Wiretapping Program Ruled Legal 575
BuhDuh writes "The New York Times is carrying a story concerning that well known bastion of legal authority, the 'Foreign Intelligence Surveillance' court, which has ruled that the National Security Agency's warrantless eavesdropping program was perfectly legal. It says, 'A federal intelligence court, in a rare public opinion, is expected to issue a major ruling validating the power of the president and Congress to wiretap international phone calls and intercept e-mail messages without a court order, even when Americans' private communications may be involved, according to a person with knowledge of the opinion.'"
Cairo (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think anything really bad is being done against the American people at this moment. I do think that boundaries are being crossed whereby if the wrong person gets into power, there is no going back. Just ask yourself: What Would Nixon Do?
Motherfucking son of bitch. (Score:3, Insightful)
This right on the heels of a god damned act of treason by
Supreme Court just yesterday: http://www.freep.com/article/20090115/NEWS07/90115015 [freep.com]
Seriously, can anyone tell me ANYTHING whatsoever that the 4th amendment does now?
And just in case anyone out there is still Hoping for Change starting next week: sorry, the New Boss supports this shit too - and he's a "constitutional scholar"!
Every last one of these sons of bitches should be in jail.
Okay... (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, in the fine tradition of our founding fathers then, let's assemble publicly, choose representatives from amongst us, and then send them out internationally to work towards encrypting the network and locking it down, taking away the ability of our government to spy on us at the network level. You don't play well with others, and soon you'll have nobody to play with. Simple. Of course... who will bell the cat?
Riots? (Score:5, Insightful)
So what time do the riots and looting start? I'm not off work til 5pm but I gotta pickup the kids and get them home by 6pm, oh and I have to watch an episode of House MD before I can head out. On second thought, I do have to work tomorrow and don't want to be inconvenienced, so lets put them off until its warmer outside as well, maybe next year, or the year after?
*Goes back to staring at the god box and doing as told.
cheers.
Re:Cairo (Score:5, Insightful)
you are aware that U.S. citizens are being held at Guantanamo?
Citation?
Re:Motherfucking son of bitch. (Score:5, Insightful)
"Seriously, can anyone tell me ANYTHING whatsoever that the 4th amendment does now?"
A communication coming in abroad is no different than a package. The government has *always* had a right to intercept foreign shipments and communications. The 4th applies to American citizens *in* America not aything about people who are not Americans or persons (be they American or not) overseas.
Excuse me while I... (Score:3, Insightful)
Jefferson was right
Re:Motherfucking son of bitch. (Score:5, Insightful)
"The question whether the judges are invested with exclusive authority to decide on the constitutionality of a law has been heretofore a subject of consideration with me in the exercise of official duties. Certainly there is not a word in the Constitution which has given that power to them more than to the Executive or Legislative branches."
--Thomas Jefferson to W. H. Torrance, 1815. ME 14:303
http://www.landmarkcases.org/marbury/jefferson.html [landmarkcases.org]
"This member of the Government was at first considered as the most harmless and helpless of all its organs. But it has proved that the power of declaring what the law is, ad libitum, by sapping and mining slyly and without alarm the foundations of the Constitution, can do what open force would not dare to attempt."
In other words, it isn't very hard for 5 lawyers to screw things up for everyone!
Of course I'll get modded down (Score:4, Insightful)
But I strongly suspected this already. Most people who actually analyzed the situation and the LAW thought it was a strong possibility.
Unfortunately, every time I attempted to discuss the actual LAW, I (and others) were shouted down (and modded down) by the "WHARGARBLL FUCK BUSH BLAHGHGHG!!" crowd, who'd rather not have their prejudices disproven.
Things can be legal, and still be intrusive and wrong on a moral level.
Perhaps in the future, all of you who screamed "Illegal wiretaps!!!!" at the top of your lungs will take the time to listen.
PS, I think it's shitty too, but that doesn't make it illegal.
Re:Cairo (Score:3, Insightful)
Didn't Santayana say something about those who do not remember history are condemned to repeat it?
Re:Cairo (Score:1, Insightful)
"those who desire security at the expense of liberty, deserve neither." - Benjamin Franklin
The U.S. Constitution forbids the "searching" of phonecalls made by Americans. It shouldn't matter if an American is calling another American, or a Japanese citizen. The Constitutional Law is clear that wuch wiretapping is not allowed unless the police can get a warrant issued by a judge.
Re:Why not? (Score:5, Insightful)
The FISA court is simply recognizing that no one has a right to privacy when making an international call. Freedom of Speech does not make any guarantee of privacy, nor does Freedom from Search & Seizure exist at the border. The NSA program specifically targeted phone calls between the US and a foreign country.
The FISA court still needs to exist to temper abuse for domestic wire taps.
I've explained this several times on this site and I'm glad to see the court has finally figured out how to read.
bushcrimesyndicate? (Score:5, Insightful)
The tag "bushcrimesyndicate" is inaccurate. For those of you who haven't read the Constitution, Congress is responsible for setting up all Federal courts, including the FISA court (surely nobody believes that Bush created FISA...).
"politiciancrimesyndicate" is much more accurate.
Re:Oh well (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not like they don't have what's best for you in mind.
Actually, in all seriousness, I believe that they do. I think that all the paranoia about them trying to enslave our minds to support some massive corporate/governing elite by censoring our movements, restricting our speech, and stripping our rights away is nonsense. I think that the Intelligence agencies and probably better than half of our governing body is motivated (mainly) by wanting to do what's best for us and keep us safe.
The problem is that their idea of what's "best for us" may not line up with mine and I'll be damned if I'm going to voluntarily abandon rights because it may-or-may-not make some minimal impact on my safety that would be dwarfed by efforts on the non-terror front. I don't so much question their intentions (although I don't object too loudly when other people do - blind trust is usually a bad idea), I just object to their methods.
Re:Information Vs Matter (Score:4, Insightful)
To walk around your house naked is legal as it your right to privacy, but to go outside and walk down the street naked, your rights to privacy vanish!
My email have been ruled to be "unprotected" once it passes my line of demarcation and this is no different.
Putting it another way, two parties yelling across a public alley at one another from each of their private homes (or even if signaling each other in Morse Code with Naval Signaling Lights) are not protected by the 4th Amendment in their "Communication" as intercepting it can be done from lands and property not owned by either party. (And the same would be true if the same individual owned both homes, because the message crossed lands and property not subject to the 4th Amendment protections of the individual citizen.
IANAL, but as I understand the 4th Amendment, it was written over SEARCH and SEIZURES in/of a Private US Citizen's PROPERTY/HOME, and does not cover PUBLIC locations. For public locations, the Police need to abide by their own ROE and typically only probable cause or some other suspicion or wrongdoing is needed for the Police to search your person or vehicle (as you would NOT be located on/in YOUR 4th Amendment Protected private property but in a public location.)
Re:Motherfucking son of bitch. (Score:3, Insightful)
What are you talking about? There are no liberals on the Supreme Court.
Re:Cairo (Score:4, Insightful)
Please be sure to use the entire quote from Franklin. This entire quote is "They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security." These adjectives change the meaning of the quote entirely.
Also where in the constitution is this clear?
Re:Indeed, what ABOUT domestic traffic? (Score:3, Insightful)
Inalienable
You cannot take them away, citizen, non-citizen, good guy, bad guy.
Inalienable.
Liberty was an inalienable right once... long ago...
Re:Since When Was It Legal (Score:5, Insightful)
Since December 15, 1791.
The first amendment allows freedom of expression, even if the idea being expressed is to abolish the existing government.
The second amendment was not passed to protect the rights of hunters. It was passed so that common citizens could, in the inevitable instance that their government becomes tyrannical, can be overthrown. In 1791, "well-regulated" did not mean that the militia would be "regulated" or licensed by the government (you didn't need a license for anything in 1791). "Well-regulated" meant a militia that could shoot straight.
These ideas were not outrageous to the founding fathers. They themselves had just violently overthrown their government. While not law, these ideas are expressed clearly in the opening of the Declaration of Independence:
Re:Cairo (Score:4, Insightful)
"These adjectives change the meaning of the quote entirely."
On the contrary, those adjectives only emphasize why the quote is true.
Unless you believe liberty is sometimes inessential or security is ever anything but temporary.
Egypt has never been a democracy (Score:4, Insightful)
That's bull. What hate America, left wing source gave you that information and tried to compare us to Egypt in terms of democracy? This is patently false on it's face. Egypt instantly fails the first test anyone would do when trying to determine see if a country is a democracy. They don't have any free or fair elections. Hosni Mubarak proved that beyond a shadow of a doubt. They have been a mild dictatorship at best for decades, and everyone knows it. Contrast that to the US... if we were a dictatorship under president Bush, as so many on the left wildly claim, then why is he voluntarily leaving power? A dictator doesn't care about term limits. And why is someone he didn't vote for coming to power? Because we still respect the will of the people in this country. We actually are a democracy and don't have hand picked successors.
How about we ask, "What would George Washington do?" Answer: The exact same thing. Ever since this country was founded we have done this same sort of stuff. The early presidents all found spying ok, all engaged in it, and all inspected foreign mail during war. Move forward a little and you'll find that FDR and JFK did the same sorts of warrantless wiretapping we are doing now, and they are Democrat heroes. In fact, Robert Kennedy did more than probably anyone in history. There is a difference between regular criminal mischief and war, and a difference between American citizens protected under the constitution and people from other countries. Most reasonable people recognize this. During wars especially, but even when not at war, the US (and all other nations) have the right to spy on each other without asking for a warrant from the international court. Only our own citizens are protected from illegal search and seizure under the constitution. Foreign enemy terrorists are not. Sorry.
Re:Cairo (Score:3, Insightful)
While I am in favor of them getting trials, I don't think they should have the same rights as US citizens.
For example, I don't want to hear about Ahmed being found not guilty because someone didn't read him his Miranda rights.
Re:Cairo (Score:5, Insightful)
You are part of the problem then. The American government and Constitution were founded on the idea that everyone has the same rights, whether they are citizens of the U.S. or not.
That's also why this wiretapping program is unethical if not illegal; how does it promote American values and the principles of liberty to say "different rules for you than for us" ?
Re:Cairo (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Cairo (Score:4, Insightful)
"Effects" is "possessions". I don't think it's necessarily certain that a communication conducted over a system that is, for the most part, not owned by either communicating party, is their possession.
Re:Cairo (Score:4, Insightful)
You are still misquoting. An "essential liberty" is not the same thing as "liberty" in the context you are using it. Franklin was undoubtedly referring to basic liberties provided by the constitution.
So at issue is whether privately talking on the phone with mom is an "essential liberty," and whether or not we can assume Franklin would think so.
Re:Motherfucking son of bitch. (Score:3, Insightful)
I love how liberals think. They are responsible enough to decide when to kill a baby, but aren't responsible enough to use a gun for protection.
It's amazing how they can decide that "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." does not mean what it says.
So, by collective right you are saying that our rights are not being infringed by denying a DC resident to have a gun because someone in Montana can have one? Or by saying the National Guard is allowed to have guns?
What do you think the point of the Second Amendment is?
Re:Cairo (Score:3, Insightful)
The American government and Constitution were founded on the idea that everyone has the same rights, whether they are citizens of the U.S. or not.
When has the Constitution ever been held to apply to prisoners of war? Do you really mean to tell me that all those German and Japanese POWs we captured could have petitioned for habeas corpus?
I realize that we specifically designed them as unlawful combatants instead of POWs but the point still stands. You are confusing domestic law enforcement with alien combatants captured on foreign battlefields while engaged in combat with US forces. Given the fact that none of them even followed the laws of war to begin with we would have been well within our rights to summarily execute them as soon as they were captured. Don't believe this? Open a history book and find out what happened to the Germans that were captured during the Battle of the Bugle while fighting in Allied uniforms.
Re:Since When Was It Legal (Score:3, Insightful)
Then what's this [cornell.edu] for?
Re:Cairo (Score:3, Insightful)
And what, you think 15 year olds can't go to jail?
Omar Khadr is legally a child soldier under UN treaties that the United States pretends to be a signatory to. As such, the American detainment of him is in violation of international law.
The United States was once a bastion of the Rule of Law. Today it is a bastion of lawlessness and evil.
Re:Motherfucking son of bitch. (Score:3, Insightful)
"The rights enumerated in the Constitution, like all human rights, apply to all people -- citizens or no. "
BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ, nope that oft repeated steaming pile is incorrect..
"I believe that the great mass of the people who opposed [the Constitution], disliked it because it did not contain effectual provision against encroachments on particular rights, and those safeguards which they have been long accustomed to have interposed between them and the magistrate who exercised the sovereign power: nor ought we to consider them safe, while a great number of our fellow citizens** think these securities necessary" -- James Madison
"That common law right was held only by citizens and those who swore allegiance to the Government, It did not include everyone present on American soil." U.S. Magistrate Judge Edwin Torres
--
One only needs to look at the 14th, 15th, 19th, 24th, and 26th Amendments to see specifically that Rights enumerated in the constitution are intended to address only US citizens. Now some of these are extended to foreign nationals on US soil and some we recognize to be absolute truths for all mankind but those provisions are enumerated and defined with extra constitutional laws..
Re:Cairo (Score:5, Insightful)
By extrapolation, it is not unreasonable to assume that, had the Founding Fathers envisioned telephones and e-mail, they would have included them in the 4th amendment as well.
I don't think you can leap to that conclusion quite so quickly. Postal mail was around then, yet they left that out of the 4th amendment.
We can go around and around, trying to guess what the founders meant when they wrote the Constitution, or we can change the Constitution to say exactly what we want now. When we try to derive intent from the limited text of the Constitution, we end up in the situation we are in now: judges end up twisting and contorting the actual wording of the document to fit the times. We should be interpreting it as written, and changing the text of the document as the times change.
Re:Egypt has never been a democracy (Score:1, Insightful)
Only our own citizens are protected from illegal search and seizure under the constitution. Foreign enemy terrorists are not. Sorry.
Interesting that you use the word, "illegal," to describe an action that you are essentially claiming to be legal. Huh...
Which part of that three word phrase is the operative word? Is it enough that the person is "foreign"? Or just someone we call an "enemy"? Or do they have to have committed an act of "terror" (a fairly hard word to clearly define)?
Also, how can you determine that someone is a "foreign enemy terrorist" in time to commit this "illegal search" legally? Oh, I get it, ignore civil liberties first, and apologize later if the person wasn't a terrorist.
Your statement seems designed to suggest that illegal acts are ok if the "victim" is not someone we care about. How about we replace "foreign enemy terrorists" with "rapists," or "criminals"? Still ok?
-Dan
Re:Egypt has never been a democracy (Score:5, Insightful)
Foreign enemy terrorists are not.
The problem, of course, is that who identifies these "foreign enemy terrorists" as such?
How do you know that I, for example, am not a foreign enemy terrorist? Who gets to make that ruling? The same people who want to do the spying?
But if all they require is a declaration, then ANYONE can be declared a "foreign enemy terrorist," including natural-born Americans who have been summarily stripped of their citizenship because they have been declared "foreign enemy terrorists". After all, who would stand up for a "foreign enemy terrorist" who is pretending to be an American citizen?
Bellicose cowards are very quick to declare themselves as having perfect knowledge of who the law applies to, and by implication as having perfect knowledge of which individuals fall into which category. Millennia of history show that when bellicose cowards are put in charge they always declare anyone who disagrees with them about anything a "foreign enemy terrorist" and do everything they can to put them outside the rule of law.
This is happening again, now, in the United States.
Re:Cairo (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Cairo (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Cairo (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Cairo (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you'd have to look at the Why we have the protection from the government, rather than the strict lettering of What protection we have.
Its hard enough to get anyone to agree on what protections the Constitution offers, let alone why those protections are there. When the public abdicated their responsibility to maintain a relevant Constitution, and gave that power to the Judiciary, we started down this path.
If you just look at the What, then it reminds me of traditions where everyone does something a certain way, but no one knows why it is done that way.
If the American people ever forget why the government's power is limited by the Constitution, we'll soon have a government which reminds them.
Re:Cairo (Score:5, Insightful)
The Geneva Convention applies to prisoners of war; however, the Bush administration's standpoint was they were not prisoners of war either so they didn't get those rights.
The Geneva Conventions also lay down requirements that combatants must meet if they want to receive the protections accorded therein. When Al Quada starts fighting in uniform under the command of officers while taking steps to minimize civilian casualties I'll start worrying about the fact that they aren't being accorded POW status.
Mind you, I'm completely opposed to torture but I draw the line at giving enemy combatants (whether accorded POW status or not) access to our civilian judicial system. As far as I'm concerned the military can hold them until such time as hostilities against our country are ended. As far as I'm concerned our military doesn't even need to concern itself with taking them prisoner in the first place unless it deems that they may have useful intelligence.
Re:Egypt has never been a democracy (Score:1, Insightful)
Except that contrary to popular belief we are not in a legally defined war. We haven't been since the end of WWII For that purpose there has to be a formal declaration from "Congress" to that effect. Without that, you cannot invoke the authorities given to you given a "State of War".
And no, war's against idea's do not count. Which is good because you can't wage an effective war against any idea. The war on drugs, the war on poverty, the war on terror while all sounding good on their face have never been anything more than an elaborate power grab by the executive branch enabled by the complacency of the people through congress. You'll notice we still have Drugs, we still have poverty, and yep, 20 years from now we will still have terror.
The terrorists have already won, the American way of life and the liberties and securities we took as a given are being challenged and eroded every day, and we have no one to blame but ourselves.
Re:Cairo (Score:5, Insightful)
He was handed over to Saudi Arabia after being stripped of citizenship.
You mean, "after agreeing to renounce his citizenship", right? You also left out the part where he was released from Gitmo and brought to the United States once his citizenship status was discovered.
John Walker Lindh [wikipedia.org] - American Citizen, Enemy Combatant. Entered a guilty plea on 2 of his 10 charges; carrying weapons and serving in the Taliban army. Currently serving 20 years in an American prison.
Lindh was never held in Gitmo so I'm somewhat baffled as to why you are bringing him up in the context of this discussion. He got his day in court and opted to plead guilty rather than take his chances with the jury. What's the problem here?
The most disturbing case, however, is that of Jose Padilla [wikipedia.org], who was never held in Guantanamo, to our knowledge, but is an American citizen arrested in the United States and declared an enemy combatant.
You left out the part where he eventually got his day in court and was convicted by a jury.
but the way his case was handled was disturbing to say the least
That much I'll give you. As an American citizen captured on American soil he should have processed through the civilian justice system and accorded the right to a speedy trial. None of this really relates to my original question though. Which American citizens are currently being held in Gitmo?
Re:Motherfucking son of bitch. (Score:3, Insightful)
It's amazing how they can decide that "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." does not mean what it says.
That amendment has needed changing forever. Almost everyone agrees it doesn't apply if the particular arms we're talking about are nuclear. In order to avoid the interpretation making nuclear weapons legal to keep at home, you're forced to play word games with the first half that you didn't quote. Once you start down that road, there's no telling where you end up.
Not that I believe that people should have a right to keep or bear arms, but then I'm not a US citizen and I don't live in the US.
Re:Cairo (Score:5, Insightful)
No, I am disagreeing. I believe Franklin clearly meant "essential" to describe the nature of "liberty". For your interpretation to make sense, he would have had to say "an essential liberty" (as you do), or more likely "essential liberties". He didn't. He said "essential liberty" as a non-specific singular, and not by accident.
If you read a significant amount of Franklins writing you'll note that grammar is not his weak suit. Also, there is no need to rely on detailed parsing of this one sentence. While that quote puts it particularly poetically, the idea I claim he expresses through it is also expressed about five billion other ways throughout his work.
"Franklin was undoubtedly referring to basic liberties provided by the constitution."
Undoubtedly? Years before that list was written? Really? I had no idea. He doesn't mention his psychic abilities in his autobiography.
Re:You are totally mistaken (Score:3, Insightful)
The Constitution does not distinguish between citizens and non-citizens when it affirms the natural rights of individuals. Therefore, by saying that non-citizens have different rights, you would be adding meaning that is not supported by the text of Constitution or the Declaration of Independence.
The natural rights described by the Declaration and affirmed by the Bill of Rights were meant to apply to all individuals; they are inalienable rights given to us by our Creator, or natural rights we have by virtue of being human, whichever you prefer.
That is a philosophical statement. The political reality of the time is that slavery existed, and the Constitution could not have been ratified without the participation of the southern colonies, so some compromises had to be made for the time being. However, the founders thought that slavery would eventually end, so one of the reasons they avoided using the word 'slave' in the Constitution is so that future generations would not be embarrassed by the fact that slavery once existed in America.
As for women not voting: there doesn't seem to be any historical written evidence that they even wanted to. At the time, it was just accepted that the man of the house voted on behalf of the whole family. It wasn't until much later that women began to feel that they were being wronged by not being allowed to vote.
Re:Cairo (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Since When Was It Legal (Score:3, Insightful)
Answer: political posturing.
Treason is almost never charged. In the two hundred and twenty years since the US Constitution went into effect, the grand total of treason indictments: less than 40. Number of convictions: even less. Minimally, history has shown that we can run a country successfully without much use of the charge of "treason"; I'd say we probably could get by without that particular charge at all.
The framers seem to have been ambivalent about treason. It's mentioned in the Constitution, but in a way that suggests that they saw treason as a charge which invites political misuse. In order to convict somebody of treason, there has to be an overt act that is witnessed by two people or confessed by the guilty party. Furthermore, they are anxious to avoid treason as an pretext for seizing property, or disinheriting or disenfranchising relatives.
Treason, in the sense described by the constitution, is a political crime. What does it mean to "adhere to the enemies" of the United States, given that the President or a majority of Congress can name anybody they please as "enemies"? Is the government of Iran an enemy of the United States? How about the people of Iran? What about people who simply favor rapprochement with Iran? Can they be considered enemies as well? If Iran is an enemy, is aiding somebody sympathetic to the interests of Iran aiding, albeit indirectly, and enemy of the US?
The framers were wise in trying to make political crime an awkward crime to prosecute. I'd go further though, and make the trial of political crimes explicitly political. I think that it is perfectly feasible, given that treason cases come at a rate of about one every six years, to require a procedure similar to that used for impeachment. A person guilty of treason should be indicted by the House, and tried by the Senate, but I'd also add the restriction that he must be convicted by a supermajority of 60 Senators, and with the assent of the President.
It may be that treason has an inevitable place in our consciousness as a kind of horrendous crime of malicious and destructive disloyalty, whether we want it there or not. Even if we think that the government should not try people for political crimes, it is important that provisions be made for trying political crimes. The procedure be there, so that other charges are not politicized.
If someone is truly guilty of an act of supreme, depraved disloyalty, then it should be possible to attract support for conviction across a majority of the political spectrum. If it is not possible to get a majority of the people's representatives to support conviction, then the act cannot reasonably be considered treason. It is important to keep such a politically oriented charge out of the hands of any small number of people.
Re:Cairo (Score:2, Insightful)
If the American people ever forget why the government's power is limited by the Constitution, we'll soon have a government which reminds them.
All good points. And we've already started down that path. The only question now, is how long until people wake up? I fear it could still be quite a while, and the longer people take, the harder and bloodier it will be to fix.
The Constitution is a Treaty. (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason that the Constitution is so short, and so vague, is that it is a Treaty among the states that could not agree on anything. Prior to the failure of the Articles of Confederation, the states, having just rebelled against a Federal Power in Great Britain, did not want any power over them at all. They only adopted the Constitution because the founders recognized that there existed a need for a small, but powerful, Federal Government, to provide for some basic, common things, like military and regulation of commerce among the states.
Anything else, not in the Constitution, is explicitly left to the states, and that says, essentially, that if it is not in the Constitution, then the Federal Government is NOT allowed to do it.
So yeah, you could make a pretty strong case that, in the strict sense, Bush's wiretapping is illegal as it is not an enumerated power. However, this country, perhaps wrongly, largely believes that the Constitution is a "living document", not the treaty that it is. While this view is propagated by the American left wing - Obama even spells this out in his book, it is also true that the right wing, particularly under President Bush, has also taken the "living document" approach. Thus, the Federal Government now has the power to regulate the environment, local schools, hiring practices, voting within the states (and THAT is blatantly unconstitutional), and any other number of things.
So, it's not just that Bush is unconstitutional. It's that, every President since even Jefferson and arguably even George Washington has been unconstitutional! Jefferson, you will recall, argued rather violently against a strong federal government, but then had no problem with actually going out and purchasing the Louisiana territories from the French, lying to Congress, fighting an undeclared war against the French and Barbary Pirates, all the while writing about Freedom in an enormous set of letters to Madison and everyone else, bitching about slavery while knocking his own slaves up.
So yeah, you -could- make the case, that all the Presidents are unconstitutional, and the whole damn thing was a failure, except that, there were those who actually saw the Constitution as the creation of a President as essentially a king for a democratically restricted length of time, his power for war and taxation removed from him, but pretty much able to do whatever he wanted, and within that history then, you would really have to square Dick Cheney's view of the Presidency as Hamiltonian, more than anything else.
Re:FISA isn't Constitutional (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Egypt has never been a democracy (Score:3, Insightful)
We are not in a war, legal or otherwise... unless you also consider the "war on drugs" a war too. Drugs have easily killed more americans than terrorists and like "terror" it will never go away.
Anyone who has used the phrase "we're at war" during this entire discussion here on slashdot is a weak minded panzy who doesn't have the brains to realize that this is simply a line used to make them sheep for the government to push around. "oh, we're at war, well then it's ok for me to give up all my rights and do whatever you say mr. bush. right-o."
I love how republicans love to think they're all brave but at the first sign of the terrorist boogieman they cower in a corner and offer up all their precious "freedoms" at the drop of a hat while the weak kneed liberal pink-o's say "screw the terrorists, we want our freedoms!"
LOL. What a world we live in.... If i didn't have to live here i'd think it was hilarious.
d
Re:Egypt has never been a democracy (Score:1, Insightful)
And why is someone he didn't vote for coming to power? Because we still respect the will of the people in this country. We actually are a democracy and don't have hand picked successors.
You make it sound as if anyone not "hand picked" stands even a slight chance of becoming president. They don't. The president hopefuls are hand picked. Not by the people but by the people that have enough power and money to be in a position to decide who best serves their interests.
There is a difference between regular criminal mischief and war, and a difference between American citizens protected under the constitution and people from other countries. Most reasonable people recognize this. During wars especially, but even when not at war, the US (and all other nations) have the right to spy on each other without asking for a warrant from the international court. Only our own citizens are protected from illegal search and seizure under the constitution. Foreign enemy terrorists are not. Sorry.
How many times did you say "war" in that paragraph? A lot. The U.S. is not in a "war" where there is any real danger that another state is going to invade and fundamentally change the country. If that were the case then, yes, blatant wartime paranoid powers would be appropriate to save the country. The U.S. is in no danger of being invaded by another country and so all of these "wartime" powers that the government has enacted are about power and control. They have nothing to do with keeping the population safe. If they did, they would outlaw cars because FAR more people are killed by cars each year than by terrorists.
Re:Cairo (Score:5, Insightful)
This is from the Wikipedia article [wikipedia.org] on unlawful combatants.
The Geneva Conventions apply in wars between two or more states. Article 5 of the GCIII states that the status of a detainee may be determined by a "competent tribunal." Until such time, he is to be treated as a prisoner of war. After a "competent tribunal" has determined his status, the "Detaining Power" may choose to accord the detained unlawful combatant the rights and privileges of a POW, as described in the Third Geneva Convention, but is not required to do so. An unlawful combatant who is not a national of a neutral State, and who is not a national of a co-belligerent State, retains rights and privileges under the Fourth Geneva Convention so that he must be "treated with humanity and, in case of trial, shall not be deprived of the rights of fair and regular trial."
In other words, if the US want to follow international law it should either treat these prisoner an normal criminals and give them a fair trial, or treat them as POW for which the Geneva Conventions apply. Now GWB signed a memorandum the Feb. 7 2002, stating that the Geneva Convention doesn't apply to al-Qaeda or the Taliban, but that is not international law, and hopefully just a parenthesis in US history books.
Re:Cairo (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm certainly not scholar of constitutional or military law, but this is my view:
As is, I believe, discussed in the Federalist papers, the framers viewed the bill of rights as a set of limitations of the government that reflect some of the "unalienable rights" of every human being (to borrow the terminology of the Declaration of Independence). Today we would call these the fundamental human rights. Since all people have these rights, according to the framework of natural law on which the framers predicated the constitution, the government has no authority to violate those rights. However, the limitations on what the government may do can be somewhat different when applying to a visitor than when applying to a citizen. Concerns of national security are higher in the case of a visitor, and if he does not like his treatment, he can usually simply leave.
Even enemy soldiers in a war retain their inalienable rights, but as always those rights are balanced against the rights of others and necessity. So POWs retain their right to liberty, but they may be held (in a humane fashion) temporarily until the end of hostilities at which point they should be released. This balances their right to liberty against the safety of citizens in a reasonable way.
In WWII there was a relatively clearly defined theater of war in which we could identify enemy soldiers. It was a conflict with a clearly defined set of groups who would eventually win or lose at which point a treaty would be signed ending hostilities. There was, by and large, no need for habeas corpus challenges by POWs, and given the monumental and existential nature of the conflict it would have been totally impractical to hear such challenges. This was a reasonable balancing of the fundamental rights of all parties and necessity.
The problem with so-called enemy combatants is that a) in many cases it's unclear whether they really were enemy combatants (some were even turned over by third parties, not captured by US forces) and b) there is no clearly defined condition that would end the war in question (they are not being held as POWs in a war against any defined group of powers with any clearly defined geographic or temporal boundaries). If people who may or may not be enemy soldiers are imprisoned indefinitely this clearly is a violation of their fundamental right to liberty, not any sort of reasonable compromise. This is precisely why US courts have found that they must have something "substantively similar" to habeas corpus. If the government can show cause that these people be imprisoned, then balance will be restored. It may be inconvenient to hear these challenges, but we certainly are capable of dealing with it, and we must if we mean to maintain our the commitment to the inalienable rights the framers were trying to protect.
Re:Cairo (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Cairo (Score:2, Insightful)
An "agreement" made under duress is no agreement at all.
Re:Cairo (Score:3, Insightful)
What nation's uniform was he wearing when he was captured?
Yeah...didn't think so. He's not a soldier of any sort; referring to him as such is an insult to those who are. He's an unlawful combatant. He should consider himself lucky he didn't get a bullet to the head when he was captured.
So then, when he did get captured, he should be tried as a common criminal, in a court of law like other criminals, correct? Or is this a special case in which he shouldn't be afforded basic rights for fighting against the US?
Re:Cairo (Score:3, Insightful)
Before or after being tortured?