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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/
The senate recently rejected extensions to the patriot act.
Thanks, Drudge Report.
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.
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.
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!
"Both political parties and the media are far to the right of the general population on a whole host of issues. And the population is just disorganized, atomized... And that's why the media and campaigns keep away from (political) issues. They know that on issues, they're going to lose people. So therefore you have... George Bush... this pampered kid who came from a rich family and went to prep school and an elite university. And you have to present him as an ordinary guy who makes grammatical errors, which I'm sure he's trained to make--he didn't talk that way at Yale--and a fake Texas twang, and he's off to his ranch to cut brush or something. It's like a toothpaste ad. And I think a lot of people know it."
A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals...
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?
Uhh... how is that even remotely similar to secret wiretaps performed by the government at the behest of the leadership?
Seriously... the politics in all countries are fucked up (and probably appears doubly so if you happen not to lean in the direction of the existing leadership *cough*conservatives*cough*), but at least in Canada, the government respects the rights of it's citizens (or did you forget about those post/9-11 omnibus security bills that got shot down because of fear of human rights violations?) Seriously, say what you want about Canadian politics, but it's a far FAR cry from what's going on down south right now.
Oh, and as a side note, remember who it was that wanted to take Canada to war based on false intelligence... those 'scary' conservatives.
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.
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
You sound like an armchair fiscal conservative.
I suggest you travel the world a little and see how different political systems pan out. You will probably come to the realization that:
1. Communism doesn't work. Old News.
2. Capitalist countries with social services and little governmental corruption do the best for their average citizen -- i.e. Japan, Australia, Northern European countries. They have a large middle class, with social mobility.
3. Purely capitalist countries fare the worst -- they have no middle class. Most of the people live literally on the street or in shanties -- I'm not talking crazy homeless guy, but mom, dad, and kids. There is a small class of wealthy elite who run the entire economy and government, and they keep it all for themselves. It never trickles down. They have unchecked power, and they have no interest in letting go of *any* of their power and money.
You want to know what country has the most productive economy? Finland. Yes, Finland, a country with cradle-to-grave social services. It also has a high standard of living and a large middle class.
I'm sick of these neocon hucksters trying to destroy the middle class. If you like corruption and business elites running everything, MOVE TO SOUTH AMERICA. You are trying to destroy the American dream. You and your ilk have worn out your welcome.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
The difference between this and FISA is that FISA requires prior approval by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, FISC, as you would have known had you actually read the first three lines of the page you linked to:
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Requests are adjudicated by a special eleven member court called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
These taps were done without any judicial permission, which even FISA requires. The time required for a FISC approval (as short as a few hours if a case is urgent) was claimed to be too short, justifiying this.
One of the things I find most worrying about the entire thing, though, is summed up in this statement by Trent Lott:
``I want my security first. I'll deal with all the details after that.''
(see e.g. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&s
I don't want any man who puts security before freedom in my government. If I lived in Mississippi I'd try to do something about him; alas, I live in Utah, so I've got Orrin Hatch to worry about.
Be a PATRIOT--because the only thing we have to fear is the lack thereof.