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FISA Court Sides With ACLU Against Administration
Posted by
kdawson
on Fri Aug 17, 2007 08:36 PM
from the more-light dept.
from the more-light dept.
jamie caught a breaking news story this evening: the secret FISA Court has ordered the Bush administration to respond by August 31 to an ACLU request for orders and legal papers discussing the scope of the government's authority to engage in the secret wiretapping of Americans. The ACLU's press release calls it an "unprecedented order."
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Politics: Mixed News on Wiretapping from 9th Circuit US Court 93 comments
abb3w writes "The bad news: the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has ruled (pdf) that the Al-Haramain lawyers may not submit into evidence their recollections of the top secret document handed to them detailing the warrantless electronic scrutiny they received. 'Once properly invoked and judicially blessed, the state secrets privilege is not a half-way proposition.' The good news: they have declined to answer and directed the lower court to consider whether 'FISA preempts the common law state secrets privilege' with respect to the underlying nature of the program itself ... which also keeps alive hopes for the EFF and ACLU to make those responsible answer for their actions."
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I wish I could join the ACLU (Score:2, Insightful)
International 'Tribunal' on Hurricanes Katrina and Rita [internatio...ibunal.org]
Second Amendment a 'Collective' right [aclu.org]
Translation: The Bush Administration is responsible for Hurricane Katrina, but we still need to give them a monopoly on firearms, because that way, we'll all be safer.
Or something.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Hey at least they're willing to state, with some persuasion I might add, what their position is, and how they came by it.
Much as I like the second amendment, some people are going to have to learn that the right to bear arms is a little fucking vague, and could do with a little polish after 200 years of wear and tear.
Also, and something that's not been adequately explained to me, but where is the line? M-16s OK? What about RPGs? AA Missiles? Nukes? There's
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The line is basically at the point where your arms become ordinance; in other words, too big to serve as a personal defense against armed individuals. I'm fine with you owning a
-jcr
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Re:I wish I could join the ACLU (Score:5, Insightful)
The US did just come off of a revolution, where the government had been seen as extremely abusive. Other governments in the world had previously taken the action of disarming the citizens so that the government could abuse them. Do you really believe that the argument would have been presented of "Look, the war was horrible, but can you imagine what would have happened if we didn't have guns? We need to make sure that the government knows they can only go so far before the people rise up and replace them".
As for the "it's a guarantee that the government can have arms." argument... What government in all the history of the world has ever felt the need to guarantee itself in writing, the right to bare arms? It is an absurd argument.
I have heard the retort to this before. It goes something like "It's a guarantee for the STATES to have their own military. Not the individual". Of course that argument requires that the person making it, not understand the Constitution at all. It is very clear in the constitution that anything that is not explicitly granted in the Constitution is the domain of the states. There is no need to guarantee the states the right to have their own military because if it the right to regulate state military isn't in the Constitution, then the Constitution already says it is a state right.
Of course, if we WERE to take the view that the second amendment was designed to make sure the states had military to fight off the federal government, then we would need to see the Civil War as a great loss, and should be demanding that our national guards start blockading the AT&T buildings to keep the federal government from performing warrantless wiretaps.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
But the Second Amendment is unique among the others in including an (awkwardly worded) justification for its guarantee. It was flawed from the start. But it does explicitly scope the basis
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"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed" .
The only part of that sentence that means anything is the bold part, the rest is parenthetical. It's really very simple.
Let's practice. "Because I like the way you spend all your money on porn, I am going to give you $1,000,000."
Now,
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That would pretty clearly rule out nukes. It would pretty clearly rule in man-portable small arms.
Re:I wish I could join the ACLU (Score:5, Insightful)
What's so crazy about the International Tribunal on Hurricanes Katrina and Rita? The name and casting of it as a court is a little funny, but basically it is just an inquiry into the Bush administration's mishandling of the relief and reconstruction efforts. Since this not only affects the people in the area but involves the waste of hundreds of millions of tax dollars, this certainly seems a worthwhile topic for investigation, and there is ample evidence already of gross inefficiency and corruption.
With regard to the Second Amendment, while I like you disagree with the ACLU's position, I don't see why that should prevent you from supporting the ACLU. The ACLU doesn't actively oppose individual gun rights, it just doesn't include them in its agenda.
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Re:I wish I could join the ACLU (Score:5, Insightful)
Funny, that's what China always says when people complain about its violations of human rights and occupation of Tibet.
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Re:I wish I could join the ACLU (Score:4, Informative)
I'll explain it to you. The OP complained that the International Tribune was crazy without explaining why. /dev/trash offered as a reason for objecting to the International Tribune the fact that the US is a sovereign country and that nobody has any business looking into how the US handles its own affairs. My comment about China points out the dubious validity of hiding behind sovereignty. You can agree or disagree, but each post is straightforwardly connected to its predecessor.
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You know, that explains a lot. I never realized the GOP considered itself a sovereign nation that lives inside this one, but it makes perfect sense now.
After they lose the election and get driven from power, they're going to open a chain of casinos.
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Maybe I'm ignorant, but I don't recall the ACLU acting against the 2nd Amendment, nor do I recall the NRA acting against the other Amendments (unspecified "socially-conservative positions" notwithstanding). Therefore, I don't see the problem with supporting both.
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The only hole in that argument that I can think of is that it requires believing the US military would USE those sorts of weapons against American citizens on American soil. Since the US military has in the past flat out REFUSED to be deployed on US soil, I have a hard time believing they'd use those sorts of weapons, restri
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How true. (Score:2)
With all that said, I have been an ACLU supporter over the years. Sometimes a member and other times not, but always a supporter. The real problem is that they really do not have a choice on the cases they take. They take those that are attacking our civil liberties even when it is disgusting (such
Losers! (Score:4, Funny)
I am extremely confused. (Score:2, Insightful)
I thought the whole hullabaloo was about *domestic* surveillance. Monitoring of internal US communications. This is how the story break a few years ago. But every time someone accidently brings that up, everyone else only talks about cross-borde
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The administration likes to claim it's only applying to international traffic, so that's how some people refer to it.
However a) the NSA has repeatedly admitted it doesn't have the technology to just intercept international calls, b) there is no oversight, and c) the Bush administration just rammed a bill through Congress letting them tap people without a warrant as long as the target is not in the US.
For those who don't know what that means, 'targets' of a tap do not, in fact, have to be at either ends of
What's the punishment? (Score:5, Insightful)
I ask these questions, because I can't think of an incident in this past term in office where the Bush administration complied with any request that wasn't directly self-serving. Without a meaningful cost that could actually be enacted, I don't see this administration answering to anyone about anything that they wouldn't like to do already.
Ryan Fenton
Colleen Kollar-Kotelly (Score:4, Informative)
Not new, unfortunately... (Score:4, Informative)
I was recently reading a couple of books on the history of the atomic weapons program in the US, particularly around the spy cases brought against a bunch of people involved.
A shocking number of known Soviet spies were unable to be tried because of the massive amount of illegal wiretapping that had been done against US citizens during that time. It wasn't until decades later that FOIA releases started to show just how many cases were quietly dropped to avoid it becoming public about the illegal surveillance and wiretapping.
The biggest difference now is via legal "loopholes" like Guantanamo Bay, and secret courts, people can be imprisoned without a trial or with a secret trial where the government can actually use the illegal wiretaps as evidence.
In my opinion, they're going after the wrong thing here. What do they hope to do? Stop the wiretaps? It'll *never* happen. What needs to be targeted is the illegal courts that allow them to make use of the illegal wiretaps.
Burying the lede. (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Thanks, AC. I'm sure you won't read this, but maybe someone else will.
Well, someone else did :-)
I'm no fan of George Bush. I just don't think he's the demon everyone makes him out to be. He's just a guy trying to do a really hard job.
I would not classify Bush as a demon. He has done some good stuff, some bad stuff, and some horrible stuff. But so have most Presidents. My large fear relates to the structure of the government. We are a government of Laws. not a government of Men.
I have been known to point out that, since the only other two presidents named "George" were Washington and George H. W. Bush, it is not incorrect to refer to the current president as George III.
See, I don't think the President has 'trampled all over the Constitution'. If he has broken some rule or another, then the damage has been inadvertent, collateral and temporary, not part of a key piece of some grand dictatorial design.
How does your second point support
slashkos (Score:4, Insightful)
I remember when "Conservatives" used to be the most sensitive Americans to government invasion of personal lives. When "Conservatives" used to swear to lay down their very lives to prevent "big government" from gaining unbalanced power over people.
That was a long time ago. Those "Conservatives" are dead, or sold out to the lust for power and the money it brings.
Today's "Conservatives" will sell any liberty for any illusion of "security". And even a geek blog like Slashdot can notice. "Slashkos" indeed.
Re:slashkos (Score:5, Insightful)
BTW, by far the biggest jumps in government size since WWII have been by Eisenhower, then Nixon, then Reagan, then Bush. Each of them multiplied the size of the government, rather than the fractional increments during Democratic administrations. But why would facts matter when you've got Republican slogans to repeat instead?
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Re:And "liberals" do anything to "get" Bush (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:And "liberals" do anything to "get" Bush (Score:5, Insightful)
If liberals would do "anything", they'd just impeach him on the mountain of evidence of his many crimes. Like the many FISA violations a Federal court already decided Bush violated again and again, and now the FISA Court itself is trying to stop with the action we're discussing in this story. Are you ready now to say that the FISA Court is "liberal" and just out to get Bush?
And how easily you pisspants Republican cowards morph from talking about how Bush illegally spies on Americans into your demented "support the troops: keep killing them". No one is rooting for Americans to lose. Some of us are pointing out that they have already lost, as is perfectly clear, because they were run into the ground by the Bush regime you worship. This isn't a fucking Cubs game, you obnoxious Anonymous bloodthirsty Coward. Your stupid insanity is killing American troops for nothing, and making us less safe every day.
Like thinking that pointing out a problem that has to be solved by stopping its perpetuation is somehow rooting for the problem. How do you manage to even brush your teeth with insanity like that ruling your brain? I bet you don't.
Quoting a Washington Republican Post writer predicting problems for Democrats is just the kind of stupid Republican faceplant that is keeping this war going, well after it's hopeless.
And claiming that liberals believe the US is the greatest evil in the world is more of the same denial projection you broken "Conservatives" can't help but spew. Since you've attacked all the freedom and rights protection that makes this country the best, while scrambling to find someone standing up for them to blame it on.
Your factfree post is a sniveling example of why you Conservatives must never be allowed to wield any power in America ever again. Your "Conservative Revolution" has thrown this country low. I bet you've got a similar insane rant insisting that we must torture anyone who gets near our roundup crews.
You're a Coward. Not just an Anonymous Coward, but a scared baby who will do anything so the big men who say "boo" will tell you you're "strong". Just get out of the way already and let the adults run the country. We might have a chance to save it so you can live in it a free man. Not the abject slave you and your Bush regime have worked so hard to lower us all to.
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Re:The quote was from a Dem House Whip, dumbass (Score:4, Interesting)
What Clyburn actually was quoted as saying:
Which the WP reporters paraphrased as:
Balz and Cillizza are two Republican boosters writing for the Republican corporate media Washington Post. The simple fact is that Democrats have a small (but larger than their majority margin) fifth column faction, the "Blue Dog Democrats", who vote with Republicans, and who wait for any pro-Bush propaganda Bush manufactures as excuse to vote with Republicans. Balz and Cillizza have turned that propaganda problem for the Whip, who marshals Democratic votes on bills, into a material problem for Democrats, implying that Democrats would find winning to be a problem. When the problem is that Bush, not Petraeus, is writing the report [latimes.com] to lie about progress when it's still a worsening catastrophe.
And of course you pick up that propaganda victory and run with it, Anonymous Republican Coward. Because you are a coward. You let Bush scare you into invading, when we needed to capture Osama (where is he, anyway, tough guy?) and destroy the Taliban, who your DC boys are letting retake Afghanistan and threaten the (nuclear) Pakistan that harbors them.
I'd point out that Vietnam's fate, after we stopped propping up its fake government to massacre its people, was to next successfully defend itself from the China (now among our greatest "allies" with Pakistan) we pretended was going to engulf the world in Communism. Next Vietnam shut down the Cambodian genocide we created with our covert war there. And since then, Vietnam has finally lived in decades of peace after centuries of the colonialism your favorite US buddies (including specifically Cheney, Rumsfeld and their cronies) fought so hard (though not in person, of course, but in air-conditioned remote control offices) to keep for themselves. But lost, and lost horribly, at such terrible, irreparable cost to America. Instead of just accepting Ho Chih Minh's post-WWII plea for a Marshall Plan for SE Asia, which would have given the US the same leverage there against China that we had in Europe against Russia. But the Vietnam War was too profitable for US corporations and Cold War fearmongering to Republican cowards like you to pass up. Exactly like those same Republican mass murderers are doing with Iraq right now. I'd point it out, but what's the point? You Republican cowards can't hear the truth about the blood on your hands and the piss in your pants. You need to kill more people to distract yourselves from your record of failure.
You sick bitches have got everything about Iraq wrong, just like you alzheimers fucktards got Vietnam so horribly wrong last time around. You should never be let anywhere near decisionmaking power. O
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not sure you understand the Constitution if you think "they are talking with the enemy" is some sort of magic phrase that obviates the needs for warrants to eavesdrop on Americans. If there's probable cause, then you can go to the FISA court (retroactively even!) a
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I just stopped reading right there, because the Supreme Court over many decades and ideological shifts has already spoken on the matter. Eavesdropping on phone calls with Americans on the line requires a warrant from a co
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I do. The number of people who do anything material to help find better lives for unwanted children is vanishingly small compared to those just shooting off their mouths. And no, there is no "up in arms" over the discarded blastocysts at fertility clinics. It's only an issue at all
What if they don't? (Score:2, Insightful)
Let's say, for the sake of argument, the Administration refuses to comply. Who goes to jail, and who takes them? Is it the President? The heads of the various organizations that didn't comply? Nobody, since the Judicial branch can't really enforce anything without the cooperation of agencies under other branches of government?
I'd like to know, even if it's an unrealistic situation that they'd flat out ignore that sort of an or
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The Bush Administration has to respond--that's all. An argument that the ACLU has no goddamned right to see what they're requesting is a response. The judge might rule against the Bush Administration, but that just means years more of the Justice Department's stonewalling that they perfected during the Padilla and Moussaoui fiascos.
After Bush leaves (ever thought of that?) (Score:5, Interesting)
I predict that with the exception of some high-profile non-productive executive orders the next prez (no matter which party) will keep most the powers that Bush has acquired via executive orders.
I may sound jaded, but let's not delude ourselves.
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I think that the Democratic president will make a very public showing of repudiating and rescinding these powers because that's the only PR defense against Republican char
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Patriot Act (Score:3, Interesting)
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The article links to a portion of the ACLU site containing additional information, including the actual order. But since you obviously can't read, it won't do you any good, will it?
Re:Interesting ... (Score:5, Interesting)
No, a secret court has had enough of being called irrelevant. EVERY president since Carter (Carter created it) has actually gone to get warrants from the court and the court has generally granted them. This administration, however, has wilfully ignored them _and_ said out in public that the FISA court system is an obstacle.
Anyone who has been paying attention to this _knows_ that the FISA judges are pissed off.
I am not one bit surprised that they sided with the ACLU.
--
BMO
Parent
More tan that. (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:More tan that. (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:Interesting ... (Score:5, Informative)
Link [boston.com]
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Who the heck is freem?
Unless you mean Freem... [wikiality.com]
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Re:FWIW (Score:5, Funny)
No... but somewhere, a computer just set the flag for "irrational behavior" in your file to True. So if they need to come to get you for any reason, they'll probably come with guns drawn. Good job. You really showed them something, didn't you?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)