The government argued that the program is well within the president's authority, but said proving that would require revealing state secrets.
Basically what this argument boils down to: We can't tell you why we're justified, but trust us, we are. This, despite the fact that 50% of the US and a good portion of the rest of the world does not trust the current US government.
Of course, there's a well-established method of establishing that a search/wiretap/etc. is justified: it's called a warrant. In fact, for the past several decades, we've had a program in place that makes getting a warrant for wiretapping quite easy. You can get a FISA warrant quickly, confidentially, and even retroactively.
Yes, retroactively. You can spot a suspect, set up an emergency wiretap, then a day later you can walk into the secret court and tell the judge why it was necessary to set up the wiretap. And you'll get the warrant. It's no hardship, unless you have reason to believe a judge wouldn't grant you the warrant.
This whole thing could have been resolved months ago if the administration were willing to just say, "Oh, yeah, you're right, we should be getting warrants for this sort of thing. We'll start doing so immediately." End of controversy, they can still listen in on suspects, it's still done without revealing state secrets. Arguing that they need the ability to spy on people without warrants makes them look awfully suspicious.
P.S. to people who do trust the current administration: just consider that someone you don't like will eventually be in charge. Maybe another Republican, maybe a Democrat, maybe the balance of power will realign and we'll be looking at Republicans vs. Greens or something for the next few decades. However it works out, someone you disagree with will be in the Oval Office at some point. Would you want them to have the powers that this administration has been insisting on?
That would be too suspicious. An Iranian dirty bomb would be just as effective and give the administration brownie points to take the War On Terror to Iran.
U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in Detroit became the first judge to strike down the National Security Agency's program, which she says violates the rights to free speech and privacy.
U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in Detroit became the first judge to strike down the National Security Agency's program, which she says violates the rights to free speech and privacy.
When you assume....
In other news, Judge Anna Diggs Taylor (formerly Andrew Diggs Taylor) commented on the media's frequent mischaracterization of him as female, even though he is merely one of several transvestite judges in the state's district court.
Jailing someone, or killing someone and taking credit for it, would create a martyr. The country would rise up against the people who perpetrated this travesty. A judge would wait in jail, looking like a political prisoner, while the whole world protests.
However, if you really want judges to fall in line, simply suicide one of them. Anyone who says they were murdered is a conspiracy nut. Meanwhile, all the other judges will get the message. If you decide to buck the system, your death will be assured and
"US District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor was found dead in her Detroit home this morning. Police were alerted by neighbors who had heard several gunshots originating from the house. Judge Taylor was found with three gunshot wounds to her back and one to the head. Authorities haved ruled this event as suicide. Officer Ted McReady, the first on the scene, said it was the "clearest-cut case of suicide he'd ever seen in 30 years service"."
I wonder how long before the Judge is found dead, "of apparently self-inflicted gunshot wounds"?
Why would the Conspiracy have to kill this Judge?
Since it's obviously okay to ignore all the Judges who have ruled the program Constitutional, it follows that it's also okay to ignore all the Judges who have ruled the program Unconstitutional.
The fact that the ACLU kept shopping around for a judge who would rule their way doesn't actually cancel out the fact that they had to shop around in the first place, on acc
P.S. to people who do trust the current administration: just consider that someone you don't like will eventually be in charge. Maybe another Republican, maybe a Democrat, maybe the balance of power will realign and we'll be looking at Republicans vs. Greens or something for the next few decades. However it works out, someone you disagree with will be in the Oval Office at some point. Would you want them to have the powers that this administration has been insisting on?
That's already the case. Pretty much everyone who has rallied behind Bush and his administration for the advances of executive power that he's pushed for criticized Clinton for the same attempts. They granted the line item veto, only to have Clinton use it once and have it taken away. Bush has used signing statements to accomplish the same thing. Clinton's ties to industry were scrutinized; Bush's are clear, yet it's OK because it shows he supposedly knows what's going on.
Directly related to FISA and the wiretapping, Clinton's administration conducted a few physical searches w/o warrants, which was legal at the time. When it was discovered, and a law was passed saying that a warrant was needed... they stopped.
It's just a case of "When our guys do it, it's OK, but if your guys do it it's not" syndrome. What they really want to have happen is have a law that only takes effect when members of a certain party are elected. So there would be a "Republican Only" law that only works when the president's party is Republican. And so on.
It's just a case of "When our guys do it, it's OK, but if your guys do it it's not" syndrome.
It's an inevitable consequence of a populace that understands football better than politics. The idea that the parties are supposed to work together to support society is not a familiar concept. They think it's about two teams, one of which must be the winning side and one of which must be the losing side. They've picked a side, not realising that politics is not a zero-sum game.
Who are you refering to as they? The populace and the society as whole is not technically relevent (other then the original vote). Your winning and losing way of thinking is practiced much more by and applies more to the people actively serving as elected officials more then it does to the general populace.
You took the words right out of Noam Chomsky's [wikiquote.org] mouth:
"I've often been struck by the extensive knowledge that people have of sports, and particularly, their self-confidence in discussing it with "experts." While driving, I sometimes turn on radio talk shows on sports, and am always struck by this. People calling in have no hesitation in criticizing the coaches, the judgments of the people running the shows, etc. In contrast, when discussing matters of concern to human lives -- their own and others -- people
You're absolutely right, and it goes to show you the whole problem with politics as we know it in the U.S. (and probably everywhere)... It's almost always knee-jerk contrarian politics. Without a thought, you take the opposite position your opponent takes, and try to justify it any way you can. When people try to buck the party line and vote how they really feel, they get stomped on (like Lieberman just did, regardless of how you feel about his position, but it's not limited to one party).
Wow, I was going to point out an error in your post, but as I read through it I realize that's not an easy task -- it's hard to find anything that's *not* an error. Just for starters, the line-item veto was enacted by a Republican Congress. It was then ruled unconstitutional, not by Congress (which doesn't have that power) but by the U.S. Supreme Court. Among those joining the majority opinion were noted conservatives (hint: that's sarcasm) David Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsberg.
The sad thing is, the right to own guns isn't like most of the other rights, it's merely a means to an end, the end being that it's supposed to help you protect the other rights. Keeping your right to own guns while happily giving away all of your other rights makes the right to own guns totally meaningless. A gun that isn't fired is nothing more than an ornament.
The current administration will never admit mistakes such as these. You are absolutely correct about the warrents.
Ever since I heard about the wiretapping issues, when I talk to my friend over my cell phone, I sometimes say hi to the NSA just for fun. They never respond though...
I am so glad to hear about this decision! I hope that the message has been sent now: We will not tolerate being spied upon for no apparent reason.
From Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] (keep in cultural context that before the collapse of the Soviet Union that when you got a hotel room you often shared it with other people you didn't know)
A hotel. A room for four with four strangers. Three of them soon open a bottle of vodka and proceed to get acquainted, then drunk, then noisy, singing and telling political jokes. The fourth one desperately tries to get some sleep; finally, frustrated, he surreptitiously leaves the room, goes downstairs, and asks the lady concierge to bring tea to Room 67 in ten minutes. Then he returns and joins the party. Five minutes later, he bends over an ashtray and says with utter nonchalance: "Comrade Major, some tea to Room 67, please." In a few minutes, there's a knock at the door, and in comes the lady concierge with a tea tray. The room falls silent; the party dies a sudden death, and the conspirator finally gets to sleep. The next morning he wakes up alone in the room. Surprised, he runs downstairs and asks the concierge where his neighbors had gone. "Oh, the KGB has arrested them!" she answers. "B-but... but what about me?" asks the guy in terror. "Oh, well, they decided to let you go. You made Comrade Major laugh a lot with your tea joke."
I'd expand the question in your PS to why ever trust an entity which can exercise total power over you? Its not wise to do, even if you like the people in said entity.
Which works great when you're spying on individual suspects. This wiretap program seems to be spying on everybody. There's no way the secret courts can handle that kind of paperwork.
I think this opens the door for impeaching any Congressmen involved in "approving" this illegal act. Bush admitted that select Congressmen were aware of his program to spy on American phones, and so there is publicly known evidence that he and they were aware and intentionally spying and breaking the Constitution.
Again, the law degree comes in handy. I think you misunderstood the government argument. The President has express constitutional powers allowing him to handle foreign matters and matters of national security. This power has been construed broadly, and there's quite a lot of caselaw giving the President some latitute in this area--in support of the express constitutional power. The monitoring of foreign calls coming to the USA is arguably well within the sweet spot of these powers. The government argument r
The President has express constitutional powers allowing him to handle foreign matters and matters of national security.
I keep seeing this, but I have a copy of the Constitution right here, and I can't see anything in there about foreign matters (except "he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers") or national security. Can you cite the appropriate section?
This whole thing could have been resolved months ago if the administration were willing to just say, "Oh, yeah, you're right, we should be getting warrants for this sort of thing. We'll start doing so immediately." End of controversy, they can still listen in on suspects, it's still done without revealing state secrets.
Warrants are through a public schema. I can think of two big reasons not to want the existence of monitoring made public:
1. it tips off the bad guys to their being monitored an
Change of administration presumes free and fair elections. While I won't state it as a foregone conclusion, there is sufficient evidence to call into question both the 2000 and 2004 (As well as 1960, on the other foot.) elections. In 2000 chads were a diversion. The real issue was the false classification of some 30,000-50,000 blacks as felons, denying them the right to vote. Perhaps the whole chad thing left what looked like a close vote, but the race wasn't really close at all. 30,000-50,000 falsly denied
However it works out, someone you disagree with will be in the Oval Office at some point.
No, no, no. You just don't get it. The point of almost everything this White House has done is to ensure a perpetual Republican majority and infinite Republican control of the three branches. Everyone's arguing over whether they're committing a foul, while they're changing the rules of the game.
Actually, you are thinking about the wrong program.
The Federal Judge has ordered NSA to stop wiretapping international calls that the Government says targets suspected al qaeda members.
The one you are thinking about (a much broader domestic wiretapping) was recently dismissed [slashdot.org]. It was also filed by the ACLU, hence the confusion.
While the decision may be a good news for privacy advocates, it is certain that the Government is likely to appeal Judge Taylor's decision.
I would argue that of the three known warrantless data collection programs, the one targeting international calls has the least privacy impact and the most potential to garner actionable intelligence and protect the American public, so it may be unfortunate that this is the one ordered stopped, while the other two are allowed to continue.
I would argue that your right to free association is being violated. After all, the wiretaps between a US citizen and foreign national always involve the US citizen, even if its the foreign national whom the goverhment is really interested. You can't collect the data without violating the rights of the US citizen (unreasonable search, freedom of association). Hence, they should always need a warrant.
While I agree with the judges ruling, and agree that our rights are more important than our security (my argument is that people died to ensure our rights, and I thank them for it; I'm not willing to give them up for potential security). However, I've always disagreed with this argument. I use the Mafia example. Let's say the government DOES get a grant to tap a criminal's phone line. Then YOU call him... now YOUR call is being tapped because of who you called. That's the way it works. Otherwise the gov
The problem with your arguement (in my mind) is that you're talking about a wiretap between two US citizens. I'd say that yes, once the mobster's wiretap is approved, its fine to listen to any conversations between the mobster and another US citizen. My statement was limited purely to the situation which this case addresses; one US citizen, and a foreign national. The Constitution doesn't apply to the person which the state is actually interested in, so tapping them is ok. However, I don't think that excu
I would far prefer the government to get a warrant for such things. The special court set up to hear these cases is essentially a rubber-stamp anyway. But I'm not ready to declare this thing a violation of free speech, by the strictest of definitions. Violation of privacy, sure, but who ever said you are guarenteed privacy communicating on public lines to a foreign country?
The gov't wants to hook a computer up to a telephone exchanges to monitor all trafic for works like "Mohamed", "Jihad", or maybe even anyone speaking Farsi or Arabic and begins taping when it picks up one of any number of suspect words. Does the Fed Gov't need get 300 million warrants?
Yes.
Or, does the gov't only get warrants for the KNOWN terrorists for "manual" monitoring and hope we don't miss anyone?
Yes.
That was easy wasn't it? That's the whole point of protection against unreasonable search and seizure
Well, that's the point, isn't it. We can't afford to miss some.
At what point do the efforts gone to to ensure you don't miss some dehumanise you to a point where it's unacceptable?
Listening in on phones? What happens when that's not sufficient next time? Do they install cameras with audio in your home? After all, we can't afford to miss some.
What if that misses something next time? Maybe they met in an open field? What then? Are we curfewed to be in our homes outside of work time? After all, we can't aff
Look. The White House knows that all their illegal activity may get them in trouble if the house and senate goes to the democrats. This is why they are pro-actively insulating themselves with legal manipulations. For example, reports http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/sp ecial_packages/iraq/15246142.htm [mercurynews.com]:
The Bush administration drafted amendments to the War Crimes Act that would retroactively protect policymakers from possible criminal charges for authorizing any humiliating and degrading treatment of detainees, according to lawyers who have seen the proposal.
They know the shit can hit the fan for them. Actually, it gives me hope: The executive branch is still afraid of something..
The Bush administration drafted amendments to the War Crimes Act that would retroactively protect policymakers from possible criminal charges for authorizing any humiliating and degrading treatment of detainees, according to lawyers who have seen the proposal.
I'm probably showing my ignorance of process here, but what is to stop a future government repealing the War Crimes Act and replacing it with new legislation which allows the current administration to be prosecuted? Surely there must be precedents
If misinformation, then it is misinformation that was published in hundreds of newspapers.
From the WashingtonPost article:
The risk of possible prosecution of officials, CIA officers and former service personnel over alleged rough treatment of prisoners arises because the Bush administration, from January 2002 until June, maintained that the Geneva Conventions' protections did not apply to prisoners captured in Afghanistan.
Do officials actually do the torture, or do they give commands? Ahh.. Furthermore, if a president ordered such an act, wouldn't this amendment absolve him?
From the article I originally posted, the lawyer that leaked this information to the press had this to say about the amendment he helped to draft:
Interrogation practices "follow from policies that were formed at the highest levels of the administration," said a fourth attorney, Scott Horton, who has followed detainee issues closely. "The administration is trying to insulate policymakers under the War Crimes Act."
From what I understand, in this case, the government got international phone numbers that were stored in cell phones they found in Al Qaeda hideouts in Afghanistan. These are the numbers they were tapping (on the U.S. side, so calls out to and in from these numbers were tapped). If that's the case, I have no problem with it...
Not true. The government admitted to tapping all phone calls that had an end-point in any foreign country. Not only that, they were tapping the phone calls of foreign countries that just happened to pass through a US exchange. While they may have a right to tap calls with two foreign end-points, without probable cause, they never had a right to tap the phone calls of any American citizens without a warrant or probable cause, which is what they were doing here.
Also, the phrase "Domestic Wiretap", in this case, is a blatant mischaracterization of what was being done.
The phrase "domestic wiretap" is exactly what they were doing here.
"The government admitted to tapping all [my emphasis] phone calls that had an end-point in any foreign country."
Huh? Where do you get this? Even the judge's opinion striking down the program had this to say:
It is undisputed that Defendants have publicly admitted to the following: (1) the TSP exists; (2) it operates without warrants; (3) it targets communications where one party to the communication is outside the United States, and the government has a reasonable basis to conclude that one party to the communication is a member of al Qaeda, affiliated with al Qaeda, or a member of an organization affiliated with al Qaeda, or working in support of al Qaeda.
"The phrase "domestic wiretap" is exactly what they were doing here"
Is a domestic flight not one that has both end-points in the US? If only one end-point is in the US, it's not considered a domestic flight, right?
I think this is the view taken on domestic phone calls; both end-points of the call are within the US. If one isn't, then it's an internation, not domestic call. As the wiretap's on the call, it's therefore an international wiretap.
It's down to common terminology and usage of language, what one te
Excellent example, but this would be equivalent to the Govt also performing invasive "Customs" level searches because you were on a plane who's travel heads OUT of the country. And searching every one on any given plane with the only cause being that your flying to the middle east, but you're IN Detroit right now. That would never fly, nor should this. The issue if they could get away with that EVERY flight would "leave" the country so they could inspect you. It's the same with wiretaps only easier becau
Of course not. What I'm concerned a bit about is that no one with credibility is saying what the government is doing.
Not only that but I'm sympathize with the argument that the government needs to be able to make some information classified. To trot out a tired old example I wouldn't want the details of the Manhattan project to get out, I wouldn't want the USSR to know where our ballistic subs were (are,) and I don't think that we necessarilly have the right to know exactly whom the CIA is getting informati
...I wouldn't want the USSR to know where our ballistic subs were (are,)...
I know this is off-topic, but as a former submariner who served on a ballistic sub, I can assure you that not even our government knows exactly where the subs are. They are given a fairly large operational area, then go to complete radio silence and cruise around at the discretion of the Captain. Only the crewmembers who have a need to know (e.g. officers, navigators) even know where the sub is, so there is little chance of an enem
The government admitted to tapping all phone calls that had an end-point in any foreign country.
This is turd polishing.
See saying that one party is outside of the united states gets you looking at this as out there, when by definition, the other party must be in the united states and thus clearly covered by the "U.S. Person" qualification in the FISA.
Again, you are confusing three separate programs: 1) International-domestic warrantles wiretaps: this is what the Judge ruled illegal in today's story. It actually is not an unreasonable program because it targets 'known' terrorist numbers (more or less).
2) Blanket domestic-domestic warrantles wiretaps: cellular carriers such as AT&T voluntarily giving up the data to the NSA. This program taps EVERYONE who uses the carriers' networks. This is a giant fishing expedition, but the courts are actually O.K. w
However, I've always disagreed with this argument. I use the Mafia example. Let's say the government DOES get a grant to tap a criminal's phone line. Then YOU call him... now YOUR call is being tapped because of who you called. That's the way it works. Otherwise the government has to have permission to tap both parties phones. That's ridiculous.
How about this just means the conversation can only be used against the person who had a warrant issued. Lets say they are tapping mafia don Al's phone, and I ca
Suspecting you that you are being monitored will likely lead you to censor yourself so yes, it is a free speech thing. Its also a freedom of the press issue, because the informants (those outside the US, which have something to say which we want to hear) will stop informing, if they believe they are being monitored.
Sure, there's the intimidation factor that may lead to self-censorship, but that's only if you're doing something you shouldn't be doing.
Let's see.. like.. talking about how to escape the country because you don't like the current leadership? That was illegal in plenty of dictatorships - they shouldn't be trying to secure their own freedom?
Or how about talking about how much they dislike the administration or XYZ political party, who years later comes to power and decides to data mine those records for w
Yeah yeah, I understand that whole thing. I'm just being needlessly strict in my use of the words. Which quite frankly, I'd hope judges would be in their rulings. If the judge had said "potentially violates the principles of free speech through intimidation", I never would have posted what I posted.
There's no amendment that I'm aware of that ensures your right to cheat on your tax returns, so your analogy is flawed. I totally understand where wiretapping "innocent" people is a Bad Thing, in principle. It definitely violates "privacy" (although we could still debate whether you can actually expect privacy over public lines to foreign countries- I might not be so quick to assume you can). But there is absolutely nothing here stopping you from talking about whatever you want. If you're talking about illeg
The point I am making is that you have no knowledge of what laws will be in place years from now, and how these will apply to the conversations recorded today. Not trying to invoke Goodwin here, but, in 1920's Germany it was not illegal to identify oneself as a Jew. Guess what a democratically elected Hitler did with those records some years later? Imagine in 2012 'we' elect an Ultra-left pinko that sends people like you and me to jail for supporting capitalism...
First, the lawsuit that was thrown out wasn't "wiretapping" at all. It was data mining -- a transfer of supposedly private records to the government so that they could be sifted for patterns. Not covered by FISA.
Second, in the current case, the privacy issue is entirely secondary. The real concern is: President Bush knowingly broke the law. End of story. (The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act describes what steps the government needs to take to wiretap the phones of foreign agents. Those steps include a warrant by the special FISA court. The Administration did not seek those warrants on a large number of wiretaps. FISA also specifies that it is the only law covering such surveillance.) Caught at breaking the law -- a law, by the way, he had signaled his complete satisfaction with, and which, if he had asked, he could easily have had amended -- he brazenly declared his intention to go on breaking the law.
A few years back, a hyperventilating minority of the political leaders in this country screamed bloody murder and tried to oust a President for perjuring himself in a civil suit concerning a matter from long before his Presidency. It was, they told us, a matter of high principle: The President must obey the law. He must respect the judicial process. He must not be an oathbreaker, since he swears an oath to uphold the Consititution and faithfully execute the laws of the land.
Now, that group of leaders is shockingly silent -- indeed, worse, vocal in their defense -- when their party's President knowingly and intentionally violated an actual law and thus knowingly violates his oath of office. Even for Washington, the hypocrisy here is rank.
They can still listen in on specific suspects, NOT on the entire population/subscribers to an ISP.
Provided you know who the specific suspects are, of course. Unfortunately, according to the ACLU, you are not a suspect until you blow yourself up in a crowded plane or market.
Oh well. The cat's out of the bag. Another peaceful attempt at security blown to smitherines.
If they'd just done it by the rules, it would have remained both confidential and legal. The problem is that this Administration thinks it can make its own laws. You want to blame someone, blame them.
Here [msn.com] are some round figures. It's absolutely amazing to me that so many people actually support warrantless taps. That's why this country will eventually decend into some totalitarian government reign - because the people don't really have any will to stop it - rather they accept it.
The people who care about their privacy are already using encryption or other systems to protect their privacy (like face to face meetings).
The rest of the population just doesn't give a damn. Not valuing their privacy, they don't see it as a tradeoff at all, just an increase in their personal security at no particular cost.
I was interested in your question, so I did some research. The grandparent poster is overstating the case, but there were polls back in December/January that kind of back him up.
The NY Times [nytimes.com] says, "The poll found that 53 percent of Americans approved of Mr. Bush's authorizing eavesdropping without prior court approval 'in order to reduce the threat of terrorism.'"
The CS Monitor [csmonitor.com] (reporting on a Zogby poll) says, "Nearly half of likely voters, 49 percent, say Bush has the constitutional powers to approve such a plan".
I don't have more recent figures. The President's popularity is roughly the same now that it was then, though it had risen a bit for a while in the meantime.
The NY Times says, "The poll found that 53 percent of Americans approved of Mr. Bush's authorizing eavesdropping without prior court approval 'in order to reduce the threat of terrorism.'"
Yes, but the NY Times doesn't say that they approved of Mr. Bush's authorising eavesdropping with no court approval at all. The 53% includes the Americans that believe retroactive warrants are acceptable but warrantless spying is not.
When did "eavesdropping" become the politically correct euphemism for spying, a
Polls are irrelevant wrt the wiretapping policy for a couple of reasons. One is that the questions and sampling often bias the results. The second, and more important reason, is that public opinion is a bad way of determining policy. If polling is conducted responsibly, it is a valuable tool for measuring public opinion, and nothing more.
This is not true. Where do you pull a figure like that from? Your ass?
Most people in the United States support the wiretapping program.
And yet, you say it's false without presenting any evidence of your own (or perhaps obtaining it from the same region as the GP). I'm not aware of a poll that asks a question like, "Do you trust the current administration?" I think it would be a poor question, because it's too vague to be meaningful. Most of the time, we'd trust people so far in a certain situation; trust is not a binary issue. For example, I trust Bush not to intentionally bring down the USA, but I don't trust him to make accurate statements about intelligence. There are some things we can say, however. We can say that according to polls most people disapprove of the overall job that Bush is doing (see almost any recent presidential approval rating poll), and we can say they're almost evenly split on the question of whether warrentless wiretaps are ok (see, for example, this Newsweek poll [msn.com]). Most of the polls I've seen, but not all, show a slight majority for the opinion that these searches are a bad thing. Perhaps if you're going to attack people for a lack of facts, you should at least try to offer some to support your own claims.
Most people in the United States support the wiretapping program.
Most people in the United States supported slavery too.
The public at large cannot always be trusted to support the moral or ethical side of an issue, nor can they be trusted to maintain logic or consistency in their beliefs. I think it was Ben Franklin that said (paraphrasing now), "Being in the majority means that most people agree with you; it does not mean that you are right."
That's why we have a Constitution and Bill of Rights, which is intended to be a semi-permanent document that does not change with the "whims of the people". It *can* be changed, and in fact it was changed to outlaw slavery once and for all, but it is intentionally difficult to do. And if the Constitution says that this program is against the law of the land, then that's that. Public support is irrelevant.
What I was a bit surprised to read in this ruling was that the judge said the President of the United States had willfully and knowingly broken the Fourth Amendment. That's an impeachable offense; in fact, pretty much the worst kind of impeachable offense. Now, there are a lot of things that people on the other side of the aisle have said Bush could be impeached for, but this is the first time that I know of that we have a legal ruling by a federal judge that documents an actual offense for which the President could be held legally accountable. This federal judge has basically labeled the President a high criminal in a legally binding decision.
The question is, will anything be done about it? I guess we'll know in November. As we've seen, politics matters a lot more than ethics or legality to the current congress.
What I was a bit surprised to read in this ruling was that the judge said the President of the United States had willfully and knowingly broken the Fourth Amendment. That's an impeachable offense...
But with Bush, what isn't?
(rimshot)
Thank you folks, I'll be here all week. Try the veal!
Recently the Supreme Court has made several rulings about prisoner detention in guantanamo and torture that firmly establish that the administration violated the War Crimes Act and the Geneva Conventions. These offences would easily rise to the level of a "high crime" and are impeachable.
The congress unfortunately is utterly corrupt and has failed for 6 years to meet it's oversight responsibilities. There is zero chance that the current congress will impeach. Vote and pray for the Democrats in 2006. Then there will be a small but real chance that the Criminal in Chief will be held accountable for his may crimes.
What I was a bit surprised to read in this ruling was that the judge said the President of the United States had willfully and knowingly broken the Fourth Amendment.
You may be interested in this impeachment story [thenation.com]. The author was on the Committee to impeach President Nixon, so her opinion ought to be worth something...
Yeah. Everything is black & white. Everyone disagreeing with you is a whiny-ass "liberal". People fall into neat categories and are either with you on everything or against you on everything.
*slaps knee* Damn dude, that's a good one! HAR HAR HAR!
What a limited scope of thought you appear to hold, for one accusing others of lacking in the thinking department no less. Somewhere between fascinating and horrifying.
Your entire statement falls on its face by dwelling in naive radio-talk-show style catchphrasing, and the oversimplifications that come with it.
>One of Clinton's staff members, a liberal, is embarassed by liberals like these on slashdot.
And that should matters to who, how?
>There is a war on to fight terrorism
There is a war on to put into action the pipe dreams of the PNAC and other neocon thinktanks, an attempt to impose their own worldview and vision of "democracy" upon foreign nations in particular areas of the world for both idealogical and strategic purposes.
They are also intent on increasing the powers of the executive above the other branches of our government, and imposing limitations on individual liberty resembling policies one would expect to find in a police state rather than our own. All in direct opposition to the US constitution, and in violation of the very priciples they feign to cherish and protect. All in the pursuit of creating and keeping stronger centralized government power, to better reach their aims.
Actions taken in pursuit of these goals have been conducted under the auspices of "fighting terrorism", which recieves little more than lip service, as far as effective strategies for identifying and containing real threats are concerned.
They are crucifying the very core of conservative ideals, in the name of empire building for their own idealogical and personal gains. They attempt to appeal to conservatives by gutting/ruining government entities they themselves find no use for (typically those with potential for common good, even given their faults) while they are busy building the ugly Orwellian machine behind the curtain. The very "big government" traditional conservatives despise the most.
Furthermore, this "war" is being conducted at the top levels with such incompetence as to be a complete embarrassment, and falling far short of the leadership our troops and other persons (the ones on the ground actually doing the finding, fighting, and dying) deserve. (I can't believe there was even talk about voluntarily opening another front. The idiocy of that kind of move is astounding.)
>hence people on all sides dying. Liberals would like to runa away from it and pay off the terrorists
Running away from what? From hunting Bin Laden to go have ourselves a grudge match with a fucking global has-been like Saddam?
>incorrectly thinking they will be left alone. Don't believe me, look into the real history of Rome and Greece. It didn't work then and it will not work now.
You appear to be referring to Danegeld style policies. You're right... they don't work. And you're stupid to think that is what anyone has in mind, or bears any resemblance to any policies anyone is suggesting.
>While I support the war on terror
Great... as currently conducted , you must support our brothers/sisters being shortchanged in force levels, equipment, and workable strategy, to be shot at and often killed for some bullshit diversion instead of what they should be doing.
>The world's enemy is being fought by those who have fought for and believe in freedom. The rest of the world is too afraid to fight these people.
And you're the fucking bastard who would throw away the very rights and freedoms that they believe in and fight for, the ones that make our country what it is supposed to be, because you're a scared little pussy... worried to death that "the bad guys are gonna get me and mine".
How about honoring their sacrifice with a little balls of
Polls are measures of public opinion. They can easily be biased by sampling and slanted questions.
Public opinion is a bad way of determining policy. Therefore, polls should not determine whether the wiretapping program is allowed to continue as-is.
Where did you pull the assertion that the wiretapping program was a "peaceful attempt at security?" Your ass? I haven't seen any substantiation that it is anything but a power grab. I haven't heard of any terrorists nabbed through the program, and I haven
You really don't know what you are talking about. The US isn't anywhere close to a civil war. The east and west coast liberals would never let it come to war since all of us "inbred simpletons" have most of the guns.
BTW, it sure sounds like you have never been to the "dopey, backward heartland".
Nearly all the fly-over states operate at a deficit...they get more money from the Federal gov't than they contribute. WHen the welfare-check goes away and people start dying...it'll be hard for them to fight.
> Now's it's back to 50-50. There's gonna be a civil war > in the U.S., sooner or later, and it will come out as three > nations: liberal left coast, dopey, backward "heartland" > full of violent, inbred simpletons, and liberal right coast. Let's see. Central has Illinois and Minnosota, amongst other blue states. Right coast has North and South Carolina, Georgia, and Geb Bush land Florida. If you are calling South Carolina liberal, then I need some of what you're smoking.
Not going to state my position, but I would imagine you could get a poll to go either way just by the wording.
For instance, if you asked if you supported "Bush's warrantless, unregulated wiretapping program" then you would probably get less than 50% approval.
However, if you asked if you supported "Anonymous wiretapping to promote US Security" then you would probably get more than 50% approval.
So there are two morals to this story. First, every one has an opinion. Including the survey makers. They can
Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could turn back the clock 10 years and have our greatest concern about the President be, quite legitimately, that he once lied in court about whether he had sex with an intern.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could turn back the clock 10 years and have our greatest concern about the President be, quite legitimately, that he once lied in court about whether he had sex with an intern.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could turn back the clock 10 years and have our greatest concern about the President be, quite legitimately, that he once lied in a deposition for a civil case?
The difference between Bill Clinton and George Bush is Bill Clinton thought he had to break the law to cover his ass. George Bush doesn't think the law applies to him in the first place.
Actually, they would stop as soon as they jumped and the vocieover would come in "Looks like them Bush boys are in a heap o' trouble this time. Let's just hope they can outrun the long arm of the law one more time..."
Then they would go sailing over the wall, but the 3 police cars behind them wouldn't make it over and end up piling up on themselves...
Incorrect. This was on another thread a few days ago:
Because there are lots of little things we do every day that break the rules. These include: j-walking, downloading MP3's, subletting without telling your landlord, recording sporting events without express written concent, undocumented domestic help, recreational drug use, stealing cable, logging on to other people's wireless networks, "leaking" company information to your girlfriend, anything besides the missionary po
Trust us! We're the government! (Score:5, Insightful)
Basically what this argument boils down to: We can't tell you why we're justified, but trust us, we are. This, despite the fact that 50% of the US and a good portion of the rest of the world does not trust the current US government.
Of course, there's a well-established method of establishing that a search/wiretap/etc. is justified: it's called a warrant. In fact, for the past several decades, we've had a program in place that makes getting a warrant for wiretapping quite easy. You can get a FISA warrant quickly, confidentially, and even retroactively.
Yes, retroactively. You can spot a suspect, set up an emergency wiretap, then a day later you can walk into the secret court and tell the judge why it was necessary to set up the wiretap. And you'll get the warrant. It's no hardship, unless you have reason to believe a judge wouldn't grant you the warrant.
This whole thing could have been resolved months ago if the administration were willing to just say, "Oh, yeah, you're right, we should be getting warrants for this sort of thing. We'll start doing so immediately." End of controversy, they can still listen in on suspects, it's still done without revealing state secrets. Arguing that they need the ability to spy on people without warrants makes them look awfully suspicious.
P.S. to people who do trust the current administration: just consider that someone you don't like will eventually be in charge. Maybe another Republican, maybe a Democrat, maybe the balance of power will realign and we'll be looking at Republicans vs. Greens or something for the next few decades. However it works out, someone you disagree with will be in the Oval Office at some point. Would you want them to have the powers that this administration has been insisting on?
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Re:Trust us! We're the government! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Trust us! We're the government! (Score:5, Funny)
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U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in Detroit became the first judge to strike down the National Security Agency's program, which she says violates the rights to free speech and privacy.
When you assume....
Re: When you assume (Score:2, Funny)
U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in Detroit became the first judge to strike down the National Security Agency's program, which she says violates the rights to free speech and privacy.
When you assume....
In other news, Judge Anna Diggs Taylor (formerly Andrew Diggs Taylor) commented on the media's frequent mischaracterization of him as female, even though he is merely one of several transvestite judges in the state's district court.
And now, Stephen Colbert style, it'
Re:Trust us! We're the government! (Score:5, Insightful)
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However, if you really want judges to fall in line, simply suicide one of them. Anyone who says they were murdered is a conspiracy nut. Meanwhile, all the other judges will get the message. If you decide to buck the system, your death will be assured and
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Why would the Conspiracy have to kill this Judge?
Since it's obviously okay to ignore all the Judges who have ruled the program Constitutional, it follows that it's also okay to ignore all the Judges who have ruled the program Unconstitutional.
The fact that the ACLU kept shopping around for a judge who would rule their way doesn't actually cancel out the fact that they had to shop around in the first place, on acc
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Re:Trust us! We're the government! (Score:5, Insightful)
That's already the case. Pretty much everyone who has rallied behind Bush and his administration for the advances of executive power that he's pushed for criticized Clinton for the same attempts. They granted the line item veto, only to have Clinton use it once and have it taken away. Bush has used signing statements to accomplish the same thing. Clinton's ties to industry were scrutinized; Bush's are clear, yet it's OK because it shows he supposedly knows what's going on.
Directly related to FISA and the wiretapping, Clinton's administration conducted a few physical searches w/o warrants, which was legal at the time. When it was discovered, and a law was passed saying that a warrant was needed... they stopped.
It's just a case of "When our guys do it, it's OK, but if your guys do it it's not" syndrome. What they really want to have happen is have a law that only takes effect when members of a certain party are elected. So there would be a "Republican Only" law that only works when the president's party is Republican. And so on.
Re:Trust us! We're the government! (Score:5, Insightful)
It's an inevitable consequence of a populace that understands football better than politics. The idea that the parties are supposed to work together to support society is not a familiar concept. They think it's about two teams, one of which must be the winning side and one of which must be the losing side. They've picked a side, not realising that politics is not a zero-sum game.
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Who are you refering to as they? The populace and the society as whole is not technically relevent (other then the original vote). Your winning and losing way of thinking is practiced much more by and applies more to the people actively serving as elected officials more then it does to the general populace.
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<Joe Blow>What are these 'sums' of which you speak?</Joe Blow>
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I think "zero" pretty much sums up politics.
Scary! (Score:4, Funny)
And that, my fellow slashdotters, is a VERY scary thought. Most US citizens think that football is a game played using your hands.
;p
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"I've often been struck by the extensive knowledge that people have of sports, and particularly, their self-confidence in discussing it with "experts." While driving, I sometimes turn on radio talk shows on sports, and am always struck by this. People calling in have no hesitation in criticizing the coaches, the judgments of the people running the shows, etc. In contrast, when discussing matters of concern to human lives -- their own and others -- people
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It's almost always knee-jerk contrarian politics. Without a thought, you take the opposite position your opponent takes, and try to justify it any way you can. When people try to buck the party line and vote how they really feel, they get stomped on (like Lieberman just did, regardless of how you feel about his position, but it's not limited to one party).
It doesn't matter
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Just for starters, the line-item veto was enacted by a Republican Congress. It was then ruled unconstitutional, not by Congress (which doesn't have that power) but by the U.S. Supreme Court. Among those joining the majority opinion were noted conservatives (hint: that's sarcasm) David Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsberg.
"Bush has used signing statemen
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The sad thing is, the right to own guns isn't like most of the other rights, it's merely a means to an end, the end being that it's supposed to help you protect the other rights. Keeping your right to own guns while happily giving away all of your other rights makes the right to own guns totally meaningless. A gun that isn't fired is nothing more than an ornament.
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One word for that guy..... Strategery...
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Ever since I heard about the wiretapping issues, when I talk to my friend over my cell phone, I sometimes say hi to the NSA just for fun. They never respond though...
I am so glad to hear about this decision! I hope that the message has been sent now: We will not tolerate being spied upon for no apparent reason.
Re:Trust us! We're the government! (Score:5, Funny)
You:"Hi NSA we are talking about bombs!" (smile)
NSA:"Actually you were dicussing your blog, get a thesaurus."
You:
NSA:"The TP is in the hall closet"
Sound of phone dropping and wet footsteps running away
Re:Reminds me of an old Russian joke (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Trust us! We're the government! (Score:5, Insightful)
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This wiretap program seems to be spying on everybody. There's no way the secret courts can handle that kind of paperwork.
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I keep seeing this, but I have a copy of the Constitution right here, and I can't see anything in there about foreign matters (except "he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers") or national security. Can you cite the appropriate section?
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Warrants are through a public schema. I can think of two big reasons not to want the existence of monitoring made public:
1. it tips off the bad guys to their being monitored an
someone you don't like will eventually be in charg (Score:2)
In 2000 chads were a diversion. The real issue was the false classification of some 30,000-50,000 blacks as felons, denying them the right to vote. Perhaps the whole chad thing left what looked like a close vote, but the race wasn't really close at all. 30,000-50,000 falsly denied
Unanswered issue of FISA (Score:2)
The judge here deemed the program unconstitutional. You're pointing out something different: that the program violates FISA.
So, let's see what criminal sanctions exist for violating FISA [cornell.edu]. Up to five years per offense? Interesting.
Re:Trust us! We're the government! (Score:4, Insightful)
No, no, no. You just don't get it. The point of almost everything this White House has done is to ensure a perpetual Republican majority and infinite Republican control of the three branches. Everyone's arguing over whether they're committing a foul, while they're changing the rules of the game.
And that's why the Republic is in trouble.
Re:Trust us! We're the government! (Score:5, Informative)
The Federal Judge has ordered NSA to stop wiretapping international calls that the Government says targets suspected al qaeda members.
The one you are thinking about (a much broader domestic wiretapping) was recently dismissed [slashdot.org]. It was also filed by the ACLU, hence the confusion.
While the decision may be a good news for privacy advocates, it is certain that the Government is likely to appeal Judge Taylor's decision.
I would argue that of the three known warrantless data collection programs, the one targeting international calls has the least privacy impact and the most potential to garner actionable intelligence and protect the American public, so it may be unfortunate that this is the one ordered stopped, while the other two are allowed to continue.
Re:Trust us! We're the government! (Score:5, Insightful)
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However, I've always disagreed with this argument. I use the Mafia example. Let's say the government DOES get a grant to tap a criminal's phone line. Then YOU call him... now YOUR call is being tapped because of who you called. That's the way it works. Otherwise the gov
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My statement was limited purely to the situation which this case addresses; one US citizen, and a foreign national. The Constitution doesn't apply to the person which the state is actually interested in, so tapping them is ok. However, I don't think that excu
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Yes.
Or, does the gov't only get warrants for the KNOWN terrorists for "manual" monitoring and hope we don't miss anyone?
Yes.
That was easy wasn't it? That's the whole point of protection against unreasonable search and seizure
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At what point do the efforts gone to to ensure you don't miss some dehumanise you to a point where it's unacceptable?
Listening in on phones? What happens when that's not sufficient next time? Do they install cameras with audio in your home? After all, we can't afford to miss some.
What if that misses something next time? Maybe they met in an open field? What then? Are we curfewed to be in our homes outside of work time? After all, we can't aff
Re:Trust us! We're the government! (Score:5, Informative)
There is hope.
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I'm probably showing my ignorance of process here, but what is to stop a future government repealing the War Crimes Act and replacing it with new legislation which allows the current administration to be prosecuted? Surely there must be precedents
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Re:Trust us! We're the government! (Score:5, Informative)
From the WashingtonPost article:
Do officials actually do the torture, or do they give commands? Ahh.. Furthermore, if a president ordered such an act, wouldn't this amendment absolve him?
From the article I originally posted, the lawyer that leaked this information to the press had this to say about the amendment he helped to draft:
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I'm shocked!
Re:Trust us! We're the government! (Score:5, Insightful)
The phrase "domestic wiretap" is exactly what they were doing here.
Re:Trust us! We're the government! (Score:5, Informative)
"The government admitted to tapping all [my emphasis] phone calls that had an end-point in any foreign country."
Huh? Where do you get this? Even the judge's opinion striking down the program had this to say:
It is undisputed that Defendants have publicly admitted to the following: (1) the TSP exists; (2) it operates without warrants; (3) it targets communications where one party to the communication is outside the United States, and the government has a reasonable basis to conclude that one party to the communication is a member of al Qaeda, affiliated with al Qaeda, or a member of an organization affiliated with al Qaeda, or working in support of al Qaeda.
- Alaska Jack
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Is a domestic flight not one that has both end-points in the US? If only one end-point is in the US, it's not considered a domestic flight, right?
I think this is the view taken on domestic phone calls; both end-points of the call are within the US. If one isn't, then it's an internation, not domestic call. As the wiretap's on the call, it's therefore an international wiretap.
It's down to common terminology and usage of language, what one te
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What I'm concerned a bit about is that no one with credibility is saying what the government is doing.
Not only that but I'm sympathize with the argument that the government needs to be able to make some information classified. To trot out a tired old example I wouldn't want the details of the Manhattan project to get out, I wouldn't want the USSR to know where our ballistic subs were (are,) and I don't think that we necessarilly have the right to know exactly whom the CIA is getting informati
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I know this is off-topic, but as a former submariner who served on a ballistic sub, I can assure you that not even our government knows exactly where the subs are. They are given a fairly large operational area, then go to complete radio silence and cruise around at the discretion of the Captain. Only the crewmembers who have a need to know (e.g. officers, navigators) even know where the sub is, so there is little chance of an enem
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This is turd polishing.
See saying that one party is outside of the united states gets you looking at this as out there, when by definition, the other party must be in the united states and thus clearly covered by the "U.S. Person" qualification in the FISA.
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1) International-domestic warrantles wiretaps: this is what the Judge ruled illegal in today's story. It actually is not an unreasonable program because it targets 'known' terrorist numbers (more or less).
2) Blanket domestic-domestic warrantles wiretaps: cellular carriers such as AT&T voluntarily giving up the data to the NSA. This program taps EVERYONE who uses the carriers' networks. This is a giant fishing expedition, but the courts are actually O.K. w
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How about this just means the conversation can only be used against the person who had a warrant issued. Lets say they are tapping mafia don Al's phone, and I ca
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Let's see.. like.. talking about how to escape the country because you don't like the current leadership? That was illegal in plenty of dictatorships - they shouldn't be trying to secure their own freedom?
Or how about talking about how much they dislike the administration or XYZ political party, who years later comes to power and decides to data mine those records for w
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Well, its not quite as easy when the informant is in another nation, and even attempting to travel to the US could be viewed as suspisious.
But look. As far as I can tell, nobody did anything illegal and nobody went to jail.
Wiretapping a US citizen without a warrant is illegal. Its trivially easy to get a warrant too.
It's not a violation of free speech because no speech is being suppressed.
Threat of being arrested for ex
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I totally understand where wiretapping "innocent" people is a Bad Thing, in principle. It definitely violates "privacy" (although we could still debate whether you can actually expect privacy over public lines to foreign countries- I might not be so quick to assume you can). But there is absolutely nothing here stopping you from talking about whatever you want. If you're talking about illeg
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Not trying to invoke Goodwin here, but, in 1920's Germany it was not illegal to identify oneself as a Jew. Guess what a democratically elected Hitler did with those records some years later? Imagine in 2012 'we' elect an Ultra-left pinko that sends people like you and me to jail for supporting capitalism...
Even today, are you absolutely certain how yo
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The EFF's domestic case is *ongoing* (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Trust us! We're the government! (Score:5, Insightful)
Second, in the current case, the privacy issue is entirely secondary. The real concern is: President Bush knowingly broke the law. End of story. (The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act describes what steps the government needs to take to wiretap the phones of foreign agents. Those steps include a warrant by the special FISA court. The Administration did not seek those warrants on a large number of wiretaps. FISA also specifies that it is the only law covering such surveillance.) Caught at breaking the law -- a law, by the way, he had signaled his complete satisfaction with, and which, if he had asked, he could easily have had amended -- he brazenly declared his intention to go on breaking the law.
A few years back, a hyperventilating minority of the political leaders in this country screamed bloody murder and tried to oust a President for perjuring himself in a civil suit concerning a matter from long before his Presidency. It was, they told us, a matter of high principle: The President must obey the law. He must respect the judicial process. He must not be an oathbreaker, since he swears an oath to uphold the Consititution and faithfully execute the laws of the land.
Now, that group of leaders is shockingly silent -- indeed, worse, vocal in their defense -- when their party's President knowingly and intentionally violated an actual law and thus knowingly violates his oath of office. Even for Washington, the hypocrisy here is rank.
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Provided you know who the specific suspects are, of course. Unfortunately, according to the ACLU, you are not a suspect until you blow yourself up in a crowded plane or market.
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If they'd just done it by the rules, it would have remained both confidential and legal. The problem is that this Administration thinks it can make its own laws. You want to blame someone, blame them.
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He gave figures?
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Still can't get me head 'round that one...
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The rest of the population just doesn't give a damn. Not valuing their privacy, they don't see it as a tradeoff at all, just an increase in their personal security at no particular cost.
Re:Trust us! We're the government! (Score:5, Informative)
The NY Times [nytimes.com] says, "The poll found that 53 percent of Americans approved of Mr. Bush's authorizing eavesdropping without prior court approval 'in order to reduce the threat of terrorism.'"
The CS Monitor [csmonitor.com] (reporting on a Zogby poll) says, "Nearly half of likely voters, 49 percent, say Bush has the constitutional powers to approve such a plan".
I don't have more recent figures. The President's popularity is roughly the same now that it was then, though it had risen a bit for a while in the meantime.
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Yes, but the NY Times doesn't say that they approved of Mr. Bush's authorising eavesdropping with no court approval at all. The 53% includes the Americans that believe retroactive warrants are acceptable but warrantless spying is not.
When did "eavesdropping" become the politically correct euphemism for spying, a
Polls are irrelevant (Score:2)
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The Colbert Report [colbertnation.com]?
Re:Trust us! We're the government! (Score:5, Informative)
And yet, you say it's false without presenting any evidence of your own (or perhaps obtaining it from the same region as the GP). I'm not aware of a poll that asks a question like, "Do you trust the current administration?" I think it would be a poor question, because it's too vague to be meaningful. Most of the time, we'd trust people so far in a certain situation; trust is not a binary issue. For example, I trust Bush not to intentionally bring down the USA, but I don't trust him to make accurate statements about intelligence. There are some things we can say, however. We can say that according to polls most people disapprove of the overall job that Bush is doing (see almost any recent presidential approval rating poll), and we can say they're almost evenly split on the question of whether warrentless wiretaps are ok (see, for example, this Newsweek poll [msn.com]). Most of the polls I've seen, but not all, show a slight majority for the opinion that these searches are a bad thing. Perhaps if you're going to attack people for a lack of facts, you should at least try to offer some to support your own claims.
Re:Trust us! We're the government! (Score:5, Insightful)
Most people in the United States supported slavery too.
The public at large cannot always be trusted to support the moral or ethical side of an issue, nor can they be trusted to maintain logic or consistency in their beliefs. I think it was Ben Franklin that said (paraphrasing now), "Being in the majority means that most people agree with you; it does not mean that you are right."
That's why we have a Constitution and Bill of Rights, which is intended to be a semi-permanent document that does not change with the "whims of the people". It *can* be changed, and in fact it was changed to outlaw slavery once and for all, but it is intentionally difficult to do. And if the Constitution says that this program is against the law of the land, then that's that. Public support is irrelevant.
What I was a bit surprised to read in this ruling was that the judge said the President of the United States had willfully and knowingly broken the Fourth Amendment. That's an impeachable offense; in fact, pretty much the worst kind of impeachable offense. Now, there are a lot of things that people on the other side of the aisle have said Bush could be impeached for, but this is the first time that I know of that we have a legal ruling by a federal judge that documents an actual offense for which the President could be held legally accountable. This federal judge has basically labeled the President a high criminal in a legally binding decision.
The question is, will anything be done about it? I guess we'll know in November. As we've seen, politics matters a lot more than ethics or legality to the current congress.
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(rimshot)
Thank you folks, I'll be here all week. Try the veal!
Actually... (Score:5, Interesting)
The congress unfortunately is utterly corrupt and has failed for 6 years to meet it's oversight responsibilities. There is zero chance that the current congress will impeach. Vote and pray for the Democrats in 2006. Then there will be a small but real chance that the Criminal in Chief will be held accountable for his may crimes.
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You may be interested in this impeachment story [thenation.com]. The author was on the Committee to impeach President Nixon, so her opinion ought to be worth something...
Re:Trust us! We're the government! (Score:5, Insightful)
*slaps knee* Damn dude, that's a good one! HAR HAR HAR!
What a limited scope of thought you appear to hold, for one accusing others of lacking in the thinking department no less. Somewhere between fascinating and horrifying.
Your entire statement falls on its face by dwelling in naive radio-talk-show style catchphrasing, and the oversimplifications that come with it.
>One of Clinton's staff members, a liberal, is embarassed by liberals like these on slashdot.
And that should matters to who, how?
>There is a war on to fight terrorism
There is a war on to put into action the pipe dreams of the PNAC and other neocon thinktanks, an attempt to impose their own worldview and vision of "democracy" upon foreign nations in particular areas of the world for both idealogical and strategic purposes.
They are also intent on increasing the powers of the executive above the other branches of our government, and imposing limitations on individual liberty resembling policies one would expect to find in a police state rather than our own. All in direct opposition to the US constitution, and in violation of the very priciples they feign to cherish and protect. All in the pursuit of creating and keeping stronger centralized government power, to better reach their aims.
Actions taken in pursuit of these goals have been conducted under the auspices of "fighting terrorism", which recieves little more than lip service, as far as effective strategies for identifying and containing real threats are concerned.
They are crucifying the very core of conservative ideals, in the name of empire building for their own idealogical and personal gains. They attempt to appeal to conservatives by gutting/ruining government entities they themselves find no use for (typically those with potential for common good, even given their faults) while they are busy building the ugly Orwellian machine behind the curtain. The very "big government" traditional conservatives despise the most.
Furthermore, this "war" is being conducted at the top levels with such incompetence as to be a complete embarrassment, and falling far short of the leadership our troops and other persons (the ones on the ground actually doing the finding, fighting, and dying) deserve. (I can't believe there was even talk about voluntarily opening another front. The idiocy of that kind of move is astounding.)
>hence people on all sides dying. Liberals would like to runa away from it and pay off the terrorists
Running away from what? From hunting Bin Laden to go have ourselves a grudge match with a fucking global has-been like Saddam?
>incorrectly thinking they will be left alone. Don't believe me, look into the real history of Rome and Greece. It didn't work then and it will not work now.
You appear to be referring to Danegeld style policies. You're right... they don't work. And you're stupid to think that is what anyone has in mind, or bears any resemblance to any policies anyone is suggesting.
>While I support the war on terror
Great... as currently conducted , you must support our brothers/sisters being shortchanged in force levels, equipment, and workable strategy, to be shot at and often killed for some bullshit diversion instead of what they should be doing.
>The world's enemy is being fought by those who have fought for and believe in freedom. The rest of the world is too afraid to fight these people.
And you're the fucking bastard who would throw away the very rights and freedoms that they believe in and fight for, the ones that make our country what it is supposed to be, because you're a scared little pussy... worried to death that "the bad guys are gonna get me and mine".
How about honoring their sacrifice with a little balls of
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Right.
I'm a republican (in the old meaning of the term) and I absolutely *don't* trust the government. Bush is the worst republican president since Nixon.
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Public opinion is a bad way of determining policy. Therefore, polls should not determine whether the wiretapping program is allowed to continue as-is.
Where did you pull the assertion that the wiretapping program was a "peaceful attempt at security?" Your ass? I haven't seen any substantiation that it is anything but a power grab. I haven't heard of any terrorists nabbed through the program, and I haven
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liberal left coast, dopey, backward "heartland" full of violent, inbred simpletons, and liberal right coast.
So, whatcher sayin', is, that yer movin' to Kansas?
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And 'funny'
And 'insightful'
sigh...
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Seriously, though - I trust that you're joking, but you should probably get out more.
only problem with this is the R's have more guns! (Score:2)
BTW, it sure sounds like you have never been to the "dopey, backward heartland".
The coasters will just stop paying taxes. (Score:2)
Besides, 'liberals' have guns too.
I know I do!
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> in the U.S., sooner or later, and it will come out as three
> nations: liberal left coast, dopey, backward "heartland"
> full of violent, inbred simpletons, and liberal right coast.
Let's see. Central has Illinois and Minnosota, amongst other blue states. Right coast has North and South Carolina, Georgia, and Geb Bush land Florida. If you are calling South Carolina liberal, then I need some of what you're smoking.
jfs
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For instance, if you asked if you supported "Bush's warrantless, unregulated wiretapping program" then you would probably get less than 50% approval.
However, if you asked if you supported "Anonymous wiretapping to promote US Security" then you would probably get more than 50% approval.
So there are two morals to this story. First, every one has an opinion. Including the survey makers. They can
Re:Trust us! We're the government! (Score:5, Insightful)
Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could turn back the clock 10 years and have our greatest concern about the President be, quite legitimately, that he once lied in court about whether he had sex with an intern.
Even better! (Score:5, Interesting)
Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could turn back the clock 10 years and have our greatest concern about the President be, quite legitimately, that he once lied in a deposition for a civil case?
The difference between Bill Clinton and George Bush is Bill Clinton thought he had to break the law to cover his ass. George Bush doesn't think the law applies to him in the first place.
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Then they would go sailing over the wall, but the 3 police cars behind them wouldn't make it over and end up piling up on themselves...
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Incorrect. This was on another thread a few days ago: Because there are lots of little things we do every day that break the rules. These include: j-walking, downloading MP3's, subletting without telling your landlord, recording sporting events without express written concent, undocumented domestic help, recreational drug use, stealing cable, logging on to other people's wireless networks, "leaking" company information to your girlfriend, anything besides the missionary po
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Nah, Steve Ballmar tells me that this site [kernel.org] is a real bastion of communism.