanes on Sept. 11? Were any of them citizens of the U.S.? That is reason enough to check up on all Arabs who have entered this country in the last two years who are not citizens. Call it what you want but the Portland police department could be protecting some of the terrorist. Innocent people do not fear being investigated: only those with
something to hide.
— This is my open letter to the Taliban:
I heard this morning that one of your spokesmen (Syed Tayyad Agha) said "America needs to put the events of Sept. 11 and the WTC behind them and get on with their life." I have a message for you... Murderer among murderers ... For that is what you are. You have murdered as much as a half a million of your own Afghan people. And why did you murder them, because the belonged to the wrong tribe, or their beard wasn't long enough, or they refused to give their daughter to you or they giggled at the wrong time? Do not presume, murderer, that you and your butchering friends, the Al-Qaeda, who came and destroyed thousands of lives in a moment of time, can give us lectures on morality and healing.
If there are any lessons to be given out, we, the people who "value life over death", will be giving the lessons. The first lesson, I assume you have already learned, "it is best to let sleeping dogs lie". When you wake us we don't just bark and go back to sleep. When you wake us we become Pit Bulls,
we go for the throat and we don't let go.
The second lesson is called "Fear ... You can run, but you can't hide."This one you are in the process of learning. We are bombing you out of your hiding places and holes, and we are taking chunks out of your body, and piece by painfully bloody piece we are dismembering you. It will be a long, cold, slow and lonely death...
— I see where the great city of Portland in the state of Oregon, where you can get your doctor to kill you if you want, where the Spotted Owl is revered, has decided that it will not cooperate with the Justice Department in their search for members of the terror network...I guess if they have a law on the books of that state that says they can't help out the DOJ, I would think it would be necessary to withhold ALL
federal money that the state might be entitled to. If they don't want to be part of this nation, we should accommodate them. Cut 'em loose! Give them to Canada where their liberal warped sense of duties more closely agree.
— The Taliban's suggestion to "forget about it" sounds to me like some punk kid on a playground who goes around beating up on people. When he finally tries to beat up on the wrong guy, who in turn starts to make him take what he dished out, he says "heh heh...I didn't mean it. Can't we let it go?" Not a chance. Make the world playground safer by not stopping until every one of these terrorist bullies are wiped, like a bad stain, off the face of the earth. Message to the world: Don't aid and abet murderers and your government won't be overthrown. In addition, you'll probably live a longer and healthier life.
— Good God ! Where do they stop? I thought we were fighting a war for personal freedoms in Afghanistan to help rid that country of its moral police-the Taliban and now we are growing our own version in suburban Maryland. We already have enough problems with neighborhood associations
and "condo commandos" ...what's next? Will I be arrested because someone doesn't like what I'm barbecuing? To the people of this community I say REVOLT! while you still can. You may not like your neighbors smoke, but what will happen when your neighbors don't like your ... (dog, cat, car,
house color, flowers etc.)?
— I am just wondering what the police chief of the Portland Police Department is going to say to the country if, in a couple of years, one of these men that the FBI wants to question actually commits an act of terror against the United States? I would hate to be in his position if that day, heaven forbid, ever comes.
— I would like one question answered in regards to Portland police's refusal to cooperate with federal officials due to the rights of Oregon's people. If these people are not US citizens, how can they be protected by our laws?
— So what's next? If I smell somebody baking (or should I suggest burning) a pot roast do I report them? I will. I'll sue them for offending my sensitive olfactory center.
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