Slashdot Mirror
NSA Wiretapping Whistleblower
Kagu writes "ABC News is running a short piece about an interview with former NSA Employee Russell Tice and his allegations that the NSA wiretaps are more pervasive than believed and used in ways he believes violated the law. "
It doesn't bother me that they want to wiretap suspected terrorists, but why the no-warrant stuff? Can't they just get a classified warrant? I wouldn't care at all except that they appear to be going around the law that I had thought applied to everyone. I guess it applies to everyone except for enemies of the state, or anyone that is unfortunate enough to be flagged as one. For instance, that professor corresponding with his friend in the Phillipines that had his mail opened, read and re-sealed. Isnt' that a federal offense?
stuff |
Nothing about this is illegal until the information passed into it is acquired illegally.
What counts as "legal"?
We live in a world where Gitmo is not only tolerated, but even approved by huges numbers of people in government, academia and in the public at large. Wiretap someones phone illegally, and if the president gave you say so, I doubt many judges would throw it out at this point. Get information by half drowing someone or photographing their anus and not only will judges not object, they'll pass judgement based on it!
May the Maths Be with you!
I think that the only way to get to the bottom of such serious allegations is to investigate the evidence. Perhaps if we could secretly intercept the communications between the administration and the NSA we might find out what is really going on.
Don't put off until tomorrow what you can leave until the day after.
ABC News seemed to treat him as pretty psychologically stable. How do you know the government isn't painting him to be this way so that his story isn't believable?
After the president admitted to wiretapping some Americans without the proper warrants, you bet I'll believe Tice's story.
My work here is dung.
"If you picked the word 'jihad' out of a conversation," Tice said, "the technology exists that you focus in on that conversation, and you pull it out of the system for processing."
.mp3s 'illegally'.
I'm not defending the intelligence community's tactis, per se, Americans deserve to know why warrants weren't requested.
OTOH, if all they were doing is looking for jihadists, then I'm not going to march on Washington just yet. I'm concerned about the word 'terrorist' being expanded to include people who smoke weed, bitch about the government, and download
We need to clean up the process, or if there is some classified reason why warrants just could not be requested...well, that needs to be declassified, explained, and reviewed by the media, congress, etc.
Thank you Dave Raggett
They may be illegally listening to average americans, but that's illegal as a technicality.
Bullshit. It's either legal or illegal. The phrase 'illegal as a technicality' makes about as much sense as 'pregnant as a technicality'.
If you're listened to by the NSA, who cares really?
I CARE. I have a fundamental right to privacy, like every other American citizen. The argument of 'if you're innocent, you have nothing to fear' is a recipe for oppression.
YOU'RE NOT THEIR TARGET
Not yet, anyway...
It's illegality on a technicality like sharing music with friends so they can go buy their own copy of a CD. Not immoral and not reprehensible.
Really? I think the RIAA might take issue with you on that. What a perfect refutation of your entire argument.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
Nothing was stopping Bush from doing this in a legal manner. NOTHING.
Bush, during campaign 2004 repeatedly told the American people he would never do such a thing, even with the mis-named Patriot Act in place.
Bush Logic: Since the Terorrists hate our freedoms, perhaps we should take away the freedom of Americans. That will show that Bin Laden.
Bush, worst president in US History.
FTFA:
The NSA revoked Tice's security clearance in May of last year based on what it called psychological concerns and later dismissed him.
I would agree. We are talking about someone who got fired, and THEN decided to "whistle blow" If he reported this first and THEN got fired, then I would be more inclined to believe him. But the fact that he was fired first and afterward decided that he "needed" to report this to a newspaper (as opposed to filing a wrongful dismissal dispute via the legal system) does not speak well to his motives.
This call monitoring has been going on for well over a year. If it really bothered him all that much, why didn't he come out with this a long time ago? Seems to me that there is a good chance that he's just a disgruntled former employee with some mental stability issues who decided that this would be a good way to get his 15 minutes of fame and maybe a book deal on the side while getting even with his former employer.
Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
Encryption doesn't hide the IP addresses involved. You can hide the content, but need one or more third parties to hide who you're talking to.
How do you know they are after them and not us? How do you know where they draw the line between them and us? If they say they are not allowed to do something, but then you find out they were doing it some of the time anyway, how can you really be comfortable that they are not targetting you?
I would investigate his motives before buying every bit of his story hook, line and sinker.
No. I would investigate whether or not it is true before buying his story hook, line and sinker. But if America just dismisses this guy because he may or may not have an ulterior motive, then that's sad. He might be insane and seething at his ex-employees. But he can still be right. This wouldn't an investigation against a citizen, but one against a government agency. Investigate, then if it's learned it isn't true, no harm done. Ignore it, and learn it was true, and a lot of harm is done.
Mark my words, this will turn into a constitutional crisis, especially if Bush and Chaney are not impeached for their wrongdoing. What we have is not, as Chaney put it, a strengthing of the executive branch. This is a takeover of the democratic process itself. The president is acting as a dictator by being above the law. I have already written all my representatives on this matter, and I recommend that if you feel strongly that your rights were violated (either directly through spying, or indirectly by the violation of constitutional laws), you should also write your representatives. Oh, and the argument by Bush that he is protecting the homeland is hogwash, especially if you believe him when he took the oath of the presidency to "protect the constitution". If he truely is protecting the homeland, he must uphold his oath of the presidency and protect the constitution. By protecting the constitution, I mean also that he must abide by the constitution and it's laws.
Anyway, this is a very old problem in a new disguise. It used to be the case that most of your personal information was locked up inside your head, and the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination was very powerful. The secondary protections against warrentless search were also good, though less critical. Because of modern recording technologies, a vast amount of our personal information is becoming externalized, and the amount is increasing all of the time. If we are to have any meaningful privacy, we need to do something.
I think the thing we need to do is actually pretty obvious, though I don't know if we'll get there. I think we need to clarify that your personal information belongs to YOU, and that should include your right to store your personal records on your own equipment. Given that situation, your privacy would be protected by the privacy rules you put on your own storage devices--and you could change your mind at any time, revealing more or less information for any reason. Possession in nine points of the law.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Wouldn't real terrorists (y'know, the ones who actually pose a threat) use code? And you'd also think they'd be smart enough to use public telephones as well.
I would agree. We are talking about someone who got fired, and THEN decided to "whistle blow" If he reported this first and THEN got fired, then I would be more inclined to believe him. But the fact that he was fired first and afterward decided that he "needed" to report this to a newspaper (as opposed to filing a wrongful dismissal dispute via the legal system) does not speak well to his motives
Tice had been making noises before he got fired. He was one of those pushing for greater congressional protection for whistleblowers. Hint, hint.
Shortly thereafter, his bosses had him pulled in for a medical exam, where despite having no symptoms, the MO labeled him as suffering from paranoia. This is standard practice in such circles to ensure compliance, and to provide ammo for any subsequent smear campaigns.
It's like this. Anyone who believes that the NSA was not spying on their own country, is the real mentally unstable individual.
May the Maths Be with you!
> > The NSA revoked Tice's security clearance in May of last year based on what it called psychological concerns and later dismissed him.
> Psychological concerns like, say, his inability to keep a secret?
More likely psychological concerns like respect for the rule of law.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
A "whistleblower," under Federal law, is someone who, whilst still employed at the offending agency/company, brings illegal action to the attention of internal resources, the point being to remedy the problem. They then are protected from negative action being taken against them, since their intention is to help the organization improve and ferret out evil-doers. The point is not to throw the issue to the sharks in the media AFTER being fired. That's vindictive, not constructive.
--- "When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school, it's a wonder I can think at all..."
I don't think anyone really cares who the targets are or that the wiretaps are occuring. The problem is they are doing it without Judicial oversite and that is a big problem. It is one thing to wiretap a american it is yet another to do so without the checks and balances provided by the judicial system.
Got Code?
What makes all of this so much more painful to me is that the old intelligence system was turning up the information required. Terrorists were nabbed at the borders, and so on. The New York bombings were on the radar. It wasn't a lack of information that was the problem, it was a lack of analysis. How does taping a hundred, a thousand, a million more telephone conversations help? All of this information has to be mined, but each extraction that is not related to the criminal case comes at the expense of someone's rights.
We HAD a system that was balancing individual rights with the need for surveillance*, it was working in the sense that good information was being found without tapping one phone in 300.
Now, the barn is on fire and everyone seems to want to spray water on the house.
*Need for surveillance -- I'm not convinced that the level of big brother spying conducted before the attacks was warranted. Frankly, the FISA courts scare the hell out of me. I don't like secret warrants more than gag orders or secret laws. I was willing to accept them -- part of the great compromise of democracy -- but they look like they were the slippery slope to today.
Use the Firehose to mod down Second Life stories!
"I have a fundamental right to privacy, like every other American citizen."
Careful. The word "privacy" appears exactly zero times in the Constitution of the United States of America. Though the courts have established this right through legal precedent, these court decisions can be changed (see Dred Scott, et al). The right to privacy in the U.S.A. is hardly "fundamental."
--- "When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school, it's a wonder I can think at all..."
"THEY ARE NOT AFTER *YOU* is the main thing to remember" While this may be true at the moment it may not be true in the future. You are assuming that government will always be benign and that you will not take a political stance against any non benign government. Governments especially in times of crisis can change for the worse. How would you oppose a non benign government which has advanced tools which peer into every aspect of your life. Dissenters can be rapidly targeted and removed with ease, freedom of speech won't save you in that situation. You only have to look at history to see how many times bad political changes have happened in the past and that was before governments had such powerful tools to potentially supress people.
Nothing to hide? Everyone is within six degrees of seperation with a terrorist.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
The FISA court denied a total of 4 requests betwen 1979 and 2004, out of thousands. The could have gotten the wiretap order if the wiretap was done for legitimate reasons, or on a person they could reasonably suspect. If it was emergency, they could apply up to 72 hours after the beginning of the surveillance.
There's no valid reason to have done things like this. Orders were clearly legally required, and if they weren't obtainable for some reason, the Bush administration should have sought changes to the law, not ignored the law. That's not how the US works. And since you want to make this a Democat/Republican issue, when did the GOP become the party of violating the law whenever it wants to, without any expectation of punishment? Do you think because Bush is a Republican, he gets the power to just decide he doesn't need to follow a given law if it suits him? I know you'd be howling if Clinton had done the same thing (and don't say he did, because the single thing you can legitimately point to in that regard [the Ames case], was a physical intrusion that wasn't covered by FISA till 1995).
How can you equate these two things? One is an operative in the field and the other is a program authorized by the head of our government that aggressively errodes US citizens civil liberties. I believe, sir, that if ANY president signed on to a program like this there would be yelling from both sides. And thats what we're seeing: Dems and Repubs are both seething and calling for investigation. Its the tipping point where we either check the powers of our Executive branch or we let it go completely.
Oh ya, and it looks like Bush's folks uncovered Plame anyway, so your argument is a little ridiculous. Keep listening to those talking heads on the tv.
If there is probable cause, there's no issue with going through a court. If the NSA was going through a court for warrants like they should, that provides judicial oversight of the executive branch, a necessary check-and-balance. If the NSA can do whatever the fuck they like, our government lacks transparency and there is no balance of powers -- facism results, as we can readily see. It doesn't matter *who* is being watched, or why. What matters is that we Americans are being spied upon on a widespread basis without warrants, which is a fundamental violation of the rights of all Americans. Terrorism itself is the a non-issue. One major terrorist attack, five years ago, killed almost 3000. Aspirin kills over 10000 people yearly by painful hemmoraging stomach ulcers, and no one even gives a shit. We should be focusing on real problems, real threats to American lives, rather than swallowing the bullshit propaganda our government and media systems alike publish.
Wait, because ABC News "seemed to treat him as pretty psychologically stable." you are just swinging the other way for an ever worse reason.
You complain about the wiretapping, but you are obviously unaware of history. Please investigate Johnson during the Vietnam War, Roosevelt during WWII and Lincoln during the Civil War.
Kidding aside, the overriding principle of intelligence in the U.S. used to be "Speak truth to power," once upon a time. The bending of those agencies' souls in the run-up to Iraq is terrifying to anyone who remembers the elder Bush's term at the CIA. George H.W. Bush didn't preside over an agency whose sole purpose was to buttress decisions already made by "instinct."
"Intelligence" groups do have their principles. They aren't what you'd call morality, exactly, but when they're distorted it ain't any good at all.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Whether it is or not is a determination to be made by a court, not an instrument of the executive branch or the Chief Executive himself. If the Adminstration cannot be bothered to even go through the motions of using the FSIA Court where warrants are virtually never turned down, and can be sometimes asked for AFTER an intercept in emergent cirucmstances, then the Adminstration must view itself as beyond the scope of the Fourth Amendment's proscription against unreasonable searches and seizures. This is dangerous, unprecedented and should not be tolerated.
Under our system of justice, the ends (i.e., you're talking to Al Quaeda, so the government should listen) do not justify the means (i.e., let's not get a warrant, let's just listen). This fundammental concept is twice enshrined in our Constitution's Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.
On a very basic level this clause reflects a judgment that when the government wishes to act in certain ways, it must follow certain procedures; that is, provide an accused with what has been called "Due Process of Law." Sometimes the question of the extent of what process is due can be hotly debated. There is no debate, however, that the Fourth Amendment proscription against unreasonable searches and seizures requrires that the police obtain a warrant from a judicial officer before such a search can take place. The Adminsitration no doubt is aware of this, but has chosen to ignore it.
It also ignores (not just here, but in other instances) that the Constitution regards the "process," of justice is so important, that in cases where the government fails to give an accused Due Process and obtains evidence in defiance of the accused's Constitutional rights, such evidence will not be allowed to be used in the prosecution (the "Exclusionary Rule"). Again, the administration ignores this judgment by our Constitutional Founders (which makes W's insitance on "Strict Constructionists" for the SCOTUS somewhat hilariously ironic) that individual guilty men may, in fact, go free, to protect the integrity of the system and insure that the executive respects the law it is charged to enforce. The is supposed to serve as a deterrent to instruments of the executive (police, FBI, etc.) to follow the system of checks and balances by, for example, asking a judicial officer for a warrant before (of, in the case of the FSIA, sometimes even after) executing a Fourth Amendment search.
Bush Lies On the Record.
"Disbelieve whatever the President says and believe whatever his enemies say"
That's the trouble when you lie sometimes. Not only do people disbelieve you all the time, they start believing your enemies. Which is why its a bad idea to lie in the long run.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
I would argue that the second that you interact with another person, organization, or any other entity with legal rights, that the information is no longer solely yours to control. If you buy something from me, then who owns the information about that transfer?
When you load slashdot, you handing bytes to your ISP requesting that they hand it to several of their peers, then have those peers hand it back to you. Who "owns" those exchanges?
I view intelligence activity as an iceberg - most of it is hidden beneath the surface. That which pokes out normally indicates something much larger lurking beneath the surface.
Stop playing the fucking cheerleader, it's unbecoming.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
You do NOT own the information on who bought item X.
You, being the vendor, have more limited privacy rights than I as the private customer do.
Again, look at the vendors and the private customers.
Comcast is a public vendor so they don't own the info on my connection.
Comcast does own the info that they were requested to connect to
&
but
neither of them own my name.
One of these wiretaps was able to stop a guy by the name of Iman Ferris who was plotting to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge.
And he reported that there was no way they could do it -- there was too much security. And, btw, where's the evidence that this guy was caught via the wiretaps in question? He was arrested by NYC police, not by federal agents. And there appears to be no information about him beyond this one CNN transcript.
There's been absolutely no explanation for why Bush couldn't use the FISA court, just as it was intended to be used. Except that, for some reason, he doesn't think the 4th amendment applies. Despite repeated US Supreme Court rulings stating exactly the opposite thing.
BTW, there's absolutely no evidence that the FISA court is obstructing the Administration's requests. Just go look at the reports yourself.
2004 -- 1758 applied for, 3 withdrawn, 1 withdrawn and re-applied for, 1754 approved, 0 denied, 94 modified (don't ask me about the discrepency; it's in the report)
2003 -- 1727 applied for, 1724 approved, 4 denied, 1 re-approved after denial, 79 modified
2002 -- 1228 applied for, 1226 approved, 2 denied, 2 appealed and approved, none listed as modified
2001 -- 932 applied for, 934 approved (2 from December 2000), 2 modified
I didn't bother looking back further than that, since it's not relevant to Bush's post-9/11 activities. Which just makes his abridgement of the 4th amendment and SCOTUS rulings that much more questionable.
Man, I love that guy!
Unless you're Martin Luther King Jr.
Bush ... repeatedly told the American people he would never do such a thing...
And you expect a politician (of ANY party) to not do exactly the opposite of what he says, huh?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
However, there are plenty of aspects of our lives which do not involve any other parties, and even when multiple parties are involved, you should have the right to agree to respect each other's privacy. It's an interesting aspect to consider, actually. If you are too eager to expose your perfect records of the other person's acts, would you also be so eager to have their records of *YOUR* acts be equally exposed?
The default situation should most likely be that publicizing any information should require the consent of all of the parties involved. If anyone objects, then some strong reason would have to be shown as to why the information should be revealed. If someone ignores your privacy, you should be able to pursue the matter. For example, if someone harms you (by exposing your personal information) in order to derive profit, you obviously should be able to take legal action against him.
It's obviously quite hard to predict how the law would play out, but right now there is very little room for any defense of our privacy--and it's shrinking fast.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
You are being lied to about what is beind done. And the evidences suggests that this "war on terrorism" is not being used to fight for freedom but to fill the pockets of the government corporate friends. And, sadly so, the excuse of "we are at war" was used in our case as well. And it is an excuse to commit the worst crimes. As you say, time after time, the democracy regained the taken liberties, but I would hope there should be no need to restrain these liberties in the first place, as it is so easy to abuse power.
On what count? Some guy releases information about a properly conducted, fully legal undercover operation by the CIA, and you're claiming this is exactly equal to some guy releasing information about misconduct by the government and should therefore be labeled the same way?
Do Republicans even know what it's like to be clean anymore? A few people caught an unplesant odor when Enron folded shortly after top-secret talks with Cheney. Nearly everyone could smell the fish when KBR got no-bid contracts from the government to deal with the middle-east. Now the party smells like rot, thanks to Abramoff. Is having a nasal lobotomy a requirement for being a Republican these days?
So now a mentally unstable guy leaks lies about the NSA, and the government disavows them as the ranting of a guy off his meds? No? Instead the place stinks to high heaven as the administration dances about "investigating the leak". Just remember, leaking non-classified information about non-existant operations ain't treason.
And please, take a shower! I know basement-dwelling geeks who reek less than the Republicans.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Martin Niemoller on October 14, 1968:
"When Hitler attacked the Jews
I was not a Jew, therefore I was not concerned.
And when Hitler attacked the Catholics,
I was not a Catholic, and therefore, I was not concerned.
And when Hitler attacked the unions and the industrialists,
I was not a member of the unions and I was not concerned.
Then Hitler attacked me and the Protestant church --
and there was nobody left to be concerned."
I am the unwilling control for my Origin.
it IS an erosion of civil liberties, because the Bill of Rights specifically grants me freedom from government intrusion of my life unless they have probable cause to believe I committed a crime. The doctrine is innocent UNTIL proven guilty. The NSA wiretapping is guilty by association until proven innocent.
I'll leave you with a few juicy quotes from one of the founding fathers, by personal hero, Benjamin Franklin.
No tyrannical society can long exist when it cannot control the flow of information.
There is no such thing as a good war or a bad peace.
Whate'ers begun in anger ends in shame.
Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety (commonly attributed to him, but he edited the book in which this line appeared, he did not write it, but based on the fact that he edited and published the book, it surely carried his sentiment.
Free MacMini
- the worst President in U.S. history was that prevaricating fornicator Clinton...
- you know, the guy who gave Iran nuclear weapons designs?
- who launched inept cruise missile attacks into Afghanistan?
- who let that murdering Islamist terrorist Bin Laden go?
- who desecrated the Oval Office?
- Bush is protecting America, and it is my sincere hope that every one of those murdering Arabs gets an early chance to meet Allah
Clinton lied about his personal sex life, whereas Bush has lied about the treatment of prisoners, the justification for a war that's digging us deep into debt and killing many fine Americans and countless Iraqi civillians, and about spying on Americans. He also lied about the cost of his prescription drug plan handout to his pharmaceutical donors, has repeatedly supported legislation to curtail the freedoms and privacy of Americans, raised the national debt by a third, and has alienated all of America's allies with unilateral "my way or the highway" policies.
Clinton's poisoned nuclear weapons plan idea was foolish as was letting bin Laden go. I'll give you that. He did at least pay attention to al Qaeda afterwards and did try to get Bush to pay attention, but Bush and Rumsfield were too wrapped up in the post-Cold War Pentagon obsession with China as the next big thing (hence all that missle defense nonsense and posturing over the spy plane). You, however, can't say that Bush's handling of North Korea was much better when he labelled them part of the Axis of Evil which prompted them to expel inspectors and start building nuclear weapons. Nor can you really say that the Iraq was has been a crashing success in lowering the amount of terrorism around the world or for getting people to unite behind US leadership. Nor can you really say much for the neglect of the Israel-Palestine situation.
As for the "desecration" of the Oval Office, which President has eroded the credibility of the US when we say that we don't torture people. Hell, which President has made it so that we have to tell people that we don't torture. Which President is burned in effigy wherever he goes? You want to talk about descrating the US, you should focus on Bush.
Oh, and yeah, Bush is doing such a great job of protecting Americans. I feel much safer travelling abroad than I would've under Clinton.
A "whistleblower," under Federal law, is someone who, whilst still employed at the offending agency/company, brings illegal action to the attention of internal resources...
Isn't that exactly what he's claiming to be? Didn't he claim that they hauled him in for a psychological evalution after he complained frequently about this being illegal, labelled him paranoid, and stripped him of his security clearance which prevents him from doing his job? According to him, when he complained, they took steps to proactively discredit him and effectively fired him.
The thing about whistleblower protection is that it is almost entirely enforced after an employer has taken punitive steps against an employee. It's like all other laws that way. You don't enforce them until they've been broken.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Breathtakingly ignorant. Good job.
(Boy, I'm gonna get flamed for my arrogance here, but damnit I do consider my nation, the United States of America, the single finest nation on earth)
That if I proclaim, "Give me liberty or give me death!" that I might be labeled as a threat to society or a terrorist...and I firmly believe that I would prefer death to a lack of liberty.
WRONG, WRONG, WRONG.
People on the left don't wake up despising our country. We wake up despising the people that make our country look:
We lefties get so upset because we care about our country not as a plot of land, but as the fulfillment of an ideal. Anybody can love the land they're from - there's nothing special about loving your mother. But we care about the things that truly make our country great: freedom, democracy, liberty, and transparency. And we absolutely despise Bush because he's taking the things that make America great and flushing them down the toilet.
We're losing the moral high ground - and that might just be the worst thing that Bush has taken away.
If you're going to use terms in narrow or specialized ways, you shoule really give the definition up front and not wait for someone to use the broadly accepted definition and then act as though they're wrong. It's both disingenous and unhelpful.
In this case in the broad sense it's reasonable to say that I own my own body - even though in fact I can not sell myself legally in this country (or even certain parts thereof - like organs).
So I maintain that in a broad sense a store does "own" the data about a given transaction - including whatever data you choose to give them. Whether or not they can sell or transmit that data is obviously a seperate issue.
And as for your bit about America being founded on hopeless idealism you could not possibly be more wrong. Some of the founders, like Jefferson, were extremely idealistic - but if Jefferson had been the only one involved in the revolution we would have never won. It took George Washington and his much more pragmatic side (eg Hamilton) to actually give life to the common ideals. If Jefferson had been president instead of Washington - the nation would have fallen apart. Similarly the first American gov't failed because the federal gov't lacked enough power to sustain itself. Why? Because it was designed by those with not enough apprehension of the way power and economics work in the real life.
I'm not arguing against idealism in general, I'm just pointing out the obvious danger of being idealistic to the extent where you totally ignore the real facts before you. That type of idealism was related to the failures, and not the successs, of early US history.
-stormin
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.
Okay. You think these powers are so great and required, so surely you won't mind if President Hillary Clinton (or any Democratic President) uses them, right?
It might be more accurate and helpful if we always refer to it as the "PATRIOT Act" to call attention to the fact that the name is an acronym. It at least encourages people to remember that it's an arbitrary set of letters designed to politically shield the Act from discussion. Are you going to argue against the "Patriot" Act? Are you not a Patriot?
"Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism": What are these tools? Any tool is innocent, but many can be put to good or bad use.
Heck, might as well propose the "PUPPY" Act (Put all Urban People Permanently in Yugoslovia) and see who complains. You're not against puppies, are you?
>This is like an ex-cop who points out all the undercover cops to the drug dealers.
More like an ex-cop who knows the undercover cops are planting the evidence and then making arrests. If government officials are operating outside the legal framework established to keep government from becoming tyranny, it does not serve the people to keep that a secret. You seem to be of the opinion that anything the government does is acceptable and anything it wants to keep secret, should be secret. Not everyone accepts that. Not even everyone in government accepts that.
Additionally, the U.S. is in a legal state of war. There is no formal procedure or document required to create this condition and there never has been.
I have no idea where you get your information from. The last "legal state of war" the U.S. has been in was World War 2. As Congress never declared war, I'm afraid this assertion is patently false. Consequently, any wartime powers conferred on the executive are irrelevant and inapplicable.
Any other absurd right-wing talking points you want me to debunk?
Oh, Jeez.
The remark was clearly intended to describe how we have become, like the soviets were, a police state.
The only difference I ever saw between US Capitalism and Sovietism was in the US, the rich were powerful, and under the Soviets the powerful became rich.
All police states use the same techniques; I could have used the Nazis, instead, who used the same cry of "insanity" against those who spoke out against them, but I doubt the word "eugenics" would mean anything to a young person today.
Yes, the US has begun its intevitable trudge toward police-statism. I say inevitable because all empires when decline begins, use the same methods to try to keep control. Look to the British 100 years ago or to the Romans 1800 years ago if you want to see where we are headed.
I suspect you have a political agenda -- otherwise why try to refute my post? In that case, try these facts on for size:
Every elected president since the end of WWII except Carter has, in his first year, on the bad advice of the NSA and the intelligence community, has begun an adventurous and eventually disastrous war. Eisenhower invaded Guatemala; Kennedy had the Bay of Pigs; Johnson whipped the Dominican Republic into shape; Nixon found Cambodia inviting (and caused, indirectly, the genocide of the Kmer Rouge -- but that's another story); Ford was not elected; Carter was the sole exception, as I said; Reagan invaded Nicaragua; Bush One had Iraq; Clinton took a chance on Jugoslavia (Bechtel's VP of European operations died beside Trade Czar Ron Brown in the 199x crash approaching Sarajevo Airport), and Bush the Younger had Iraq, too.
So, if it is as it appears to be, how can you NOT call the US a police state? What other term so accurately describes unbridled federal executive power coupled with misuse of invesitigative (police) agencies?
You are such a coward that you disgust me. You will destroy everything that made this country great, the very Constitution that men fought and died for, because you're so scared of Osama Bin Laden. Read the words of a true American and a patriot in an editorial he wrote for the Miami Herald. Then maybe you can understand what it is to be an American:
AFTER 9/11
Fear destroys what bin Laden could not
ROBERT STEINBACK
One wonders if Osama bin Laden didn't win after all. He ruined the America that existed on 9/11. But he had help.
If, back in 2001, anyone had told me that four years after bin Laden's attack our president would admit that he broke U.S. law against domestic spying and ignored the Constitution -- and then expect the American people to congratulate him for it -- I would have presumed the girders of our very Republic had crumbled.
Had anyone said our president would invade a country and kill 30,000 of its people claiming a threat that never, in fact, existed, then admit he would have invaded even if he had known there was no threat - - and expect America to be pleased by this -- I would have thought our nation's sensibilities and honor had been eviscerated.
If I had been informed that our nation's leaders would embrace torture as a legitimate tool of warfare, hold prisoners for years without charges and operate secret prisons overseas -- and call such procedures necessary for the nation's security -- I would have laughed at the folly of protecting human rights by destroying them.
If someone had predicted the president's staff would out a CIA agent as revenge against a critic, defy a law against domestic propaganda by bankrolling supposedly independent journalists and commentators, and ridicule a 37-year Marie Corps veteran for questioning U.S. military policy -- and that the populace would be more interested in whether Angelina is about to make Brad a daddy -- I would have called the prediction an absurd fantasy.
That's no America I know, I would have argued. We're too strong, and we've been through too much, to be led down such a twisted path.
What is there to say now?
All of these things have happened. And yet a large portion of this country appears more concerned that saying "Happy Holidays' could be a disguised attack on Christianity.
I evidently have a lot poorer insight regarding America's character than I once believed, because I would have expected such actions to provoke -- speaking metaphorically now -- mobs with pitchforks and torches at the White House gate. I would have expected proud defiance of anyone who would suggest that a mere terrorist threat could send this country into spasms of despair and fright so profound that we'd follow a leader who considers the law a nuisance and perfidy a privilege.
Never would I have expected this nation -- which emerged stronger from a civil war and a civil rights movement, won two world wars, endured the Depression, recovered from a disastrous campaign in Southeast Asia and still managed to lead the world in the principles of liberty -- would cower behind anyone just for promising to "protect us."
President Bush recently confirmed that he has authorized wiretaps against U.S. citizens on at least 30 occasions and said he'll continue doing it. His justification? He, as president -- or is that king? -- has a right to disregard any law, constitutional tenet or congressional mandate to protect the American people.
Is that America's highest goal -- preventing another terrorist attack? Are there no principles of law and liberty more important than this? Who would have remembered Patrick Henry had he written, "What's wrong with giving up a little liberty if it protects me from death?"
Bush would have us excuse his administration's excesses in deference to the "war on terror" -- a war, it should be pointed out, that can never end. Terrorism is a tactic, an eventuality, not an opposition army or rogue nation. If we caught every person guilty of a terrorist act, we st
" Really? And it's not just as contemptuous to make up your mind about legality without case law to support you? (no, the 72 Nixon decision isn't conclusive and only partially applies because it didn't cover international suspects)"
I'm not as hip to the legal system as you are. I thought the stuff from the legislature would be good enough.
"Or, does the fact that it's Bush make it ok for you to ignore the courts and make up your own mind?"
You know what? You are right. Maybe I am a little biased against Bush. I think you are biased for Bush, and giving him a pass on an obvious mistake.
Well, since we are at a disagreement, and there is no established case law, surely you are in support of an impeachment to decide whether or not the President broke the law?
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
Is it war? How is it war?
No longer do we hear our leaders cry "Give me liberty or give me death!". Instead we hear only the quiet, secretive mumbling of career bureaucrats speaking to too-often-reelected officials in the halls of Washington, D.C., trading rights for goods. In Congress, men concerned only with maintaining their small piece of turf in the political landscape are fast becoming the creators of a new era, an era of suppression.
How long before these men too fall under the unrelenting purview of the intelligence machine? Or have they fallen already without our knowledge? How many have been compromised by information gathered surreptitiously and illegally? "Vote against this bill and your mistresses will be revealed." "Leave this unchanged or you will lose your Maryland home." "We know what your son did and we have the proof. Do what we want or he will go to jail." The mind boggles at the possibilities. Does anyone doubt this happening now?
So you believe that every thing is peachy, spying is a-ok, we have more freedoms than ever, and we don't operate even closely to the Soviets in their policy to control their people?
You sir, are the imbecile.
Never forget that the first action that allowed Hitler to take dictatorial powers "above the law" was the Reichstag fire of February 27, 1933 that was blamed on Communist terrorists, but perpetrated by the Nazi party. History has a way of repeating itself.
The Reichstag Fire Decree read: "Articles 114, 115, 117, 118, 123, 124 and 153 of the Constitution of the German Empire are suspended until further notice. It is therefore permissible to restrict the rights of personal freedom [ habeas corpus ], freedom of opinion, including the freedom of the press, the freedom to organize and assemble, the privacy of postal, telegraphic and telephonic communications, and warrants for house searches, orders for confiscations as well as restrictions on property, are also permissible beyond the legal limits otherwise prescribed." Sound familiar?
-Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase temporary safety deserve neither. -Ben Franklin
The War on (some) Terror is no more a "war" than the War on Poverty or the War on (some) Drugs.
Better that hundreds of innocent people should be tortured than one guilty person go free, eh? Especially morons who want to take down the Brooklyn Bridge with a blowtorch. It never ceases to amaze me how many people repeat the insipid argument that the drafters of the Geneva Conventions could not have foreseen non-state threats. Does the "Black Hand" ring a bell? Any assassinated royalty leading to wars? Any monarchies falling to internal coups, linked perhaps to international conspiracies?Terrorism is not new, Europe has dealt with its modern incarnation for decades. Britain dealt with the IRA without invading Boston.
In World War II, Germany did treat allied POWs better than eastern front POWs, because of a concern about how German POWs would be treated. The important issue that you're missing here, though, is that humane treatment of prisoners is morally correct.
The real danger is that action such as this sets a precendent. Let's presume for a minute that you're a rabidly loyal Bush fan and can't imagine the current administration doing anything wrong. You should still object to this. Even if we assume that currently the wiretap authority is not being abused in any way shape or form, and that this administration will see to it that they aren't abused, it lays down legal precedent that some future administration can use to justify their own wiretapping which may not be quite so palatable to you. Just imagine: 50 years from now an evil Democrat administration gets in and decides that Republicans are a threat to national security and need to tap all international phone calls from anyone with ties to the Republican party. Unless we obect to what is happening now, there will be perfectly reasonable precendent to allow such a thing to be secretly authorised.
It's just bad no matter how you cut it. You don't have to object to the current administrations policy, nor believe them capable of abusing their authority to see that.
Jedidiah.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
That's why this is such a slippery slope. It's not a slope, it's a triple-black-diamond downhill of ice. :-(
"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."
That sounds like a pretty clear right to privacy to me. It may apply only to the government, but apply it does.
Especially in the case of this domestic NSA surveillance -- certainly someone can come up with some different definition of "privacy" and say that the 4th amendment doesn't cover it, but that's a straw man. The 4th amendment specifically, and explicitly, prohibits this sort of government behavior.