Slashdot Mirror
Bush Backed Spying On Americans
jb.hl.com writes "President Bush allowed security agents to eavesdrop on people inside the U.S. without court approval after 9/11, the New York Times has reported. The report says that under a 2002 presidential order, the National Security Agency has been unconstitutionally and illegally monitoring international communications of hundreds in the U.S. When asked about the programme on U.S. TV, the Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, said, 'The president acted lawfully in every step that he has taken.'"
Palpatine loses one:
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/10496539/
Who gives a shit?
All I want to know is where the fuck Gaim 2.0 beta is????
Don't mod me, bro'!!!!
Where are Dubya's defenders now? Do you, GOP fans, want the NSA reading your email?
sulli
RTFJ.
That aside: Bad week for the Neocons.
First, they're not allowed to torture people anymore (not that we ever did, right? I mean, I'm sure the folks at those secret CIA prisons in eastern Europe were Geneva Convention poster boys). Then the PATRIOT act gets blocked so they have to go deal with those darn activist judges to get warrants again. Now, people are acting like the President can't override statute with an executive order! Next thing you know, people will actually want leaders who follow the Constitution. Heck, this keeps up and nobody'll want to be President of the United States anymore - we're just takin' all the fun out of it.
I personally look forward to the day when the GOP has something to do with, you know, conservatism again. "Spend responsibly" rolls off the tounge better than "constant wanton abuse of power". Still, at least it was just violation of the basic agreement that forms the basis of our government and not, you know, a blowjob. Otherwise the nation might have to sit through another impeachment.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
"Condoleezza Rice, said, 'The president acted lawfully in every step that he has taken."
Just one thing to say to that BULLSHIT
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
do something
Your posts are being recorded and may be used against you. I'd also like to take this opportunity to thank the President for all his hard work in protecting us from Eastasia, at great personal gain to himself.
Dont Fuck with US man! That's all there is to say
lawfully != ethically
I love the way this is portrayed as some super-secret thing that Bush and Bush alone was involved in.
The senate recently rejected extensions to the patriot act.
*dons flame retardant suit*
is anyone surprised?
you would be a fool for thinking this didn't go on
Thanks, Drudge Report.
All the Presidents Men and the similarities are striking in many ways... Maybe some of our journalists should have re-screening of the movie or even better, re-read the book?
If you mod me down, I *will* introduce you to my sister!
http://www.simonsays.com/content/book.cfm?sid=33&p id=518822
The NY Times failed to reveal the conflict of interest. Additionally this stuff has been known to congress and the federal court involved.
Humor from a Genetically Molested Mind
Hey, Bush WON, and he can do WHATEVER HE WANTS. He is the PRESIDENT, and we HAVE TO SUPPORT HIM.
I was going to make a sarcasm tag, but slashdot is stripping my fake tag apparently. What gives? Anyways, impeach this fucker now. He's screwing EVERYTHING up.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
But is it still legal when the steps are combined? It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
Hmm...wasn't there another president who got in trouble for spying on other americans? Watershed...waterfall...waterbed...definitely water-something...
Oh yeah! Here it is!
And this is just the latest of Dubya and Company's shocking assaults against their own nation...sadly, an offence that would have been considered grounds for immediate impeachment (not to mention additional criminal prosecution) thirty years ago hardly raises an eyebrow today. Apparently, we're used to this sort of thing by now.
I'm pretty sure that this is not what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they fought and died so that we might have a nation free from tyranny.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
Bush will just do what he wants to whether it's legal or not.
I'm a little more concerned about http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/12/15/torture.bil l/index.html, which basically says that the Nuremburg trials are no longer valid precedents for US law.
... then it could be a defense in case of accusation,"
"(It) basically says that if a person, a reasonable person, would feel that someone was acting under orders
Not that I am defending Bush, but the NSA spying on Americans is nothing new. Read "The Puzzle Palace" and "Body of Secrets" by James Bamford if you want a good look inside "no such agency" .. the only things to change from the book would be the tech, not the policies, politics and yes, paranoia.
The sea changes color, but the sea does not change.
He acted lawfully the same way that the mob boss doesn't actually "kill" someone, they just happen to know the guys that shot the victim. In the words of John Gotti, "It's good to have guns around ... but you don't want to carry a gun. You might get arrested."
stuff |
Hey, the constitution never stopped him before. Perhaps he figured there was no need to bother with passing another PATRIOT act?
"God forbid that there be a terrorist attack that could have been prevented by the Patriot Act after it has expired," said Sen. Jon Kyl, an Arizona Republican.
Hell, why stop there, let's wipe with the constitution a little more and go straight to a Police State Act, then Sen. Kyl can argue "God forbid that there be a terrorist attack that could have been prevented by the Police State Act before it was passed." Yeah, a prison could be real safe too.
If 47 senators are so for it, maybe they should just "opt-in" to giving up their rights, instead of passing another odious law that will apply to them too? Oh yeah, that's because it won't apply to them. They are elite. Their names will never be on a no-fly list. Their personal information will never be stored at a company like ChoicePoint (if you ran ChoicePoint, the first thing you'd do is create a blacklist so that no one who could mess with your business model could be affected by a scam). But they're oh-so-ready to shackle the common man to keep him safe.
FLAC - Free Lossless Audio Codec
Glad I didn't vote for that giant douche, i voted for turd sandwich.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
*Waits for the FBI to come and get him*
The president acted lawfully in every step that he has taken.
He sits when he's violating the constitution.
Why does this make slashdot when in the last two days we've had bush resisting torture legislation and his complicity in kidnapping citizens of allies
My pics.
How many crimes does Monkeyboy have to commit before he is held to account? There isn't a single person on death row or executed in the history of the USA who has who has ordered so many killings, kidnappings and tortures. His utter contempt for the constitution and human rights is the root of the many forms of his criminality. Ordering illegal spying on thousands of Americans should by itself be enough to get him impeached, tried and sentenced to life in prison, but on the scale of his other misdeeds it barely deserves mention.
Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft and Gonzales should be quickly tried and promptly executed as a deterrent to our future officials who might think that they can use power for their own purposes rather than as servants of the electorate. We need to put our so-called leaders in permanent mortal fear of even getting close to violating their oaths to uphold the Constitution. Until then, they will continue to think that they can rule us rather than represent us.
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" - Patrick Henry
So what do we do now? Can we standardize on encrypted VoIP and email protocols now?
I wonder how long it is before they use NSA intercepts to implement other authoritarian measures, such as drug/copyright/misc law enforcement.
And, is anyone surprised that Vice President Dick "Go Fuck Yourself, we're gonna invade Iraq and torture/kidnap people for my profit" Cheney is pushing the whole spy-on-american-citizens philosophy as well? The guy is the single greatest point of all things evil in the world, and must be removed from power & influence immediately.
Newspaper fails to inform readers "news break" is tied to book publication
On the front page of today's NEW YORK TIMES, national security reporter James Risen claims that "months after the September 11 attacks, President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States... without the court approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying, according to government officials."
Risen claims the White House asked the paper not to publish the article, saying that it could jeopardize continuing investigations and alert would-be terrorists that they might be under scrutiny.
Risen claims the TIMES delayed publication of the article for a year to conduct additional reporting.
But now comes word James Risen's article is only one of many "explosive newsbreaking" stories that can be found -- in his upcoming book -- which he turned in 3 months ago!
The paper failed to reveal the urgent story was tied to a book release and sale.
"STATE OF WAR: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration" is to be published by FREE PRESS in the coming weeks, sources tell the DRUDGE REPORT.
Carisa Hays, VP, Director of Publicity FREE PRESS, confirms the book is being published.
The book editor of Bush critic Richard Clarke [AGAINST ALL ENEMIES] signed Risen to FREE PRESS.
Bush admitting to going to war under faulty intelligence, and now this? I'm not unhappy about it (in fact, I'm thrilled), but when did the ball drop? When did he change his mind and decide to take the blame? How did this all happen?
// file: mice.h
#include "frickin_lasers.h"
(-1, Flamebait)
With spending like this, exactly what are "conservatives" conserving?
Is this really anything new? Read the Puzzle Palace, written by an ex-NSA'er, sometime...
"The White House asked The New York Times not to publish this article, arguing that it could jeopardize continuing investigations and alert would-be terrorists that they might be under scrutiny. After meeting with senior administration officials to hear their concerns, the newspaper delayed publication for a year to conduct additional reporting. Some information that administration officials argued could be useful to terrorists has been omitted."
And how exactly is knowing that the NSA isn't under court-oversight, gonna help terrorists???? I guess Bin Laden is now gonna hold off on making all those phone calls to the States, now that he knows the NSA doesn't need to call a judge before starting the wiretap.
The New York Times simply cannot be stupid enough to believe that this knowledge will help terrorists. They are a bunch of sniveling, subservient, fart-catchers. They care less about informing the public, then in protecting their pathetic "access" to the powerful.
That the government removed the provision that wiretaps should be (effectively) rubber-stamped is shameful. That they kept the people in the dark about this decision is even more shameful. But that the supposed free press also kept this massive decision secret?? That's so fucked, I don't even know where to begin.
A vibrant democracy has a free press. In a democracy, you can speak your mind without fear. Your government is open, and their decisions are public and can be scrutinized. Heck, the public can even influence the decisions!
What America has is a vote every few years to choose between one of two figureheads. There are certainly places in this world, where they don't even pretend to live in a democracy, but this shouldn't give one much comfort.
America: Please. Do something. Your democracy is so shallow, it barely exists, except as some cheap idea evoked by your rulers to justify the invasion of other countries.
Why we aren't all at the barricades is beyond me.
Deconstruct the State
Prior to replying, I'd like to remind everyone
that making statements such as: JOHN shoud die
by mahi-mahi. Where "JOHN" is replaced with an
identifying name that represents the president
or his family, or a former president may cause
a lot of trouble. Dont even type the statement
since your words are being monitored currently
Rule 2: Writing a spec is like writing code for a brain to execute.
When Bush can say the constitution is "just a goddamned piece of paper"
how is anyone surprised?
BTW, for those who didnt notice, the times held the story for a YEAR.
And this guy broke the story.
Service guarantees Citizenship! Questions Guarantee GITMO.... Amerika Uber Alles!
First of all, the news the article is relaying is a year old: the reporters witheld the information for a year for security reasons. Note they still released it after only removing "some" of the issues that the security people had with the article. Even the article acknowledges that since then Bush had the Department of Justice look over and revise the program. Second, the original eavesdropping was only on traffic into and out of the country, not on internal traffic. Also, the initial impetus for monitering some of this traffic was a couple of captured terrorist's cell phones and computers. The numbers that they recieved from those and several similar and related captures are the numbers that they've been monitering. Again, they've since limited their criteria even further. For an excellent view of the right-wing's side of the debate check out: http://michellemalkin.com/archives/004090.htm
It sounds like a review is needed here.
From Sneakers: Gordon walks up to Bishop and shows his ID.
GORDON: National Security Agency.
BISHOP: Ah. You're the guys I hear breathing on the other end of my phone.
GORDON: No, that's the FBI. We're not chartered for domestic surveillance.
BISHOP: Oh, I see. You just overthrow governments. Set up friendly dictators.
GORDON (smiling): No, that's the CIA. We protect our government's communications, we try to break the other fella's codes. We're the good guys, Marty.
BISHOP: Gee, I can't tell you what a relief that is, Dick.
Do note the last sentence on the main article. I am betting that it was not a case of allowing, but a case of ordering. Big difference.
How many of you noticed that tenet was awarded the medal of freedom after he left the office. You need to ask your self why GWB would award the medal to somebody that it claims is inept.
I think our government crashed about twenty years ago; nobody noticed because the rest of the system stayed up (the economy, most outward-facing services, etc.).
The average American, if they ever hear of this, will say "Whatever it takes to beat the terrorists! Go W!" and go back to downing their six pack.
First, Bush accepted responsibility for taking us to war with faulty intelligence. (Although frankly I don't think he really ment that or he would have stepped down from office - getting your people killed because you jumped the gun would seem to me like one of the worst things you could admit to as commander in chief.) Great - he accepts responsibility. What do we do as a result? Are steps going to be taken to HOLD him responsible for the death and destruction that that action has caused? I haven't heard of any.
Now, the NSA is spying on Americans?? What on earth is WRONG with us?
I want to hear someone publicly remind people of what we never should have forgotten - our government is not to be trusted. EVER. Under ANY conditions. It has to be watched all the time, and continually restrained. It should get no more power than it absolutely needs, and if it's a choice between inefficient protective action or invasive government its worth paying the cost of terrorism to keep the government in line. It can't be trusted with too much power, and if some of us die in terrorist attacks because of that it's still not as bad as the consequences of a government able to turn against its own people.
We need to slap down our government by voting it out. Next election people had better vote on something more important than gay marriage bans, because otherwise they're going to get exactly what they deserve.
/filling up the tank with gasoline //pouring it on discussion forum ///lighting match .. 3.. 2.. 1..
Was ./ around to comment on the stacks of FBI files that somehow turned up in the White House some years ago? I see Watergate responses, but then again, CNN wasn't really interested in that situation either.
Just watched THX 1138 last nite. Movie set in the future about people having no rights and everyone spying on each other in a "utopian" society. Everything in the movie was driven by money and power. Favorite part is when they are "reconditioning" the main character and there is a new guy helping and he has no idea what he is doing. The torture of the main character, while the new guy was figuring out how to brain wash the main character was classic. This de-humanization and stripping of freedoms for power seems like what Bush would love to do. I don't want to live in that world.
...to see how utterly simplistic a forum full of self-important, would-be intellectuals can be. Wouldn't it be nice to not have to intercept international phone calls and emails for about 500 people who are strongly suspected of being terrorists? Yes.
Would you rather have allowed terrorists to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge and killed who-knows-how-many people in the process? That is exactly what you are saying.
Most of us who are reasonable understand that protecting the rights (which arguably weren't violated, by the way) of terrorists should take a backseat to saving lives. Everyone of you who are whining and moaning are openly admitting that you prefer that the Brooklyn Bridge not exist today and that people had died in its destruction to the surveilance of a few likely terrorists.
Furthermore, every last one of you would be badmouthing Bush for letting the Brooklyn Bridge be destroyed and for not stopping it if he hadn't allowed this surveilance. You're all a bunch of small-minded hypocrites.
This never would've happened with a democrat in the white house. When will we learn?
My bet is, that there are encoded messages amongst that. One of the best ways to hide something is to place it in all the noise rather than trying to encrypt with lots of security.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Thank God we have President Bartlett to watch out for our rights as citizens.
If treason isn't a good enough reason to be impeached, maybe we can come up some kind of blow-job scenario.
Could this ground-breaking article have anything to do with the upcoming release of a book written by the author of the NY Times article, which happens to deal with this exact subject matter?
Before you start lashing out against the government, notice that the article states that the monitoring activities are of individuals believed to have possible ties to terrorist networks, and no mention is made if they're even US citizens.
Of course, you can say that they could technically monitor anyone they want as long as they made it a 'national security' matter, but then again, you are probably wearing tinfoil hats and living confortably in your tempest cages, so you have nothing to worry about.
"We'll need 2000 crickets, 4 cans of Easy Cheese, and the fluid from 18 glowsticks for this plan to work...." - ph0n1c
Yes it might be lawful considering the current state of the law but was it morally right? The law is (or at least is supposed to be) a reflection of the way the people feel about given actions. I can't believe that most people would feel it was right that their conversations were being listened to. I suppose that problem is that most people think it won't happen to them.
I can understand the "it won't happen to be" brigade. I fail completely to understand the "if you've got nothing to hide" brigade though.
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
No...we elected him once. The first time he took office, he was appointed by the Supreme Court (a national first, not to mention thoroughly unconstitutional and illegal.
Action should have been taken there and then to stop this malignancy from spreading, but we chose to sit on our hands instead.
In the long run, everybody gets the kind of government they deserve. Americans are living proof of that...we've turned into a global cautionary tale.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
FTFA: The program accelerated in early 2002 after the Central Intelligence Agency started capturing top Qaeda operatives overseas, including Abu Zubaydah, who was arrested in Pakistan in March 2002. The C.I.A. seized the terrorists' computers, cellphones and personal phone directories, said the officials familiar with the program. The N.S.A. surveillance was intended to exploit those numbers and addresses as quickly as possible, the officials said.
Additionally as a result of the NSA program, buried down in the 11th paragraph, we learn that the terrorist plot involving convicted al Qaeda operative Iyman Faris was uncovered--possibly saving untold lives, not to mention New York bridges and possibly Washington, D.C. trains.
As to the legallity, its murky. Though, Mark Levin offers this: The Foreign Intelligence Security Act permits the government to monitor foreign communications, even if they are with U.S. citizens -- 50 USC 1801, et seq. A FISA warrant is only needed if the subject communications are wholly contained in the United States and involve a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power.
"In the game of life, someone always has to lose. To me, if life were fair, that someone would always be Oklahoma." -DKR
So the fourth amendment to the constitution isn't a law anymore?
BISHOP: You know, I could have been in the NSA, but they found out my parents were married.
I'm a bit confused. This seems to be about monitoring international emails and phone calls. And from the article "Under the agency's longstanding rules, the N.S.A. can target for interception phone calls or e-mail messages on foreign soil, even if the recipients of those communications are in the United States." The rest of the article confirms this is legal. Can someone explain what the difference now is? Is it that rather intercept outside the US, they intercepted inside the US? But the exact same type of communications it was ok to intercept before?
Ethically this would seem the same. Intercept here, there, seems the same (note, I didn't say good or bad, just same). As someone pointed out, ethical and legal are not the same. So is it more of a legal issue? Is there just enough wiggle room the Whitehouse was able to come up with some sort of logic permitting it? Again, having a logical argument, doesn't mean it's ok.
Just curious.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
If this is true, it only shows how corrupt our laws have become. No serious person could think that Jefferson, Franklin and the other Constitution authors would ever think it's OK for a president to do something like this.
Still upset that the Dubya stole the first election fair 'n' square? ;^D
As you can see, it has been reported before. The only news is that it finally made it into the mainstream corporate-censored news stream, a bit like Abu Graib.
What else to expect from Bush, whose desire to shred the constitution is only barely hidden from public view.
At some point the question becomes: which of Bush's TLAs is not illegally spying on us?
is that people seem to forget that the previous president was nearly impeached for lying about a blowjob in the oval office.
Where are the calls to impeach Bush over his bloody lies?
Just one question. Why do you hate your freedom?
I remember this when I attended an American Civics program at Washington D.C. a long time ago and remember this one sentence that reflect this problem:
"It can legal but it also not constitutional." Remember in a extreme oversimplification that congress creates the writes the law and president signs them. Since the initial constitution was signed new the president has "Exective Orders" that fall into the grey area of this which this "law" was written into. Yes it is legal but is it constitutional is where the Supreme Court has to decide. For those who have taken history "Jim Crow Laws" where legal but the Supreme Court eventually found unconstitional and this another one for court to decided and I hope to find unconstitutional.
n/t
Clinton was vilified for getting a blowjob or two.
Bush is still in power with no impeachment in view and he has:
- Invaded a country based on lies.
- Tortured people using legal loopholes.
- Spies on his countrymen.
What the hell will it take to get rid of this tyrant?
...I just removed Zonk from my list of editors. Easy fix.
Have fun, retards.
... is to serve the needs of politicians. Gone are the days when leaders of the country are concerned with, and fight for, the needs and good of the people and the nation. It doesn't matter whether it's Republican, Democrat, or any other party. Start with the current president and go backwards. Each one has screwed the country a little bit at a time.
This isn't news anymore.
Yessir, facts be-damned, and to hell with objectivity. We leftwing geniuses have to stick together. Anything and everything printed in the Times is 100% factual, especially if it beats up on our favorite punching bag, "Dubya". Always take it at face value, and continue to seriously believe that we are each intellectually superior to GeeDub...
http://www.drudgereport.com/flash9nyt.htm
I propose an amendment/law/Pact with the nation that serves the death penalty to any administrator at any level who purposely circumvents or otherwise overrides every constitutional liberty, in all cases. Extreme? Certainly, but the current legal deterrant is more or less nonexistant. Consider that even after an abuse of some sort is uncovered we go through a period of denial, then minor concession ("ok, so we did it but, we were just trying to stop the bad guys, honest!"), then we find that previous statements were outright lies (lying to the public from an elected official should be treated and prosecuted as purjury in my mind). This could all take years, then come congressional investigations that move at the speed of a glacier, another few years gone, then maybe a few people are sentenced to what amounts to handslap prison terms at best. First-time drug offenders have higher minimum sentencing guidelines and their actions affect at most maybe a few dozen people directly (perhaps 100s) but constitutional infringements affect 250 million people every time! I'm absolutely sick at the total lack of public accountability in today's US government (was it really ever any good?) and more than that the utter disdain that most high-level politicians seem to have for the people who elected them. We need more than just weak checks and balances in the system, we need mandatory severe sentences for anyone who dares to trample upon the constitution that defines our personal freedoms and the soul of our country.
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
The closest I can find to a right to "privacy:"
Amendment 4 - Search and seizure
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
No mention of email or telephones there, so they're all fair game.
Or we could be flexible and say the "spirit" implies the inclusion of an all-encompassing right to privacy, but if you do that, then you'd better also agree that I have the right to bear arms, you unbearably incongruous whining fools.
#19845
Who cares if he lied, acted unconstitutionally or abused his powers, as long as he did not receive a blowjob in the oval office then he is truly a good president.
I guess god asked him to do all that, what a faithfull president!
et les Shadoks pompaient...
Does anyone here remember the towers falling, crushing something like 3,000 people, who's only crime was showing up at work? Remember the panic? Remember the lack of airlines for weeks?
Did we have any guarantee that the attacks were really "over"?
No, like always, it's Bush's fault. That's so easy. Just listen to CNN and the legacy media. You never would have used your own mind, anyway.
--- For a good time mail uce@ftc.gov
If that wasn't enough, anything that NSA isn't legally allowed to intercept can be picked up by any of NSA's partners in the UKUSA programme - primarily GCHQ in the UK, but also its counterparts in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and forwarded to NSA. Because these intercepts weren't technically made by NSA, they get to keep them indefinitely. Pretty sneaky, huh?
Oh, and if NSA 'just happens' to come across something in an email that suggests a possible criminal act within the United States, then they're required to turn it over to the appropriate law enforcement authority - police, FBI, Secret Service, Homeland Security, whoever - for investigation.
In short, if you're doing something dodgy, don't use email to plan it!
You must think in Russian.
While I'd tend to agree, his impeachment process had NOTHING to do with murders and was only about lying about a BJ.
I wish people like you who throw around retarded statements about "liberal media" would have a habit of getting beat up or killed.
so I can enjoy all the freedom they have over there.
You know, to be free from a ruler who spies on its people, imprisons them without trial and tortures them.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
I'm looking forward to seeing you do that. Go on!
sulli
RTFJ.
.....what would happen to Bush if the NSA wasn't watching communcations systems and there was another attack on the counry? Everyone would be bitching about how "the intelligence community dropped the ball again". He is pretty much forced to do it because of liability issues. Look at how many lawsuits are still ongoing from 9/11. Now just imagine what would happen 4 years later. No matter what Bush does here (or anyone with authority) it's a lose/lose situation.
-Nick
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
The cards were rectangular, the chads were roundish and the legal case went in circles. Nothing square about it.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Talk about caught with their pants down. The only thing the Right can do is metaphorically say, Oooh, look at the monkey over there!
The New York Times publishes a negative story about President Bush, the day after a historic vote on Iraq, which the Times bairly notices. This from an institution that claims to be the paper of record. It's not out of character these days, is it? God Bless the President of the United States.
an ill wind that blows no good
One of the greatest orwellian movies ever made.
The point that George Lucas makes in THX is that the SYSTEM itself is a flawed dangerous, self sustaining entitity. The tragedy is that people live within the boundaries of such a system, but never question the system itself.
In america, we question our President. We SHOULD be questioning the essence of the Constitution itself. How the hell do we consider the Constitution a good thing, when it allows a person like Bush to be elected into power in the first place?
Is DEMOCRACY itself even a good thing? Would our lives be any different if the leader at the top was a monarch instead of a "elected"? I doubt it.
Are there any other really old netizens still around? Those who have been on-line way too long will remeber something similar quite a few years ago. Back in the late 80s when the word went out that the NSA was packet-dipping network and e-mail traffic. I think this was one of the first paranoid conspiracy theories to hit the net. All sorts of wild evidence was cited to 'prove' this rumour. Anyhow, as a result of this story a fashion arose for people to put things like 'Bomb', 'President', 'Drugs' etc. etc. automatically into their .signature files. The idea was to try and trigger the NSA into recording all sorts of silly and trivial e-mails. The fashion did not last long. Of course, if people were to try to do this these days, they would no doubt be 'disappeared' to Guantanamo. There is one thing though that puzzles me: If supposed enemies of the nation (i.e. anyone who opposes Bush or Haliburton) are the target of this snooping, then how are they handling the State of Louisiana these days? Everybody in Louisiana hates Bush and Co. for their pathetic response to our Hurricane problems (they still want to charge the State $3.7 Billion for the money that FEMA workers are wasting in 4 star hotels). Do they really have the resources....opps, there is a knock on the door...men in suits...ARRGGHHH! ;)
either nobody was surprised, or their hands have been cut off.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
..terrible, scary, orwellian, and ..its on Slashdot?
The NYT story notes that the administration consulted with key members of Congress and with federal judges on this policy, and that the policy led to the capture of terrorists planning attacks on the US. Nobody here has so far commented on these key facts.
The Times is a piece of shit newspaper anymore, with their own agenda!
>> Condoleezza Rice, said, 'The president acted lawfully in every step that he has taken.'"
Oh well thats all right then.
In other news, Bush made himself a law that says he can do what he likes.
Let me get this straight: Bush authorizes the NSA to monitor as many as 500 people in the USA and that's news?! It would be newsworthy if the NSA had been monitoring every knucklehead who thought he was clever by combining Bush's name with Hitler (that would be, um, about two million adolescents (many posting on Slashdot today), but they weren't. Wanna bet when the facts come out that those 500 will turn out to be legitimate suspects (i.e., they overstayed their visa, or maybe they had ties to terrorist organizations like hamas)? We'll see. The media has been trying to pin some crime on Bush for five years, they haven't laid a glove on him. Merry Christmas! --Chris
"I improvise. It's my greatest talent. I prefer situations to plans..." --Wintermute, William Gibson's "Neuromancer"
for a full year before they published it and they have admitted to witholding certain elements of the story from publication.
t s_it_held_1215.html
Details @ http://rawstory.com/news/2005/New_York_Times_admi
Someone give Bush a blow job so we can impeach him!
Are you...Are you some kind of genius?
No, ma'am, I'm just a regular Slashdot reader.
Technically, he is right.
Here's what the tech world should do:
1. Create a list of all the "keywords" likely to trigger some action
2. Saturate all media - blogs, email, file transfers, phone calls, TV with such keywords, all at the same time, for 1 hour.
See if smoke pours out of certain Virginia windows !
Bush followed all the applicable laws, and members of congress knew about it. I don't see what the problem is.
Bullshit.
From the article :
"Some NSA officials were so concerned about the legality of the program that they refused to participate, the Times said. Questions about the legality of the program led the administration to temporarily suspend it last year and impose new restrictions."
When people inside the NSA have a problem with its constitutionality,
I think thats a pretty clear indication of just how legal it is.
Service guarantees Citizenship! Questions Guarantee GITMO.... Amerika Uber Alles!
Bush had his mind made up to go into Iraq from day one, all he needed was a convenient excuse like 9/11, so his people could shape the intelligence to rationalize the invasion. He's spent years justifying the invasion, and now he finally says it's his fault that we went to war for a bullshit reason?
He let New Orleans drown, bungled the rescue/recovery, tried to blame everyone else, and then finally approves $3.1B to rebuild and repair the levees.
This week he's been the 'close the barn door after the horse has gotten out' president. But don't be fooled, he's not mending his ways. With the GOP being rocked by scandal after scandal, things are looking grim for Republicans in the 2006 elections-- and they know it. From now until election day there's going to be a tremendous snow job loosed on the people of this country to distract them from Plamegate, DeLay, etc, in the hopes that they'll just go to the polls and blindly vote Republican again.
See, the problem with you MadLibs is that you only wrap yourselves in the first amendment when it suits you. As soon as someone dares to disagree with you, you slander them, you threaten them with lawsuits, or even threaten them with physical violence. You're perfectly welcome to your opinion, and I hope that you always feel free to speak your mind without fear of reprisals - even if we passionately disagree.
As for the Clinton impeachment, I agree that it was a bit much. He should have been subject to prosecution long before he ever sniffed the White House. That bum has a LOT of skeletons in his closet, no pun intended.
I always thought that this is what the NSA was for. I have always assumed that any call or transmission that ends outside the U.S. is possibly being monitored. This includes within other countries, and between U.S. and other countries. What's the big deal here? This is just business as usual to protect the U.S. If that's not enough, we are at war (it doesn't matter if you don't like the war, it doesn't make it disappear).
Do you think the islamists only started hating the free world when W. got into office? Do you think that he just made up Sept. 11? The amount of hatred and paranoia is amazing to see. Grab your tinfoil hats and pitch forks! Run!
Note: I don't like it either, but what does it take to make something legal? Also note that, as someone said earlier, legal != ethical.
It also just occured to me that congress and the president and the courts all looking the other way doesn't make it legal, either. Is this what happened here, or was there some sort of officialness about it?
I cried real tears when Li Mu Bai died.
The Slashdot story summary is wrong. But what should we expect from Slashdot editors who have political bones to pick? The Slashdot summary says "The report says that under a 2002 presidential order, the National Security Agency has been unconstitutionally and illegally monitoring international communications of hundreds in the U.S."
However, that is not the case. While controversial, the NY Times does not go that far. The most they do is quote some critics who believe it crossed a legal line. Simply having some critics suggest it's unconstitional and illegal hardly makes it so. As the report says:
Some officials familiar with it say they consider warrantless eavesdropping inside the United States to be unlawful and possibly unconstitutional, amounting to an improper search. One government official involved in the operation said he privately complained to a Congressional official about his doubts about the program's legality. But nothing came of his inquiry. "People just looked the other way because they didn't want to know what was going on," he said.
Why do you hate America?
That's "Mr. Soulless Automaton" to you, Bub.
A guy has information that is new, shocking, and reveals a blatant violation of the constitution, and just because he's also an author of an up-coming book he shouldn't come forward with it?
I think the implication is not that he fabricated the information, but rather that if honesty and integrity in the executive branch was his single motivating factor, he would have yelled it immediately, not sat on it while he wrote a book. Quite obviously, he felt the information was important enough to have some monetary value, but not important enough to require immediate attention from the people.
No matter what your opinion of Bush, the author comes out looking slimy. In my opinion, deservedly so.
That is because we live in pre-Magna Carta England. The King, I mean the President, is above the law.
My question is, why is this even on Slashdot? Just like the many previous stories about the elections, etc, all this turns into is a massive Bush bashing session...
And you're just quibbling over details. Both times, about half of the people who voted, voted for him. The other half, voted for someone very similar. No matter how you slice it, about 99% of American voters approve of corruption, increased federal power, and they believe that government should micromanage of our lives. Quit blaming presidents and start talking to people, because they need a good talking-to.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
We torture detainees in territory controlled by us, whether here at home or abroad ...
...
...
...
We spy on our own citizens without their knowledge and with no court order
We initiate a war that kills 30,000 innocents and destroys an entire country and nation - based on faulty intelligence
We hand out billions of dollars of fat contracts to our buddies in companies in which we have interests
We refuse to sign or adhere to international treaties and conventions on the environment, global warming, prisoner treatment, chemical warfare, mines,
Welcome to Iraq, ooops, I mean, the United States.
What the hell is happening to this country? Wake up for God's sake.
You sure about that? No paper trail any more, some of his top deputies are election overseers and the developers of the software on the voting machines refuse to hand over the source.
...
Methinks they are trying to protect this function
if ( $vote == "Democrat" && ($republican_votes <= ( $total_votes / 2 ) ) )
{ $vote = "Republican"; }
But I guess whatever the NYT says is still the gold standard to some.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Bush followed all the applicable laws, and members of congress knew about it. I don't see what the problem is.
It represents a significant change in policy. The relevant directive, to which this more recent policy represents a significant change, is United States Signals Intelligence Directive 18. That document makes for interesting reading. While chunks have been redacted the important point is that, according to that document, the NSA took the fourth amendment very seriously and had tight regulations as to exactly what conditions needed to be met before any interception of communications from anyone inside the US can occur. Given that, any weakening of this policy, such as what has been reported, potentially conflicts with the fourth amendment and would thus be unconstitutional.
Jedidiah.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
Wanna bet when the facts come out that those 500 will turn out to be legitimate suspects (i.e., they overstayed their visa, or maybe they had ties to terrorist organizations like hamas)?
Well that gets my vote for Retarded Statement of the Day.
If we know the whereabouts of foreign nationals who have overstayed their visa, we take them into custody and deport them, dumbass-- we don't leave them alone and just eavesdrop on them.
We are currently balancing lives and rights. How many American lives are you willing to spend to preserve your rights perfectly? 300? 3,000? If you could save 500 lives by giving up a few of your rights, would you?
Radical muslims will kill more Americans. We all know that. How easy do we want to make it for them?
I'm against Bush as much as anyone else.. but CHB simply is not a reputable source.
News for Nerds? Technology? IT? I'd hate to see this forum become a Democrats Vs. Republicans debate forum. I'll have to (and a lot of others) go elsewhare for a satisfying geek outlet.
Well, to be fair, the constitution DID allow this guy to come to power, invade random third world countries, kill tens of thousands of innocent civilians, secretly kidnap and torture people, and so on.
When bad things happen, do you question the act, or do you question the system that allowed the act to happen in the first place? Where do you place your efforts in solving the bad problems? If a murder happens, do you blame the murderer and fix the murderer, knowing full well that there may be millions of other murderers that need to be individually fixed, or do you blame the system, and repair the system itself in one fell swoop, to prevent murders from happening again?
Given that, we seriously have to start questioning the validity of the constitution itself. It IS a flawed system, originally written by wealthy slaveowners, designed to increase their wealth and capital. MILLIONS of people were killed by this government over the course of its history. Are people happier now than they were 300 years ago?? Remember, not everyone supported the Revolution.
It therefore is a perfectly valid stance to be against the existence of the Federal Government. Let the 50 states be their own countries. Monopolization of power is ALWAYS dangerous.
actually they got the names and contacts from a terrorist's computer and phone book, and these were all international calls which is legal. So its even more innocuous than you thought. But yeah, slashdot is turning into a tech news themed democratic underground.
"In the game of life, someone always has to lose. To me, if life were fair, that someone would always be Oklahoma." -DKR
I really don't understand why Slashdot considers this a relevant story. I mean, it's not as if the NSA was putting out a Linux distribution.
Best part about this is that the author of the story wrote a book that details it that will be released soon. The book is titled: STATE OF WAR: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration
p id=518822 for the book
Interesting that the NY Times article doesn't mention anything about Risen's upcoming book that discuss this story and the other stories he will be releasing thru the venue of the New York Times. See http://www.simonsays.com/content/book.cfm?sid=33&
The scariest part of this all is what Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, said, 'The president acted lawfully in every step that he has taken.'
If the police state was at least illegal, there would be some hope.
when may I execute General Order 66?
Hmm. I don't think I've called Afghanistan or Iraq lately.
This is still something to watch carefully. I often wonder if the U.S. were actually being attacked, in the present tense, daily/weekly, by terrorists that would be communicating entirely within the country and therefore (theoretically) avoiding this spy effort, if people's attitudes would actually change about "the privacy their government violates."
Not advocating a policy position. Just curious.
-Rob
Biblical fiscal responsibility
I guess what Ed Gein did was just fine, then, since there were, like, a million books and movies about him.
"Whatever happened to fair use?"
-- Duff-Man
Ah, a lefty mouthpiece reports it... So it must be true, right? The libs are letting their hatred for Bush blur the line between reality and fantasy. These kooks are the GOPs best friends.
Shut the smurf up mothersmurfer!
When Bush can say the constitution is "just a goddamned piece of paper"
Did he really say that? Has it been reported by anyone other than Doug Thompson? Who is Doug Thompson, anyway? I'd actually like to pass this around to some people, but I need to know that it's for real.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
they have made 2 retractions in 8 years. seems to be a pretty good record to me.
Yeah you tell 'em. I was watching Fox News and man, those guys are so liberal. I think they even have liberal commentator. O'Reilly? I forget his name. He claims he's not even a Conservative.
Yeah I even heard that Bill Klinton was secretly behind Enron after all! And that the Enron executive who turned up dead? Yeah, it was Klinton. I read it on the Clinton Body Count List, I think it was maybe version 2.58. The one posted on Geocities. And it was Clinton who was personally behind framing DeLay for violating all those federal laws. Which I guess makes Delay a lucky guy - he could have just ended up dead like Monica Lewinsky - you know the Klintons leave no witnesses alive!!!
Death Peanlty for all MadLibz!!!
I'm sure that a website by the name of "Capitol Hill Blue" is going to be a very reputable source for news to do with Republicans.
The Surrender Monkeys are out in force today, still eager to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in Iraq. I for one look forward to national policy being made by Howard Dean, Nancy Pelosi, and Teddy Kennedy, not! Do you remember that the inaction of Clinton and Albright allowed world terror to come to full maturity? They are the criminals.
Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft and Gonzales
Todays equivalent of Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Hamilton, bless'em.
an ill wind that blows no good
1) innocent until proven guilty -> earliest article I could find via Google was 20 hours ago. This is fresh. Lets give it time for the smoke to settle and see if this is legit.
/sarcasm. 500/295,000,000 = 1.6*10^-9 %chance of getting "spied upon." That is in the noise, folks. Now while I understand your ideological concerns with it, much more real concerns to me right now are getting over this damn virus, I've been sick for a week and a half, and getting home to my family for Christmas. Then I'll worry about my 1 in 590,000 chance of having been spied upon. Thanks.
2) According to the reports, he didn't spy he authorized the NSA. According to Condoleezza and Scott McClellan he "Acted within the law." So right now its tit-for-tat, whose telling the truth? Again, lets wait for the smoke to clear and everyone to get their stories straight
3) According to the accuser "up to 500 people were spied upon." Wow.
-everphilski-
First off, there has been a historic election in Iraq and they're talking about a 70% turn out.. 70%!!! Damn!
But we don't want to talk about good news so let's dig up an chapter TITLE in James Risen's new book that will be out in 10 days. For those that don't know, James Risen is a Times Reporter... yup.. no conflict of interest there.
And to boot: The Times attempts to create a national uproar over something called a "special collection program" launched by the National Security Agency sometime after the Sept. 11 attacks. The opening paragraphs give the alarming impression that the agency is spying broadly on "Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying.
Those who actually read the piece will note that the paper must grudgingly acknowledge that it is talking about the NSA's monitoring of international communications (e-mails, cellphone calls, etc.) only!!! the agency still seeks warrants to monitor entirely domestic communications.
Hello? RTFA.. Don't we say there here often.. too many chicken littles... no one with brains. Sad.
www.slightlycrewed.com - Because aren't we all?
The cook just turned up the burner another notch.
Ed Almos
The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws. - Tacitus, 56-120 A.D.
I don't think number of retractions is a measure of accuracy. One could simply refuse to issue retractions, ala Drudge, and be 100% accurate!
I'm going to write my Senator to find out if any information they many have collected on me illegally can be deleted from whatever databases they have. My fiancee lives in Japan and we are working on the tedious immigration process enacted by our friends in Homeland Security. Naturally, we have international telephone conversations often. I've always had some suspicion that this type of surveillance was going on, and a little bit of paranoia can be healthy, but this news hits a little too close to home, for me.
I suggest you visit this site and relive the tragedy.
From the site (emphasis mine):
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
I'm against Bush as much as anyone else.. but CHB simply is not a reputable source.
Hmmm lets see. If my choice is between
A) a guy who worked for three congressmen on capitol hill, who reported
the NSA story AND the Pentagon database story a year ago.
versus
B) a corporate newspaper who held a story about constitutional abuse
of power for over a YEAR
guess which one I'm going with???
Service guarantees Citizenship! Questions Guarantee GITMO.... Amerika Uber Alles!
What a clever fellow you are. Wrong as can be of course. Read this and get informed: How many people overstay their temporary visas? Lots. While most of the 30 million people who enter the United States on temporary visas each year return home, over the years an estimated 3 million people--including some 700,000 foreign students--have stayed beyond the limits of their visas. No one monitors their whereabouts, although the INS plans to establish a tracking system in 2003. In early 2002, the Justice Department announced a push to locate some 314,000 individuals who overstayed their visas and have been ordered deported by immigration authorities; priority has been given to locating those people from countries where al-Qaeda maintains a significant presence.
"I improvise. It's my greatest talent. I prefer situations to plans..." --Wintermute, William Gibson's "Neuromancer"
"There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live--did live, from habit that became instinct--in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized." George Orwell -- 1984.
If you somehow are a target to be eavesdropped upon, maybe you did something to deserve it. If my "civil" rights get violated and their actions end up stopping another 9/11, then damn it its worth it. If they read my emails all they would see is "1NCRE4SE YOUR S1ZE NOW!!!@", if you have somethign to be hiding, then stop crying when you get caught. The government doesnt have the resources to just drop in on farmer bob, they are doing what they do for a reason, its time we wake up and realise we need to give up some freedom in order to keep it.
Considering how the US has treated other free press agencies like Al-Jazeer by "accidentally" bombing two of their buildings (the precise coordinates of which were specifically given to the military to prevent that sort of accident) as well as harrasing and possibly shooting some of their reporters, somehow I'm not surprised that no one over there has been too keen to start publishing the US's actions over there. Also, Iraq's government and our government's interest in it has nothing to do with democracy, do you really think if the Iraqis voted tomorrow for the US to leave that we would? Puppet governments aren't gone, just getting updates to the facades. Our government is not in the habit of respecting sovereignty or the press.
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
I don't mean this in a nasty way, but what kind of credibility does this guy have?
Thanks for playing. Don't forget your gift basket on the way out.
"Whatever happened to fair use?"
-- Duff-Man
The Patriot Act extensions did receive 52 votes in favor of cutting off discussions and moving to a vote. It's just that it requires 60 votes to do that, so we don't get the Patriot Act (today) even though it appears that a majority would vote for it.
Which is all it needs to pass, if it made it to the floor. That's what has Republicans so ticked about filibusters: they allow a (large) minority to stop a bill that has majority approval. When outraged Republicans cry, "Why would you deny a simple up-or-down vote?" they're referring to cases like this. If it weren't for the filibuster rules the Patriot Act would already be approved.
...at least he didn't lie about get a blow job from an intern. Now, *that* would be an outrage. This piddly stuff about secretly expanding the role of the police in the state is trivial compared to serious stuff like that.
Cheers
-b
If I wanted a sig I would have filled in that stupid box.
The problem appears to be that you don't buy the liberal groupthink sold here.
When I use the Steve Dallas defense to counter charges that I bilked Citibank for one treellion dollars!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
I must have been taking a nap, or out of the office... Becuase I apparently missed the memo that Slashdot decided to start posting entirely political stories targetted at the President of the United States.
We've always had some political issues arise in comments, but can we atleast let our geek news site not get sucked into publicly bashing the leader of the free world?
I don't care if you like him or not, he's the president, have some respect for heaven's sake. Didn't your mother teach you to be polite to your elders? Don't you show respect to the CEO of your company, even if he's a dick? Just becuase a bunch of propogandizing media outlets feel its appropriately to bash every politician that will make the juciest story, doesn't mean we all have to follow suit. We are all americans, and I beleive the vast majority of our politicians, including Mr. Bush, are actually doing their best.... even if their best isn't good enough, they deserve the same decent treatment you'd give to the ticket taker at your local movie theater.
Big ones, small ones, some as big as yer 'ead!
Give 'em a twist, a flick o' the wrist...
I'd like to see the entire GOP party along with every Democrat that broke ranks on this and the Patriot Act tried for High Crimes and Treason against the State!
I'd like to see the death penalty put to good use for once!
There's a part of the Dept of Homeland Security known as NVAC (National Visualization and Analytics Center). I'd suggest taking a look at their research agenda. Particularly the "Grand Challenges" section, and particularly the "Scalability Challenge" part of that.
Their target is to handle 1 billion structured messages/transactions per hour and 1 million unstructured messages/documents per hour. For reference, there are 6.5 billion people in the world, according to the CIA world factbook. 296 million in the US. When these numbers were presented to the IEEE Vis conference in 2004, questions arose as to whether they were going to get warrants for all of these transactions. The basic response was that they were going to 'anonymize' all of the data. First, do you honestly think that will happen? Second, how much do you trust the anonymizer? And lastly, do you trust the government to not turn off the anonymizer switch? It's a nice, warm, fuzzy feeling, isn't it?
The poster gives himself away as a limey trying to further his pacificist agenda.
an ill wind that blows no good
Eh. I interpreted the site and piece as a right-wing libertarian constitution-thumping rant, and nothing else.
Lalala
I do think that we're more ripe for a third party now than we have been for a very long time given the division within the GOP; but I don't think it's going to happen. The stigma that comes from starting a 3rd party in this country is one of being a crackpot. Also, the money and support machines that are our 2 popular parties make it too easy to get help with your campaign compared to the do-it-yourself approach that starting a successful third party would require.
While I agree in general that the Democratic party is just as guilty as the GOP regarding dirty tricks and corruption, etc., I think the current administration takes the all-out hands-down prize-winning cake for being corrupt and for abusing power. I would think so if they were Dems or libertarians or pastafarians. They have made such a mockery of our system of government that it is insulting to those of us who lead law-abiding lives.
As for 2008, unless things change I don't see a Democratic president. Their front-runner is Hillary, who is one of the most divisive and polarizing figures in American politics. Whether that's earned or not is rather irrelevant. She's going to have to do some serious image work between now and then to make a realistic show of it in the 2008 election. There are better, more presidential and electable people who could make a run for it who haven't announced, don't have any money or both. Bill Richardson(gov. NM) strikes me as one who could make a serious challenge if the party supported him.
On the GOP side they are only suffering from having too deep a bench. Rudy Guliani, John McCain, Bill Frist (though current legal troubles may end that), Mitt Romney, Haley Barbour, Sam Brownback, Chuck Hagel, Mike Huckabee, and even Condi Rice are all being bantered about as being serious potential candidates. Personally, I think Condi would be more divisive than Hillary, and I think all the others are going to have a tough time competing with either Rudy or Sen. McCain.
But the Democrats are in a serious hurt as far as the '08 presidential race goes. They're in a better position for the mid-terms coming up; but even that could get jacked up if they don't start doing some serious strategy work and putting forth some real candidates.
The Republicans have put them in this spot by stealing their lines. The GOP is now the party of the God-fearing folk. They are now the party of the little man, protecting said peasant from the tyranny of the Ivy Leage Elitist, etc. There has been a lot of talk about how the Democrats need to come up with a message. The truth is, they need to take their message back from the people who stole it if they are to have any election successes in the near term.
Personally, I'd be okay with either Rudy or McCain. The rest in my earlier list turn my stomach; but so does Hillary. It's a tough time to be a centrist and to watch the GOP turning ultra-conservative, and the Dems put Hillary out as the answer. Fortunately, the two most moderate GOP frontrunners are still in fact running in front. I hope it stays that way.
Hot Damn! It's the Soggy Bottom Boys!
Slashdot has just joined K5 on the topic of politics.
/. honored their mantra of "news for nerds". Stick to tech; I get cable TV. It comes with the modem.
Linking to just one news source is just promoting a particular spin on the issue and makes no strides for a comprehensive presentation.
For this shit, I could turn on my TV.
I would really prefer if
and its tit for tat at this point. White house says foo, NSA says bar. The story has only been "out" for about 20 hours... no point arguing until the smoke settles. (it is possible both parties are right... it is possible to follow the letter of the law, not break any rules and yet violate a constitutional right)
-everphilski-
Would Bush even be President now if The New York Times had run this story when they first uncovered it? This is not the first story that got 'put aside' until after the election. Impeach, torture and execute. Enjoy.
You do realize that Bush won the recounts before the ruling, and most afterward right?
"In the game of life, someone always has to lose. To me, if life were fair, that someone would always be Oklahoma." -DKR
C'mon, did I really need <sarcasm> and </sarcasm> tags?
The Supreme Court appointed noone. They just told Florida they couldn't waste any more time on recounting since their needed to be an answer immediately (which was perfectly fine). Since Bush was ahead at the time, he was certified as the winner of Florida and thus won the election as a whole.
s /stories/main.html
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/florida.ballot
Please keep in mind the Supreme Court is ulimately the governing body on what is and is not Constitutional so they had every right to decide on the dispute over the recount.
Article III, Section 3 of the United States Constitution:
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.
The Congress shall have power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.
I don't know what you see as "aid and comfort," but I assure you that covert surveillance, kidnapping, indefinite detainment, torture, &c. don't fit under that particular umbrella.
Did he really say that?
I'd love to see him answer that question under oath.
At least one former liuetenant colonel believes it:
Karen Kwiatkowski, Ph.D. [send her mail], a retired USAF lieutenant colonel who spent her final four and a half years in uniform working at the Pentagon's Near East/South Asia bureau. She lives with her freedom-loving family in the Shenandoah Valley, and among other things, has written on defense issues with a libertarian perspective for militaryweek.com, hosts the call-in radio show American Forum on Saturday nights, and blogs occasionally for Huffingtonpost.com. To receive automatic announcements of new articles and upcoming guests on her American Forum radio
Service guarantees Citizenship! Questions Guarantee GITMO.... Amerika Uber Alles!
The first time he took office, he was appointed by the Supreme Court (a national first, not to mention thoroughly unconstitutional and illegal.
Firstly, the supreme court is the ultimate arbiter of what is legal and constitutional, and what is not. To say that a decision of the supreme court is unconstitutional and illegal is a contradiction.
Secondly, complaints about what happened in 2000 are ridiculous and partisan. If the positions of the principals had been reversed and Gore ended up 100 votes ahead rather than behind, would the left be complaining that his election was illegitimate? Of course not.
Nobody will take the left seriously until they stop whining about 2000. I say this as someone who wishes Gore had won.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
Don't be sure that we elected him the second time, either. I think Diebold can claim that honor. But we'll never know.
-------
Incite and flee.
OK kiddies, as you go off the deep end read these two parts and understand this is nothing new. Both quotes are from the NYTimes article.
"The officials said the administration had briefed Congressional leaders about the program and notified the judge in charge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the secret Washington court that deals with national security issues."
So they complied with the Intelligence oversight laws and informed Congress and the FISC as they are required to do and
"the intelligence agency has monitored the INTERNATIONAL telephone calls and INTERNATIONAL e-mail messages" as well as "The agency, they said, still SEEKS WARRANTS to monitor entirely domestic communications".
So they are still only monitoring calls to international destinations, which have never been protected, and they still are getting warrents if the call is inside the domains of the US. So it turns out they're doing what they always have only they added the class of terrorist operations to the previously used classes of goverment run espionage operations. In short not only are they monitoring the Russian or Chinese spy they are also now monitoring the Al-Quida operative as well.
So the problem with this is????
Look my paranoid friends, the fact is that the goverment has always had the perfect right to monitor international communications. We've done it for decades, and so does everyone else. France, China, Russia, Germany, America, Britian, Chile, Japan, Korea, etc. etc. etc. They all spy, they all listen and they do it all the time and as much as they can. They've done it for decades, they do it to their own people and to foreigners and to anyone else they can, because generally the bad guys never seem to be willing to wear t-shirts identifying themselves and generally they don't advertise their plans in advance with big announcments, even in their buddy paper of the NYTimes. So goverments spy. And that my friends is a good thing, because when goverments don't spy and find these buggerers before they commit their atrocities we get buildings blown up and people killed and ships and embassies and nightclubs and shopping centers and what not demolished, along with the innocents in them. Now either save the terroists the time and kill yourself now, or shut up, realize you're in a war and start fighting back by letting the government find these ratfuck bastards and put them into the lockups they so richly have merited before they blow up you, your kids, and your assorted family members.
Is the Pentagon spying on Americans?
Secret database obtained by NBC News tracks 'suspicious' domestic groups
By Lisa Myers, Douglas Pasternak, Rich Gardella and the NBC Investigative Unit
Updated: 6:18 p.m. ET Dec. 14, 2005
WASHINGTON - A year ago, at a Quaker Meeting House in Lake Worth, Fla., a small group of activists met to plan a protest of military recruiting at local high schools. What they didn't know was that their meeting had come to the attention of the U.S. military.
A secret 400-page Defense Department document obtained by NBC News lists the Lake Worth meeting as a "threat" and one of more than 1,500 "suspicious incidents" across the country over a recent 10-month period.
[...]
The Defense Department document is the first inside look at how the U.S. military has stepped up intelligence collection inside this country since 9/11, which now includes the monitoring of peaceful anti-war and counter-military recruitment groups.
[...](go to link above to read the entire article)
One of the striking aspects of this is that the U.S. military is directly involved in spying on American citizens. Such activity has not been known to occur, publicly, since the Civil War, and is in direct violation of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878:
20 Stat. L., 145
June 18, 1878
CHAP. 263 - An act making appropriations for the support of the Army for the fiscal year ending June thirtieth, eighteen hundred and seventy-nine, and for other purposes.
SEC. 15. From and after the passage of this act it shall not be lawful to employ any part of the Army of the United States, as a posse comitatus, or otherwise, for the purpose of executing the laws, except in such cases and under such circumstances as such employment of said force may be expressly authorized by the Constitution or by act of Congress; and no money appropriated by this act shall be used to pay any of the expenses incurred in the employment of any troops in violation of this section And any person willfully violating the provisions of this section shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and on conviction thereof shall be punished by fine not exceeding ten thousand dollars or imprisonment not exceeding two years or by both such fine and imprisonment.
It is also worth recalling the quaint document that George W. Bush has called "just a goddamned piece of paper" http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/arti cle_7779.shtml, the U.S. Constitution. In particular, the Bill of Rights:
Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
BTW -- I used to consider myself a Republican. I don't know what to call myself now.
Amen, brutha! I'm still a (mostly) republican. The Party left me behind when it abandoned its principles.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
LMAO, I so wish I could mod this... The parent post is the most deserving of a +5, Funny I think I've ever seen.
Hear that buzzing sound? That's the sound Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Hamilton spinning in their graves fast enough to power our entire hemishpere.
I think it is interesting how many OpenSource Advocates claim that limiting access to information or source code is evil and yet, when the government wants access to information they are in the wrong. Seems rather one-sided.
Bush followed all the applicable laws, and members of congress knew about it. I don't see what the problem is.
Yeah, and Clinton didn't have "sexual relations" with an intern.
The problem lies with crap like the Constitution, due process, and all of that other silly stuff that keeps people "with nothing to hide" from being put in jail and/or killed, being searched (like we are talking about here), or having their property seized for doing the normal stuff that most people do.
If the 1 to 2% of the US population already controlled by the penal system isn't enough, maybe people without problems with government actions like this can volunteer for a free residence in a prison or gulag. I'll take my freedom elsewhere thank you very much.
here is his bio
Interesting part :
"Thompson took a sabbatical from newspapers in 1981 and moved to Washington to work on Capitol Hill. He served as press secretary for two Congressmen and then Chief of Staff for another before joining the House Committee on Science & Technology. "
Service guarantees Citizenship! Questions Guarantee GITMO.... Amerika Uber Alles!
Posting an article like this on slashdot is like tossing garbage bags full of heroin into a rehab clinic.
You can find evidence of US federal government agencies illegally spying on its own citizens going back all the way to the days of the founding fathers in the late 1700's. Nothing new here at all indeed.
Hay, only six years left!
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
With all this lack of privacy because of policies of the government, I might just have to move to Singapore.
Speaking is NOT communication
Actually, there's a decent chance that the President has never won an election fair-and-square. Texas governorship: One of the most corrupt states politically. Case in point: Tom Delay, who guilty or not has a habit of bending the rules. I don't have the details handy on his gubenatorial elections, someone else probably does. 2000 presidential election: As you pointed out, a blatently political decision that fails to meet the impartiality test (would the same Justices vote the same way if Bush's and Gore's positions had been reversed?) 2004 presidential election: Voting irregularities, especially in districts using Diebold ("I promise to deliver the electoral votes of Ohio to Bush") were the norm in Ohio and other closely contested states. Notable were the discrepencies between the normally extremely accurate exit polls and the actual results, as well as the difference between time needed to vote in various districts (suburbs: 15-20 minutes, cities: 3-5 hours). Not to mention the widespread corruption in the Ohio government (governor convicted of some crimes, several officials currently being tried), and the CEO of Diebold's recent resignation.
I am officially gone from
So, to me, this says:
Before, if Bob in Germany called Alice in New York, the NSA could listen in to the conversation if the NSA setup its physical wiretap in Germany.
Today, For the same call, from Bob in Germany to Alice in New York, the NSA can listen in regardless of whether their physical wiretap is in Germany or the US.
You might also conclude from the TFA that they can now eavesdrop regardless of who initiates the conversation. Perhaps that adds some latitude, but it certainly isn't the huge policy change that everyone seems to be screaming about.
Of course, I may be wrong, but I'm sure there are a few people here on Slashdot who'll politely explain my error. ;-)
Someone would give Bush a blowjob so he would stop fucking with our civil rights.
Here we see the ugly underbelly of liberal media again. The NSA still conforms to the 4th Amendment. Just because some liberal, Bush bashing, hack shilling a book thinks otherwise don't make it true.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
"People inside the US" is not exactly equal to "American citizens". There are a lot more than just American citizens inside the US. The latter are disallowed explicitly by law, whereas non-US citizens on US soil can be spied on with FISA Court and Executive Branch approval. The headline is typical MSM (main-stream media) sensationalism.
With all the leaks lately damaging US National Security, why aren't the leaks being ferreted out and prosecuted? This leak along with the "CIA rendition sites in Europe" leak are infintely more damaging than the stupid Valerie Plame/Wilson leak. Her name was already publicly associated with the CIA, anyway. None of this stuff was already publicly known. Come on, quit trying to "bash the Bush" just because his political affiliation is different than yours. Act like grown ups, Americans.
While YOU, bright boy have spare time to post bullshit on Slashdot every day.
I'm sure he wishes he was you!
If you call someone an asshat it's pretty much guarantee that you're going to get modded flamebait. And it's pretty lame to reply to your own post as AC defending it :P
Check out the Threatened and Endangered Species Recovery Act of 2005. Its goal appears to be to threaten and endanger species. It was initiated by Richard Pombo (R-Cal), who is well known for his support of miners and loggers as well as his fight against the spotted owl.
Other links:Or, if you don't like the House version, how about Collaboration and Recovery of Endangered Species Act (S. 2110) in the Senate, initiated by Mike Crapo (R-ID). The Republicans definitely seem to be consistent.
Other links:Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
One fact. One ounce of proof.
Idiot.
Why the fuck is this flamebait? Because you can see the word "liberal"?
No, because of the immature ad hominem attacks. Next time try debating the points presented in the post being replied to without resorting to adversarial name-calling and maybe the mods will be more merciful.
Arguing about vi versus Emacs is like arguing whether it's better to make fire by rubbing sticks or banging rocks.
Democrats.
Any links for that claim that's not in a blog circle-jerk?
Ah, a lefty mouthpiece reports it... So it must be true, right? The libs are letting their hatred for Bush blur the line between reality and fantasy. These kooks are the GOPs best friends.
If he did nothing wrong, he has nothing to hide.
Just have him answer whether he said it UNDER OATH.
(sound familiar???)
Service guarantees Citizenship! Questions Guarantee GITMO.... Amerika Uber Alles!
How can anyone find this suprising?
I think there is an important lesson in this. The key quote in the story is "the president acted lawfully". I'm not so sure the president has been legal in all his dealings of late, but that is irrelevant, the point I am trying to make is that our democratic institutions are insufficiently protected by the laws we have in place. A lot of their success in history has been the result of politicians more or less playing by a set of unwritten norms, and the public keeping on the right side of that line.
The Bolton nomination is a very good example. We have a congressional review process, which gives the congress a say in nominations. The president can short circuit the process the way he did, but that clearly goes against the spirit of the law.
I find this to be a very worrying trend in this country. The politicians have become so spiteful of the democratic process, and the public so blasé about it all, that our democratic institutions are ceasing to function.
Irrespective of wether or not you are happy with Bush at the helm, or wether or not you felt Bolton was the man for the UN post, wether you are american or foreign, the spectacle of seeing one of the world's great democracies sink into this kind of moral bog is frankly heartbreaking. People are content to let lawyers argue technical issues and are abandoning the spirit of the institutions which govern the US.
I am having problems finding transcripts at the moment, but former Senator Al Simson has been very critical of the Neo-cons (facists) now running the Republican Party. Since he is retired he can probably say things others cannot (yet). He has called the extreme right wingers 'kooks' and radicals. As such he is a conservative voice of reason. It would be work finding some of his comments and posting them online.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Yet another impeachment count if the Democrats can find the spine to win the 2006 elections.
If you're not concerned about the president creating a US KGB, then you're a fascist and you don't deserve to be an American. You're an American hater because you hate the Constitution of the United States.
Flying flags does not represent patriotism. Nor does sporting yellow magnetic stickers made in China. Belief and upholding the CONSTITUTION makes you an American.
GW Bush is NOT an American. He is a demonic usurpur. He'd be far more comfortable living in Saudia Arabia.
-------- -------- Support Wesley Clark for president!!!
except the DoD already admitted to it...
If the positions of the principals had been reversed and Gore ended up 100 votes ahead rather than behind, would the left be complaining that his election was illegitimate? Of course not.
That, sir, is the funniest thing I've read all day!
Thank you.
put the what in the where?
No, you're full of shit. Something is unconstitutional because it violates the Constitutional. You take it to the Supreme Court to prove that. But not ever case gets heard, for a myriad of different reasons, dirty politics sometimes being a reason. And the Supreme Court, AFAIK, generally does not hear cases brought by people who do not have a personal greivance. It's hard for someone to bring a case to the court, when they are denied counsel, etc.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
Ad Hominem attack indeed. No one is denying the story's accuracy or importance. So...
Drudge is just doing his usual GOP fart-catcher bit.
See, the problem with you *idiots* is that you're so wrapped up in your self-fed bullshit that you go around calling people "madlibs" and "liberals" and "right wing whackos" without any idea what the person's viewpoint is in the first place. For your information, I more or less consider myself a libertarian. A constitutionalist. From where I stand, both of your parties look retarded, self-serving and full of useless rhetorical hot-air.
So carnivore was not running under Clinton? So the FBI files where not in the white house under Clinton. You may have forgotten these, since you were grammer school back then. Washington as a whole has moved left. Look at Kennedy's speech. It would be considered wildly right wing now. It was very liberal at the time. We need to get rid of activist judges first. So the worst laws are at least made by people VOTED into office.
Between spying on Americans and disarming Americans?
Conservatives are accused of one, liberals are accused of the other.
Capitol hill blue is a hardly a reputable news site. They've been around for over a decade and have never reached a level above your average supermarket tabloid. The fact is they are the sole source for that story and not a single person has confirmed any of it.
The MSM would jump all over a statement like that.
No worse than the prevailing "If the Neocon administration repeats it often enough, it must be true" mantra...
All we've heard from them is "We've taken out 2/3 of AQ" to "the insurgency is on its last legs" to "there never was an insurgency just a bunch of terrorists and Sadammists", ad nauseum. All this while the rate of Iraqi and American casualties continued to rise.
I'm pretty sure the right has been in the grips of a much stronger reality distortion field than the lefties over the past 4-5 years.
Ahh those wacky, liberal kooks, so caught up in the document that forms the lion's share of the legal and philosophical basis for our nation, they can't even see that it's the power and the money that really matter...
Wow you have a cold? Gonna miss Christmasy time? Boo hoo, cry us a fucking river. Being a Republican, you probably deserve it...
You see, the cold in this country actually ends up killing about 60,000 Americans EVERY year. Seriously. Now, compare this to terrorism, which killed 3,000 Americans, in 2001, four years ago. Meanwhile, because Republicans are in power, terrorism somehow attacks at their core foundations, namely: the establishment of the Christian deity around the world, and the increase in capitalistic monopolization. NOWHERE in the Republican belief system does "save lives" appear. So, you Republicans go apeshit, and spend over a trillion dollars over the last four years on your military, because god help us if anyone kills an american. You pat everyone down at the airport, looking for knives/bombs/guns, and kidnap/torture people around the world. America, fuck yah.
Meanwhile that little cold virus went right ahead and killed 240,000 Americans.
Had you actually gave a shit about saving lives, you would have spent that 1+ trillion dollars fighting the common cold. Instead of patting me down at the airport for bombs, why aren't you measuring me for my body temperature to stop me from boarding in case I have a cold? Who do you actually think is going to kill you? The arab-looking guy? Or the guy coughing?
We liberals should go ahead and blame Bush not just for the 30,000 Iraqi deaths, but for the 240,000 American Influenza deaths he could have prevented, say, by quarantining anyone with a cough. Of course, you Republicans aren't going to face up to that responsibility, saying "but we can't stop the cold!" We liberals already know that's monkey talk for "We want to kill dark-people!" And besides, those dark people aren't going to miss Christmas anyways, right? Jesus saves!
Dude, stop worshipping your country. Do NOT be a Republican. Do NOT support your country. Do NOT support the troops. Stop fearing dark people, and start fearing things that WILL kill you.
Some informative commentary:
Some brief background: The Foreign Intelligence Security Act permits the government to monitor foreign communications, even if they are with U.S. citizens -- 50 USC 1801, et seq. A FISA warrant is only needed if the subject communications are wholly contained in the United States and involve a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power.
The reason the President probably had to sign an executive order is that the Justice Department office that processes FISA requests, the Office of Intelligence Policy and Review (OIPR), can take over 6 months to get a standard FISA request approved. It can become extremely bureaucratic, depending on who is handling the request. His executive order is not contrary to FISA if he believed, as he clearly did, that he needed to act quickly. The president has constitutional powers, too.
It's also clear from the Times piece that Rockefeller knew about the government's eavesdropping, as did the FISA court. By the time this story is fully fleshed out, we'll learn that many others knew about it, too. To the best of my knowledge, Rockefeller didn't take any steps to stop the eavesdropping.
-- Mark Levin at NRO.
It really is a good idea to get out of the echo chamber on occasion and read some of what the "other side" has to say. The NYT isn't exactly notorious for giving you the full story, nor is the BBC who simply summarized the NYT article.
The Capitol Hill Blue article is an editorial rant, not a news source. Thompson was making a political statement by making up a story about how he thinks the White House and Supreme Court work. Bush never said anything of the sort.
Similarly, SC Justice Scalia never said, "The Constitution can mean whatever we want it to mean."
My other first post is car post.
There are already institutions in place for tracking terrorists that operate entirely within the country. We don't need the army or CIA spying on American citizens.
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
I love it when people say that our troops are "fighting for our freedom". I thought the terrorists were supposed to be the ones affecting our freedom, but it turns out its our government instead. Too bad the troops are in Iraq helping the Iraqis get their freedom while we slowly lose ours.
Can I bum a sig?
In the first place, America should get rid of that Electoral College, and use simple, direct vote.
I mean, since the election is crooked (you never actually vote for your president) from the start, the system cannot work at all.
Please type in the phrase "bush constitution just a piece of paper" into google and see for yourself.
"Google" is not an intrinsically credible source. Nor is "Capitol Hill Blue", which seems to be the primary vector of this "just a piece of paper" tale.
Find a credible secondary source that confirms this story, please.
It's a shame that NSA is no longer bound by http://cryptome.org/nsa-ussid18.htm
As it was the last safety net those of us who like freedom.
- George W. Bush
The Freedom of Speech is tainted (McCain/Fiendgold bill) and now Private Property is under attack. And the surprise is, most people didn't notice either of these being violated. Most Bush-bashing zombies never got the word; I guess the legacy media decided it wasn't important.
I've lived through three decades of the liberals calling Republicans fascist. But when they tell us what to think, how to talk, and over stretch the "Seperation of Church and State" rules, I hear Panzers.
Arbite Mach Frei, ya'all!
--- For a good time mail uce@ftc.gov
What a despicable thing to say. It's almost like he didn't even read the Oath of Office before he started his campaign.
I knew that he thought some people had too much freedom, but...damn.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
This is so true. Too many people just sit around, unaware or don't care. The rest just bitch and moan.
I love this hacker mentality. Let's start a political party, call it Anarchy or something.
Now the terrorists can sue the U.S. to help fund their attacks!! Fascinating.
Yeah, I know what you mean. I'd voted Republican in the major races since Ford. GWB managed to break that string. Such is my disgust with the man and everyone he surrounds himself with.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
Hello people... the article mentions that the CIA and the Executive branch informed the Legislative branch this was happening. They were informed that phone number and email addresses collected during an arrest could be used to find ties to others. According to the article the information had to be acted on quickly. It worked. Others were ferreted out and arrested.
Anyone ever hear of FISA? Since the calls and email were international communications, it is within the purview of the CIA to intercept them.
The article also mentions that the government still has to get warrants for domestic taps.
If you don't like it... get FISA repealed!
Democrats is a meme.
Free yourself.
It is absolutely not real. It was from an editorial piece written by Doug Thompson. He was just making up a story describing what he thought a conversation with Bush would be like. Note in the article that Scalia says that the Constitution can mean "whatever we say it means". That is another ridiculous statement.
Basically, if you go around repeating this quote as real (as many on the "blogosphere" have done), it makes you look like an idiot.
My other first post is car post.
MOD PARENT UP, INSIGHTFUL
I didn't see anywhere that they were spying on citizens. They keep refering to "people" and everyone assumes it means EVERYONE. I would hope they are watching EVERY foreign national in the US.
I am not a big Bush fan, but I did vote for him. I choose my politicians like an ISP; its not who is the best, its who does not suck the most. The rest just plained sucked more. We do need a valid third party to actually "fix" our fucked up government.
on another note... isn't this site about technology and geek shit? WHY THE FUCK DO YOU KEEP TOSSING POLITICS HERE? All this site seems to be about now is Google, Google, BASH BUSH, BASH MS, and ANYONE WHO ACCEPTS MONEY FOR WORK IS A CAPITALIST FACIST PIG!!!
Sorry about the rant, but this site is becoming more and more pathedic everyday.
He stole the election <sarcasm> fair 'n' square </sarcasm>
is very different from
He <sarcasm> stole </sarcasm> the election fair 'n' square
Just a pointless thought; worth what you pay for it.
I have to admire, though, the way Bush has managed to run roughshod over just about every conservative ideal there is while still managing to keep a sizable percentage of the country fiercely loyal to him.
I could go on, but as I said, why bother? Anyone who doesn't already see the darkness is never going to be swayed by words.
And before you say it: No, I'm not particularly left-leaning. I think conservatism has a lot of good things to offer. If only it were actually being practiced.
There is a current investigation going on right now on how Clinton used the IRS to harass political enemies. This isn't a violation of some right?? Stop drinking the punch!
I quite realize that in this particular forum most of the sentiment can be summed up in one phrase: "I have rights and the government violates them. End of story." There are a lot of thoughtful comments that expand on this, but that's the general idea.
But it reminds me of an old Bill Cosby joke popular on one of his LP (!!) records I think in the sixties. It's about the "rules of warfare" Cosby style, which is that the rules are decided by a coin toss. The winner of the coin toss gets to decide the rule. (For the purposes of this joke there's only one rule per conflict. Hit "agree" to continue.) In one of several skits the Colonials in the War of Independence win the coin toss against Great Britain, so the Colonists decide the rule. It is this:
"The colonists can go anywhere they want to, wear whatever they want, shoot from behind trees and run away anywhere. The British must wear red and march in a straight line."
As I remember, it got quite a laugh. There was another one about Custer where the Indians won the coin toss. You get the idea.
Now we're involved in a struggle against people who want to destroy as many of us as possible. If Kerry had won, they would still want to destroy us. If some sort of socialist party rose to power, they would still want to destroy us. This is not a "Bush thing" and if you think so, I gotta tell ya, you're crazy. yes, you with long hair and the smirk on your face who drives a Prius and recycles like a good boy. You are a target, fella. Got it so far? Okay.
But we tend to put our government between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand "they" are expected and held accountable for being prescient about everything. They KNEW about 9/11. (Some bright souls even say they DID 9/11.) But they didn't save those innocent lives, therefore they failed. It was an "intelligence failure." (I don't disagree with this, by the way. It quite clearly was an intelligence failure. All the dots: no lines.
But they must be prescient only within certain narrowly defined guidelines, and always with a warrant. So, we have a group of people who have a suitcase atomic bomb in a New York City apartment. If it goes off, it will kill several million people and disrupt the economy of the entire world for decades. So we kind of know it's there. We've got lots of dots and very few lines. What do we do?
Well, we catch a guy. But he has RIGHTS!!! All we can do is politely ask him if he wouldn't mind telling us all about that little bomb, where it is, and how to disarm it, and, of course, we'll wait right here while he discusses it with his lawyer, furnish him with all the information and how we found out through the 'discovery' process and make sure he has plenty of money for his defense.
Now, somehow we find out where this little suitcase is, kind of generally, but not specifically enough to know the details, like for a warrant. But these guys have RIGHTS!!!! So we call them up and tell them we know about their little bomb, and we'll be over to see it next Thursday or so. We just didn't want to violate their rights by sneaking around spying on them, and, oh, by the way, that giraffe that wandered by your apartment yesterday? That's an atomic-bomb sniffing giraffe, just in case you see him again.
This is asymmetrical warfare folks. Group hugs don't cut it. If we insist our government wears red and walks in a straight line, we lose.
In the '70s when my wife sent regular mail to Chile it would arrive with the envelope flap taped shut. LOL. At least now it isn't so obvious.
Whether or not the Iraqis gained anything from the US prosecuting the consequence for the Iraqi government's violation of the Cease Fire is not the point of our involvement in the country. We are there...again...because the Iraqi government led by Saddam Hussein violated the terms of the Cease Fire. A Cease Fire that was brought about by the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq-a pure invasion of conquest. They, the Iraqi government was told that "dire consequences" would result from violating the Cease Fire. Every government involved in the liberation of Kuwait signed off on it. Since everyone knows that the UN is a toothless old corruption dog, everyone knew that the US or another nation with the will to act would be required to put teeth into the agreement. Teeth that bite, as Saddam Hussein found out. That said. I truly hope that the Iraqi people can directly benefit from the current involvement of the US. And perhaps they will. However, it is not right of you to blame the deaths of the people killed by the insurrection (terrorists) on the US. The US would have pulled out long ago had the terrorists not fired up their machine of violence. I think it would have been a mistake to pull out, but that is what they would have done.
Unless, that is, you actually believe that killjoe's self-serving tripe is true, and that he's not "misleading" the world with his so called evidence of this conversation.
While I'm glad you're paying attention, the right to bribe a police officer, judge, juror, or any other public official is not free speech, nor should it be. Why should bribing a Senator/Congressman be?
With respect to private property, not sure if you're talking about the recent eminent domain ruling, but absolutely agree there. I was real sorry to see that one, and I hope the SC will have the good sense to reverse itself shortly.
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
That post was a rant, a sarcasm, a fiction, a collection of invented quotes. It was made up. It's obvious that it was made up. *YOU* know it was made up. Yet you present it as factual quotes.
People wonder why Bush and Co. can get away with the stuff they do. But it's easy to get away with stuff when your opponents are habitual and compulsive liars. If you don't want Bush to get away with this crap, THEN STOP LYING ABOUT IT!
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
It's not illegal to wiretap international calls. The government is constitutionally allowed to tap any call to the US that originates from a foreign country, and also to tap any call originating in the US that terminates in a foreign country. A court order is only requred for calles originating in and terminating in the United States, that are not routed outside the United States and its possessions (including satellites, regardless of whose airspace they are in).
Also, the Patriot Act authorizes domestic and international wiretaps if either of the subjects in the call are suspected of being involved in terroristic activity.
Nothing to see here. Move along.
You guys are hilarious.
...
"I don't give a goddamn," Bush retorted. "I'm the President and the Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way."
"Mr. President," one aide in the meeting said. "There is a valid case that the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution."
"Stop throwing the Constitution in my face," Bush screamed back. "It's just a goddamned piece of paper!"
Can I try?
"I'm fully in support of Al-Qeada," said Howard Dean, "I hope they kill every stupid redneck in the country!"
"No shit," chimed in Nancy Pelosi, "I'd love to see the murder of all those goddamn Republicans. They get in the way of our utopian love-state."
One aide tried to calm the histrionics, until he was shot in the head by Al Franken. Franken called for the immediate nuclear annihilation of Israel, the return of the Louisiana purchase to the French, and the dismantling of our armed forces.
"Everyone in the military is just a repressed Nazi jackbooted thug," said Franken, before engaging in a deep soul kiss with John Murtha, Congressman and former Vietnam veteran.
____________
You can have great fun tossing around unattributed quotations on what was said and done in a closed meeting? KEWL! It's like the news reportage version of anonymized dung-throwing. But hey, why bother with facts when speculation is so much more EMPOWERING, right?
My favorite part of TFA is this one:
""Oh, how I hate the phrase we have--a 'living document,'" Scalia says. "We now have a Constitution that means whatever we want it to mean. The Constitution is not a living organism, for Pete's sake."
"We can take away rights just as we can grant new ones," Scalia warns. "Don't think that it's a one-way street."
Yes, exactly. Read it again. HE'S SAYING THAT TAKING AWAY RIGHTS IS BAD. He's using the example of the Leftist USSC judges 'reading' rights into the consitution as WEAKENING it because if you can that easily add rights you can ipso facto 'read' them away...which is a BAD THING.
My god, Liberals are so fraking stupid when their dander is up. And you have the nuts to call Bush a self-righteous idiot?
-Styopa
... and what about the Barrett report? Domestic spying at it's finest! Clinton was such a constitutional angel!
up the thread they discussed this, the quote comes from http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/arti cle_7779.shtml
and the general opinion is that it is a editoral piece of fiction.
Extreme times call for Extreme measures, in the Protection of Democracy, Mr President?
Or shall we all lay down & let The Machine Kill Socrates Again?
V.
the string of very sad presidential leaders we've had over the past few decades (except president clinton) makes one wonder if it truly was such a great idea to take the hands of electing the president out of the hands of the state legislatures and into the hands of the people directly.
not to mention the 'flaws' of the electoral college system... while it is in question if gore would have won a 'fair' state wide recount vs bush, what is not in question is that if rather than an 'electoral college' the peoples votes actually were tallied and then counted reguardless of distrect or state that Gore would have won the election. Bush is the only president to ever be elected president while NOT WINNING THE POPULAR VOTE. 51% of america voted fore gore, 49% voted for bush, The problem is that the 51% were all clustered up in states like new york and california... so while the 'electoral college' vote went to bush, the popular vote went to gore.
recount shenanigans aside, Bush was elected by a jurymandered system where the unpopular man who has the right states by a close enough margin and the state's he looses in are landslides for his opponent can still win, no matter how many percentage points below his competitor he was.
51% of america wanted gore in 2000, but a few thousand of them lived in the wrong states at the time to make him president.
Here's how it will play out:
And that's the way it will stay as long as the American people expect their elected officials to behave lawfully rather than ethically. I agree with Bush; the constitution is "just a piece of paper". He should be held to a higher standard of accountability than that.
No. His insightful point was negated by his angry personal attack. I wish people could be more civil when online. Maybe once Trusted Computing becomes widespread, web sites can enforce a cooling-off period that must pass before one is allowed to reply to a comment?
You elected him because you were scared. Scared people do not act rationally. People who live in mortal fear choose the guy who talks and acts like a strong leader, regardless of the consequences.
Israelis vote for Ariel Sharon (a guy who's ready to wage war forever to keep East-Jerusalem and the main settlements in the west bank, even though most Israelis are not) because he shows "strength" against terrorists. Palestinians vote for Hamas (the guys who convinced Israelis that every Palestinian spends every waking minute devising new and interesting ways to kill Jews) because they showed "strength" against the occupier.
Americans voted for Bush because he showed "strength" against "terror" (a codeword meaning "all those dirty Arabs who don't like America"). "Bin Laden attacks us ! Quick, let's invade Iraq !" The obvious non-sequitur was quite simply disregarded, and countries which tried to point it out (such as France and Germany) were rewarded with the worst campaign of hate ever launched against allied countries.
Man is not a rational animal. Man is an animal capable of being rational, when they want to. People like Bush (or Ahmadinejad, for that matter) illustrate the gap between those two very different concepts.
Thomas-
"It's a time machine Napoleon, I bought it online."
Aw man! You guys had me all worked up! I was about ready to start calling all of my Libertarian buddies and fire off some nasty letters to Washington.
Then I read the actual New York Times article (the whole article) and find out that the names and phone numbers of these few hundred "Americans" were first retrieved from the cell phone and laptop of a captured Al Qaeda leader, and that they were only monitoring international communications, no domestic calls at all. And to top it off, the intel they got from this operation helped them catch a sleeper who was planning to bomb a New York bridge and subway.
So, they really did nothing wrong, immoral, or un-Constitutional at all. They are not "reading all of your email", and you have nothing to worry about unless Osama Bin Laden is in your IM Buddy list and you exchange recipies daily. If that is the case, let me know and I'll be glad to save the Men in Black the trouble and take care of you personally.
BTW... yes, I put the word American in parenthises above on purpose. Regardless of resident or birth status, anyone who helps foreign powers plot and commit acts of sabotage and mass murder against this country is a traitor and deserves prison or deportation at the very least. If they want to listen in on a few phone calls first, or even throw him in a hole for a few months to cook some intel out of him, that is fine by me.
Choose wisely, America! With all of the insanity that's been sweeping this country since 9-11, wha't s going to happen when (not if) a *real* Weapon of Mass Destruction is set off in the U.S.? As much as I sympathise for the tragic loss of life that would occur, I fear for the direction this country will take when that happens.
-G
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Journalists would have gone in iraq and showed that there were no wmd or that the aluminium pipes were not of the types to be used in nuclear weapons or that there was no yellow cake deal or.... No they were busy whipping patriotic feelings.
When is it last that NYT did some real investigative journalism and came promptly to the public about it ? I can't seem to remember !
It's from a column in Capitol Hill Blue called "The Rant" that seems to be satire or sarcasm; it does not seem to be real. Capitol Hill Blue published a lot of questionable stories that the rest of the media never picked up or even bothered to acknowledge, such as that Bush was popping pills like crazy and slipping into a paranoid delerium reminiscent of Richard Nixon; that he throws scary and obscene tirades (again, reminiscent of Nixon), and more. It's hard to tell if this stuff is a poor attempt at pulling the wool over people's eyes or some kind of obscure satire, though it certainly is repeated often enough on the internet. But in either case I would be hesitant about believing much of this stuff or spreading it around.
"Lemme see, the Iranian President has claimed that the Holocaust never happened. It was entirely made up by the media to gain support the Jews. He also states that Israel should be wiped off the map and moved to Europe or Alaska. In short, the guy is nuts [payvand.com]."
...or The American Government http://theage.com.au/news/world/cias-europe-operat ions-exposed/2005/12/14/1134500896433.html/, our public school system, and a few random lemmings on /.?
David Irving, bestselling author of Hitler's War and 30 other books, and the worlds most knowledgabe historian on WW2 has irrefutably proven the Auswitz gas chambers were a hoax. He is the only man on this planet that has interviewed every surving member of Hitler's SS. He was recently arrested for 'thought crimes' and is now facing 20 years imprisonment.
Who am I going to believe? David Irving, the worlds greatest expert on WW2,
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is no doubt a maniac, but he still commands more credit than you.
Bush is evil. All of the worst allegations are true.
Nothing was ever proven in a court of law against Clinton. Allegations don't count.
And let's not forget, long before the Patriot Act, there was the Omnibus Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, which sailed through Congress in the wake of Oklahoma City, and contained many restrictions on privacy and civil liberties in the name of fighting terrorism. I like the Clintonistas better than the current crop of imbeciles too, but let's not paint his administration as some kind of bastion of civil liberties.
I think everyone's feeling a little displaced.
I used to just disagree with the Republican party..now it just baffles and disgusts me.
I used to align myself more with the democrats, but they are all crooks and con artists too.
it really is a matter of "the lesser of 2 evils" but it's getting harder and harder to tell which is which.
but for all of us to argue and hate each other for who we voted for is ridiculous. we're all still American. and we're playing into the game. if we all hate each other and scream and holler like it's we're on the FOX news channel....we're playing into the game. we're not paying attention to what THEY are doing.
I live in texas. I'm voting for kinky friedman. if he can make it to governor...in texas...third parties have a chance.
plus having a jewish cowboy for gov would rule.
> Condoleezza Rice, said, 'The president acted lawfully in every step that he has taken.'
Of course, in American "lawful" & "loophole" are synonyms...
You could always vote Liberatarian if you don't hate gay people or want to overturn Roe vs. Wade.
Sorry. I just don't believe your numbers (i.e. the numbers provided by the Lancet study). My belief is that they are trumped up to justify an anti-war position.
As to Korea, if a country had acted on the violation of the Cease Fire, then we would not be having an issue with Korea over nuclear arms today.
Just confirms that slashdot's moderation system is messed up.
No actually, it is a quote confirmed from three sources.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Communism doesn't work and, no matter how much you warp reality to your viewpoint, it never will.
I think maybe now he's ignoring you because you're a moron. hehe. moron.
The direct parent, I mean.
The question isn't whether this is lawful. Unconstitutional laws are passed behind our backs all the time.
The REAL question is: are these laws constitutional?
You might as well be living on another planet. Wake up!!!!!
"That post was a rant, a sarcasm, a fiction, a collection of invented quotes."
No it wasn't. He confirmed it from multiple sources. Other people have reported it too.
You can stick your head in the sand but it doesn't make the world go away my friend.
evil is as evil does
If the NY Times held up the article "just cuz", then they are well on their way to losing any credibility they might have retained over the last few years given the serious lapses they've had in journalistic ethics.
Very nice Hakim.
I didn't even know you could pictures in gpg keys.
I learned something new.
Thanks!
P.S.
Is that really you?
No it wasn't. He confirmed it from multiple sources. Other people have reported it too.
Yeah, because, you know, it's very hard to find someone to go along with what you tell them to... I mean, it's not like you can slip someone a few bucks to "confirm" your story. That's never happpened!
You can stick your head in the sand but it doesn't make the world go away my friend.
And you can continue to believe whatever you like, that doesn't make it true, even when a WHOPPING THREE sources say it!
Let me get this straight...the president of the United States of America approved security agencies to eavesdrop on suspected terrorist communications in a period of time when we were at war against an enemy that refused to identify itself and chose to attack civilians. Said enemy also had obviously been communicating covertly in order to coordinate their surprise attacks.
Please let's don't forget that as a result of the attacks, airplanes across the US were grounded for a period of one(or two?) months in order to insure that there would be no further attacks.
In case people are not aware, the president is granted a very wide latitude in the event of a war. He is, after all, the leader of the country.
Clearly, the potential for abuse of the information is present, but it is extremely reckless for slashdot to post in the summary that the president had "unconstitutionally and illegally monitored international communications." Exactly the type of communication that would allow foreign-based terrorist organizations to coordinate further attacks.
I, for one, would be ashamed of our officials if they had _NOT_ monitored communications for just that type of traffic.
People don't seem to realize that we are in a war against an enemy that gladly gives its life to harm civilians who they see as complicitous to the US's national policies.
As I said the potential for abuse is high and such things need to be monitored, but to put forth a blanket accusation that the president performed illegal and unconstitutional acts is highly irresponsible!
I more or less consider myself a libertarian. A constitutionalist.
what a joke! libertarian's are cowards stuck in the middle, Not willing to get on board with a party and change it. If you are really a constitutionalist and belive in perserving the constitution, would it not make more sence to fight for and influance a real party. What would it be like if the 200,000 libertarians actualy joined a real party and started implementing change. This could be huge. But instead the libertarians continue to loose elections and inplement no real change or preservation of any thing. It seems pretty sad to me....
Yes. God forbid a politician think for him or her self, instead of doing what they are told. It's politicians like Lieberman (not that I'm a big fan) and McCain who stand up for what they believe in *despite* party affiliation that keeps me from losing respect for the political process entirely.
Give up the respect. The reality is that both McCain and Liberman are hypocrits, they go against their parties to get thier name in the media to benefit thier own political aspirations. Neither have strong convictions. Your use of them as an example only proves that their strategy works.
I happen to know that back in the (post-Watergate) Reagan 1980s, if any American citizen were to pick up the phone in Mao's office, and ring Brezhnev in the Kremlin for a chat, that the NSA was prohibited by law from intercepting that call. That's the way the law worked back then. (If you think of how NSA works, you can see how stupid this was.) I don't think the Clinton administration or anybody else changed this until after 9/11.
When I heard this story, it was pretty clear to me that this is what the Feds changed.
There's 9/11 and then there's bureaucrats. Thus I'll bet that the people bugging my telephone are from the FBI, not the NSA, simply because the bureau's "turf" is domestic and the other agencies "turf" is international. But what happens when an enemy has part of its operation based locally and another part based overseas? No doubt we need a THIRD set of bureaucrats to cover this contingency.
My experience was with the post-Watergate "reforms" of a generation ago and I thought then that they candicapped the intelligence community for no good reason. They didn't stop the Clintons from using those FBI files that came in so handy during Impeachment. My suspicion is that when DIA did the data mining project called "Able Danger" they used open records in such a way that they violated at least the spirit of the post-Watergate rules and thus the product was destroyed before it could be used to thwart the USS Cole bombing or 9/11.
The real problem is that you have one set of domestic rules that protect the accused of a crime, and necessity dictates that there be a second set of international rules that advance the interests of nations. We can pass laws locally to set the first set of rules, but we can't set the second set of rules without considering what other nation-states are doing against us. The rub comes when these two rules sets differ and get applied inconsistently.
Hitler acted lawfully in every step that he took as well. Look it up. It's true.
You can run but you can't hide, except, apparently, along the Afghan-Pakistani border.
Unless something new surfaces, it's not real. There have been three articles; the original that alleges three anonymous sources verified a quote, another article quoting the original article that cites the anonymous sources, and a rebuttal article from the original author defending his journalistic integrity, but without any new information on the story itself. On that same note, I have FOUR anonymous sources that confirm Doug Thompson is paid by FOX News to distract people from the real issues at hand with gossip and FUD.
How the hell do we consider the Constitution a good thing, when it allows a person like Bush to be elected into power in the first place?
It didnt though, thats the thing. His 'election' was neither democratic nor constitutional. It was in every sense of the term a coup d'état, where the correct and legal processes were ignored and the 'president' siezed power by some criminal means. Many coups have the military taking control, arresting and executing dissidents, and appointing their own representive as President ( as was the case with Pakistan in October 1999 ), Bush though was granted the position via the Supreme Court who suspended the democratic electoral process, and 'awarded' the office of president to him.
The correct course of action to take in these circumstances were for Bush, his party members, and the Supremes to be placed under arrest on charges of High Treason ; obviously the law was not followed and hence America has suffered under a defacto dictatorship since that date.
If you still dont believe America to be a dictatorship then ask yourself why Bush is seemingly able to commit treasonous crimes against his countrymen with impunity, when previous democratically elected presidents would have been imprisoned for doing the merest fraction of what Bush has done.
And revise your understanding of what constitutes a dictatorship.
is that you were given the constitutional right to bear arms for a reason....
Because neither of your parties support the constitution. You both complain about the other invading the bank accounts or privacy or autonomy of the citizens, yet you each reach into the bank accounts, violate the privacy and override the autonomy of the citizens. Libertarians and consitutionalists would prefer to stand on the ideals that the country and freedom was supposedly founded on rather than compromise our ideals just so we can join the parties with existing influence that clearly can't handle their influence without corruption.
Remember: Never talk with your mouth full!
Bush: 'I did not SPY on That particular woman.'
And what are those sources? The rant in question doesn't mention any sources at all, doesn't even acknowledge that there was a source. There's not an "unknown sources say..." or even a "I heard from a friend that...". Instead he just blurts out a fake quote.
So what are those sources? Name them. Show us reputable evidence for all of those quotes.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Libertarians and consitutionalists would prefer to stand on the ideals that the country and freedom was supposedly founded on
The Libertarian party will never gain a base that can perserve constitutinal ideals. One of the main reasons is what you just said, (supposedly founded on) If you cant bring your self to realize that this country was founded on the idals of liberty, freedom and justice; ideals that are worth fitting for. From what I see Libertarians sit on the side lines and complain about the other parties. They have the base to make a difference but choose not to. They are not about perserving constitutinal ideals, If they were they would fight to make a difference. How man Libertarians hold seats in congress? 0 You can say you want to preserve and protect the constitution but Libertarians just want to try and stand out from everyone with out having to take command of the things that need to be done. This way they can always complain and never have to take responsability.
Let me get this straight. . .
You actually believe that the powers that be weren't lying through their teeth about how the whole 9/11 thing went down? The President is a confirmed manipulative liar. Anybody who hasn't figured that one out is being deliberately dense. Heck, there's a Slashdot article to that effect in today's edition.
9/11 was committed under the sanction and direction of U.S. powers so as to forward the current war and social control agendas. Again, anybody who hasn't figured that one out is being deliberately ignorant.
-FL
Armchair theorists seem to consistently trip over this little aspect of reality. In their dear little heads, everything works according to the instruction manuals and the news casts. Because there's no power to be had in, oh, LYING to people, is there?
-FL
can you deny this resemblance, hmmm?
http://kimbriggs.com/images/jaba-hill.jpg
If anybody wants real information about how many Jews were killed in the holocaust, they can get more information at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Also, here is a project for collecting all the names of holocaust victims
I don't think pursuing the death penalty in a criminal case would help to heal this country. Plus the the death penalty is immoral. Yes, Bush and Cheney should be arrested and charged. But with what?
The most serious crime, in my opinion, is gross criminal negligence resulting in death (manslaughter).
Gross negligence: (1) Ignoring the fact that Iraq was not a clear and present danger, as was obvious even before the war because the intelligence against Iraq was known to be weak even then. (2) Ignoring the advice of professional military planners to use 400k+ troops, which resulted in a complete inability to Secure the country. As a result American troops are picked off daily years after the invasion, and civilians massacred routinely by an enemy that was never beaten.
Therefore Bush and Cheney should face manslaughter charges for each and every American and Iraqi civilian death because they recklessly and unnecessarily created the situation in which these people died.
Unless there is a known subject of an intercept all recording are just stored for later interpretation. Lots of US citizens calls/e-mails are in intel bulk storage. It's what you can do with that information that most laws govern. The NSA is like a massive ringbuffer of data. I sure that Jane Fonda's phone calls from Hanoi are still there.
In GOD we trust, all others we monitor.
"And you can continue to believe whatever you like, that doesn't make it true, even when a WHOPPING THREE sources say it!"
Dude Bush went to war with less then three sources saying Saddam was going to nuke NY.
evil is as evil does
Yes, we did, google for Scarfo. Thanks.
And today, you've got Democrats standing up to oppose the renewal of the USA PATRIOT Act.
With the assistance of a few republicans who are trying to distance themselves from a lame duck president. It's the same ol' song and dance.
Republicans and Democrats aren't the same, and we don't need a third party. We just need a government that gives a shit about civil rights.
You won't get that until you have real competition. Real competition won't be possible without real election reform. Real election reform is on *EVERY* third parties' list of 'things to do' because the current system is so unfair to anyone not belonging to one of the two major parties. So here's how it works... get a third party's foot in the door, push for election reform. Then maybe, just maybe, we'll get a politician we *want* to vote for, rather than a choice of "Satan-R" or "Lucifer-D".
... because somewhere between 500 and a couple of thousand people with possible / likely connections to terrorists didn't (allegedly) have all of the needed paperwork for proper surveillance filled out by the government?
Paperwork? Paperwork? Paperwork?! That "paperwork" you casually mention is the rule of law that separates us from the land of police-state Do-As-You-Please. There's a difference between being accused of a crime and convicted of one; no matter what the crime, it is never sensible to treat the former group as the latter.
I'm aghast. Are you bloody serious? By you, arresting and holding someone with neither charges nor a warrant is just a paperwork problem? Look at what you've become! If standing behind your president means a casual dismissal of the thin but so, so vital line separating us from rule-by-Kingly fiat... shouldn't that set off some kind of warning sign?
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
I couldn't have written it better.
All the debate that's happened here, and this story was a media ploy all along. It appears that "The once grey lady" of the New York Times shows how transparent it's become at propoganda.
http://drudgereport.com/flash9nyt.htm
Yes, this whole thing was a farce; that article was to promote a book.
This is what I'm talking about. Very nearly 50% of Americans have been convinced, despite clear history to the contrary, that America is *the* preiminent source of evil in this world. If you think it is, you've been programmed, period.
Who's maintaining the Geneva Convention? America, Australia, Britain, maybe Canada? Everyone else, it seems uses wholesale torture and could care less. Well today McCain just bound our hands EVEN FURTHER by legislation intended to make him president. Worse yet, the fact there IS legislation suggests we use torture as a daily constitutional or something.
We lost 40,000 men pushing Hitler's troops out of France, for example; little boys, who's life was just starting...given a gun and told to climb the hedgerows. Now, France acts as if doing so for their freedom was an imposition. They didn't feel that way when the survivors liberated them.
These are end-times. You should already know that by now. Things are about to spiral out of control, helped partially by the press who'd sell out their own country for the sake of a political ideology. So now we're evil, now we need to be stopped, and Bush is a terrorist for giving freedom to oppressed people.
Well, believe it, if you must.
--- For a good time mail uce@ftc.gov
Is there any objective way to measure how effective President Bush's methods have been. Putting aside the unconstitutional nature and invasion of privacy; have these tactics actually produced the intended results or do they just take us back to 1984 for no apparent reason?
Then NY Times has placed you on a list of people who read the articles that may go against the ideas of the current ruling party. Then your IP may be traced from each location in which you use your NY Times account and this data can be used to triangulate your expected position. The men in black will come snatch your body next time you're on wireless network X in your favorite internet cafe. You will disappear without a trace, and so mandatory registration to read articles will once again serve its purpose.
If that doesn't happen before you get this, could you post some of the wording in the manual for the less google-savvy types such as myself to read? Cheers
I'll be your candy shop of infinite deliciousity if you'll be my discotheque of endless rump-shaking.
Bush wouldn't lie? Come on, that would be like Bush spending money like crazy, or corruption skyrocketing, or pork spending going through the roof, or Iraq collapsing into civil war, or the US torturing people in Saddam's torture facilities, or the US using chemical weapons on civilians in Fallujah -- that stuff only happens in reality, and reality isn't real if you snort Bush's cocaine.
Because Americans, in general, are dumb.
Don't get me wrong, it's a large country. There are many intelligent, decent people... just not enough of them to make a difference. Your fellow citizens re-elected him. If anyone is to blame, it's yourselves.
"Bush alienated every country except Britain getting us into Iraq."
You are the moron, MechaS. Don't think my sympathies lie with Kafka_Canada. God, you have just proven my point, you are too incompetent to understand how the Slashdot posting system works. My parent post is Kafka_Canada, you fscking moron. There are many ways that you can figure this out, but you would have to be halfway, just halfway competent, to pull it off. You are a perfect example of neocon idiocy crashing through life with blinders on and experiencing your own highly subjective reality. idiot.
Germany, to the dismay of the local population and of people in the Balkans, sent troops out of their country since WWII
So tell your ass to shut up, it is not very accurate.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
They would consider real sex only intercourse using the genital area.
Clinton was using that in a slimey way to get out of trouble.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
under a 2002 presidential order, the National Security Agency has been unconstitutionally and illegally monitoring international communications of hundreds in the U.S. When asked about the programme on U.S. TV, the Secretary of StateM, Condoleezza Rice, said, 'The president acted lawfully in every step that he has taken.'
If the reply in regards to something illegal was "Everything we did was legal" isn't it getting just a bit ridiculous? Wtf is going on!? Is everyone brainwashed?!?
But you talk as though you think I am a proponent of the left. That is the problem with most Republican supporters. Their only defense is holding up the left and pointing out how bad they are. There is hardly a dime's worth of difference between the left and big-government anti-states-rights Republicans are extremely dishonest for attacking the left with their own tyrant in the white house.
You think foreign countries aren't listening in on your communications?
Why should anyone on slashdot care? You guys don't know how to properly encrypt your email, voice comms, wifi, internet traffic? Probably not ... you're just a bunch of
nerd wannabees.
Let me only do a little cut'n'paste correction
to get the cause and effect right:
The Supreme Court appointed noone.
Since Bush was ahead at the time,
They just told Florida they couldn't waste any more time on recounting since their needed to be an answer immediately (which was perfectly fine).
He was certified as the winner of Florida and thus won the election as a whole.
...that is, may those who have undermined the national security of the United States be prosecuted. As amply demonstrated by the NYT and the Plame incident, those involved in this leak should be jailed.
The President's response, delivered live during the weekly radio address, if anyone in the radical privocracy cares to know:
"In the weeks following the terrorist attacks on our nation, I authorized the National Security Agency, consistent with U.S. law and the Constitution, to intercept the international communications of people with known links to al Qaeda and related terrorist organizations. Before we intercept these communications, the government must have information that establishes a clear link to these terrorist networks.
This is a highly classified program that is crucial to our national security. Its purpose is to detect and prevent terrorist attacks against the United States, our friends and allies. Yesterday the existence of this secret program was revealed in media reports, after being improperly provided to news organizations. As a result, our enemies have learned information they should not have, and the unauthorized disclosure of this effort damages our national security and puts our citizens at risk. Revealing classified information is illegal, alerts our enemies, and endangers our country.
As the 9/11 Commission pointed out, it was clear that terrorists inside the United States were communicating with terrorists abroad before the September the 11th attacks, and the commission criticized our nation's inability to uncover links between terrorists here at home and terrorists abroad. Two of the terrorist hijackers who flew a jet into the Pentagon, Nawaf al Hamzi and Khalid al Mihdhar, communicated while they were in the United States to other members of al Qaeda who were overseas. But we didn't know they were here, until it was too late.
The authorization I gave the National Security Agency after September the 11th helped address that problem in a way that is fully consistent with my constitutional responsibilities and authorities. The activities I have authorized make it more likely that killers like these 9/11 hijackers will be identified and located in time. And the activities conducted under this authorization have helped detect and prevent possible terrorist attacks in the United States and abroad.
The activities I authorized are reviewed approximately every 45 days. Each review is based on a fresh intelligence assessment of terrorist threats to the continuity of our government and the threat of catastrophic damage to our homeland. During each assessment, previous activities under the authorization are reviewed. The review includes approval by our nation's top legal officials, including the Attorney General and the Counsel to the President. I have reauthorized this program more than 30 times since the September the 11th attacks, and I intend to do so for as long as our nation faces a continuing threat from al Qaeda and related groups.
The NSA's activities under this authorization are thoroughly reviewed by the Justice Department and NSA's top legal officials, including NSA's general counsel and inspector general. Leaders in Congress have been briefed more than a dozen times on this authorization and the activities conducted under it. Intelligence officials involved in this activity also receive extensive training to ensure they perform their duties consistent with the letter and intent of the authorization.
This authorization is a vital tool in our war against the terrorists. It is critical to saving American lives. The American people expect me to do everything in my power under our laws and Constitution to protect them and their civil liberties. And that is exactly what I will continue to do, so long as I'm the President of the United States."
"Me fail English? That's unpossible." - Ralph
Um, yeah.
And we authorized the Pearl Harbor attack, made sure that Stalin killed hundreds of thousands of Russians, coerced Hitler into initiating the Holocaust (which the Iranian president seems to think was just another day at the office)
Oh yeah, we also intentionally destroyed two space shuttles and caused both hurricane Katrina and the Sumatra tsunami.
Just in case you don't exclusively get your facts from the NY or LA Times, you might want to check out the PBS specials about 9/11. Therein it is shown how that threat grew from the seeds of a Saudi elite that fought against Russia in Afghanistan and how Bin-Laden had been looking for years to find a way to strike out at the infidel West.
Any blame we have regarding 9/11 had very little if anything to do with the current administration. He just happened to be sitting in the chair when all the crap hit the fan.
Where do you get your facts? This president has said that the info he got post 9/11 was inaccurate regarding Iraq, but the info he got was the best we had at the time. That was due primarily to the Clinton administration hamstringing the ability of our intelligence agencies to use human intelligence resources on the air and rely almost exclusively on surveillance photos.
If you want to focus on the bad things that were going on, let's look at the UN's corrupt "Food for Oil" program that was being used to line the pockets and coffers of Hussein...let's look at a government that was paying $25000 to each family of a Palestinian suicide bomber (a fortune to them)...let's look at the Iraqi gov't using biological weapons on their own people!
And let's look at an enemy that wants nothing more than to destroy the West at any cost!!!
The problem with the world isn't what people believe to be true, it's that what they believe just isn't true.
I'm not an american, and I have not been following this closely, but every sentence in the article above says 'americans' will not torture etc. Should it not be "America will not use torture nor support its use" or something like that? You know, can they outsource torture and still be compliant with this law?
Section 209 of the USA Patriot (http://www.epic.org/privacy/terrorism/hr3162.html ) redefines "wire communication" in Title 18 of the United States Code (http://www.access.gpo.gov/uscode/title18/parti_ch apter119_.html) so that it strikes out the part saying "and such term includes any electronic storage of such communication" from the definition.
Sec. 2511 (http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cg i?dbname=browse_usc&docid=Cite:+18USC2511) of the Title 18, United States Code states, "Interception and disclosure of wire, oral, or electronic communications is prohibited."
Because electronic storage of wire communication was stricken from that definition, the USA PATRIOT allowed electronic storage of intercepted wire communication. Thus, recorded wiretapping was made legal by the USA PATRIOT Act.
However, the changing of this definition, and thus the legality of recorded wiretapping, expires December 31, 2005. Now I'll examine the punishment for this once the USA PATRIOT Act expires.
Sec. 2511 of the Title 18, United States Code:
"Except as otherwise specifically provided in this chapter any person who intentionally intercepts, endeavors to intercept, or procures any other person to intercept or endeavor to intercept, any wire, oral, or electronic communication
shall be punished as provided in subsection (4) or shall be subject to suit as provided in subsection (5)."
In the intervening space, it mentions how using mechanical devices, ala wiretapping, to get this information is illegal.
Subsection 4 says "Except as provided in paragraph (b) of this subsection or in subsection (5), whoever violates subsection (1) of this section shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both."
Unless Bush stops the recorded wiretapping by the end of the year, he could be fined or go to jail, for procuring the recorded wiretapping.
Now, paragraph B makes an exception to that punishment for first-time offenders who are not wiretapping or procuring wiretapping for illegal purposes or commercial gain. Bush is not a firsttime offender because he has authorized the NSA to wiretap 30 times since September 11, 2001.
I'm guessing, if the NSA is found to keep wiretapping past 2005, the result will be Bush getting fined. I'm examining subsection 5 now. Paragraph A states that an unscrambled, unencypted, private satellite video communication being tapped will result in the wiretapper or the person that procures that wiretapper being subject to suit.
Paragraph B of subsection 5 states that if Bush has procured wiretapping unscrambled and unencrypted American radio communications within frequencies allocated by the Federal Communications Commission, he's also subject to lawsuit. When the USA Patriot Act expires, of course.
The section of the FCC's rules they refer to in Paragraph B of Subsection 5, subpart D of part 74, is listed here, with subpart D being numbers 74.401 to 74.482:
http://www.hallikainen.com/FccRules/2006/74/
In conclusion, in addition to being fined or sent to jail, if the NSA keeps wiretapping past 2005, George W. Bush is subject to lawsuit by the Federal Government.
I think that George Bush could avoid it, however, by argueing against the interpretation of the word "procure." (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=procure)
If George Bush has procured another person to wiretap, meaning "to
The operative part that it violates here is that they must "particularly [describe] the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." If the U.S. President is allowing for surveillance and searches without search warrants through a FISA court, then he is clearly violating the 4th ammendment. I'm not sure how you could spin it otherwise!
So my question is: can a Presidential Order override the U.S. Constitution? And if not, how can the President be stopped from violating the 4th ammendment?
TBSDY
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Don't we have an independant investigator Fitzpatrick actively investigating CIA leaks to the press? Doesn't this story qualify? Are we going to see fair and equal treatment? Are we that complacent that as a public we can tolerate leaks of classified information to the New York Times intentionally and at the author's whim? Also why are congressmen who were fully aware of what was going on suddenly "shocked" and "disgusted" at this "inappropriate" behavior they have had a hand in all along? It was the government that approved the NSA to spy on international calls, which should be devoid of constitutional protection in my book.. especially if the signal is interecepted outside the jurisdiction of the United States.
Any fool can criticise, condemn, and complain, and most fools do. - Benjamin Franklin
The mind boggles when you realise that this isn't enough for Bush! Apparently, the President should be able to do as he pleases without any checks or balances applying. It was only just the other day that I heard that he and Condeleeza Rice outlawed the CIA from committing torture! This was done reluctantly, because Rice told the EU that it was "stopping terrorists" and that the EU should be grateful for extraordinary rendition of non-U.S. citizens on non-U.S. soil!
The land of the free indeed.
TBSDY
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
They do. This is classed as "foreign intelligence", and is covered under Title II of the USA PATRIOT Act. "Foreign intelligence" is further defined in section 3 of the National Security Act of 1947 (20 U.S.C. 401a) They still need to go through a FISA court. More info can be found here.
TBSDY
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
I would definitely encourage you to research further. It took me a bloody long time to get my head around Title II, so if you want to see what I found out, have a look here. Heck, if you're that keen, then why don't you help out? I need to document what the EFF says about the title, what the ACLU says about it and what the U.S. Govt says about it.
Be aware that there were three cases before the United States District Courts before section 213 (Authority for delaying notice of the execution of a warrant) amended the US Code to allow the notification of search warrants to be delayed: United States v. Freitas, 800 F.2d 1451 (9th Cir. 1986); United States v. Villegas, 899 F.2d 1324 (2d Cir. 1990); and United States v. Simons, 206 F.3d 392 (4th Cir. 2000). Each determined that, under certain circumstances, it was not unconstitutional to delay the notification of search warrants.
TBSDY
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
not to mention the 'flaws' of the electoral college system..
*** sigh ***
OK, since you still don't seem to get it, I'll use a sports analogy, and then maybe even you will be able to grok it.
See, presidential elections are like the World Series. It's not who get's the most runs ('votes'), it who wins the most games ('states'). So just like how a team can score more runs over the seven game series, and still lose the series becaues its GAMES that counts, someone can be elected president by winning more states (electoral votes) even though his total runs (votes) was less.
Mod down people who tell people how to mod in their sigs
...United States of America is now a banana republic...
Right. And true democracies are never crooked, are they? Our elections are only crooked because we have a democratic republic. Your statement is spoken like a true non-American who's apparently ignorant of the purposes for the Electoral College as designed by the "founding fathers".
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
I'm just saying that the college is just getting in the way now, despite what intentions had the founding fathers.
One person, one vote. That way it should be.
There are no UN Resolutions explicitly authorizing either US or NATO military action in the former Yugoslovia as there were with the recent Iraq War (key phrase "serious consequences" - diplo-doubletalk for WAR)
23 Sept. 1998: UN Security Council Resolution 1199 does not authorize military action ... the Iraq War phrase "serious consequences" is missing
24 Mar. 1999: The Kosovo air war begins.
Three-months elapse
10 Jun. 1999: After NATO's unilateral not authorized by the UN attack of Serbia, the UN kinda gets around to authorizing what has already happened as things are winding down dead UN link ... alternate link
20 Jun. 1999: The Kosovo air war ends
FICTION - "We are *done* in Kosovo." Visit the US Army Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo *today* as in like *not* done
TRUTH - "We have had no combat fatalities in Kosovo. We are done and the war is over. Service people have died, but not because of enemy combatants and insurgents"
Having never deployed any ground troops to the combat zone there were no US combat deaths.
partial FICTION - "Clinton never lied to the American people, and never relied on cooked up intelligence to sell the war. We went in to stop genocide and get rid of the bad guy. We did just that."
If "Bush Lied" on Iraq then so did these characters, Clinton included. Rather funny to see what Clinton & Co said about Iraq & Saddam. Reads identical to what Bush2 was saying.
I will not dwell upon the domestic aspects of Clinton lying or otherwise although "[Clinton] admitted that he had made false statements under oath [lying] about his relationship with the former White House intern [in the context of a sexual harassment lawsuit] and surrendered his law license for five years" CBS News
I believe Juanita
Fine. What is the *real nature* of the conflict we face?
First, let me thank you for a well reasoned response. Please don't mistake that for agreeing with you. But I do appreciate the tone and depth. Now to the meat...
Few things are pure. That includes military, political, or religious responses, while we are on this planet. The military response from me was motivated primarily by the talk of training terrorists and some other comments I read on this article's thread. The solution for America and for the world is not just as simple as pulling America out of Iraq and ceasing all support for Israel. I wish it were that simple, even if I do not agree that we should abandon Israel to the mercy of its enemies. And make no mistake, there will be no peace there whether with our without America involved.
But, even if we did do the above, we and the world would still be a target for the current extreme Islamic leaders and nations. Do you really think that there is anything that prevent a fully nuclear capable Iran from unleashing an atomic salvo against nations that it contends are "satan"?
Something that our presence in Iraq provides is the ability to increase our intelligence (a lack of which led to a failure to find alleged weapons of mass destruction, in Iraq) and to our ability to respond if needed. I doubt you would agree with any American military response. But understand the need for that ability in this world.
I must go now. The family requires my presence. But perhaps I can continue my response to you post, in the very near future.
You have got to admit, there hasn't been a terrorist attack on our soil since 9/11 for a reason. President Bush has been using his power wisely.
The first statement is true... but the conclusion is rather specious. it's equivalent to me saying that I have a force field that keeps the terrorists away. Besides, 9/11 was the first catastrophic "terrorist" attack on American soil EVER. If that trend had continued, we'd have had another attack in the year 2300 or so. Not having one in four years is good, but doing nothing would likely have achieved the same result. It doesn't automatically mean that Bush and company are doing something right, just that they aren't screwing up in a manner that is causing more attacks on American soil. However, worldwide terrorism has made a dramatic jump since this mess began, and international lives are just as important as American lives.
Face it, there are 100X MORE "terrorists" now then there were when Bush took office. They are a product of Bush's actions. When we piss people off, they get pissed off and fight us. Sure, there are some radical idealogs in the world like Osama bin Laden and George W, but for the most part people keep to themselves until you bomb them.
I'd be a bit more hesitant to say that increasing worldwide terrorism so dramatically is using power wisely.
Looking at the internet, it seems I was wrong. The movie "Swordfish" has one of its characters claiming this event, but it is probably not factual.
The radical sect of Islam would either see you dead or "reverted" to Islam.
Bush: Wiretapping? Wiretapping?
c t/2005/12/bush_impeachment_hearing.html
Sorry, couldn't resist. =)
Son, we live in a world that has liberals.
And those liberals have to be stopped by men with wiretaps.
Who's gonna do it? You?
You, swiftboat Kerry?
I have a greater responsitivity to defend our oil interests than you can possibly fathom.
You weep for the Constitution and you curse the NSA. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing how much I don't know: that the Constitution's death, while tragic, probably gave record profits to the oil companies.
And my reelection, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves profits... (read more) http://www.onlinepokercenter.com/blogs/poker_addi