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Poll Finds Mixed Support for Domestic Wiretaps
aspenbordr writes "The NYTimes reports that Americans are growing more and more concerned about the tradeoff between 'fighting terrorism' and civil liberties. Forty-seven percent of those polled responded they they did not support 'wiretapping in order to reduce the threat of terrorism'." From the article: "Mr. Bush, at a White House press conference yesterday, twice used the phrase 'terrorist surveillance program' to describe an operation in which the administration has eavesdropped on telephone calls and other communications like e-mail that it says could involve operatives of Al Qaeda overseas talking to Americans. Critics say the administration could conduct such surveillance while still getting prior court approval, as spelled out in a 1978 law intended to guard against governmental abuses."
It is ridiculous that 47% of Americans are not completely up-in-arms about this. We can't have our president breaking any law that he wants to.
Does this mean that the American public realise the terrorists are winning?
Does this mean people realize that the reduction of civil liberties are what the terrorists want?
Or were the other 53% confused? I would love to see the actual questions that are asked. Giving poll results without the source information is complete nonsense.
From TFA: Here's the problem...the phrase "Americans that the government is suspicious of", can (and is) defined differently every day. Such vagueness virtually invites a police state.
Dubya has shown on several occasions that he cannot be trusted to protect our civil rights. That's OK, he doesn't have to be trusted....that's why we have (had?) the FISA, to ensure that wiretapping is carried out in a lawful manner. All George had to do was run his requests through the court, and everything would have been completely legal. Apparently, that's too much trouble for King George, who is aggressively pursuing the doctrine of the unitary executive, believes he is above the law of the land, and regards our Constitution as "just a goddamned piece of paper".
Trusting George and his Gestapo (that's right, I said it) to safeguard your civil rights is like employing a wild dingo to guard your baby. As of now, "Americans that the government is suspicious of" refers to terror suspects, but it could just as easily refer to foreign-born, dissidents, liberals, or slashdotters.
It's time to stop King George before he corrupts the dream of the Founding Fathers beyond redemption. It's time to draw a line in the sand and say, "this far....no farther". It's time to take back our country.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
obtained after the fact. This invalidates the "need for speed"
agrument. The very few times someone in the media has confronted an
administration offical with this obvious logic, the response has
always been regression into a vague discription of the current NSA
program being "another valuable tool", or needing "every tool
available" to keep the American people safe.
I have not had the misfortune of having listened to the latest set of
talking points being pushed. But as far as I can see, there are only
a few reasons to not use FISA:
held to account for their actions
Either of these motives is an indication of the Bush administration
feeling that they need to operate outside the law.
If they really believe in the rule of law, they should move change the
law to fit the times. If not, they are just showing their contempt
for the rule of law.
I think the framers of the American Constitution are turning in their
gaves right now.
they overwhelmingly opposed the same kind of surveillance if it was aimed at "ordinary Americans."
Whew. It's a good thing I'm an ordinary American, unlike the rest of you commie techno-freak Slashdotters.
The government learned a long time ago that a population in fear will put up with a lot. Whether it's fear of a "domino effect" of communism, fear of swine flu, SARS, avian flu, millitias, terrorists, what have you. It's sadly too simplistic to make it a partisan issue, both parties have shown great aptitude in manipulating the population through fear.
That being said, it's sad that the country is pretty much giving the president a wash on this. But then, nobody said much about the USA PATRIOT act either. We had what, two senators vote against it the first time around?
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." -Albert Einstein
Get real people. This crap won't make you any safer but will make you less free.
Those who trade liberty for security deserve neither - Benjamin Franklin
There's a great quote from Goering about using fear to lead a free public around, but I can't remember it off the top of my head.
Freedom is the most precious thing we have, without that, the Terrorists really win.
I have no problems with wiretapping. Bush just needs to get authorization and have some oversight. If he would just use the proper channels, this wouldn't even be an issue. Tapping converstions on your own stinks of communism and evil dictatorships.
http://religiousfreaks.com/Notice that the question isn't about 'wiretapping whomever the president decides he doesn't like' or even about 'wiretapping without appropriate judicial oversight'. It's 'wiretapping in order to reduce the threat of terrorism'.
So, even with a question that implicitly assumes that the president is telling the truth and that there is no malign intent here, and that actually raises the Terrorist Bogeyman in its wording, STILL nearly half of respondents didn't support it.
I'm actually feeling quite positive here. Not only are people waking up to the bullshit that's being done in their name, they're seeing through the trick poll questions too...
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Hitler justified what he was doing in the name of "fighting communist terrorism" that he claimed was headquartered in Poland.
Invoking the word "terrorism" to deflect criticism is only making Bush look more and more detached and cynical, in my view.
This sig, aah-ah, is comin' like a ghost-sig...
Just enlist a few members of Al Queda to start dialing wrong numbers. Then the NSA will be too busy tracking down who's who for the program to continue. :-)
"The telephone poll was conducted with 1,229 adults, starting Friday and ending Wednesday. Its margin of sampling error was plus or minus three percentage points."
No word as to whether the people taking the poll were being eavesdropped on to find out their responses.
In fact, noone has heard from any of them since, and no further information is available.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
That "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" coming from an American is naivete at best. Innocence has never been a defense against paranoid "officials." Stalin used to execute people at a whim for political reasons, even if they did everything they could to be good cogs in the machine.
Bad governments have murdered more people than any other type of institution or any individual combined. It's amazing to me sometimes how so many Bush supporters can talk about tradition while disregarding history and regarding our founders' traditions and advise with open contempt.
Does anyone else think this strange? You win a war once, then you stop. Is it meaningful to say that you continue winning the war for several years? Surely if a war drags on for years, then for most of that time you weren't winning, in the usual sense of the word...
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
I don't really understand what the big deal is.
We have a terrorist group, Al-Qaeda, which has repeatedly stated they want to kill lots and lots of american civilians. One day about 4 years ago, they killed 3000 in a few minutes. This proves they're not just all talk, not just an imaginary threat.
They have operatives working inside of the US. When they get phone calls from places like Morocco, Algeria, Syria, well.... I'd like for our government to know what the f they're discussing.
This is not about Domestic->Domestic calls. Those will not be tapped (according to whats being discussed here anyways). This is about international calls (though that is barely discussed in the summary, likely for partisan reasons).
meh. whether its legal or not, every administration since the telephone was invented would be guilty of this to some degree, if it should even be considered a crime. I obviously don't think it should be considering where the world is at to day, but as always, ymmv.
So much for getting out of the war anytime soon. Is anyone else sick and tired of living in a nation which is constantly at war with someone/something? I mean... how much more can your pocketbook take?
I just wonder why couldn't those billions of dollars invested in this war be used for Hydrogen fuel research or some other alternatives to oil. And this war is all about black gold.
FFS, Iceland plans (if it's not already) to be free from oil. Sweden, same thing for 2020? Why can't the US invest money to hydrogen research instead of wasting it on a war that is a melting pot for terrorists and the endresult, oil, will kill the planet faster?
Supposedly, he made this quote while being intervied by a psychiatrist during the time of his war crimes trial:
... the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."
"Why, of course, the people don't want war," Goering shrugged. "Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship."...
A goal is a dream with a deadline
I'm all in favor of keeping an eye on the bad guys, but I can't help thinking that they're dodging the law because their evidence is so weak even FISA is calling BS on them.
Forty-seven percent of those polled responded they they did not support 'wiretapping in order to reduce the threat of terrorism'.
Plain wrong. The article states, "Fifty-three percent of the respondents said they supported eavesdropping without warrants 'in order to reduce the threat of terrorism.'"
You may disagree in either case, but at least get the basic facts right.
... rather than a direct democracy.
Most people do not take the time to thoroughly understand the challenges before their society.
Arguably this is because they are too busy with immediate gratification, but it is also a byproduct of being worked too hard to worry about anything else. The average joe spends the majority of his time working, raising a family, and trying to enjoy his life.
Studying issues does not often contribute to an enjoyment of life, and I believe our education system does not adequately teach the rights granted to American citizens. Not knowing what you're entitled to in concrete terms makes it more difficult to be upset when your entitlements are endangered.
This is a very encouraging sign.
What would the numbers have been if the poll was worded this way:
Are you for or against wiretapping suspected terrorists without a FISA court warrant, even though a warrant can be obtained up to 72 hours after the fact?
I'm guessing that 47% would grow to at least 2/3.
The American people are starting to "get it" about this current President. The terrorists would be winning if the public was falling for our fascist government's bullshit ... but the people are, surprisingly, showing that they aren't all willing to part with their cherished civil liberties just because Dubya & Dick flash the boogie-man before our faces every 14 months or so (or whenever they need a poll boost).
The public is starting to build up immunities to the old "whip them into a frenzy by showing stock footage of Osama and playing an audiotape" routine.
Good for us.
"I have as much authority as the pope, I just
don't have as many people who believe it" - George Carlin
Not "has probable cause to search." "Is suspicious of."
Lesson: Your fellow Americans don't care about your privacy, and trust the feds to decide whether or not to search you (and them), without court review, warrants, probable cause, or anything else. Where's PGPfone when we need it?
sulli
RTFJ.
It seems pretty evident to me that there is a large percentage of individuals in the US population that no longer think for themselves. They simply know if they dislike Democrats or they dislike Republicans. On any given issue they will simply spout whatever garbage their side's talking heads have been saying on television or political radio. It's unfortunate because can't hardly have a rational conversation with most people about anything involving politics. I don't want to hear the opinions of Rush Limbaugh or Al Franken regurgitated to me. What do YOU think? It's a truly sad state of affairs.
From the supplement:
After 9/11, President Bush authorized government wiretaps on some phone calls in the U.S. without getting court warrants, saying this was necessary to reduce the threat of terrorism. Do you approve or disapprove of this?
53% approve, 46% disapprove, 1% no opinion
After 9/11, George W. Bush authorized government wiretaps on some phone calls in the U.S. without getting court warrants. Do you approve or disapprove of this?
46% approve, 50% disapprove, 3% no opinion.
Basically, somewhere around half the country approve, half disapprove and the margin of error are people who are swayed by how the question is asked.
I used my huge army of proxies to manipulate the poll results!
Oh wait, what do you mean it was an offline poll?!
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
Al-Qaeda's goals are to drive out Western influence from the middle east, Saudia Arabia in particular, and establish a pan-Islamic state. I suspect they don't care much about our civil liberties one way or another. That's up to us.
On the other hand, famous conservative activist Grover Norquist says that if new tools are needed to go after terrorists, the President should get a law passed, rather than break the existing laws. Sounds quite reasonable, doesn't it?
So, let the public relations rumble begin!!!
--- Often in error; never in doubt!
All this about "Would you want to use wiretaps against (suspected) terrorists or let them win" is a continuation of the BS false-choice (and mischaracterizing the opposition's argument) often given by the Bush administration.
Back in 2002 when the project was already started, the Department of Justice said that FISA was perfectly fine and there was no reason to weaken it even for non-citizens! But now that they've been found out they change their tune...
(Stupid inactive blog of mine)
"The poll found that 53 percent of Americans approved of Mr. Bush's authorizing eavesdropping without prior court approval "in order to reduce the threat of terrorism"; 46 percent disapproved. When the question was asked stripped of any mention of terrorism, 46 percent of those respondents approved, and 50 percent said they disapproved."
7% margin "to reduce the threat of terrorism", -4% margin just on the wiretapping. That hefty 11% (which is 24% of either "side") is why Bush will lie about the wiretaps "reducing terrorism".
How about the results of a poll asking "support Bush's illegal spying on Americans?" I'd expect more like up to 35% approval (20% of Americans believe we were born yesterday), 60% disapproval. But I'd still expect the media to describe that opposition as "mixed support".
--
make install -not war
From what I read, the wiretaps in question involve international calls only. No?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
When is everyone in this country going to realize that it is PERFECTLY legal for the NSA/CSS (according to their charter and inception) to monitor all SIGINT with at least one termination outside the United States. You may not like it, but it is legal. I for one don't really have a problem with them capturing SIGINT out to or in from the International Community. Where I have a problem, and the real issue here, is if the NSA/CSS starts monitoring internal US communications. The golden rule in the SIGINT community is that you don't spy on America. But if one part of that transmission is offshore and is picked up by the NSA, you aren't spying on Americans; you are spying on the other International party. We should all be up in arms WHEN/IF the NSA/CSS conducts 100% domestic SIGINT missions. Ben Franklin was once attributed with saying, "He who sacrifices freedom for security deserves neither." That is 100% correct, but at this point, we aren't sacrificing freedoms with the current, approved mission of the NSA/CSS.
They basically got everything they wanted in FISA, which is already a very creepy process in many respects from a civil rights point of view. It's a secret court where already many questionable things could be swept under the rug.
There is no reason at all not to even go through FISA... unless they want to do something truly immoral and illegal.
This is a heads up to anyone paying attention that Bush's people are off the reservation, and are spying on peolpe other than terrorists - or that their definition of "terrorist" is becoming something that would surprise you.
And anyone who does not believe politicians (even their favorites) capable of doing something wrong when left unsupervised should have both their head (if you're that gullible, stay in your home where it's safe, and don't answer the door) and their American citizenship (we have a country where checks and balances are the law of the land, period), examined.
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The mods can hit me offtopic all they like but the fact is that when a Brigadier General makes a statement which, in context, exposes his view that we'll be in Iraq for "at least several more years", you know the domestic monitoring situation will continue to get worse. Not better. And this will happen globally. Not just in the US.
fast as fast can be. you'll never catch me.
the NSA was intercepting incoming calls from known or suspected terrorists. remember, members of both parties were informed aboit the activities since the program was undertaken, and there was no grave concern expressed then. now, i'm not a lawyer (as I'm sure most of us here aren't either), so I can't comment on the specific legalities. but it was not wiretapping, but international call interception. huge difference. and you know what, he'd better be doing that. if he wasn't, wouldn't his critics have said he wasn't "connecting the dots"?
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
The argument has been made in two ways:
1. Congress gave us this power (which they didn't, sorry) when they approved going to war against Al Queada, and
2. If someone from Al Queada is calling, then we want to know about it - and quick!
However, as another poster pointed out, this latter argument falls apart under the FISA laws which state that you can start a wiretap as long as you go to the courts within 72 hours to get the subpeana. And even at that - it's a secret court! Nobody has to know save for a few people.
So, why not do it? I'm convinced it's because of 1 of 2 reasons:
1. They don't care to have people know at all because they don't think that they could get past any kind of judicial review,
2. They aren't doing specific wire taps, but are scanning and reviewing automatically any phone call from a foreign source.
A combination of the two is probably in effect. I'm willing to bet that their scanning every call coming in from either specific areas (such as Afganistan) and having the computer start checking it out, then alerting an NSA staff member if something sounds interesting (either through voice recognition or just checking the number - if it looks like one that's been used in the past or might have been used by a suspected terrorist, start tracking it).
Either way, it's rather troubling. It's not that I don't think that Bush & Co aren't serious about trying to stop terrorism - I think they're serious about it. The issue is that this kind of behavior is always rife for corruption. J. Edgar Hoover used it to stop "communists", but most of the time it was to keep his power base in check with blackmail and intimidation. Nixon tried to use his power to keep his powerbase by spying on the Democrats (aka - Watergate).
And we're suppose to believe that this power - unchecked and unregulated would only be used for good? What are the odds that someone won't be tempted to listen in on Christian Amanpour's recordings - after all, she talks to Afganistans and middle eastern people all the time, and just happen to listen to her husband's conversations about how to manage the Kerry campaign (or some other ranking Democrat).
Even if people say they won't, we know that absolute power corrupts. If they want to listen on phone calls, fine - they have a process for that to help keep corruption down. If they want to scan all incoming and outgoing calls from the US to other countries, that's fine as long as they get the laws passed to give them the power to do so and check unbalanced power.
Otherwise, the temptation to do something bad will be too much for some - it was too much for President Nixon whom, by all accounts, was a pretty good President. Remember, he thought he was doing the right thing by staying in office, and never dreamed that maybe - just maybe - he had taken his powers too far.
Of course, this is all just my opinion. I could be wrong.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
I just wonder why couldn't those billions of dollars invested in this war be used for Hydrogen fuel research or some other alternatives to oil.
Because in the free market economy, that is the job of private business, not government.
Basically the problem is: If they have enough evidence to get a wiretap that protects people. It isnt like it is difficult to get a wiretap warrant, but you must have atleast SOME credible backing to why you think you should collect more evidence. I would like to ask the powers that be, how useful has this been, show me a case where this was used and proved effective even at a small level. Probably a lot of cases were sooo weak that they couldn't even get a warrant which means they have no right to do it. Pre 9/11 they had enough evidence against the various players to get warrants, so wiretapping ability is not the issue, laziness and priorities were. Now those targets are priority, same amount of evidence and probable cause exist to get the wiretaps, there is absolutely no reason to not be able to get a warrant if there is a credible reason
The phrase "more better" is acceptable English. suck it grammar Nazis
All of the rhetoric, spin, and use of loaded words is designed to distract us from what is really going on here: warrantless searches of United States Citizens by the federal government. WTF makes people think that is OK? Bush and Co. have also argued that they have the power to hold citizens incommunicado without bail and without recourse to counsel for as long as they want just because they are suspected of being terrorists. Given the Bushites' history of labelling anyone who disagrees with them as "supporters of terrorists," this scares the hell out of me.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
Now Bushie doesn't want us to refer to this program as "Domestic Spying", but rather "Terrorist Survelliance". How's that for some Orwellian word play? The worst part about all of this is the American people, once again, have demonstrated that they will allow their leaders to do anything, absolutely anything, as long as a couple buzzwords are tossed in. A politician can introduce a bill that sanctions the torture of grandmothers, and it will pass with little scrutiny as long as he repeats "terrorists" and "sex offenders" a few times.
From the article: "The poll found that 53 percent of Americans approved of Mr. Bush's authorizing eavesdropping without prior court approval "in order to reduce the threat of terrorism"; 46 percent disapproved. When the question was asked stripped of any mention of terrorism, 46 percent of those respondents approved, and 50 percent said they disapproved."
This quote shows such an insight into the American psyche. It's become a way to justify anything and everything. Terrorism has become the new Communism. It's a shame that people feel this way.
I'm reminded of the Ben Franklin quote that was used to protest the recent speech by Gonzales: "those who would sacrifice liberty for freedom, deserve neither."
But don't take my quotes for it; go out and vote!
"Hitler justified"
"Invoking the word "terrorism" to deflect criticism is only making Bush look more and more detached and cynical,"
You may be right, but what does it mean when someone invokes Hitler like you did?
How pathetic are you that you follow me from topic to topic and waste all your mod points at once modding me down?
From what I understand, these aren't calls involving Americans calling Americans. They are watching for Americans calling or getting calls from terrorist suspects. I wouldn't even call this "domestic spying" since these are international calls.
Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
As agents of the government the NSA derives its authority from Congress. Congress and the President derive their authority from the Constitution. The 9th and 10th Amendments seal the Constitution for a very good reason. There are some things which the Government simply cannot legally engage in--no matter what Congress or the President says.
Never mind those restrictions on authority, though. They only get in the way of protecting us from the screaming barbarian hordes which are always waiting just outside the gates.
fast as fast can be. you'll never catch me.
The poll found that 53 percent of Americans approved of Mr. Bush's authorizing eavesdropping without prior court approval "in order to reduce the threat of terrorism"; 46 percent disapproved. When the question was asked stripped of any mention of terrorism, 46 percent of those respondents approved, and 50 percent said they disapproved.
And there you have the manipulation of statistics to prove a point. Had they ask the question "Do you approve of Mr. Bush's authorizing eavesdropping on terrorists without prior court approval" the numbers would have been even higher in favor of Bush.
Really, the liberal media needs to stop with the baby crap of calling Bush "Mr. Bush". He's the president, show some respect even if you don't agree with his policies and call him "President Bush". Also, for the love of god, stop calling Bill Clinton "President Clinton". It's former President Clinton, like you do for every other one.
Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety - Ben Franklin
What part of that don't people get?
Seriously, why is it that so many conservatives don't trust that stupid, evil, wasteful government to run a social program (just give me my taxes back!), but trust them completely and lovingly to tap your phone or imprison you without trial?
Why are so many patriots so happy to violate the constitution? You can't burn a flag, but you can listen on my phone calls without due process? Why is everyone a constitutional scholar when it comes to guns or free speech, but starts whistling and looking uncomfortable when it's comes to due process?
Is the world some delicate and beautiful flower that will be crushed by our founding father's foolish "bill of rights?" Are times all that different?
Has everyone forgotten why we have these laws? We saw the consequences of not having them not that long ago. Most people who saw the civil rights movement and Watergate are still alive today. Collective amnesia?
What kind of patriot are you, if want the ten commandments in a courthouse, but not the constitution?
How do you not call yourself a hypocrite, when you impeach a man for lying about his affair, but not a man who admits to violate his oath of office, and the law of the land, and declares he will keep right on doing it?
FISA hardly ever said no. There's only one reason why they would want to hide their spying from FISA... "terrorists" now include their political enemies.
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Good point after all, our canels(I forget which president started that system), our highways (Eisenhower), the panama canel, our flying capabilities(DOD), our space capabilities (NASA), our oil based Automobile(DOD supporting trucks), our nuclear power (DOD-DOE) were all developed by private enterprise and nothing came from the gov.
Even though I am a long-time libertarian, I will say that there are times where gov. make sense. One is to help push us off oil.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The best reporting I've seen on this topic has come courtesy of blogger Glenn Greenwald. He's a lawyer who has gone into pretty exhaustive detail on his site about the nature of the FISA legislation, and his analysis of the administration's arguments.
The short version: he doesn't buy it. More specifically, he has catalogued and refuted pretty much every argument that has been used to defend the adminsitrations actions, ranging from the schizoid("No, really, the surveillance complied with FISA, even though the President himself admits that it doesn't"), to the merely bizarre ("Congress gave its authorization to this program when it Authorized the Use of Military Force (AUMF) against terrorists.")
A quick look back through my posting history will reveal my political bias, so it shouldn't be too much of a surprise that I'm siding against the administration on this one. But Greenwald's work on this subject, to my knowledge, hasn't been equalled anywhere on the internet.
...by just stuffing our emails and phone conversations full of Bad Words like bomb/terrorism/bush-daughters-drunken-incest-orgy? ?
:)
Then it won't be effective to continue spying on joe sixpack...
Anyways, I just started it, didn't i? And if you quote me in you're reply, you'll help to!
Why stick up for big business?
Bingo! Hitler did it, it's terrible!
Hitler also greatly expanded the Autobahn highways - are you against large interstate highways as well?
I'd suggest some reading on Godwin's law. If you want to argue against something Bush or any other leader does, that's fine. But using the Nazis is deliberately inflamatory and should be considered "flamebait", in my opinion.
And yet, we are seeing a host of new issues pop up all over the world (Palastinians, Venezula, Chile, etc). There can never be world peace. So I would vote no, just due to the inability to have this.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I fully expected to get modded down for my parent post, but wow, flamebait?
Flamebait?!?!?
I thought my post was reasonably well thought out and non-offensive.
Crap, a viewpoint that isn't the same as 96% of the slashdot groupthinkers! I guess thats flamebait!!!1!
yeesh.
I think thats it, in an nutshell.
following the law means that EVERY phone # has to be registered and logged and approved. that works for 'countable' amounts of things - if there are 5 or 50 or 500 phones you want to tap.
but what if he wants to tap ALL phones and just go on a fishing expedition, trying to find ANYTHING that can be used against people he wants to target? of course (!) this has nothing to do with 'war on terror'. this is fallacy by extension - there is no link to monitoring phone calls of RANDOM US CITIZENS and being able to stop people in the middle east who are ideologically opposed to our very existence.
think about it - if the amount of calls that bushie wants to snarf in on are SO huge that it would look highly suspicious to any court - THAT is why he is side-steppign this fisa stuff.
isn't that obvious once you think about it?
any time the pres wants a 'free hand' you should be VERY VERY SCARED. nothing good can come of it - it totally ruins our checks-and-balances. ie, runing the very CORE of what makes america great.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
You are either joking or stupid, seriously. If I am calling overseas, unless the govt has firm evidence that I am breaking the law, they have no business listening to my calls. My PRIVATE conversations are exactly that..PRIVATE. The govt's "suspicions" that someone MIGHT POSSIBLY be potentially connected to someone that MIGHT POSSIBLY be potentially connected to a "terrorist" is not a good excuse to break the law.
Talking to Geeks is like eating jello with a chainsaw, interesting, but painful.
So please, stop promoting the left wing dogma that your rights are somehow being violated...unless you have some kind of proof that specifally YOUR rights have been violated.
I can be arrested and detained without cause, indefinitely, if the government decides to label me a "terrorist".
Due process is gone.... if the government decides that by posting this message, I am indeed a "terrorist", I can be locked up... without due process, without being allowed to contact my lawyer, without access to my family, and without the ability to post bail... indefinitely.
There's one civil right gone. 5th Amendment... blown to bits.
How about this one: My phone can be tapped, without probably cause, simply because the other end of the phone call is overseas (or not, we don't know for sure since Bush/NSA isn't letting the FISA court see what calls they're tapping). 4th Amendment.. ripped to shreds.
Quit drinking the Limbaugh koolaid. If this was happening under a Democrat President, you and your buddies in the Michigan militia would be storming Washington. You got impeachment proceedings started for far less.
"I have as much authority as the pope, I just
don't have as many people who believe it" - George Carlin
Do you approve of using wire taps to stop terrorist attacks:
[ ] Yes
[ ] No
Me personally, I would check Yes. Now if the poll was:
Do you approve of wire taps on US citizens inside the US with no oversight outside of the Executive branch of government?
[ ] Yes
[ ] No
I would check, circle, draw arrows to, highlight and in all possible ways indicate No.
Using the FISA court to issue warrents and have at least SOME level of oversight is important to me. Mind you, this time last year the ACLU was pitching a loaf over the "secret court" and lack of oversight.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
I mean, who else besides G.W. Bush could get a Hoover Institution fellow like Larry Diamond siding with the ACLU in a court case against the administration ? It's amazing what the man won't do to unite the country!
And to those who are saying what G.W. has authorized is somehow legal because of various 'loopholes' ( one side of the call is outside the U.S., always, trust us... or even more absurd "we're at war, anything is OK" ), uh, be honest. Neither of those conditions is exempt in the federal law. Is a U.S. phone line being tapped ? Guess what you need ? A court order!
What's really, really mind-blowing here is that the NSA ( or whoever ) can easily get a warrant even after the call is monitored. And, uh, has a request for such a warrant ever been turned down? So... it's not like the NSA couldn't have done the exact same spying without breaking the law... what's the real reason these taps are being done without a warrant ??
As for the poll... yea, I don't care about my karma so I'm going to guess those folks who think this is OK are the same who think evolution is just some crackpot theory. It's just pretty safe to figure about 50% of anyone, anywhere, will believe anything they're told to believe.
It's an open question as to whether any purely domestic conversations have been tapped; the administration has claimed not, but there have been leaks to the opposite. There are also serious questions as to whether results from the warrantless wiretaps were used to seek later FISA warrants without informing the judges - causing one FISA judge to resign in protest. The program also seems to have changed at least once based on questions about its legality, so that even if warrants are sought for domestic wiretaps now it doesn't mean this was the case throughout the program. IMO, only an independent investigation by someone with a very high security clearance can sort it out for certain.
Given that this administration seems to be treating vegans as terrorists and this warrantless wiretap program may have been the mother of all dead ends, skepticism is warranted. There are reasons why one branch of government isn't allowed to go off wandering on its own.
Surely if a war drags on for years, then for most of that time you weren't winning, in the usual sense of the word...
Then it's a bad choice of a phrase. The "usual" sense of the word "winning," when it comes to a war, is the surrender/capitulation/removal of an organized entity against which you are opposed. This is a conflict, but it's unlike any other we've ever had to face. There's certainly no question that places like Iran and Syria are funding and encouraging the extremist groups that plan and carry out attacks in places like New York, Jordan, Madrid, Egypt, London, Bali, and so on. The conflict with these groups takes on two forms: the removal of regimes (like the Taliban) that provide safe harbor and the direct elimination of those pieces of the organization that are so desperate to set up shop again in another play pen of a country (like Iraq). To the extent that Iraqi police and armed forces are still getting up to speed, we have a vested interest in playing their role for them. To the extent that places like Iran, and groups like Hamas are taking active roles in polluting Iraq with out-of-town RPG-toting jihaddi wack jobs, we have to stick with it.
You win a war once, then you stop
Is that how you saw post-war Germany or Japan? We had a miliary-run local government in place for years, acting as police and defense until the local populations got it together. That took much, much longer than we've yet spent in Iraq. The stable form of government, Constitution and all, that we have in the U.S. was years getting hammered out. I don't think people are clear on how little time has passed. Similarly, I don't think people recall how little had to pass in taking down Saddam before Libya gave up on their little exported Pakistani-traitor-supplied nuke project, etc. This whole thing is much more complicated than a "simple" bit of business like historical war between established and recognized governments. Jihaddi/extremist crazies are a tough bunch to pin down, war-wise. It will take a generation, at least, of better-educated, election-holding, free-er-trading peace in the mideast for the crazies to stop looking for a spot to get traction and set up the next Taliban-run Afghanistan.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
First, I'm not sure how I feel entirely about all this. But my first thoughts are this. I support the idea of the spying that occurred. In the aftermath of 9-11 you had an Al Qaeda who must have felt very bold and very victorious. You would hope that in their victory they would become a little too comfortable with their "success". To publicly come out at the time and say we are going to step up our eavesdropping may have tipped them off to be more careful.
However, it is time to step back and relook at things so we can move forward. We have all had time to adjust. (in fact IMO many have moved on so much that they are back into the pre 9-11 comfort of thinking things like that don't happen in America) The picture of the hooded students was one of the most effective pictures I have scene in a very long time. Those people deserve a pat on the back for saying everything they needed to without saying anything. So perhaps it is time we step back and rethink our methods and recognize that some of them crossed a line. I don't think anyone should be lambasted over this. Its just time to move wisely forward.
Bush admitted it. He admitted to spying on Americans who were engaging in domestic conversaions. Not international terrorists, Americans talking to other Americans. What more do you want?
So to answer your question - Privacy. 4th amendment.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
Why do you find it necessary to lie when the facts prove the point?
"And for your fucking information, everybody on the planet except Bush and Gonzales has concluded he broke the law."
That's a lie.
"The analysis, by the Congressional Research Service, a nonpartisan research arm of Congress, was the first official assessment of a question that has gripped Washington for three weeks: Did Bush act within the law when he ordered the National Security Agency, the country's most secretive spy agency, to eavesdrop on some Americans?
The report reached no bottom-line conclusions on whether the program was legal, in part because it said so many details of the operation remained classified."
See that? The situation has many unknowns that require a thorough investigation.
I love how assholes like you screech about "BROKE TEH LAW!!!!" while completely ignoring due process and making idiotic proclamations of guilt.
Apparently you are so serious about enforcing the law that you're willing to ignore it to hang Bush.
How pathetic are you that you follow me from topic to topic and waste all your mod points at once modding me down?
What part don't you get?
I hear ya, but Congress would have to change the mission of the NSA. But the main point is this: there ARE NO LAWS BROKEN here. Call it an oversight, or a loophole, or whatever, but by definition of the current operations, it is legal.
Why doesn't Bush do an end run around this situation another way?
:::tongue in cheek:::
If he wants to detect communictions going on between other countries and our own, why not just set up Wiretaps outside of the US? Order the CIA to do something? You're the President aren't you?
Surely he can get cooperation from other countries, then he wouldn't have to come to us for approval, and violate OUR civil liberties.
"Love is like pi - natural, irrational, and very important." (Lisa Hoffman)
It's worse than that - Bush and the rest of his crime family have told us the phoney "War on Terror" will go on for DECADES.
This is the essence of the state: "You do everything we tell you and give us everything you have and we'll protect you from the bad guys inside and outside our borders - and if there aren't any bad guys, we'll make some."
Just read an article last night that pointed out that Hamas was SUPPORTED by the Israelis in the early days because they wanted to splinter the Fatah organization. Just like we supported the Islamists in Afghanistan because we wanted to splinter the Soviet Union.
The CIA HANDED Iran plans for a nuclear bomb trigger. The cover story was, "Well, it has a flaw in it which will set back their program". The Russian scientist who handed it over noted the flaw in a note to the Iranians because he KNEW they would see it anyway - which means the CIA knew it too.
None of this is accidental or a result of incompetence. It is the essence of the state.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Hi, since the US governments wants to tap phones randomly, we're switching to Google Talk effective as of tommorow.
It'll be fun to watch them process tons of useless information.
- Osama
The problem is, the government is being run by the oil companies (and other associated scumbags with money.)
You DO remember that Bush is from a Texas oil family, right?
Dream on, that the government is EVER going to push us off oil (absent a fucking revolution in this country - which will probably end up like most revolutions, i.e., badly.)
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
No laws broken here? Are the 9th and 10th Amendments, the stop-bits on the Bill of Rights, really that meaningless to you? Do you not realize the importance they have on limiting the scope and power of authority?
Congress cannot make any law which supersedes the Constitution. They have, and SCOTUS has upheld them, but in reality every single one of them is illegal.
fast as fast can be. you'll never catch me.
That Americans are not more generally outranged by this program calls to mind a relevant Ben Franklin quote during the 1787 Constitutional Convention:
Happy goldfish bowl to you.
and you can do all this without fear of retaliation from the govt.
Unless your wife works for the CIA.
If I don't put anything here, will anyone recognize me anymore?
Why? Well it's because this is the age of the information society, AND the American people do not have the capacity to understand what most data mining engineers do: that's information exploitation, which from the help of technology (i.e. computers), people have the capacity for gathering domenstic intel from businesses to your neighbor, likely to exploit you. The current administration, which has a direct relationship to the George H. Bush Center for Intelligence knows intimately about this, the basic notion that information == control == power.
It's not information wants to free, but information wants to be exploited (implicity defining data vs. information!), hence you can be exploited. That is were the problem is, the gov't is supposed to safeguard your information, i.e. privacy (not protect you, BTW), but currently with the FISA laws and how the 'orders' were issued, it appears to be questionable.
Back in 2001, a closed session of cleared congressmen, and a pork-barrel-like clause to change FISA would have solved this debate, cause I doubt citzens nor enemies are really reading the fine print in our current laws (as convoluted as they are). Instead, the administration came in cowboy style and ignored the system, and there's a critical reason why a system is there in the 1st place. Note, why things played out as well is because of the incapacity of our agencies to communicate "out of the box", non-linear in technical aspects. And that should have been fixed first before ignoring the system. We have 2 competing systems, domestic (Justice Dept) and international (DoD), and FISA was somewhat helpful in drawing the lines. It should have been reviewed back then...
Okay, here's one. "Free speech" can now be confined to zones that are conveniently off camera and away from the president.
Also, many people whose civil rights have been violated would be hard pressed to post a reply here because they're being held indefinitely without trial at Gitmo. They have a hard enough time getting access to a lawyer, let alone Slashdot.
Free most of the time is not free enough. As the neocons like to point out, we're not nearly as bad as a lot of places. That seems to be a common neocon argument: "Look! They're totally worse than us! Look! They did it too!"
It's not okay just because someone else is worse. This is the sort of thing that needs to be nipped in the bud. Allowing it to run rampant for twenty years will only make it harder to fix.
I have an epistemological question for everyone who supports any form of wiretapping without a warrant: How do you know that the wiretapping is being done for purposes of "anti-terrorism" or to "people the government is suspicious of"?
The purpose of requiring a warrant is that a warrant can only be issued by a court, and the purpose of the court is to examine the truth, or at least the plausibility, of the claims being made to justify the need for a warrant. Without a warrant, without a court, the only answer to my question is, "We know because George Bush or one of his designates says so."
Given the record of the Bush administration on matters of truth, such as the claims regarding WMDs in Iraq and Iraq's support of al Qaeda, it seems to me a bad idea to make the administration's say-so a major plank in your epistemological platform. This is just common sense. No one would recommend trusting one's money blindly to a financial advisor who had lost everything in a major blunder that later turned out to be based on transparently false claims.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
The NSA has monitored every international call since the 1950s and the cold war to the limits of their technology. The NSA can legally monitor these calls. By extension, if a US citizen calls or receives a call from an entitiy that the NSA can legally monitor, the NSA can monitor the citizen without any warrant or court order. The FISA rules actually provide greater limits than what existed the last 40 years. Shoot, ECHELON in the 1990s used the NSA to monitor domestic calls based on that alone, the government has the power to do this based on presidential order.
Politically, its a winning issue for a president. The Democrats appear to be just as soft on terrorism as they are on domestic crime, and the GOP is able to say they will "do whatever it takes" to protect the nation.
The fact is that the US Congress is abdicating its power (power abhors a vaccuum). They watch. They express "concern". They are "troubled". But they never ever put themselves at political risk and exert their power in the form of legislation.
It's not a political attack on Bush; the NYT follows the standard of calling politicians "Mr." (or, I assume, "Miss" or "Mrs." or "Ms.") most of the time unless there's some specific reason to identify them by title. Many other, mostly British, papers do the same -- "Mr. Blair," etc. As for "President," there are other stylistic schools which hold that former Presidents never lose the title; thus you'll see not only "President Clinton" but also "President [George H.W.] Bush," "President Carter," "President Ford," etc. Find a particular mainstream news source which routinely talks about both "Mr. Bush" and "President Clinton," and you'll have an argument. Otherwise your post is just more standard-issue right-wing whining.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
With 53% in support of a breach in their own constitution, its sounds more like their apathetic and/or treasonable to me.
May the Maths Be with you!
"Bin Laden Determined To Strike In US."
What does this tell us?
That the intelligence services were already listening to known terrorist "chatter";
The level of "chatter" was extremely high;
The President was notified.
The kicker, of course, is that Bush sat on his ass at his ranch in Crawford and didn't do a fucking thing about an imminent terrorist attack.
And NOW he wants to spy? We were already keeping tabs on the bad guys before 11 Sept 2001, but the guys at the top were not interested. The Clinton administration tried to tell BushCo that Bin Laden was dangerous and it was ignored. FBI field agents were telling their superiors in Washington that people with Middle-Eastern names were taking flying lessons and were not interested in learning how to land!
Bush has an enemies list that makes Nixon's look like the invite list for a child's birthday party. WHO ARE WE KIDDING? The domestic spying has nothing to do with terrorism (nothing the Bush Administration actually does) and everything to do with concentrating power in the hands of the Executive, specifically the President.
Impeach, convict, execute. It's the only way to be sure.
So Bush is claiming wartime powers but Congress has not officially declared war. The war on terrorism is a symantic construct like the war on drugs, which has been going on my whole life. So how do we know when we won? How do we know the war is over and we can return to a normal level of intrusiveness?
If Congress doesn't see the fight against terrorism as real war, what is the Bush administration using as justification? We're selling out the qualities that made America a great nation and we're not even clear about the goal. What happens when we're still giving away our liberty but the threat of terrorism is no longer relevant? The government will still be using that excuse 20 years from now. Who do you trust to tell us when the terrorists are beaten down to the point they're no longer a significant threat?
You trust Rumsfeld? A study commissioned by the Army says the Army is near the breaking point and Rumsfeld says everything is fine. One of them's lying. You trust Bush to tell you?
Part of the problem is Congress spends most of its time fighting for home district earmarks instead of dealing with the big issues. So instead of declaring war they pass some pussy authorization for the use of force in Iraq that basically turns their decision making authority over to the president with the hope he'll do the right thing. What bullshit.
And why are conservatives suddenly so gray on matters of law? When Clinton was president you were all pretty black and white about what was legal. But when Bush breaks the law by deciding the FISA court really isn't necessary, all of sudden you're pretty waffly on the whole subject of obeying the law. Fucking hypocrits.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Both houses have said they will have closed door hearings on this, not open hearings. Why? Because although they might be angry the President is usurping their authority, they are also in the same party as the President and wouldn't want to make him (and Repubs by reflection) look bad.
So if the hearing is closed door, how do we know that it'll be fair instead of similar to the administration's tactic of bringing in Enron to help solve the California energy gouging?
As to the President saying this is legal, and having research for it. Well, they researched whether torture was legal. They defined torture to cover nearly no acts so that they could continue to torture. Additionally, they researched whether Iraq had WMDs or not too and how did that turn out?
Honestly, this President owes his entire political career to Karl Rove, who is an adviser and sits in the White House. Karl Rove doesn't have much truck with what's legal and definitely with what's moral. He's more concentrated on what he can get away with.
And that's why when this President basically gets up there and says "trust me, I'd never do wrong" up there and completely ignores the Constitutional separation of powers, I get nervous. When he says that laws passed in 1978 don't mean anything anymore, I get nervous. If the President openly says he doesn't feel reigned in by laws, how is his power controlled? Aren't we supposed to have checks and balances of some sort, just to be sure?
I find it most astounding that this President make a big deal that he feels judges should interpret the law (esp. Constitution) strictly according to what it says, instead of the changing of society. And yet he seems to feel that in the Executive Branch, they can say that 1978 laws on the books don't mean the same thing they did when they were written.
It's a hypocrite, he doesn't seem to believe the law applies to all equally (Presidents, Presidential buddies and in general war/government profiteers get special treatment), and he doesn't hold anyone near him to a high standard, probably because he failed his way to the top.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
You didn't answer my questions, you posted a bunch of hypothetical nonsense.
I can be arrested and detained without cause, indefinitely, if the government decides to label me a "terrorist".
You have not been arrested, nor detained without cause. Nor have you been labeled a terrorist. However, being a terrorist to me would justify being detained and arrested.
Due process is gone.... if the government decides that by posting this message, I am indeed a "terrorist", I can be locked up... without due process, without being allowed to contact my lawyer, without access to my family, and without the ability to post bail... indefinitely.
Once again, you have not been locked up. Your civil rights have not been violated.
There's one civil right gone. 5th Amendment... blown to bits.
So you've been forced to testify against yourself in a trial? I think not.
How about this one: My phone can be tapped, without probably cause, simply because the other end of the phone call is overseas (or not, we don't know for sure since Bush/NSA isn't letting the FISA court see what calls they're tapping). 4th Amendment.. ripped to shreds.
Has your phone been tapped? No, because you have not been in touch with suspected/known terrorists overseas...like the people who are being tapped.
Quit drinking the Limbaugh koolaid. If this was happening under a Democrat President, you and your buddies in the Michigan militia would be storming Washington. You got impeachment proceedings started for far less.
If a dem was doing this, for hte same reasons, I would have no problem with it because I agree with the POLICY, not necessarily the President.
Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
Polls found that that same 53% of americans were in favor of lobotomies and coprophagia, as long as they were referred to as "Adjustive surgery", and "a yummy new ice cream flavor brought to you by the justice department", respectively. (C'mon, is it really news that slightly over half the population are either moronic mouth breathers or closet facists? I think not. It's next to impossible to underestimate the stupidity and malice of the chronically and willfully ignorant).
"What? I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you over the constant beeping of my bullshit detector..."
I recognize the importance; however, let's take a step back. The SCOPE and MISSION of the NSA/CSS does not violate Constitution. Keep in mind that both the SCOPE and MISSION of the NSA/CSS was not a directive from this administration. That NSA/CSS has been around for a long time (1952).
http://www.austinlinks.com/Crypto/charter.html a good read.
"The COMINT mission of the National Security Agency (NSA) shall be to provide an effective, unified organization and control of the communications intelligence activities of the United States conducted against foreign governments, to provide for integrated operational policies and procedures pertaining thereto. As used in this directive, the terms "communications intelligence" or "COMINT" shall be construed to mean all procedures and methods used in the interception of communications other than foreign press and propaganda broadcasts and the obtaining of information from such communications by other than intended recipients, but shall exclude censorship and the production and dissemination of finished intelligence."
You could look at this from the point of view that the govt is listening on phone calls that terror suspects are making if it makes you feel better.
And if he's breaking the law, and Congress knows about it, and the newspapers know about it, and everyone in the US knows about it....why hasn't he been indicted eh? Because they all know that he ISN'T breaking any law. OMG.
Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
The Constitution, like any operating system, has exploitable flaws. The bottom line is, though, that this OS is mine. It is not yours. You do not have permission to access this system unless I expressly give it to you. That's the point of the 9th and 10th Amendments. Like any OS you may discover flaws which you can exploit via a trojan. The bottom line does not change though: the trojan is illegal. This OS is mine, these rights are mine. They are not yours and no amount of justification (finding little holes in the code) will ever make this OS legally yours.
fast as fast can be. you'll never catch me.
It is easy to "justify" that action, or any action.
Obviously the president would be better able to focus on terrorist threats if he didn't have to focus on petty political maneuvers.
Therefore, spying on anyone who opposes his political agenda is actually helping the president prevent terrorist attacks by freeing up his time to focus on that.
There is an old line about "the ends do not justify the means".
Once you start using the "goal" to justify the tactics, then ANYTHING can be "justified".
So you don't approve of "X". Do you want the terrorists to win?
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
The telling question is this: why would he avoid getting the FISA permits, even after the fact? There are only two answers to this:
1) He knows he wouldnt get approval because he's using the wiretapping to spy on democrats and people who dont agree with him.
or
2) He thinks he's above the law of the land and doesnt need to follow the constitution.
Both of these are unacceptable.
The president has admitted that warrantless wiretaps were being carried out against private citizens that call suspected terrorist areas. If this is what the government is straight-out *admitting*, imagine how extensive the *actual* wiretapping might be. This is why a warrant is needed. At least it gives the pretense of due process.
Transistors and Beer!!
Or look at Clinton. Or FDR. Or Reagan. It doesn't matter which president you pick, they've all stretched the law.
If the courts find Bush violated the law, then yep, he should be punished. But until the courts so find, some folks seem to have forgotten you have to presume he's innoncent.
I have a hard time believing that the survelence had anything to do with Terrorists. If it did he would have had no problem with the FISA court. But what people weant you to forget it that the court was set up to prevent administrations like the current one from spying on their political enemies.
Out of a couple thousand requests to the FISA court, less than ten have been rejected. Most of them from the Buch White House.
On the Right wing talk shows they regularly define anyone who is not a cheerleader for Bush as a "traitor" or worse. It gives me an idea of who they really want to watch.
Until we have actual documentation of who was spied on and why, we cannot trust that it was only "terrorist suspects".
"Trademarks are the heraldry of the new feudalism."
And of course, all that's needed for probable cause is for Bush, Cheney or whatever faceless functionary is the guy of the day to decidde you must be, right? Whataver happened to judicial oversight and checks and balances? This is exactly the problem- no one is watching the watchers, and that's The recipe for fascism, which was what the whole structure of constitutional law was set up to prevent. Whatever happened to the spirirt of patriotism and courage that gave our country such strength? Did we give it up for comforting lies and "bread and circuses"? The thing everyone needs to remember is this- The state is inherently the enemy of the people. It always has been and it always will be, with the exception of brief periods of time when people overturn it and create a new state- which will then, sooner or later become exactly like the old one, only better at screwing the populace. If you trust the state, you are complicit in your own subjugation. Questioning authority is not a crime- it's a moral obligation. Aw, screw it- I'm gonna go slink off to my criminal enclave with all the rest of the fools who believe in freedom...
"What? I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you over the constant beeping of my bullshit detector..."
Everytime I disagree with the leanings of the slashdot mods I get modded down as "troll" or "flamebait" but I'll try it anyway.
Sorry, I call BS on the Chicken Littleing of the NYT. The answers to this "survey" are invariably tainted one way or the other depending on how the question is phrased, and what questions are begged in the phrasing.
OMFG we're becoming a police state! Um, no.
Notice: we're having this discussion, and you haven't been arrested by jackbooted thugs. Any black helicopters hovering outside your window?
It's pretty clear that we have a media that despises this president, and everyone in his administration. They will forge documents, steal things from the National Security archives, report patently untrue stories without retraction, everything up to (but so far not including) throwing their feces at him. I wonder if that kid that borrowed the Mao book has been released from the FBI?
If one truly innocent, normal person were 'disappeared', don't you think it would be FRONT PAGE NEWS? If there was one hint at domestic political opponents vanishing into "Rove's Concentration Camps"(tm), wouldn't it perhaps be screamed to the world until the heavens shook?
It's not, at least I haven't heard it. And do you seriously think a conspiracy to do so wouldn't have been revealed?
We have a leftist, elitist intelligentsia that has "Hate Bush" as their secular religion. Ironically, to these rudderless moral relativists there is really no evil in the world....except GW Bush. Anything he says is stupid, anything he does is wrong, and anyone he likes is evil, too.
So yes, in this case I'm criticising the messenger because frankly, we've heard the message again, and again, and again, but that STILL doesn't make it true.
This isn't a police state, and your exaggeration only drains what little credibility you had to start with.
-Styopa
The snippet above says 47% do not support 'wiretapping in order to reduce the threat of terrorism'. That's NOT what the actual article says: the word "warrantless" is what's missing. I ABSOLUTELY support wiretapping terrorists, drug dealers, whoever...but get a warrant! It's freakin' EASY, and it's required by the fourth ammendment.
Even if you trust this president, the unfettered and unchecked power for warrantless wiretaps is the first step towards a dictatorship. Even if Bush doesn't abuse the power, who's to say the next guy, or the guy after him, will show the same restraint? Our founding fathers codified this in the fourth ammendment because they realized the danger such power posed to democracy.
Does the fourth ammendment make life for law enforcement a little harder? Probably. But so does the entire bill of rights. If the war against terrorism trumpts the fourth ammendment, I don't see why it wouldn't also trump, say, the right to bear arms. Once again, even if warrantless wiretapping might be undertaken with the best of intentions, it's also the first step on the road to dictatorship.
When the liberal wing of the lifetime appointed Supreme court decided that it is ok for my government to confiscate my house and hand it over to another private individual who could pay them higher taxes, I did not hear a peep from the NYT and the rabble that clogs up this august blog.
When a President who must retire in 3 years, come what may, decides that he will listen to the phone conversation of people who have proven that they will and can kill Americans en masse we practically want to burn the country down.
Now I understand why Liberals have lost all but 3 of the last 10 presidential elections even when the candidate the conservatives present is just a stuttering cowboy from the Texas outback.
1) He wants to set the precedent that "in times of War" (i.e. whenever he feels like it), the President can violate law, morality and the Constitution at will. Or,
2) They really are running a program that monitors so many people that getting warrants really is unfeasible. In other words, a fishing expedition on thousands (or millions?) of people... Think about it - the NSA is expert at doing traffic analysis on large data sets. I'd be kinda suprised if they weren't doing it.
The fun thought that occurs to me if they are indeed doing traffic analysis is this - just how many phone number links away from a known or suspected terrorist are you? It's kinda like 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon, but with Osama instead. You might not have had a phone conversation with someone in Pakistan, but if you ordered a pizza from that place down the street owned by Ahmed...
It's probably a bit of both.
Human genome = 3 billion base pairs = 6 GBit. Windows + Office = 20 Gbit. Which is more impressive?
The way I see it, the difference between the citizens of a democracy and those of any other government form is that the government is ours, and the responsibility for its care is likewise ours. If we only become concerned with the actions of our government when it affects us directly, we are abrogating our responsibility as citizens. Also, an American citizen being a terrorist is not for the president to decide, nor for the court of public opinion. If I am guaranteed a fair and speedy trial by the law, I expect that right to be granted, regardless of the nature of my crime.
If you don't think the rampant civil rights abuses our president is perpetrating upon the nation's citizens is unimportant unless it affects you personally, here's something I'd like you to read and reflect upon:
Substitute 'terrorist' for 'Jew', 'pornographer' for 'Communist', and 'activist' for 'trade unionist', and you get a rather disquietingly accurate view of the direction our one-great nation is going.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
You can't burn a flag, but you can listen on my phone calls without due process?
That's because the symbol of freedom is more important that the freedom itself.
Fetishism of things like the flag, the presidential seal and the nation as a whole, allows those who seek a police state to tramp actual liberties into the ground.
It's not a logical disconnect, but a simple game of misdirection. First, you get people focused on a handful of issues like abortion, flag burning and gay rights. Because of the tunnel vision directed at those issues, things like the actual implementation of the Bill of Rights can be swept under the carpet.
That's why the Gay Marriage issue was the BEST thing that could have happened to George W during the last campaign. It was a highly polarizing issue that took up enough media attention for things like Bush's actual record to fall out of the nation's radar.
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
He was. You don't have to argue about the definition of "not" or "am". He flat out lied like a dog. Bush is doing it now. It's that simple.
The Bush administration held Jose Padilla for three years without charge, suggesting that he was a dangerous terrorist and would kill everyone should he be put on trial for his crimes. When he finally was charged, he was charged with "conspiracy to kidnap and torture", which was considerably underwhelming compared to what amounts to be the apparent repeated slandering of his name by the administration.
proof that specifally YOUR rights have been violated.
It happened to Padilla, it could happen to you or me. I don't have to sit here and wait for it to happen to me.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
The vast, vast majority of the calls the NSA intercepted were innocent Americans. None of them were actionable. The FBI has formally complained that the NSA has been wasting their field agents' time with massive, indiscriminate data dumps that they then have to chase down. The FBI, also an executive branch agency, has expressed concern that the searches are unconstitutional.
If we therefore take them at their word that the surveillance is directed at "Americans that the government is suspicious of;" then apparently the Bush administration is suspicious of all Americans until they are proven innocent. That, my friends, takes them beyond the event horizon of tyranny. The day may be rapidly approaching when all of us will have to concede that it's a damn good thing that we have the right to bear arms.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
M-x spook
Were that I say, pancakes?
The argument here (it hasn't been done to you, so why are you upset?) is a fallacy. Even if you care nothing about other people's rights (which have been violated), or about the rule of law, you should care about the fact that your rights can easily be violated.
Those of us on the other side of the issue care about this for the same reason anyone would care about a neighboring country building up an enormous army. As much as they claim it's only for defense, and that they'll never use it against your country, you have to be suspicious. When they start invading other countries, even if they justify it with sweet words, moral obligations, and claiming that they were invaded first, you get very very nervous. It's not necessarily because you think they're evil, or that they're necessarily even wrong (after all, who's to say that at least some of those countries didn't actually attack first?), but because they've shown that they don't mind using their newfound power for their own ends. Regardless of their original intentions, you start wondering whether something your country had considered normal practice before might be considered aggressive by the new military power. Besides, the argument that they aren't necessarily just being aggressive gets less and less convincing as time goes on and their behavior doesn't change. It creates fear.
In all likelihood, the administration believed it had good reasons for doing what it did. They usually do, and often what they try to do isn't all that different from something that would be a good idea. The problem in this case is that the administration's new army of wiretapping has NO OVERSIGHT. It is accountable to no one other than the a select few administration officials, and realistically they are both too busy to look into all of the details and not inclined to believe that mistakes might have been made. Here I'm talking about honest mistakes, like the nightmarish story (not really quite on the same issue as this, but related) of the guy who was picked up and held in prison without legal recourse because his name happened to be the same as a terrorist's. Those are bad enough; what happens when inevitably the people doing the hiring make a mistake and put someone who will abuse his power into a position with so little accountability?
The idea that I shouldn't be upset because my own rights have not been actively violated, while logically sound, is in reality a disaster. Sure, the dog seems to be rabid and has blood on its paws and face, but that doesn't mean it'll attack ME.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Amendment IV - Search and seizure. Ratified 12/15/1791.
...
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.
Amendment X - Powers of the States and People. Ratified 12/15/1791. Note
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Also of importance...
Article II. - The Executive Branch Note
Section 1 - The President
Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:
"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
Section 4 - Disqualification
The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.
If the Republicanic held Congress wishes to send the president a message they don't need to impeach Mr. Bush, Jr. They can simply impeach and convict Attorney General Gonzales for advising Mr. Bush, Jr. that breaking the law and shitting on the constiution is ok.
I personally think that any of the living Congresscritters and Justices that passed FISA into law should be tried and executed, and any past or current President that has issued a FISA warrant should be as well. But then I also think the Bushy should have been convicted of bribery many times over by now; the education speakers bribery scandal alone was enough for me. But most Americans accept corruption and lies from their employees.
Man with that kind of moral clarity you can ignore everything around you, so long as it doesn't affect you personally.
Anyone who whines about being modded down should be.
Those that support this surveillance primarily argue that we gain security in the form of protection against future terrorist attacks. I find this assertion to be highly dubious simply because I give the 'bad guys' more credit than to openly discuss their plans in any manner that might not be considered secure. However let's assume for the sake of argument that spying on Americans without warrants does indeed somehow prevent every major terrorist plot in the future. I still wouldn't support it because I'm not willing to trade my liberties for that protection.
I think that once we allow ourselves to be stripped of a constitutional liberty we're on a slippery slope. Maybe today we're only trying to justify the removal of unreasonable search and seizure. However who's to say that in the future we won't be trying to justify the removal of the right to bear arms or the right to free speech. If we as a country are not strong and brave enough to face the threat of terror without giving up our constitutional rights to do so, then how can we clothe ourselves in the vestiges of patriotism that were borne from those very rights? I used to like to think that I lived in "The land of the free and the home of the brave"; however it's looking more and more like we'd rather live in the land of the secure, and the home of the pragmatic. I don't see how we can possibly consider ourselves brave if we're willing to simply give away our freedoms.
Don't you have someone you'd die for?
"Yesterday it was terrorists. Today it's pornographers. Tomorrow it's you."
Sort of gives added meaning to Google's stick-in-the-mud decision not to turn over search data to the government for its porno-regulation lawsuit.
Thank God that there are responsible people in charge over there, making tough decisions. At least there are responsible people in charge somewhere in America.
And no, I don't work for Google.
Q: What did the comedian say to the crowd?
A: If I knew, this joke would be funny.
I understand your question, and I think the answer falls into just a couple of concepts. First, wiretapping is rarely a one-call tap. It is usually a tap over time. Allowing subsequent approval of a tap gives the government some leeway in emergency situations, which in and of itself is not a bad idea. A subsequent judicial review, provided it is done within a reasonable time, may conclude that the government must stop monitoring and remove the tap, or it may conclude that the tap is justified. The court may also fine tune for the Executive branch what it will approve on an emergency basis and, to that extent, may have something to say about how the data collected may be lawfully used.
So there is a justified place IMO for subsequent review as long as it is within a reasonable time frame. And in this case it is what makes Bush so entirely baffling--the subsequent review option in no way impedes his ability to tap, so this stuff about it being necessary to bypass the FISC is just really unjustified unless there is some rationale that is being kept hidden from us.
Happy goldfish bowl to you.
You know, I don't like to generalize or use sterotypes, but you know it's real easy when I read posts like yours. Because when someone defends Bush and actually has the gall to quote investigations, etc to support their argument, it would be comical if it wasn't so scary...
You know, there is a country you would feel more at home at, one where everyone thinks the same and thinking is enforced. Trust me, you'll love it there. It's called North Korea.
The real problem here isn't whether a certain amount of Americans, such as yourself, who don't have a problem with internal spying, because you're so fucking scared of your own shadow that you want big daddy bush to watch out for you; The problem is that it has been shown over and over and over again that we (True Americans who question, read, investigate through rational thinking) can't trust bush. How hard is it to understand this?
As a very small example, take the Nobel Winners who have, shall we say, a very dim view of how bush abuses scientific reports. Especially studies that don't agree with his 19th centure view of the world.
So to conclude, if non-partisan scientists, including most of the former EPA chiefs, including those from Republican administrations, don't trust bush, why should anyone else?
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
Ah yes, a fine political observation...
for a fucking ostrich!
It's all well and good for you to give up your civil rights, but please stop giving away mine.
Anyone who whines about being modded down should be.
By sidestepping court authorizations, abuses are far more difficult to spot since there is no external paper trail.
Publicly the talk seems to be almost all about international calls connected with the U.S. But there has been some mention of linked-downstream activity effectively extending monitoring without limits. If monitoring extends to everyone the U.S. contact has communicated with, then monitoring the people those people have communicated with...etc. etc... where does it end? In theory it could extend to everyone.
Hopefully I won't be in trouble for spilling critical information with this - Every terrorist has at some point eaten pickles or knows someone who has eaten pickles. Really.
It guess it's understandable that they don't want to reveal how far the technology goes, but isn't a real terrorist likely to expect that any imaginable technology is being used?
I expect that most of the Slashdot crowd differs from much of the public in terms of technological awareness and expectations. In spite of the current Google case about withholding search related data, how many here really believe that use of Google and other mapping services isn't watched for those checking out high-risk targets?
I'd consider those protecting us incompetent if they didn't do that. It's almost humorous that the controversy over invasion of privacy mentioned in the media is talking about it at one level, when it's so obvious that the likely use of data mining technology goes far, far deeper.
I remember the story of a friend nearly 20 years ago who had not paid his phone bill and the phone company was trying to bug him about payment long after service was shut off. More than a year after he'd forwarded some calls to a nearby friends house, the phone company was calling THERE asking about payment. Clearly the data routinely retained went far beyond a list of phone long distance calls. And that was 20 years ago.
I'd heard stories of places being raid for growing marijuana based on heat leakage patterns picked up by satellite. Sounded like sci-fi to me. But a friend who was a caregiver for an elderly person told me of that persons home being raided based on unusually high electricity use. There was no closet full of grow-lights. The electricity was going for charging an electric wheelchair. I would have thought that energy usage data was a private matter between the utility company and a customer. Apparently not. And that was over 10 years ago.
It's ironic that so much technology seems to be in place to gather data on U.S. citizens, yet government acts as if it is incapable of controlling our borders and coming up with a sane policies for those wanting to work here.
If the oil industry can figure out what's in the ground by use of satellites and underground impulse reflections, it ought to be trivial for the government to find all of those hidden tunnels.
Whatever happened to "I swear to uphold the laws of the United States"?
From an email quoted in The Falafel Connection: All Those NSA Wiretaps Are Just a Friendster in Disguise, by Robert X Cringely.
First, go read Glenn Greenwald.
"Clinton-haters and Bush-haters asside, I continue to be astonished at our ongoing success at maintaining a democracy in which our rights are so well cared for that the suggestion of a relatively minor perceived infraction of privacy is seen by half the country as a dangerous outrage."
Much ado about nothing, huh? You need to read FISA. Unless electronic surveillance is done according to the statute, the fine is up to $10000 and the prison time is up to five years. Now the American President has said publicly, and repeatedly, that he's not doing surveillance according to the statute.
Get it? Bush's defense of his lawbreaking is that 1) an extremely vague resolution by Congress, the Authorization to Use Military Force, allows him to break the law to keep us safe from terrorist attacks, or failing that, 2) his commander-in-chief powers in the war on terror trump Congress's power of legislation. (Very similar, by the way, to his argument that he can ignore the McCain amendment against torture if he feels like it.)
But if that's true, as Democrat and Republican lawmakers alike have pointed out, what law can't he waive? Since the war on terror is not scheduled to end, won't the President always have these powers?
Bush doesn't veto, he writes signing statements arguing that he doesn't have to follow the law, then he breaks the law and fails to inform Congress.
The reason there is much ado is that a constitutional crisis is underway, however much you want to call it extremist partisan politics.
Q: What did the comedian say to the crowd?
A: If I knew, this joke would be funny.
Rights must apply to everyone. Otherwise, they are not rights. When a single person's right has been violated, that right has been taken away from *everyone*. Jose Padilla's right to due process has been violated, thus *my* right to due process has been violated.
Honestly, if you are not doing anything illegal, what part of "liberty" is being taken away by wiretaps?
There are a lot of legal reasons why I might want to keep what I'm talking about private.
I might be a political opponent of the President talking strategy.
I might be a reporter investigating a member of the President's administration.
I might have a critical financial deal that will be spoiled if it becomes public prematurely.
Or I might just be a private citizen talking about personal matters who doesn't want to share it with some government snoop.
Does anyone know the precise nature of these wiretaps? I've heard conflicting things in the media and haven't found a description from a credible non-biased source. What I mean is: most media are simply calling this "domestic surveillance" whereas some more detailed descriptions (but from sources that might be spinning for the administration) are describing this as surveillance between a foreign source and a domestic one.
For me at least that may be an important distinction. Are these cases of a foreign surveillance target who just happens to be calling (or receiving a call) from someone in the US? It might run afoul of FISA but personally I have much less of a problem with that than if it is purely domestic surveillance. In fact in a legitimate intelligence operation looking into terrorist cells those foreign to domestic communications would be those we'd MOST want to keep track of.
To make the administrations best case example: According to the text of FISA you could monitor OBL's phone calls but you had to stick your fingers in your ears if he called Mohammed Atta because Atta was in the USA. Getting a warrant might require that you have a good reason to suspect Mohammed Atta aside from the fact that OBL is the one calling him. Sure you could also listen and later get a retroactive warrant (what happens if that retroactive warrant is rejected? Does the law say?) but I can certainly see how the agencies involved in a case like that might still see it as a bureaucratic impediment and potential source of leaks. In the presence of at least some case law that appears to render FISA a dead letter in purely intelligence operations (as opposed to criminal investigations) and the administrations position is at least debatable.
I couldn't agree with you much more! I'm still a bit concerned about terrorisim anywhere on the planet though.
One of the things that I have noticed is that the conservitives always claim they are for a smaller government and for more individual freedoms yet they almost always advocate for things that restrict liberties in some obtuse way. It is almost like "as long as it doesn't directly affect me, I am fine with it."
I don't think the government has enough manpower to randomly sample enough conversations to make this kind of wiretapping productive. This means that they probably identify individuals based on some criteria that they develp and monitor them. Much of this criteria is probably logical to some degree (country of origin, date of entry into the US and so on) but it does not mean that they have risen to the standard of "probable cause." If probable cause existed they could go to the "secret court" and obtain a warrant for the monitoring (which is an issue for a different post).
Are there enemy agents in the United States? The answer is undoubtably yes. Is it fair for our government to try to identify and nuteralize them? Again, the answer is undoubtably yes. Is it right to consider someone suspect simply because of their race or religious beliefs? Probably no. Is it likely that some people from certain places who are of a certain faith more likely to be enemy agents? Yes.
This last answer is at the crux of the problem. How can we investigate people when we do not have probable cause to get a warrant to gather the evidence? How do we get past the profiling question? Is this just a risk that a free, democratic, and open society has to take? How do you draw the line so that people's rights aren't infringed yet our society can be protected from terrorists?
These are hard questions that deserve answers. Like most people I want to feel safe and enjoy the freedoms that this country offers. Yet I also see the risk in our government using the tools that they are developing to combat terror against normal everyday people. Is the Iraqi convenience store clerk a part of a sleeper cell or is he someone who left a terrible place to try to make a better life for himself and his family someplace better? Does he deserve to have his privacy invaded so that we can learn what he is? What if we learn that his political leanings are a little extreme -- if he has views that don't jibe with what the government wants to hear: should he be imprisioned or deported? In America, aren't we entitled to our own opinions and beliefs? I think we are even, or perhaps especially if they upset the status quo.
Warrantless wire-taps are a slippery slope. They are a tool that can be easily abused and they do very little to protect our rights or our safety. Terrorists are criminals and they should be investigated using the same tools that we have used against criminals for all these years. There are limits to police powers. These limits are set for a reason; to protect people's rights and freedom.
While it may seem easy to say that an enemy of the state does not have the same rights, it is just as right to say that here in this country, people are innocent until proven guilty. We have to make sure that our government does not overstep it's bounds and turn the tables and say that some people are guilty until proven innocent! Why? Because from there it is only a series of short steps to a totalitarian regime that doesn't care about rights, privacy, or freedom.
As I understand it, the wiretaps are only on foreign communications - although it applies to citizens and foreigners alike, it is not a tap on local domestic communications.
Oh well, what the hell...
You're a fucking mental retard. You would have sat in Germany or Poland in 1940 and said "Well, I'm not being taken away, what's the problem?"
Why is it considered the death of democracy for the government to do exactly what the majority of the American people want? Last I checked, the idea of democracy was rule by the majority. This is it! The Bush administration is doing exactly what the majority of Americans want them to do.
The two parts I find troubling is that the general population feel security is more important than liberty and that democracy and not republic is viewed as our governmental form. A quote, possibly by Benjamin Franklin says this, "Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
The main idea of democracy is rule of the majority. Whatever 51% wants, it gets - even to the detriment of the other 49%. If 51% of the people decide that you don't have the right to private communications, then 51% have the power to take that 'right' away. But nothing is really a "right" if it is granted by another human or a human institution. That is why the authors of the Declaration of Independence invoked self evidence and divine revelation ("We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.") as the basis of rights for if God or Nature gave those rights then no other human can "rightly" take them away. I saw "rightly" because they are removed all the time by governments of the world today.
Because of this issue with democracy (which our Founding Fathers feared having understood the Athenian democracy's problems) we were given a Republic. So what diferentiates a democracy from a republic? A foundation of rights. The most fundemental idea of a republic is that these rights must be preserved. Thus a republic form of government attempts to prevent any distortion or removal of those rights by the general populas (the voter), or by the government itself (whether judicial, executive or legislative). Generally the foundation of law under a republic can be summed up in two statements: "Perform all agreements you make" and "Do not encroach on other people or on other people's property." These statements implicitly imply the right to truth (holding others accountable for their words) and the right to be free from encroachment (ie to be secure in person and property).
What we are seeing in the actions of the President and in the view of 53% of the population is that humans do not have a fundamental right against being encroached upon. That is very scary thought.
Is it not odd, my friends, that Mr. Bin Laden should make a such a timely appearance at this juncture, lest we sheep forget why we are being watched and listened to so carefully.
^..^
He hadn't been convicted of anything, therefore, he wasn't a crook. Merely an alleged one. IANAL, but I play one on /. :)
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
Yeah, it's all based on fear mongering based around the word "Terrorism". They did a beautiful job to make everyone uptight--even to this day, almost 6 years later, you still look around suspiciously when you get on an airplane or go to the top of a tall building.
Yellow Journalism is what it was called when the media got us into the Spanish American War; Then there was Pearl Harbor.
Now, before you make a big fuss, think about this:
Pearl Harbor resulted in around 2400 deaths, yet World War 2 cost us over 400,000 lives.
The destruction of the World Trade Center resulted in 2,986 deaths, and we are already at 2,433 deaths for the Iraq war (over 2 per day since the war started).
It's media that leads us to believe that one side died "for no reason" and one side died "preserving freedom" or "for their country" or whatever. It's all just semantics. Dead people are dead people.
I'm not saying anyone is right or wrong, but merely stating the facts. In general, media hype, bias, whatever you want to call it, is what leads us into bigger problems. We should be shooting for world peace, but instead, as resources such as oil become more scarce, we are posturing to become more and more aggressive and warlike every day.
The enevitable world war which IS coming will result in the establishment of a single world government, not unlike the United States government. A republic of countries, a new one language for the world, an even distribution of resources and education to everyone, population control to keep the world population around 5 billion, etc. This all has to happen in the next 100 years or we will, as a planet, self destruct. We are rapidly reaching our carrying capacity, many regions are already over populated. We in America are very lucky to be here, with all this space and resources. Yet we waste energy and food because we can, in the name of luxury. We, being the top dog, have the most to lose when the enevitable end of our current way of life comes.
Wiretapping people, getting rid of naysayers, spinning every fact to benefit the economic interests of the few, these will not protect our country, or the world. Just get used to having less now and it won't be such a shock when it all collapses.
Or who knows, maybe the robots will solve the problems for us.
Cool! Amazing Toys.
Congress cannot make any law which supersedes the Constitution. They have, and SCOTUS has upheld them, but in reality every single one of them is illegal.
No, the reality is that they are legal once SCOTUS says so. Let me guess, you don't think the Commerce Clause gives the Congress power to regulate much of what it does?
Your little exchange about the 5th amendment proves that you don't have a clue what you're talking about regarding the Constitution. First, a little refresher.
... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law". As the GP asserted, if due process is gone, then the 5th amendment has been blown to bits.
The GP wrote:
Due process is gone.... if the government decides that by posting this message, I am indeed a "terrorist", I can be locked up... without due process, without being allowed to contact my lawyer, without access to my family, and without the ability to post bail... indefinitely.
There's one civil right gone. 5th Amendment... blown to bits.
Then you wrote:
So you've been forced to testify against yourself in a trial? I think not.
I hope you don't really believe that the only thing in the 5th Amendment is that you don't have to testify against yourself. Just for good measure, let's quote the text of the 5th Amendment:
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
Oh, look at that clause that's in bold. I'll repeat it for you, just for good measure: "No person shall
Please go get yourself a minimal education on the Constitution (hell, just reading it would be a start) before spouting off on what is and what isn't constitutional.
So what are the immigration laws in the U.S. again? I mean if I wanted to go to Canada or Australia or England or somewhere, what would it take?
I never do this, But I completely concur with the above statement. And since I have no modpoints....
Blacker than my baby girl's stare. Black like the veil that the muslimina wear. Black like the planet that they fear...
First they came for Padilla and I didn't speak out because I was never with al Qaeda.
c le/2005/11/13/AR2005111301061.html
Then they came for the Muslims and I didn't speak out because I was not a Muslim.
Then they wiretapped Americans with one degree of separation from al Qaeda without probable cause and I didn't speak out because I was not an American with one degree of separation from al Qaeda.
Then they came for me and there was no one to speak for me.
Don't be a fool. The government has detained Americans on American soil without probable cause. Innocent people have been caught in the net and tortured. Enemy combatants have no habeas corpus rights. Even innocent people aren't being let go. Do some Googling, like for "innocent detainee". Here's a reference. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/arti
The fact that it didn't happen to you is an accident of history. The fact that none of these people can post on Slashdot is an accident of the Internet access in Guantanamo Bay. Andrea Mitchell strongly implied on MSNBC that Christiane Amanpour had probably been wiretapped. Her husband was working for Democrat politicians. So the Republican government is wiretapping journalists and their political opposition and the best you can do is claim that the danger is hypothetical!
Hey, I'm a middle class white, I have the same false sense of security that you do. But obviously you don't understand the magnitude of the legal limbos and circumventions the Bush Administration has created. You, or anyone in America, can be wiretapped, detained indefinitely with no possibility of objective judgment by a court, tortured, and then killed. The fact that it hasn't happened to you is your damn fool luck.
We're on the edge of something here that is much scarier than the next terrorist attack. God forbid, but God also forbid that we sacrifice our essential liberty for momentary security. The first people have already been sent to the Ministry of Love.
Q: What did the comedian say to the crowd?
A: If I knew, this joke would be funny.
OK.
If you're against the war, you agree with bin Laden: linky
If you agree with bin Laden, you're a terrorist.
If you're a terrorist, you should be watched.
58% of the public thinks the president lied about WMD, agreeing with bin Laden.
At least half of the public should be under surveillance, Q.E.D.
It's simple, really.
Instead of talking about international communications, terrorism, and legalities, let's talk about a neighborhood. There are lots of people doing lots of things in the neighborhood: going to work, raising families, minding their own business. Something bad happens in the neighborhood. A crack house is established and gangsters have a shootout, killing several innocent people. The good people of the neighborhood, with the cops, close down the crack house. But there's a chance the gangsters might come back; the neighborhood and the cops set up a watch program to keep an eye on the vacant crack house and known gangsters. It works, but the fear of their return has not gone away. One old man, obsessed with keeping the neighborhood safe, keeps a telescope focused on the crack house. When he reports suspicious characters around the crack house, no one minds. He's keeping them safe. One day he realizes he might not be catching all the suspected gangsters at the crack house, he starts writing down the tag numbers on all cars who drive by the crack house. The crack house used to be the justification for reporting people to the police. Not anymore. He starts keeping track of the cars and people on the same block as the crack house. Then a two block area around the crack house. Then a four block area around the crack house. The old man eventually has information on every resident of the neighborhood. The local police are flooded with meaningless information. Not one person in the neighborhood can set foot outside without being reported by the old man. They live in fear of him. Instead of freeing the neighborhood from fear, a new fear is introduced to replace the old one: fear of the old man.
That's why we have a Bill of Rights, something the head of the NSA, judging from his comments at a news conference recently, has never read. Give it a read, why don't you?
THE FOURTH AMENDMENT OF THE CONSTITUTION, ADOPTED 1791
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.
In the meantime, until this matter is ruled on, it seems to me that another concern with this program that nobody has mentioned is the cost. It cannot be cheap for the NSA to caputure all that e-mail and all those phone calls. To this end, it seems appropriate that we should all 'help' the NSA by automatically sending them copies of all the e-mail we send. We should probably let Bush know too. So, may I politely suggest that all /.ers automatically CC all their e-mail to
nsapao@nsa.gov, and
presaident@whitehouse.gov
Surely this would be the most patriotic slashdot effect ever! ;)
"Mr. Bush, at a White House press conference yesterday"
Look, I'm not fond of the guy. I fully support impeachment for him, in fact. I believe him to be extremely dishonest. But you know what? It's "President Bush" NOT "Mr. Bush".
Just like it's "President Clinton."
I'm sure it was a slip, but these things are important. Just because you dislike the man, don't disparage the office.
I agree. It's Orwell's 1984 in real life. Always fighting the 'enemy' keeps the citizens in fear. Fear controls.
"You know, there is a country you would feel more at home at, one where everyone thinks the same and thinking is enforced."
You must mean slashdot, where everyone has convicted Bush without a trial, JUST LIKE YOU HAVE.
"The real problem here isn't whether a certain amount of Americans, such as yourself, who don't have a problem with internal spying"
Show me where I said that. Is your position so weak that you have to make up idiotic straw men? Apparently so...
"So to conclude, if non-partisan scientists, including most of the former EPA chiefs, including those from Republican administrations, don't trust bush, why should anyone else?"
So, we're making laws and convicting people based on what former EPA chiefs think? That's pretty fucking stupid if it's true...
I support due process. Explain to me why you apparently don't, and would rather rely on the opinions of former EPA chiefs to decide case law.
How pathetic are you that you follow me from topic to topic and waste all your mod points at once modding me down?
1) Bypass Congress/FISA and allow NSA eavesdrop on "terrorists"
2) Leak eavesdropping program to press
3) Hold hearings and find a scapegoat (Alberto Gonzales?)
4) Conclude that FISA and the Patriot Act ain't so bad after all (when compared to illegal wiretapping).
Face it, under this administration we are all sheep.
"Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size, do you?" --Yoda {whips out green light saber}
"This isn't about due process"
Then what's the alternative? Listen to YOU? That's a colossally dumb statment.
It's not about due process... isn't that the same complaint we're always hearing about Guantanamo... and these warrrants...and the Patriot act...
How embarrassing for you that you let a stupid statement like that out into the wild instead of keeping it locked away in your mind where it belongs. I mean, it's ok to think it, but damn man, you were actually dumb enough to post it. Wow.
How pathetic are you that you follow me from topic to topic and waste all your mod points at once modding me down?
and again, I don't have a problem if the UK or anyone else attempts to monitor my transmissions. THATS why I have MY government. Also, you obviously don't know much about the international SIGINT community. I am not really worried about UK, NZ, or CA.
Do some more research. (hint: look up what ECHELON is)
Just because it hasn't happened to you (yet?) does not mean that you have any rights in the matter.
It just means that it hasn't happened to you yet.
Most people weren't even aware of the existence of the NSA, or their programs in place to collect information (e.g. Carnivore). They've been spying on our telecommunications for decades, and now all of a sudden, people are up in arms about a few wiretaps on suspected terrorists.
IMHO, Bush's mistake was to visit the NSA and give a speech, as if he needed the public's permission to do so.
link
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Congress is not fully briefed on this, that is one of the problems. The other problem is that the FISA court IS NOT consulted, as if even that makes a difference, as the FISA court routinely gives in to whatever internal spying they want to do. Bush has used the Patriot Act to essentially do whatever he wants. This "us vs. them" krap is getting way old...
I didn't say congress is fully briefed, I said congressional leaders (two members of each party in the house and the senate, don't remember the specifics on who beyond majority and minority leaders) and the FISA court are fully briefed. Yes, the FISA court normally grants the ability to do what is asked. That has little to do with the Patriot Act (god, I hate that name), which has only been around for a tiny fraction of the time that FISA has been around.
And this ultra lame ass "I want to live in a fucking police state NOW!" argument of "if you're not doing anything wrong you have nothing to hide" is the most UNAMERICAN bullkrap I've ever heard.
WTF is wrong with those who espouse this krap?
For starters, and this is the most important of all, let me break the news to you:
We can't trust Bush.
You know it's just that simple.
I agree. You can't trust government period. That's the reason for our three-tiered government, checks and balances, FISA review, oversight commitees, etc.
The fact that all of congress didn't know the details of what was going on is a function of the type of investigation being conducted. You don't spread around information about who you're keeping tabs on if you want to glean useful information. The alternative solution to that conflict is to not collect intelligence on people that you think you should be collecting intelligence on, and that might be hurtful.
I don't see this as a black-and-white issue, as many on opposing sides of the whole "should we do wiretapping on international communications" question are. I want civil liberties to be safeguarded by oversight, which (by the lack of statements to the contrary by the FISA court or the congresscritters involved) they appear to be, and I want to have good intelligence on people that we have reason to beleive want to see Americans harmed.
"Murphy was an optimist" - O'Toole's commentary on Murphy's Law
Still, though... you've got to wonder how much more of this the Republican constituants will accept.
Think of it as parent/child. Your ideas, your beliefs are your intellectual children, as are those who say they will defend them. Go into any public school and watch a parent/teacher conference with a repeat offender. It'll look something like:
Teacher: "Your child was found guilty of [insert offense here]."
Parent: "Not my child! He's perfect!"
Teacher: "But [insert long list of evidence]."
Parent: "I don't believe [you/the witness] and the evidence is [circumstantial/shaky/untrustworthy]. If it's anyone's fault, it's [friend/other child/generic scapegoat]"
For the sake of the metaphor, the teacher is some independent authority (media, courts, scientific study). It's in a parent's nature to deny that their problem child is a problem. This happens in equal parts because the parent truly believes that their child is right and because any attack on their child (even correct ones) is a perceived attack on them.
If a dem was doing this, for hte same reasons, I would have no problem with it because I agree with the POLICY, not necessarily the President.
Then may I kindly suggest that you move somewhere where people share your beliefs like North Korea? Seriously, if you're too cowardly to live in a free country, how about *you* move to a country that shares your values and lack of courage and integrity? Why do you choose to try and fuck things up for the people who live here becasue they actually like freedom and have the courage to live with it, rather than just going to live among your kind?!?
Actually all of the FISA procedings are secret so we wouldn't know these things even if Bush went to the court.
The reason why Bush is not going to the FISA court is that they have been critical of the Administration for not being up-front about things in the past and he wants a total free hand.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
I attended a recent speech by Attorney General Gonzales on the NSA's domestic spying program. This speech was to outline the legal justification for the domestic spying by the Bush administration. The speech started and ended with fear mongering. Fear, 9/11, and the /inevitable/ next attach were major parts of the speech. In between all of this fear was an incredibly weak legal argument. The skimpy legal argument (had to make room for all of the fear) had two parts. First, the President is commander-in-chief and during wartime has limitless authority over war-matters and anything vaguely related to war is at his dictatorial discretion. Second the force authorizing resolution allowing the President to invade Afghanistan passed just after 9/11 gives the President maximum authority to do whatever he sees fit as long as he considers the US at war. I am not a lawyer, but these arguments totally fail on a simple reading of the Constitution. The Constitution provides for Congress to have equal if not greater power than the President and the Congress has legislative power (make laws on things like spying as it has done repeatedly) and discretion over war matters as well (start and end war and fund and mobilize troops).
Even though the Bush administration is on a PR offensive around the spying, Americans are not going to buy into it. The more people learn about domestic spying the less they are going to like it. Right now Americans are just beginning to learn.
On April 20, 2004, President Bush said, "Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so. It's important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution."
"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." -- Albert Einstein
The problem prior to 9-11 isn't that terrorist activities were not detected, but that information was not propagated (i.e. left hand doesn't know what right hand is doing.) Information collection was NEVER the problem. Since 9-11 I cringe everytime I hear about how government wants to collect MORE information.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
I couldn't have put it better myself.
It is eerie how clearly these crisis were anticipated by the first US Supreme Court to fully grapple the wiretap issues.
t ates
c ourt=us&vol=277&invol=438
It happened back in 1928. It is well worth reading.
The case was OLMSTEAD v. U.S., 277 U.S. 438 (1928)
There is a wikipedia article discussing this case at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olmstead_v._United_S
The decision is available on Findlaw at:
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?
Then, about 40 years later, it seems like the US had to explore just how bad things could get during the abuses of Operation Shamrock.
Now, 40 years later AGAIN, we appear to be doing it all over again.
Then, as now, the government appeared to have the best of intensions. Then, as now, the government violated the law in order to perform the wiretaps.
Back in 1928, Associate Justice Louis Brandeis clearly anticipated our current situation. His words back then are extremely relevant today:
Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.
[SNIP]
Decency, security, and liberty alike demand that government officials shall be subjected to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen. In a government of laws, existence of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. To declare that in the administration of the criminal law the end justifies the means-to declare that the government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal-would bring terrible retribution. Against that pernicious doctrine this court should resolutely set its face.
US Constitution
Article II, Section 3
He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper; he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers; he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, and shall Commission all the Officers of the United States.
Are you suggesting that the President is exempt from the laws that he is required to take care be faithfully executed? That interpretation makes no sense.
I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered. My life is my own.
Given the hysterics of some of the government-bashers, "the scepticism is warranted". Hopefully, the ACLU lawsuit will clear things out.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
The conclusion of the CRS report in question stated that the legal rationale given by the Bush administration is weak at best.
The NSA program is, strictly speaking, illegal. FISA, however, grants authority to circumvent if given "by statute". BushCo claims the AUMF as the statute in question (citing "in re: Hamdi" as authority). The CRS report says that read is pretty flimsy. No legal scholar yet has agreed with BushCo's justification.
Why people like you so serious about breaking the law that you'd give Bush a free pass without an independent inquiry?
I have something in common with Stephen Hawking...
Bush isn't on trial here, and he won't be tried let alone convicted.
Too many non-critical thinkers for that to happen...
If you had been paying attention, you would see that due process is the one thing bush and his ilk have avoided at all costs.
Example:
The White House opposed the creation of the 9-11 commission from the start, and after it reluctantly yielded, it sought to bar the commission from seeing documents pertaining to the attacks. The stonewalling went on so long that commissioners (bi-partisan) were months behind in their work and yet the White House insisted that the deadline for the commission's final report shouldn't be extended.
Another Example:
"Ratcheting up a battle with Congress, the Bush White House is now refusing to turn over Hurricane Katrina related documents or make senior officials available for testimony. The administration contends executive branch discussions about the storm are not open to review by Congress."
Sounds like due process to me!
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
It makes no difference if congress was briefed or not. Neither the president nor congress has the authority to sanction violations of the 4th amendment. *All* US persons are protected by the 4th amendment, regardless of whether they are talking to OBL. If you want to tap a call between a US Person and anyone else, you need a warrant. And the standard for getting that warrant is probable cause.
The *only* reason to bypass the FISA court is because you don't have probable cause required to get a warrant. And the FISA Court is a huge rubber stamp, granting tens of thousands of warrants, and only denying a handful where the govt couldn't establish probable cause.
The govt justifies this by "well, even though we don't have any evidence that says it is likely they committed a crime, we still think they may have committed a crime because of X suspicious act, and we think we are being reasonable." So we are going to bypass the court because they will say "No", and then we can't do it without violating a court order.
A classic example of Asking for Forgiveness instead of Permission, except that they aren't asking for forgiveness--they are asserting that the 4th Amendment doesn't apply to US Persons they want to tap but don't have enough proof to establish probable cause.
The administration's admitted wiretapping is more than enough to justify impeachment proceedings, which essentially serves the purpose of a grand jury--making sure we have a reasonable basis to prosecute this crime so we don't prosecute people who are clearly innocent.
still doesn't make it legal now, does it?
Nope. It's legal or not regardless of the fact that it's necessary.
I think it's legal. The Bush Administration thinks it's legal. The Supreme Court hasn't ruled on the legality one way or the other. The Congress doesn't have a say in the matter, other than funding the NSA or not.
It'll probably be decided in court in a few years. The only result of that decision will be which side gets to say "see, I told you so".
You seem to be saying that only those who have actually had their rights violated by the government have a right to complain about those violations?
Do you see it as a problem that under this logic, the government could openly operate death squads and kill anyone they wanted in broad daylight, and nobody would ever have a reason to complain?
"Why do you think they haven't already tried impeachment? Because there's no evidence."
Actually congress can impeach and convict the president whenever they choose. They can do it because they don't like his tie. Really.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
"The po-po could bust down your door for any old reason, throw your underwear drawer out on the front lawn for the world to see."
As long as a judge agreed with the reason, then yes. If they bust in without a warrant, the police (or "po-po" in your parlance) can be thrown in jail. They have "broken the law" in legal lingo.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
The state of the law was summed up by the Second Circuit in United States v. Duggan, 743 F.2d 59 (1984), a terrorism case in which the court, among
3 1
action was illegal under all but the most fantastic interpretations of the law
Apparently you missed this:
The state of the law was summed up by the Second Circuit in United States v. Duggan, 743 F.2d 59 (1984), a terrorism case in which the court, among other rulings, upheld the constitutionality of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which was adopted in 1981. The court wrote:
Prior to the enactment of FISA, virtually every court that had addressed the issue had concluded that the President had the inherent power to conduct warrantless electronic surveillance to collect foreign intelligence information, and that such surveillances constituted an exception to the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment.
And:
The Truong court, as did all the other courts to have decided the issue, held that the President did have inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence information.
-Ref http://powerlineblog.com/archives/012631.php#0126
Please. Do at least a LITTLE research before posting. (And yes, I know this is slashdot...)
-john
Slashdot: you'll not find a more wretched collection of villainy and disreputable types...
A narrow plurality, 49% to 45%, said they supported Bush's decision to allow the National Security Agency to intercept, without a warrant, international communications suspected of links to Al Qaeda.
Hard to believe. But then there was this:
A large share, 46%, said they would not mind if the government monitored their calls "as part of the fight against terrorism"; 53% said they would object.
So about 8% do care about their own rights but don't mind as long as it's somebody else's rights being violated.
But, I wanted socialized health insurance!
who respond to polls just as likely to be selected for jury duty (and not get out of it)?
The Constitution does not establish who has the authority to issue warrants, but that has traditionally been vested in the courts. I don't think you'll see that presumption overturned any time soon; doing so would invalidate every federal search warrant ever issued.
A little common sense tells us that Congress cannot effectively establish a court without defining that court's purpose and jurisdiction. Since one legitimate purpose of a court is to issue warrants, FISA is an appropriate exercise of Congressional power. FISA does not restrict executive powers; in fact, it is an enabler of an executive power. In order for the executive to exercise its power of "search and seizure" while meeting the Constitutional requirement of obtaining a warrant, a court must exist (be established by Congress) with the authority to issue the warrant.
Q.E.D.
The power in question is the war-making power, which the constitution grants to the executive branch.
Although "war-making power" is not relevant to this case, you won't find these powers vested in the executive branch:
To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;
To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;
To provide and maintain a Navy;
To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;
etc. You are probably thinking instead of this clause:
The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States
but that clause makes no mention of "war-making".
But, I wanted socialized health insurance!
"The telephone poll was conducted with 1,229 adults, starting Friday and ending Wednesday."
Is that all the people they could find to reply in 6 days?
1229 people over a 6 day period is hardly noteworthy muchless newsworthy, but, why an i not suprised? This is a NewYork Times poll after all.
Call me whan the poll is nation wide and about 50 to 100 million people. They maybe i'll consider the results as being creditable and as reflecting the general opinion of Americans.
Polls such as this one are nothing but jokes. And the results are used to sway public opinion.
This has been another valuable and informative opinion from:
Catahoula!
if you actually read the article and the poll and not just the headlines you will see that a vast majprity of those polled actually dont mind the idea. it's when you make them think that everyone is being wired tapped and not just possible terrorists that they dont like it
http://www.npcgaming.com Dedicated Gaming Servers
During calendar year 2003, 1727 applications were made to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for electronic surveillance and physical search . The 1727 applications include applications made solely for electronic surveillance, applications made solely for physical search, and combined applications requesting authority for electronic surveillance and physical search simultaneously . The Court approved, in whole or in part, 1724 applications.
:D
The Court denied four applications. The Government did not appeal. any of those decisions.
-2003 FISA stats
This is the most since 2000 - In fact I believe in other years all were approved?
No wonder you didn't cite your sources. You're lying through your teeth.
So what's the deal? Do you get paid for this, or is it just fun?
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Reposted right wing blog propaganda. Not worth the paper it's not printed on.
What does it say? That we can ignore any law if it's inconvenient.
Wait... no, sorry. It just looks like it says that. I think it means that Bush can ignore any law if it's inconvenient.
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