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.'"
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http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/12/15/torture.bil l/index.html, which basically says that the Nuremburg trials are no longer valid precedents for US law.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
"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.
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"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
What the fuck is wrong with this country?
I'm calling bullshit. It's easy to respond to these outrages by saying that Republicans and Democrats are all the same. But you didn't see any violations of privacy under Clinton. And today, you've got Democrats standing up to oppose the renewal of the USA PATRIOT Act. 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.
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. --
"The US would just say that Israel worked out something with the Iraqi government, and feign complete innocence."
You're humorously short-sighted. If an Israeli attack hits Iran from Iraqi airspace, Iran will cross the border into Iraq.
"Either that, or the Israelis will be flying F-22 stealth fighters with full radar jamming and supercruise capability. In which case you'd never even see them coming."
Stuff blows up. People look up, see planes flying south by southwest. Iranians put 2 and 2 together, invade Iraq.
Heck, that's even worse: it allows the Iranians to assume the planes were US forces.
(By the way, if you're jamming radar, you are the exact opposite of stealth.)
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.