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U.S. Government Intervenes in EFF vs. AT&T
An anonymous reader writes "Reuters is reporting that the US government has 'filed a motion on Saturday to intervene and seek dismissal of a lawsuit by a civil liberties group against AT&T Inc. over a federal program to monitor U.S. communications.' More from the article: " In its motion seeking intervention, posted on the court's Web site, the government said the interests of the parties in the lawsuit "may well be in the disclosure of state secrets" in their effort to present their claims or defenses ... A hearing is scheduled for June 21 before federal Judge Vaughn Walker." You may recall a few weeks ago when the DOJ asked the judge to dismiss the case. They've now taken the next step required to quash this legal action.
Tag: Bullshit
Then people will be able to search all these rubbish that goes on day to day by one convenient tag.
I did see this coming... But frankly am unhappy about it none the less. The funny thing is that this wouldn't reveal anything we don't already know.. All it would do is confirm facts and everyone who knows anything about politics and law should be aware that confirmed facts are a dangerous weapon.
Of course we should take your summary as accurate. After all, Bush himself says it's bullshit. So does his attorney general Gonzales. And Cheney says "go fuck yourself".
Rumsfeld, is that you?
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make install -not war
Yeah, go on believing that while you serve the same masters from the other side of the aisle. Go on believing there are significant differences because you like some detail or another better. Please, continue to be fooled that it's only the Republicans that are the problem.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
Ok, maybe we can agree on it being the "real existing Communism".
After all, what went down in eastern Europe was quite far from the ideas of Marx either.
What we got to know as "Communism" was actually what you described. And authoritarian, fascist regime. Without religion, though. Well, kinda. God was replaced with Stalin.
No, we absolutely can't agree on that because while they are both big oppressive government in practice, they are fundamentally different on a number of levels. It is also impossible to agree to that because to do so would be to ignore the entire history that has gotten us here.
They are fundamentally different in that one is an extreme leftist idea and the other is extremist right wing. It is important to understand what the left and the right actually are *and* what it is that they are to the laft or the right *of*.
Liberalism is the idea the individual liberty is great. The philosophy can be loosly summed up in one sentence: "We hold this truth to be self evident: that all men are created equal." Sounds familiar, huh?
That's because America was the crowning achievement of the Liberal movement. Keep that in mind when you hear politicians and pundits decrying Liberalism. What they despise more than anything is America and what it once stood for.
The left and the right are defined by their relation to Liberalism. The left agrees with the fundamental tenet of Liberalism, but they feel that the power of the state should be used against the individual to promote this ideal. This can run the gamut from things like banning slavery, which is an entirely leftist idea but one that most people agree with wholeheartedly in this day and age to the extremes of Lenin/Stalin.
The right is defined by the fact that it fundamentaly disagrees that all people are created equal. The right believes that the rich are better than the poor and that the power of the state should be used to maintain this power inequality. That's why a right wing party is always a party of the extremely rich.
Now, to the person sitting in the gulag being tortured it isn't really important exactly what the reasoning that put him there is, but by attempting to equate them you ignore the fundamental differences and you throw out much important information necessary for any sort of reasonable discussion of the issue.
As far as the history goes, by agreeing to call things entirely different things than they are as you suggest, then we would have to throw out the last 70 or so years of history since the struggle between those 2 ideologies is the defining factor of that entire period.
Prior to World War 2, the left in America (back when there was one) was anti-Hitler. The center (most Americans) were isolationist and had no real concern about it.
The right were 100% gung ho rabid supporters of Hitler. This includes people like Henry Ford, and other industrialists as well as Prescott Bush who is the grandfather of the current president. Good ol W's graddad was such a huge supporter of Hitler that he commited treason by helping fund Germany while we were at war with them. He narrowly managed to avoid execution for treason due to the power of his friends. After FDR managed to help manipulate us into WW2, the right in America kept quiet about their fascist beliefs while we were at war.
From the end of WW2 to the present day, they have been working nonstop to destroy any hint of leftism in America and they declared all out war on individual liberty i.e. Liberalism. That's why it is used as the most vitriolic epithet by fascists like Fox news, Rush, Republican politicians and the like.
They despise individual liberty because they want to use the power of the state to make the rich richer, the poor poorer and destroy the middle class as is evident in pretty much everything the Republican party has done since Reagan. This includes torture academies, murder of democratically elected leaders to install brutal thugs, and the funding and training of the current crop of t
Hayden is right. The 4th Amendment has 2 clauses: one prohibits against unreasonable search and seizure; the other says that warrants must be based on probable cause. The Supreme Court generally treats these two as seperate requirements. A warrant (based on probable cause) is a sufficient condition for a reasonable search or seizure, but it's not necessary.
There are tons of searches that don't require probable cause. One famous example is the Terry stop, where police, upon having a reasonable suspicion that criminal activity is afoot, can stop a suspect and ask him some questions. Similarly, if they have reasonable suspicion that he's armed, they can frisk the suspect for weapons. Note that reasonable suspicion is a lower standard than probable cause.
Information courtesy of having to study for my Criminal Law exam.
The constitution is worthless without checks and balances. The congress is repulican and the courts have been stacked with republicans. This means the constituion is now worth as much as toilet paper or maybe even less.
You can claim all the rights you want but if the congress isn't willing to step up to the administration and the courts are willing to be trampled over and rule in the way their party platform says they should then it's all moot.
You have the illision of rights, but you don't actually have any of those rights.
evil is as evil does
>>Just don't let Hillary have the list she will probably want to check and see if I have called the local Gun Store.
Exactly, you idiot.
My joke got modded as Insightful and my insight got modded as Funny.