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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.'"
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.
lawfully != ethically
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.
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~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
I think what she means is: "Since the president defines what is legal, then what the president does, is, by definition, legal." Very much in keeping with the administration's claims of "Presidential Infalibility".
I am not a crackpot.
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
Do you, GOP fans, want the NSA reading your email?
You don't think that didn't happen with the presidents "offical" aproval? Let's not get out of hand here.
But we already know what will happen, the Dems will take the presidents office in 2008 maybe and the same crap will be pulled but instead we'll just have the other half saving the same thing...
Washington is not going to change until you get some real competition in there and that means a third party. If we don't get motivated to throw another party into the mix and force parties to do more than lie and smile we're just going to have the same thing again and again, a new Waco, a new 9/11, a new Watergate, a new infringement somewhere somehow and the finger pointing will continue and so will business as usual.
You don't seriously think a Democrat is any more forthright than a Republican? Hell, they feed off each other and at the same time use each other as crutches. They know and accept this business deal. They know people accept them as the only game in town.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
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.
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?
Where are Dubya's defenders now?
Waiting for the retraction in the NYT in a couple of weeks.
if you've heard the rhetoric coming out of Iran (from their president no less) directed towards Israel, you'll understand why he's behind our military's occupation of that region.
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.
A commentator wrote an article in the Chicago Sun Times this morning that pretty well covered how it's going to go down:
1. The US has used up its "attack bad country" card for the time being, so they won't do anything.
2. Israel will take the threat seriously and bomb the hell out of Iran's caches of missiles and nuclear weapons facilities.
3. The UN will make more pointless resolutions condemning Israel.
Sound about right?
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Yeah, Martin Luther King wasn't doing a thing illegal. He didn't have anything to worry about from the FBI's surveillance, because the government has always acted in a proper and lawful manner.
The principle here is that the United States constitution should be inviolable. It's a pretty good framework. It guarantees a few nice things like freedom of speech and religion, a fair trial by jury with the burden of proof on the prosecution if you are accused of a crime, and the prohibition of cruel or excessive punishment if you are convicted of that crime.
Freedom from warrantless searches got put in there too. It did not get put there for no reason-surveillance of what you are doing, whether it's a search of your home or interception of your communications, is a violation of your basic rights. Sometimes it is called for due to probable cause that you have committed a crime. In that case, you go to a judge, and that judge reviews your evidence. If (s)he decides that you are correct and the search is called for, a warrant will be issued. That's the purpose of judicial review-an impartial judge must approve acts via due process of law that would normally be a direct violation of your rights, such as requiring you to pay a fine, imprisoning you, or conducting searches and surveillance.
I do not -just- oppose these measures on the grounds that I don't want to be watched even -when- I have nothing to hide, although that's most certainly part of it. I oppose it on the grounds that those Constitutional guarantees are the very reason that America is referred to as the "land of the free"-and every time one gets subverted, that becomes less true. That is a reason. If you don't care, that is your right. But don't expect those of us who -do- happen to like our freedom to stand by and watch while it's chipped away piece by piece.
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
I'm as much a Bush hater as anyone else.. and I loved Clinton, but his administration supported things like ECHELON, DMCA, and the Clipper Chip. That doesn't mean that all Democrats are anti-privacy, of course.. and the triangulation wing of the Democratic party is going out of style.
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.
Hint: It's in the Bill of Rights. The problem is that often the government will block anyone from taking it to court if they haven't actually been affected. The people who are affected probably don't know it or if they do, are in prison without access to the courts.
"No matter what your opinion of Bush, the author comes out looking slimy. In my opinion, deservedly so"
no, the author comes out looking like instead of writing an article about it and letting it devolve into the standard fox/nyt fight back and forth, he chose to sit back and research the shit out of it, then publish something that cannot be brushed away, something thorough and well reasoned.
until we know the exact circumstances of the editorial decision not to print a year ago, it would be inappropriate to label the move opportunistic, well, any more opportunistic than a republican criticisng a liberal for sleazy business practices.
They said that they delayed a year to do more research. DOESNT IT SEEM LIKELY THAT A YEAR'S WORTH OF RESEARCH MIGHT PRODUCE ENOUGH MATERIAL FOR A BOOK!!??? I for one, think it just might.
And another thing, the NYT article very gingerly mentioned that the white house asked them not to publish. doesnt it seem likely that such a request, from the executive branch of the federal govt might make a paper a little hesitant to rush off and go shouting that the pres. had been violating the constitution and his oath of office? It would make ME slow down and do some research, that's for fucking sure.
Gettting a full book's worth of info and then putting that out there is a much less easily dismissed statement than a few articles. Given the Bush administration's ability to talk its way out of immediate criticism of gross misconduct, I'd say that the NYT's actions were the only reasonable response to white house pressure not to publish.
Come read my stupid blagablog. Rants and Giggles
Sorry, no. Previous Presidents ordered the NSA not to spy on Americans because they took an oath to "preserve, protect, and defend the Constititution" Presumably that includes obeying it, since the Office of the Presidency only has power by virtue of it. The 4th Amendment states "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated"
A person's communications are his effects, even if they are not papers. Paper was the only external data recording and transmission medium available to the Founders. They would surely have included electronic communications today.
said the holocaust never happened
:P
Not quite. He called it a myth, claiming that not nearly as many people were killed as is commonly claimed (which is a common position to take in Iran). Not that Ahmadinejad isn't a rather disturbing character. It shows how poorly the "Domino Theory" for the middle east went, when someone like Khatami was replaced by someone like Ahmadinejad. The guy is frightening even to many Iranian hardliners because he's a follower of Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah-Yazdi, a supporter of the Hojjatieh movement with close ties to the Haqqani theological school. The movement is based on the goal of bringing about the return of the 12th Imam by creating chaos on Earth, and was used by the Shah to try to wipe out the Bahai faith. I sincerely hope that he's not a member of the Hojjatieh movement. At least Ahmadinejad has stressed the importance of development and justice to bring about the Imam's return.
What a disturbing inverse-domino-theory this turned out to be
Man on crucifix terrorizes church, demands they eat his flesh and blood. Details at 11.
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!
As someone who has studies WWII in a great deal of depth, I would agree that the Holocaust *as we generally think of it* is a product of late war and post war propaganda. Furthermore, this has generally been exacerbated by research by Jewish scholars who are primarily interested in the experiences of their relatives. Not that this scholarship is incorrect-- it is just incomplete and people assume that the limited point of view (i.e. the Jewish experience in the camps) is the entire view. The real horrors of the work and death camps take shape only when the full scope of what happened there become known and parallels are drawn to the kinder, gentler genocides that were being quietly perpetrated in this country, in Canada, in the UK and elsewhere.
I am not one to speculate on figures-- what do the numbers matter anyway? What difference does it make if it were five hunderd thousand, six million, or fifteen million? The horrors of the death camps were systematic and independant of the number of those that lost their lives there.
The concentration camps were an integral part of the Nazi political machine. They were used to threaten those they wanted to join the party. They were used to get rid of dissidents. They were used to suppress any possible alternative political voice and so every nationalist organization unafilliated with the Nazis was generally banned by Himmler (examples included the Guido von List Gesselshaft, the Armanenshaft, and many others, some of which have survived to this day). Such bans were in effect regardless of whether the group opposed the Nazis or not. Indeed, I believe that the strategy was to use ethnic minorities (most notably Jews and Gypsies) as examples which could be used to threaten or intimidate the other citizens of the Reich into fearful loyalty to the Nazi party. In many ways, this is more horrifying than if it were simply a matter of racial hatred.
We should not forget so easily that genocidal programs were in effect in the US, and that some of the same ethnic groups that were targetted in the Third Reich were targetted here (most notably the Roma/Gypsies), mostly through forced sterilization. Such practices were common in the US, Canada, and the UK. Sure we didn't kill these people in mass numbers, but this doesn't make these actions any less evil. Similarly, a large number of techniques were employed to destroy the Native Americans as a cohesive social unit. These incldued some forced sterilizations, but also systematic attacks on native languages and culture. The institutional focus on the destruction of native languages and culture have remained in effect in this country through at least the early Clinton years (I do not know if anything has changed since 1994-- I believe it has but I have seen no concrete evidence that this is true).
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