Reporter Phone Records Being Used to Find Leaks

jackbird writes "Brian Ross, Chief Investigative Correspondent for ABC news says a confidential source informed him that reporter's phone records are being used by the administration to track down leaks. Apparently reporters for the New York Times, ABC News, and the Washington Post are being scrutinized. The fact that ABC News journalists are even seriously wondering about whether the warning is connected to the NSA's domestic surveillance activities indicates just how anxious many people in Washington have become."

Comments

lives are at stake with leaks.

[yagu]

If you're talking to government officials, and there are leaks that potentially endanger lives of agents, and collaterally other agents in the field, you're going to get more than a sideways look from the governmet, as well you should.

If you are a reporter, and you're exchanging calls with anyone on the "list" suspected of leaks why shouldn't the government take a peek. As reported in the article, there is no evidence the government is tapping or listening in to the calls, merely looking at who's talking to whom.

This smacks of journalists pompously elevating their self-importance to levels higher than they deserve. There are many examples of inappropriate treatment of journalists. This doesn't feel like one of them.

(shudder, I suspect I'm going to get hammered on this one)

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[mysqlrocks]

This smacks of journalists pompously elevating their self-importance to levels higher than they deserve.

Most "leaks" are on purpose to manipulate the press into covering something the administration wants them to cover. It's pretty hypocritical for this same administration to then punish those members of the press who were doing their bidding.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[pcidevel]

Yes, because punishing whistleblowers that uncover massive corruption in the government is good for all of us.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[grub]

So you'd rather that Watergate never happened because Deep Throat was thrown in jail?

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[cplusplus]

This smacks of journalists pompously elevating their self-importance to levels higher than they deserve.

Journalists are incredibly important now a days. They are the last line of defence from a completely secret (and thus unaccountable to the public) government. I, for one, don't want a government that can do anything it wants without the people's consent or knowledge. Congress doesn't seem to be doing a good job of oversite lately, so about the only way the public is going to get to know what's going on is good investigative reporting.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[AuMatar]

Lives aren't at stake. The reporters aren't giving out troop movement and defence plans. They're reporting about things like highly illegal wire tapping and domestic surveilance. THis is a heavy handed attempt by the administration to scare whistle blowers out of telling the American people things they need to know. We have laws to protect these people for a reason, the US goverment is flaunting them.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[spun]

As it is becoming more and more obvious that this administration leaked exactly such information, isn't it ironic that they are using phone records to find leakers? Do you think they will be the teensiest bit selective about what leakers they go after? Most leaks aren't about agents, but about government corruption. Another common type of leak is actually government propaganda, disguised as reporting.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[3D-nut]

It might be proper, if a crime were alleged to have been committed, for a prosecutor or law enforcement agency to subpoena phone records to try to find evidence. It would certainly not be proper or lawful for some servant of the executive branch to be getting phone records to find leakers. If that is in fact what is going on, it is yet another crime that Bush and company should be impeached for.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[Irish_Samurai]

I'm not gonna hammer you, you make good points. I just have a question.

If the information that an agent has is so secret that his leaking it could endanger lives, why isn't he under surveilance already and his phones being traced as a security measure?

This being the case we would only need to corroborate the journalists phone records with the agents to get the investigation pointed in the right direction, then we can quit analyzing our civilian citizens.

While I understand that there is no proof that our phone conversations are recorded, there is a disturbing trend in the current administration being found conducting themselves a little outside of what they said they were. And in the case of trying to find leaks to the press, there is a possibility that these leaks and reporters could be stopped before they could report on our conversations being recorded if they actually were being recorded.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[Jamesday]

The Nixon Persidency would have preferred that result. It's fairly obvious that this administration considers the press to be their enemy and is willing to use harassment like this both as a weapon and to try to keep the lid on what has been done wrong.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[Poppler]

If you are a reporter, and you're exchanging calls with anyone on the "list" suspected of leaks why shouldn't the government take a peek.

Because the government will most likely abuse that power. What makes you think that the government will have enough restraint to refrain from monitoring reporters who are critical of them, under the guise of national security?

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[American AC in Paris]

As reported in the article, there is no evidence the government is tapping or listening in to the calls, merely looking at who's talking to whom.

...and since it's a secret program with no apparent oversight, you can be damn certain that there never will be any evidence of the government tapping or listening to the calls, unless somebody were to leak that information.

The story used to be that we were conducting surveillance by using the FISA courts. Then, it came out that we were actually doing some surveillance without FISA warrants, but it was all overseas. Then, it came out that only one end of a conversation had to be overseas in order for them to perform surveillence without a FISA warrant. Then, it came out that well, we're actually monitoring the telephone traffic of several tens of millions of Americans, but we've got a dang good legal basis that can do fifteen loop-de-loops and a quadruple lutz, depending on what your definition of "is" is--but don't expect us to ever actually justify that in a court of law, because these programs are so very classified that the prosecutors can't be granted the clearance necessary to pursue the cases, sorry.

If you're still willing to give the administration the benefit of the doubt on this matter, I have one helluva deal on a bridge for ya.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[dgatwood]

Whether you agree or disagree with the overall actions of this administration, I'm sure you can agree that this sort of monitoring clearly has a chilling effect on freedom of the press. No matter how you look at it, any such chilling effects on the press are harmful to the spirit of democracy.

In my opinion, there can be no freedom where there is no transparency of government. That's not saying the military has to be, nor the specific details of ongoing investigations, but in the end, it is all supposed to eventually become public record, and for the most part, government actions are supposed to -immediately- be public record. A clandestine government agency hunting for leaks strikes of an intense desire to keep as much of the operation of the government hidden from the public as possible. This is completely contrary to the principles of democratic governance.

Ultimately, it is the responsibility of journalists to use common sense in their reporting. If a leak seems like it would put someone's life at risk, it is the journalist's responsibility to not publish it, and the journalist's neck if he/she does. Monitoring journalists to catch and prevent any and all leaks borders on prior restraint, which is unconstitutional and wrong. If this is truly happening, the courts need to get involved.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[gaspar ilom]

The leakers are mostly pointing out *illegal acts* that are being carried out by our government. Don't we live in a democracy?

The sad fact is that the current adminiistration is often simply trying to hide their illegal/immoral acts by labeling them as "classified."

I would argue that these people who who say they are "defending" America -- have actually helped kill more Americans than the attacks on 9/11.

Think: disaster planning and relief, health care, and more generally: economic policies that affect any number of "quality of life" or even just "life" issues impacting a majority of Americans.

They have carried out many policies (in lieu of known, better alternatives) that had predictable results ahead of time; therefore, their negligence is willful and "deliberate," and not "accidental."

Who is the "we" that is constantly being pointed to as requiring freedom, security, and justice -- and who is actually getting it?

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[On Lawn]

I was going to say, with hundrends of million telephone numbers up for sale for anyone to find information on, why here why now and why this program? But then I read this article, and of course its the media who's concerned projecting onto the populace. And then it all made sense.

There has been a media uproar that just didn't take hold on the populace when it was reported earlier this month that the government agencies were posing as citizens to gain the information. It isn't admissible to the court, but does give good leads and they can always get a warrant later. And it seems people didn't care.

Whether or not I'm comfortable with my phone conversation data being up for sale to the public or government, the uproar makes more sense now. It isn't about national security it is about protecting anonymous sources -- for the media. While I have some reaction to being jerked around by them I'll just continue to take a calm look at what is going on and decide for myself. Now more than ever.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[yagu]

So you'd rather that Watergate never happened because Deep Throat was thrown in jail?

No! I definitely believe leaks serve a purpose, and there's a certain quid pro quo around how leaks occur. Sometimes they come in cooperation with the government (e.g., get an idea into the public domain, run it up the flagpole and see if anyone salutes, without pulling the government into the limelight), sometimes they come out of true altruism (Watergate would be a good example).

I also think though there are times when a leak is out of whack with any motivations, and it's appropriate to scan the landscape and throttle it. I don't deign to outline what the rules should be, but I'm not surprised it's sometimes necessary to really find who's involved with a leak, especially if lives could be at stake.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[gstoddart]

If you're talking to government officials, and there are leaks that potentially endanger lives of agents, and collaterally other agents in the field, you're going to get more than a sideways look from the governmet, as well you should.

As opposed to merely reporting something which makes the administration look all the more like corrupt asses?

The current administration is trying to make sure that people who are whistleblowers against companies are protected, while at the same time making it illegal to point out they are doing things which are illegal and unconstitutional.

That whole 'rendering' program, for example. Domestic spying. Stuff like that.

They want the appearance of this being a law-an-order issue while wanting the freedom to violate laws at will without anyone telling on them. This is just about supressing dissenting views.

As reported in the article, there is no evidence the government is tapping or listening in to the calls, merely looking at who's talking to whom.

Using your security apparatus to chase after your allegedly free press. It goes to how much domestic spying they're supposed to be able to conduct without warrants. If they've collected this information without proper legal support (and not an opinion from Gonzales), then they are breaking the law in order to define how the information is presented.

Freedom is being replaced with national paranoia and thin justifications.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[syphax]

(shudder, I suspect I'm going to get hammered on this one)

I hope you do. Am I the only one that remembers Nixon's enemies list?

The primary issue with all of this news regarding government snooping is oversight. Don't give me this "we're at war," "why do you care if you aren't doing anything wrong" crap. We should have a goverment of checks and balances, which were designed to limit the (almost invariably corrupting) concentration of political power. What happens when the Administration alone gets to decide what constitutes what is "wrong?"

First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.
-Martin Niemoller

I feel like an alarmist raising the specter of the creep of Totalitarianism in the U.S., but how else do you explain this? Don't feed me the war on terror talking points; consider:

"There is one difference," I pointed out. "In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars."

"Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, 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."

The "I" here is Gustave Gilbert; the respondent is Hermann Goering.
I realize that by Godwin's Law I've lost this argument already, but if Goering's comments from 60 years ago don't make your spine tingle, what does?

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[yagu]

this:

While I understand that there is no proof that our phone conversations are recorded, there is a disturbing trend in the current administration being found conducting themselves a little outside of what they said they were.

I very much agree with. I find only small comfort is government disclaimers about what is actually being monitored. And, I don't know ultimately where that goes.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[pcidevel]

You are right, because the government will be completely trustworthy and will only abuse the power to tap reporter's phones when it's a matter of National Security. And we can use all those other cases where the government didn't lie to us as evidence of how trustworthy and wonderful they really and truly are.

Ohh hey, you have a bit of Kool Aid on your chin, might want to wash that off.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[Salty Moran]

You "don't deign to outline what the rules should be", yet you know them well enough to make the statement you did at the start of this thread?

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[DarkHand]

They are violating their oaths of secrecy.

I for one don't believe that an oath to secrecy trumps the constitution, or the risk of the destruction of our nation from corruption. Obviously the people releasing this information agree. They believe that our rights and freedoms are more important than keeping damaging secrets. They of all people would know that the goings on that we're not aware of are more damaging to our nation than they are helping. They wouldn't release it otherwise.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[orthogonal]

If you're talking to government officials, and there are leaks that potentially endanger lives of agents, and collaterally other agents in the field, you're going to get more than a sideways look from the government, as well you should.

What about leaks that endanger our ability to track Iran's nuclear capabilities.

Of course, I'm referring to the leal that burnt Valerie Plame's^W^W Joe Wilson's wife's cover.

The leak that came from the Office of the Vice President of the United States.

The Founding Fathers knew that government couldn't be trusted. That's why they wrote the Constitution, that's why they insisted on a Bill of Rights -- to protect us from an overzealous government. That's why the insisted on separation of powers.

The Founders' fears have bene borne out numerous times: from the jailing of citizens for "sedition" which including making jokes about government polices, to the Palmer Raids, to the internment of Japanese citizens, to the McCarthy hearings, to COINTELPRO and the wiretapping of non-violent activists like Martin Luther King, to the current investigations of the Catholic Workers charity and PETA and "Total Information Awareness" and the NSA's database of phone records.

This smacks of journalists pompously elevating their self-importance to levels higher than they deserve.

It's not the journalists who "elevated their self-importance." That too was the Founders, who understood that a Free Press serves to expose government over-stepping so that the citizens of a democracy can exercise their oversight at the ballot box.

For democracy to mean anything, the citizenry must have confidence that elected officials adhere to the Constitution and some idea of what their government does in the name of the citizens. A Free Press makes this possible. When government begins to monitor the Press's phone calls, that's a warning that our democracy is at risk.

This is the canary in the coal-mine. We're not served by minimizing it when the canary laying at the bottom of its cage, gasping for air.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[pcidevel]

P.S.: Remember waaaaaay back when when you were desperately trying to protect reporter's rights to not divulge their sources when an administration official leaked classified information (poor poor Scooter, he should have been protected, it's all those other leakers that deserve jail time).. well the Judge in that case ruled that the Fitzgerald could not have the phone records of any reporters, because they are constitutionally protected.. I didn't hear your outrage back then that the government wasn't allowed to look at the records..

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[maxpup979]

I did--
    But they were killed and eaten by Sloth Bears.

So sad.--But the bears said they tasted like chicken...

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[endoftheroadmatt]

If you are a reporter, and you're exchanging calls with anyone on the "list" suspected of leaks why shouldn't the government take a peek.

Because it's illegal. Christ, if you people don't want your liberty, fine. Just remember there are some of us that have a constitutional right to privacy as an American Citizen, and we likes it that way.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[RevDobbs]

There are policies in place to report corruption or illegal activities in regards to classifired material.

And who are you going to report misdeeds to when ultimatly, the person who heads both the executive branch and the military thinks he can do what ever he pleases?

Whether or not a program is illegal or unconstittutional, leakers have to expect to take a hit. They are violating their oaths of secrecy.

Before they took any oath of secrecy, they took an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States; I think that trancends whatever policies -- secret or public -- put into place by the reigning administration.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[k98sven]

Oh yeah. Lots of lives at stake... Let's review the biggest intelligence "leaks" of the last few years:

* The CIA running secret prisons in East Europe
* The NSA's illegal and unconstitutional wiretapping of US citizens without oversight
* The CIA secretly extraditing terror suspects (even from non-US nations) to countries which often use torture, such as Egypt and Afghanistan

I don't see how a single life was endangered by any of those leaks. In fact, they seem like perfectly normal whistle-blowing on a Govenment which is grossly overstepping the bounds of the power granted to it, and avoiding the Congressional checks and balances which exist.

But there's one more leak:
* The exposure of Valerie Plame and an entire CIA front company. Now there we have a leak which actually had the potential to endanger lives. But wait.. who was behind that leak? The White House themselves. - And for what? Petty revenge on a critic.

So we've got an administration here who themselves leak classified intel when convenient to them, who harshly persue those whistleblowers who leak anything which might be damaging to the Administration. An administration who misconstrued, misrepresented, and outright lied about intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq War.

And now you expect me to believe that this same Administration, in their quest to find out who's talking to who, is not interested in finding whistleblowers and critics, but rather acting purely out of an interest of protecting national security and saving lives?

Bullshit.

No administration has ever used the intelligence community for partisan poltical gain to the extent that the current one has. None. There are people in the intelligence community, be they Democrats, people critical of these wiretaps, or simply professionals who are pissed off of having their agency's work misused for partisan political goals, and then being the scapegoat once things turn sour. What this bullshit is about is nothing less than an attempt by the administration to purge the agencies of these critics.

It is not about national security. It's not about saving lives. People working in intelligence don't look kindly on that kind of leaks. It is their lives which are at stake. But leaking the fact that they're secretly running prisons - knowledge of that is NOT a threat to national security or lives in the intelligence community.

The only thing that knowledge threatens is the political goals of the Bush administration. If that's what they're going to use the CIA for, then I fully support any CIA employee who does the moral thing and tells the American people what the heck their government is up to behind their backs. Those people are not leakers and traitors. They are heroes and patriots.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[Moofie]

What is it that you take a calm look at? What is your data source?

You're conflating a big list of phone numbers (which is pretty innocuous) with a big list of specific phone calls. If that's as innocuous as you seem to wish to believe, why is the program such a deep dark secret that Federal prosecutors can't get security clearance to examine the matter?

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[Dan Ost]

The intent is not to punish the journalist, but to identify the leak (and probably
punish the leak if they've broken the law).

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[NineNine]

You sound like you'd agree with the Administration when they were confronted with having secret torture camps around the world. They weren't apologizing for torturing people in secret... they were pissed off that somebody told! Holy shit... there are secrets that should be kept, and secrets that should NOT be kept. Most of what has been divulged during this administration have been things that needed to be uncovered FOR THE SAKE OF NATIONAL SECURITY. It's not terrorists that you should be worried about... it's the President and his people.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[Tom]

As reported in the article, there is no evidence the government is tapping or listening in to the calls, merely looking at who's talking to whom.

We call this Signals Intelligence, or more specifically traffic analysis.
It is much more useful and informative than you think, especially if you have an entire agency specialised on it for decades. Like, say, the NSA...

If I know exactly who you spoke to, in which order, at what time and for how long, and I have the reliable communication models developed by the NSA and likes, I can tell an awful lot about what you're up to. Stop thinking in individual calls, think patterns.
Traffic analysis is sometimes more reliable and almost always more difficult to defeat than intercepting the actual content.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[DougLorenz]

I'm really not comfortable with simply letting the administration decide which internal leaks are whistleblowers, and which are national security risks. The fact is that anything that threatens the authority of the administration is considered to be a national security risk by that administration.

I expect that Nixon felt that the leaks which exposed Watergate were threats to national security, and would have stopped them if they could. No administration is happy to have their corruption or other illegal activities released to the media, but if we allowed the government to do whatever they think is necessary, then we are pretty much guaranteeing that they will do things which are not authorized under the Constitution.

Look, I am a Republican myself, and am very politically active. It doesn't matter whether the President is a Republican or a Democrat, both parties are capable of horrendus corruption when they don't have the media actively trying to keep the public informed. I won't hesitate when stating that I am not comfortable with the activities that Bush has gotten involved in lately, but I am confident that if we allow the public to know as much as is possible about what is going on, it will serve as a check upon his powers. This will also encourage him to think twice before he does something really raw...

Allowing the administration to hide behind the cover of "national security" is very dangerous.

Finally, does anyone else see the irony in the Bush Administration going through phone records to identify who leaked the stories which exposed their program of going through people's phone records?

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[On Lawn]

You're conflating a big list of phone numbers (which is pretty innocuous) with a big list of specific phone calls.

No, my commentary is about a list of phone calls. I appologize if there was any confusion.

If that's as innocuous as you seem to wish to believe, why is the program such a deep dark secret that Federal prosecutors can't get security clearance to examine the matter?

I don't seem to "wish" to believe anything, not even that secrecy means criminal activity. That would be true for both civil and government aspects of this issue.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[lucabrasi999]

If you're talking to government officials, and there are leaks that potentially endanger lives of agents, and collaterally other agents in the field, you're going to get more than a sideways look from the governmet, as well you should.

Nice argument, except for the fact that Reporters phone records have been found to be confidential by US District Court. This goes back to the case of Judith Miller and the NY Times, which was about someone at the White House allegedly leaking CIA Secret Agent Valerie Plame's name.

At first glance, the Feds may not have the right to perform the search. Then again, IANAL, so I don't know if there is a difference from the case I cited above in comparison to the ABC News Blog.

Re: lives are at stake with leaks.

[Black Parrot]

> If you're talking to government officials, and there are leaks that potentially endanger lives of agents, and collaterally other agents in the field, you're going to get more than a sideways look from the governmet, as well you should.

Also if there are leaks that reveal the incompetence, dishonesty, and corruption in the governmet you're going to get more than a sideways look, and you shouldn't.

The Bush Administration is trying to prosecute people who we ought to be giving medals to.

The big boys cried "Treason!" when the Pentagon Papers came out, too.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[Dan Ost]

I believe that it is exactly these types of concerns that are supposed to be addressed by
congressional oversight of the executive branch.

If there is any meat to this report, you can bet that the democrats will demand hearings.
Then we'll have something to talk about.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[Anonymous Coward]

There are policies in place to report corruption or illegal activities in regards to classifired material.

Yeah, that's the path that Sibel Edmonds followed:

While an FBI translator, Edmonds discovered poorly translated documents relevant to the 9-11 attacks and reported the shoddy work to her supervisors. She also expressed concerns about a co-worker who had previously worked for an organization under FBI surveillance and had a relationship with a foreign intelligence officer also under surveillance. In addition, Edmonds claimed that she was told to work slowly to give the appearance that the agency was overworked so it would receive a larger budget, despite a large backlog of documents that needed translating.

But what happened to this rule-follower?

She was fired less than a year later in March 2002 for reporting shoddy work and security breaches to her supervisors that could have prevented those attacks.

Certainly she didn't just give up did she?

Edmonds has been fighting the corruption permeating the FBI since her unfair dismissal and sued to contest her firing in July 2002. On July 6, 2004 , Judge Reggie Walton in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia dismissed Edmonds' case, citing the government's state secrets privilege.

So, following the rules, a translator reports the fact that her supervisor is inept, that there might be compromised agents in the FBI and that some of the materials involved in 9/11 were translated improperly and what happens? She gets fired. She follows the legal option and the Bush administration uses the State Secres Privelage to have her case dismissed entirely.

Seriously, if you were riding on a bus and the driver were drunk, wouldn't you want someone to say something? Or would you rather they wait and call headquarters at the next stop?

Source article [http://www.aclu.org/safefree/general/18828res2005 0126.html]

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[kabloie]

The NSA was not created for the White House to wield as a secret, 100-billion-dollar/year, investigative tool for hunting down individuals who leak the illegal activities of said White House to the press.

Get a giant, fucking, clue, would you?

Re: lives are at stake with leaks.

[Black Parrot]

> Divulging classified information is not "whistleblowing", no matter how you look at it.

Except when it's whistleblowing...

> Whether or not a program is illegal or unconstittutional, leakers have to expect to take a hit. They are violating their oaths of secrecy.

Yes, and in the long tradition of tyranny there have been lots of people willing to break laws and suffer the consequences for speaking out about wrongs.

But few Americans believe the signers of the Declaration of Independence should have been hanged for signing it.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[will_die]

And which laws where broken?
if they leaker was really worried about stopping illegal action they would of followed the law which has locations where they can report illegal action, ie whisleblowing, and now face legal action, in fact in most cases they can be rewared with case prizes.
The reason they went to the press is because it was not and illegal action but something the person did not like, or something like that.

Re: lives are at stake with leaks.

[Black Parrot]

> Journalists are incredibly important now a days. They are the last line of defence from a completely secret (and thus unaccountable to the public) government.

And sadly they did a piss-poor job of it between 9-11 and about a year ago, when some of them finally started breaking ranks with the administration's press releases.

Most of them still aren't not doing a very damn good job of it.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[Apraxhren]

Just a note, the Nixon enemies list is located at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixon's_Enemies_List Your original link didn't go directly to it.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[kalel666]

Where does that belief lead, though? Who decides what is "more important than keeping damaging secrets"? Who decides what is a damaging secret, for that matter? Right now, the Republicans are in power. Eventually the Democrats or someone else will be. Where does it end? The politicization of classified information leads to a place where nothing is classified, nothing is secret.

And despite what some may think, there are times when information must be kept secret.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[Moofie]

How do you determine whether there is criminal activity, if no oversight and no investigations are allowed?

Why would you assume that there is not, unless you've never read any history?

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[j0217995]

Was a little shocked to see a post like this here, but am glad. Since when did violating the law and violating an oath suddenly become the patriotic thing to do? These people are not heroes, they shouldn't be admired because they are saving the country from an evil. These people are violating thier security clearance on purpose because they don't agree with the current administration's policies. I think the whole problem we have going on in this country is the amount of disdain both sides of the political spectrum have for each other. The country is going downhill quickly due to nothing more then hate. Conservatives hating liberals and liberals hating conservatives. I think there are bigger problems to solve then the government checking to see who called who. Solve the illegal immigrant problem first, or a novel idea, catch bin Laden.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[Trigun]

What if the consequences of their actions were to be shipped off to Gitmo? What if it were to be publicly discredited with misinformation? The administration has given reason enough for a whistleblower to be afraid. There is no need for them to become either a martyr or pariah.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[AdmiralWeirdbeard]

Um, yes, divulging classified information certainly can be whistleblowing, depending on how you look at it.

Step 1: Government does something unconstitutional.
Step 2: Government classifies the fact that it did that thing.
Step 3: Someone with both clearance and a conscience exposes said unconstitutional act, so that they responsible parties might be brought to justice.

*YES* he said it couldnt be done, no matter how you looked at it. But I showed that it could be done!!! go ME!!!!
*self-five*

In all seriousness, however, if you'd like to chime back in and answer how the fuck exposing an unconstitutional domestic spying operatin by the government is going to directly lead to the death of servicemen abroad, I'd like to hear it. This is nothing like a leak exposing an undercover operative who had worked abroad. *cough* this is a domestic operation, engaged in primarily by hackers at computer terminals.
The inviolable nature of the "state security" cry is necessary only in so far as it is justifiably used. Given this, and most other, administration's complete lack of credibility, I will automatically call bullshit when they invoke state security to avoid explaining something illegal/embarrasing they have done to us.

Just to preempt the "well, if we dont unconstitutionally spy on our own populace, we'll have incomplete intell, and our servicemen will walk into ambushes, and terrorists will bomb every major american city into rubble" argument: The ends to not justify the means.

That is why we have a constitution guaranteeing certain freedoms from government oppression.

That is why we are supposedly better than the terrorists: We consider certain actions beneath us.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[sbrown123]

Divulging classified information is not "whistleblowing",

Yes it is. Watergate? Deep throat? What are you, like 12 years old? You are apparently in a subject that is way over your head.

There are policies in place to report corruption or illegal activities in regards to classifired material.

You never worked in the government.

Honestly, people who who security clearance know better than this.

Some people let their morals override their work duties. These individuals take the risk of being fired or jailed because they ultimetly feel that their first duty, as a member of our government and an American citizen, is to answer to the people and not the government they work for. The U.S. government is a representation of the people, not the owner or ruler there of.

Whether or not a program is illegal or unconstittutional, leakers have to expect to take a hit.

Leakers know they will probably get hit for leaking information. But they are just brave, selfless individuals.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[THESuperShawn]

I did not read all the replies to your post yet, but I hope you don't get "hammered". I fully agree with you on this one. If you are suspected of doing something "illegal", the government should have every right to check into it.

I am not saying that governments are not prone to over-reaching their power, but we do have to "give" some to "get" the protection we desire.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[Ohreally_factor]

The intent is not to punish the journalist

Don't be so quick to discount the possibility that the reporter might be an Al Kaida affiliate. The Bush Administration said they were only data mining phone logs of Americans to go after Al Kaida, so if they're focused on a journalist, that journalist is probably an associate of the terrorists. {cough}

Don't Panic! If you're not a reporter, you have nothing to fear from the government!

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[Rob the Bold]

Divulging classified information is not "whistleblowing", no matter how you look at it. There are policies in place to report corruption or illegal activities in regards to classifired material. Leaking the info to reporters is not one of those procedures.

I don't think you're naive, so you're being disingenuous. For one thing, you can't blow the whistle on your boss to your boss. When your boss is the one perpetrating the corruption, you need to go outside the system. If the president can declare anything "classified" for purposes of hiding corruption, the there is no "legitimate" way of reporting the corruption.

Whether or not a program is illegal or unconstittutional, leakers have to expect to take a hit.

This is a particularly misleading argument. You are placing an "oath of secrecy" above the oath to uphold the constitution. If there is no Constitution, there is no America in the sense that we know it.

The whole "lives are at stake" argument is also misplaced. Lives have already been lost. You are writing about taking concrete action to prevent theoretical harm when actual harm has already been done. Crimes have been committed, some known and some unknown. My country's standing in the world has been diminished. If the "procedures" you speak of had been followed by the men in charge in the first place, we wouldn't be in this mess now.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[syphax]

Thanks. Out of (bad?) habit, I use single quotes with my hrefs, which bit me in the ass this time because the Wikipedia link has a ' in it ("Nixon's enemies list").

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[Malakusen]

What if their wife is a NOC working undercover for the CIA and her exposure could threaten currently active national security operation? Oh, that's right, the administration exposes even then.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[Anonymous Coward]

considering that the whole NSA meets AT&T was clinton's baby, and the media didn't care about it then. yes, that's right, what is conviently being dropped from the stories is that clinton installed the secret spy rooms in all our domestic communication centers and listened to all our conversations, especially the press, but the press wanted him in power, but now, a decade later, the press makes it a big story.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[pcidevel]

And the article is about the executive branch of the government proactively monitoring the phone lines of reporters in case they talk to a "leaker".

Your "zomg it's classified information nub!" argument almost holds water, until you realize that there is a Judicial branch of the government meant to oversee these types of activities specifically to prevent abuse by the Executive. If the Executive is willing to get court orders to do this type of monitoring, then it's within the letter of the law, else it's just abuse of power to stop dwindling poll numbers.

But keep on listening to the spin and disregard the law, because our National Security is at stake.. :p

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[sbrown123]

Did you even read what you just wrote? Read it again. Here, I'll point out the problem:

My point, and my only point, is that the leakers knew the consequences of what they were doing

Which was followed by:

If they believe what they were doing is right, why do they hide?

Why in the hell would someone openly try to be punished for doing the right thing from those who are doing wrong or evil? Have you ever heard of the Witness Protection Program? Why do you think they hide witnesses?

Guess people shouldn't expect someone with a sig of "666" to understand right from wrong or complex subjects like morality.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[bsane]

You're missing the point. The top investigative journalist at ABC is on the 'watch list' so they can figure out who the leaks are. Unless they have warrents the government is way over the line.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[BalanceOfJudgement]

"Divulging classified information is not "whistleblowing", no matter how you look at it."

If they're revealing evidence of corruption or illegal or unethical activity, it most definitely IS whistleblowing. It isn't legal, since it violates the security clearance they were granted, but it IS whisteblowing.

Seriously though, I won't extend that to people who are "whistleblowing" just because they're mad at their boss because they're not getting that promotion, but there are valid times when even classified data should be revealed. I don't trust my government enough to properly deal with that stuff internally.

"Honestly, people who who security clearance know better than this."

I have one. I am fully aware of what is ok for me to talk about with friends and love ones, and what isn't.

If I were to come upon information I thought needed to be shared, I would first share it with my boss, who has a higher clearance than I do. I would follow the chain of command.

If, at the end of the day, I was looking at an instance of massive corruption and found my superiors unwilling to do anything about it, you better believe I'm going to go share it with a reporter. Sure, I'll probably be jailed for it, but that is a small price to pay for serving the freedom of my country.

But then, the stuff I deal with is pretty insignificant. I don't expect to ever be in that situation. But it's something I've thought about.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[posterlogo]

You must be joking...

As you so vividly wrote out in bold: "there is no evidence the government is tapping or listening in..."

Without any accounting from ANY branch of the government, the press is the only estate left to do any real investigating. They rolled over once leading up to the Iraq war. I believe they hae learned their lesson: NEVER let government butt-likers like yourself keep them from doing their job.

With congress rolling over to whatever the presidents says, and a judiciary appointed by same president, the importance of journalists is greater that it has been since the days of Vietnam or Nixon. Your post smacks of Republican Neo-con.

BTW, "merely looking at who's talking to whom" may well be proven to be illegal. Don't pretend that debate is over already.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[On Lawn]

The NSA was not created for the White House to wield

Your statement begs the question. Is the NSA simply muscle for intimidating whistle-blowers?

Monica Lewinsky thought she was going to become a soap-opera star from her fame as a white-house whistle-blower (pun not intended). Elizabeth Gracen kept her affair silent and got on television in the Highlander series. But when she came out about it, she was apparently hounded by the IRS.

Right now Scooter Libby is facing a not-so-fun time for leaking a CIA conspiracy to falsify information for the press.

Clinton probably chose the IRS because they have more power to ruin someone's life than the NSA does.

So what kind of NSA harrassment did you have in mind?

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[pcidevel]

Nice try, bravo.

As I pointed out below, however, Fitzgerald tried to get the phone records of the reporter (AFTER the fact, not an attempt to monitor ongoing communications from the reporter, which is an even WORSE offense, imho) and the court denied his request, citing the constitutional privledges of the press.

So even in a case where the leaked classified information did in fact danger lives, it was decided by the court that the phone records of journalists were protected.

Again, good try.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[mozumder]

This smacks of journalists pompously elevating their self-importance to levels higher than they deserve.

Are you saying that government is supposed to be more important than the press?

Government is a weak institution. It bears very little importance to the lives of ordinary people. It's purpose is to function as a tool for the wealthy. If the US government disappeared tommorrow, the only thing you'll notice is a 33% pay raise.

Let's not give government any credibility. You are no better off under the US government than you would be under a monarchy such as the king of England.

Let's minimize the role of government. A weak government is better than a strong one.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[BalanceOfJudgement]

"Who decides what is a damaging secret, for that matter?"

There's a standing rule in the military that you don't carry out illegal orders from your commanding officer. No Western military tribunal will accept the excuse "I was just following orders." This is because morality can't be put down in a book as a list of numbered, sanctioned rules - we would always miss at least one (and more likely miss thousands).

Soldiers are not expected to be machines, contrary to popular belief; they have to morally evaluate the orders they are given, because it is their responsibility to stand up and say "NO!" if they are given an illegal order (like "Ok, let's take some embarassing pictures of some of our prisoners over there. Say cheese!").

Every American citizen has the same responsibility, ESPECIALLY those with security clearances. It is often only they that will ever be aware of abuses being carried out by our government. There are no hard and fast rules for recognizing unethical or immoral behavior; it is up to us, as moral, thinking beings, to figure it out.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[posterlogo]

Not sure why you got labelled a troll. This is an absolutely true but difficult to swall truth for some people: Neo-cons like Bush have done way more kill Americans than any terrorist ever did. Not just the Iraq war, which is obvious, but also subtler things, the poor, the elderly, victems of gun violence, Katrina.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[Buran]

Leaking the info to reporters is not one of those procedures.

And you really think the government will act on complaints? It has such a wonderful (not) track record of doing so thus far. Make a complaint, I guarantee it'll be ignored. The only way to get anything changed these days is to let everyone know about the abuses. They'll only scramble to fix problems when they think they might lose votes and/or donations.

This crap was "insightful"? More like "overrated".

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[HangingChad]

If you are a reporter, and you're exchanging calls with anyone on the "list" suspected of leaks why shouldn't the government take a peek.

Because the administration claims to want to track down leakers...until it turns out the leak originated with Cheney, then it's okay. That's the working definition of a hypocrite. Do as I say not as I do.

This smacks of journalists pompously elevating their self-importance to levels higher than they deserve.

It smacks of hypocricy and corruption. It smacks of an out of control administration desperately trying to hide their criminal misdeeds from public scrutiny.

The terrorists know we monitor telecom. It's not news to them. Funny that it is to us.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[On Lawn]

How do you determine whether there is criminal activity, if no oversight and no investigations are allowed?

A knife sticking in someone's back sure helps one determine criminal activity even if no oversight, investigations are allowed.

In fact that is what a warrant is supposed to do, determine that there is evidence of criminal activity before investigations take place.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[Politburo]

They are violating their oaths of secrecy.

Which oath is that?

...all executive Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution...

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[sedmonds]

Warrants aren't supposed to be issued before investigations take place. Warrants are supposed to be issued when, in the course of investigation, it comes to light that there is reason to believe that evidence will be uncovered in the course of impinging upon someones rights. Requiring judicial oversight for acquiring warrants recognizes that people have rights, and that police do not have the authority to trample those rights without just cause.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[kalel666]

Agreed. They then have to face the consequences of their actions.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[Ohreally_factor]

Which of the following leaks have put exposed field agents and put them at potential risk?

1) Secret CIA prisons in Eastern Europe

2) Warrantless taps on calls going into and out of the US by the NSA

3) Database of American call records assembled by the NSA

4) Monitoring of reporters phone calls by as yet unnamed federal agency

5) Identifying CIA case officer to scare a whistle blower

So far, Novak is the only "journalist" who has put anyone in potential danger, and we know the leak came out of the Vice President's office.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[Rob the Bold]

No administration has ever used the intelligence community for partisan poltical gain to the extent that the current one has. None..

Not to nitpick, but this is not unprecedented. Nixon's administration used the intelligence community for exactly this purpose. But then again, Nixon was un-presidented.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[Thud457]

Maybe Fitzi should ask again in light of recent rulings. If for no other reason than to highlight the administration's doublethink on the matter.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[2short]

"If there is any meat to this report, you can bet that the democrats will demand hearings.
Then we'll have something to talk about."

Why? Democrats demand hearings all the time; why should the Republican Congress listen to them this time?

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[Cheapy]

How much does said bridge cost?

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[DougLorenz]

You are partially correct... There is evidence that some reporters will give let illegal behavior slide when it is conducted by an administration that they are ideoligically allied with.

In the past this has been more of a problem than it currently is, since so much of the media was dominated by individuals who are positively inclined toward Democrats. Now we have a little greater diversity in the news media, and if a Democrat administration tried to get away with anything illegal, we have Fox News and talk radio that would be on them in an instant. We also now have the blogosphere that can often drive news stories as well...

We don't need to have EVERY media channel screaming at the first sign of inappropriate activities, but we should have at least some reporters looking. The fact that the public might find out is an excellent check on government power.

It was just two reporters at a single newspaper that broke the Watergate story wide open.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[krist0]

sssssshhhhhhhhhh, don't bring facts, they HATE that. :)

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[why-is-it]

Manipulating the media with "leaks" is one thing, but leaks endangering field agents or operatives is different.

It all depends on whether or not your name is Karl Rove...

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[Zork the Almighty]

While I understand that there is no proof that our phone conversations are recorded...

There is reason to believe they are recorded. As discussed on a previous slashdot thread, a database of call records only would consume an amount in the terabyte range per year, barely more than your average PC! And that was without compression. The NSA has a much bigger budget than that, and if they're spending millions of dollars it's likely that a significant percentage of calls are recorded, possibly all of them.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[On Lawn]

Warrants aren't supposed to be issued before investigations take place.

I don't mind getting technical, it avoids confusion. But if I were being technical from the beginning I'd have stated it this way...

Warrants are supposed to show that a proposed search (which is a form of investigation) is warranted.

Requiring judicial oversight for acquiring warrants recognizes that people have rights, and that police do not have the authority to trample those rights without just cause.

Agreed.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[joshsisk]

Does it matter whose "baby" it was? If something is wrong, you put a stop to it, not say "well, it was this other guy who started it, so it's okay!"

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[Buran]

It isn't legal, since it violates the security clearance they were granted, but it IS whisteblowing.

The thing that gets me about all the people that scream that in this case going public is wrong ... are probably the same people who cheer when corporate whistleblowers step forward to speak up about corporate abuse.

You see ... the information that those people reveal is also technically protected by law (trade secrets, things like that). And yet, sometimes it is revealed in order to serve the greater good.

You can't hide behind a "well, the law says you can't tell the public that!" if the people who reveal the information do so out of a moral obligation to serve the greater good.

So everyone needs to decide if they think we all should blindly listen to "you aren't supposed to tell anyone about this" and let people get hurt, or are we willing to step forward and say "No more!" when the time comes?

Me, I know which side I'm on. I'd want someone to step forward, reputation be damned (whether theirs or someone who tries to keep the secret in order to save their own face/ass) if my life was in danger, so I'd step up to help someone else.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[Rasputin]

'So far, Novak is the only "journalist" who has put anyone in potential danger, and we know the leak came out of the Vice President's office.'

Yes! And funny how nobody's calling for him to be jailed or executed. All the howl about "putting lives in jeopardy" is just a smokescreen.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[Moofie]

"A knife sticking in someone's back sure helps one determine criminal activity"

You're working really hard to misinterpret my point.

And the people making these decisions, denying security clearance to the investigators, are going to roll over and play dead when somebody shows up with a big scary WARRANT.

Yeah.

Warrants are indeed necessary to safeguard due process, and the public's rights. Which is why I think it's bad that this surveillance program doesn't require them, and should be investigated, and halted.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[slashflood]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixon's_Enemies_List

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[Rob the Bold]

They then have to face the consequences of their actions.

By consequences, do you mean we give them some sort of recognition for risking their careers (and more) for the greater good of preserving our Constitutional system of government?

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[zifferent]

He wasn't implying that the USA and Nazi Germany are exactly alike. He was implying that we are headed down the same road.

Here's how the leak investigation would go down in the Soviet Union. You would be arrested and then beaten until you confessed, passed out, or died. Maybe they would try some kind of new drug on you. To be sure, whatever they did would far exceed the hysterical descriptions of so-called American torture. If you did confess you would be executed. If they wanted to make an example of you, you would get a show trial, then executed. Of course, your family would suffer unbearable consequences, up to and including a trip to Siberia.

Replace Soviet Union with American (and vice-versa) and Siberia with Guantanimo, and it comes dangerously close. Granted we're not EXACTLY there yet, but you can park and see it from here.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[SeattleGameboy]

Funny, you wouldn't make much of a critic either...

You conveniently forgot the fact that the Courts only allowed spy agencies intercept OVERSEAS communications - as in NOT ORIGINATING from United States.

That is why we have the whole FISA setup for domestic interceptions.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[On Lawn]

You're working really hard to misinterpret my point.

I hope I'm helping you make the point. Some of it by playing devil's advocate, but nothing adversarial. I am not sure you've thought this through completely is all.

And the people making these decisions, denying security clearance to the investigators, are going to roll over and play dead when somebody shows up with a big scary WARRANT.

Interesting scenario. I've seen challenges to warrants in executive v judicial clashes before. Perhaps you could draw from one of those to better illustrate your point.

I think it's bad that this surveillance program doesn't require them

You'd have to argue there is a real privacy breach in a program that gets publically available information voluntarily by the people who own that information.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[Ohreally_factor]

Thank you, brother Republican. If our party is going to have any credibility going forward, it will be because a few of us recognize that Bush and his followers have betrayed this nation.

Frankly, if it is true that the administration is monitoring the calls of reporters, the mind boggles (and yes, the irony increases the boggle). It's insane and stupid that they'd do this at this time. I once thought that Clinton was the epitome of arrogance during the Lewinsky scandal, but this is so much worse. What are they thinking?

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[Poppler]

it is exactly these types of concerns that are supposed to be addressed by
congressional oversight of the executive branch.

I agree. The biggest problem with Bush's domestic surviellence programs is that they bypass such oversight. We're expected to trust them not to abuse their power. Not a reasonable proposition, if you ask me.

If there is any meat to this report, you can bet that the democrats will demand hearings.

I hope so. I'm sure there will be at least a few who make some noise, and you would think that in an election year, the rest of the party would follow suit. Then again, the Democrats never cease to dissapoint me, so I have come to expect relatively little from them.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[spun]

Facts have a well known liberal bias.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[mhollis]

Full disclosure here: I work for a press outfit and America sees my work on television daily.

The issue with NSA spying is all about how the Constitution guarantees us rights to not be searched against our will and without reasonable cause or a judge's order. The administration says that, when Congress passed the so-called "patriot" act, it gave the President (the Executive Branch of our government) the go-ahead to take this extraordinary measure of searches and siezures (wiretapping falls under that) without a warrant.

Here is what a warrant does:
It involves another official of government, one who is supposed to be impartial and not on either the side of the individual or on the side of the Executive Branch.
It involves someone from another branch of government that holds itself (somewhat) aloof from the politics of the day.
It involves a branch of government dedicated to the examination, on a case-by-case basis of the actions of both the Executive and Legislative branches of government.
It involves a branch of government that may be overruled by appeals that end at the US Supreme Court (or for state laws at their State Supreme Courts).

The Executive (in this case) says it has a two-to-three majority against the Judiciary and believes it is unassilable because "Congress told me I could." Presently, a lot of people in Congress are having a serious problem admitting that they did decide to allow searches without warrants.

Now that's the general environment into which this release of all telephone records plays. According to the US Supreme Court, a "warrantless installation of (a) pen register (does) not violate the Fourth Amendment." Follow the link to read the case law. Qwest decided that the government was not installing a pen register (a device to record the numbers called from one telephone to all others) and stated that, in their opinion, the release of all records does not constitute that permitted warantless intrusion into their records on their clients. The other telcos blinked.

But the issue that has dogged this very secretive administration the most is not their casual violation of the Constitution that they swore to uphold and protect, it's those pesky leaks from people who work for them who, presumably, wish that they weren't so darned casual about First and Fourth Amendment protections and wish they hadn't lied about their reasons for declaring war that will never end in order to get re-elected.

Those leaks could be real problematic, because they cause reporters (even ours, who seem more like lapdogs to this administration than anything else) to ask questions that make them feel uncomfortable and make it hard for them to justify their positions on other matters, like Immigration "reform" and Social Security "reform." The administration would like to think its "bank of political capital" is not overdrawn.

They don't want oversight by any branch of the government, which includes both the Legislative and the Judiciary. They also don't want oversight by the press (yes, dear reader, guilty as charged) or by the public as a whole, especially as it reacts to revelations of their secretive doings published by the press.

Now, they're warning the press that they have all of the records of all of the calls the members of the press have made to the leakers in this administration and they're going to go after them one by one.

I would ask, if they're so worried about oversight, why do anything that the majority might consider wrong? Americans are currently split (51%-49% but within the margin for error) on whether or not the administration's demand for these telco records without a warrant is justifyable, but one might consider the fact that the press (and that would blame me, too) has not sufficiently educated the public as to the narrowness of the Supreme Court decision, nor has it taken a position that the protection of all rig

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[syphax]

OK. Don't post as AC and we'll have a conversation.

I think libertarianism is great in theory, but I don't understand how its ideas could ever scale to communities over, say, 150 people.

The article linked in my sig is pretty weak, but I agree with the central argument- no government generally doesn't pan out so well.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[the arbiter]

You must be joking. The Democrats will do what they've been doing for the last 12 years, which is rolling over onto their backs, spreading their legs, and begging the GOP to fuck them harder.

Demand hearings? Not a chance.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[kcbrown]

The leakers are mostly pointing out *illegal acts* that are being carried out by our government. Don't we live in a democracy?

No. Whatever gave you that idea? The dog and pony shows that they call "elections" that happen every couple of years or so?

It's time to wake up, people. The "representative" in "representative republic" doesn't represent you, it represents the ruling class. The republic we all were brought up to believe in is long dead. And you will never get it back no matter how hard you try, because you don't have all the guns that matter -- they do. And if you push hard enough, I think you'll find that they're willing to use them on you, too.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[abefij]

Because the administration claims to want to track down leakers...until it turns out the leak originated with Cheney, then it's okay. That's the working definition of a hypocrite. Do as I say not as I do.

But it's Ok for Wilson to leak? And to lie? Has it been proven that Valerie Plame was covert? If she was the why wasn't Libby charged with leaking?

If Plame was covert, then Wilsons trip was cover and his conclusions reported in the New York Times were BS because he wasn't on a real mission anyway.

Why don't you care about the veracity of all the players involved? Why target Cheney only? If Wilson lied, as has been proven, then why not allow those smeared by him to point it out?

Was Plame covert or not? If so then why did she drive to Langley each day to do non-covert work? If her non-covert identity was leaked, then was it a leak? Is it only a leak because now she can't perform covert work in the future? Again why didn't Fitzgerald charge anyone with leaking? It has to be because he can't.

If there was a leak, then the leak was created by the charge, because until then no one suspected she was covert. I haven't seen any proof that she is or was, and if that fact is unknown there was no crime.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[Moofie]

"You'd have to argue there is a real privacy breach in a program that gets publically available information voluntarily by the people who own that information."

You're kidding, right?

The Founding Fathers (Well, Hamilton's bunch, anyhow) were absolutely right about the Bill of Rights. If they enumerate these particular rights, some idiot is going to assume that that's all the rights that the government cannot infringe.

There are a lot of idiots in charge right now.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[80 85 83 83 89 33]

you are missing the point. something WAS wrong, for years and years, everyone knew about it, yet none of the big media empires put a stop to it.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[Straif]

Not to belabour the point, but most NOC's do not work directly out of an office at the CIA headquarters to which they enter through the front door every day nor do their spouses routinely tell people their wife's profession or grab headlines by going on speaking tours and writing op-ed pieces for nationally distributed newspapers.

Standards at the CIA may have fallen over the past couple of decades but I still think they are a little better at protecting their NOCs ID's than that.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[spun]

Now I know you are being disengenous. What exactly are "the consequences of their actions?" You are implying they should be punished, while trying to make it appear that you are not implying they should be punished. Be clear. Don't say "consequences of their actions." Tell us what you think those consequences ahould be, don't hide behind weasel words.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[Shihar]

The government has and always will be incompetent in nearly all matters. The government is a necessary evil that serves as arbiter in domestic disputes and acts as a single unified voice and power in international disputes. It is useful in that it can fill those roles that the general citizenry can not fill themselves, but even then it should not be thought that it is any more competent in those matters then it is in planning supply chains for economies or regulating acceptable forms of expression and art.

The reason why limits were placed on the government in the very first place through the separations of powers and the constitution was because it was recognized form the start that government was generally incompetent, corruptible, and self serving in its desire for expanded powers. The danger in the dissolving of the separation of powers and the circumventing of the constitution is that you are handing over power to a corruptible and incompetent entity that obsesses over its own importance and power.

If the government feels that it needs expanded powers, instead of blatantly violating the constitution and our system of checks and balances, it should conduct itself as any lawful government should. It should get permission from the legislative branch of the government and pass laws authorizing their actions instead of blatantly violating existing laws. Democracy is pointless if people are not given even an inkling as to what powers their government has decided it is going to snap up. Perhaps the electorate does not need to know exactly how the government decides to use its powers (and even then, that is certainly dangerous), but at the very least it needs to know that the government has those powers such that the citizenry can decide to remove them.

I do not want the executive branch deciding what laws and parts of the constitution it wants to follow. I trust them with the power of law creation roughly as much as much as I trust them to plan an economy or regulate speech; which is to say I don't trust them at all. Where they are not corrupt or self serving, they are incompetent. I'll risk a nuke in New York over letting the government add power to itself in secret. I question the utility of the power it adds to itself in secret, but even if said powers are making a significant difference (which is doubtful by the administrations own admissions in regards to the NSA wire tapping program), cities, economies, and even societies can be rebuilt. The powers given to the government, especially with no timeframe for their return, are rarely relinquished. Relinquishing the ability for democratic and constitutional means of creating and upholding laws which the government must follow is the most dangerous power one could possibly give to any government, our government is no exception.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[syphax]

Hey dood,

I enjoyed your screed, but I would kindly ask you to read my post again. No, I am not comparing the current Administration's acts to date to the crimes of the Nazis (that's where Godwin's law really kicks in). Not even close. As another responder notes, I simply get the willies when I look at our current trajectory in the context of other regimes of the 20th century.

I personally don't celebrate Cuba (sorry- you got the wrong liberal); among other things, I have a good friend whose father had everything taken from him by the current regime. I sure as hell do not want to live there. As far as South America goes, I oppose death squads regardless of their politics. I'm not a big fan of nationalizing industries without compensation, either. So, sorry about the straw man.

I realize that our current regime, as of today, can't hold a candle to Stalin or Hitler at their peaks, in terms of killing and raw evil. What freaks me out is the Herman Goering quote sure sounds familiar, and that there are any comparisions to be made.

We have gone from the City on the Hill to... what?

Re: lives are at stake with leaks.

[Anonymous Coward]

"It is true, we are as yet secured against [tyrannical laws] by the spirit of the times... But is the spirit of the people an infallible, a permanent reliance? Is it government? Is this the kind of protection we receive in return for the rights we give up? Besides, the spirit of the times may alter, will alter. Our rulers will become corrupt, our people careless. A single zealot may commence persecutor, and better men be his victims. It can never be too often repeated that the time for fixing every essential right on a legal basis is while our rulers are honest and ourselves united. From the conclusion of [their] war [for independence, a nation begins] going down hill. It will not then be necessary to resort every moment to the people for support. They will be forgotten, therefore, and their rights disregarded. They will forget themselves but in the sole faculty of making money, and will never think of uniting to effect a due respect for their rights. The shackles, therefore, which shall not be knocked off at the conclusion of [that] war will remain on [them] long, will be made heavier and heavier, till [their] rights shall revive or expire in a convulsion."
        --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia Q.XVII, 1782. (*) ME 2:225

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[joshsisk]

the big media empires aren't putting a stop to it now, are they? they are just talking about it.

part of the problem is that the message from the government has always been, and if fact still is, "the NSA has the ability to do these things, but they would never abuse that power"... if they are, in fact, abusing it now - have they abused it before? has anyone from the government ever revealed that publically before?

i also don't agree that "everyone" knew about it. i certainly never thought my phone records were being collected by the government before. i had heard of things like Eschelon, but the government always said that was exaggerated.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[Buran]

If there is any meat to this report, you can bet that the democrats will demand hearings.
Then we'll have something to talk about.

In case you hadn't noticed, Congress is in the President's back pocket. There have been calls for hearings on a wide variety of things, including the first revelations of wiretapping.

I haven't heard of any hearings taking place. Have you?

I'd rather not hold my breath waiting for this "do-nothing Congress" to get off its asses and do what's right instead of marching in lockstep with our non-self-appointed ruler.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[ArcherB]

It might be proper, if a crime were alleged to have been committed, for a prosecutor or law enforcement agency to subpoena phone records to try to find evidence.
Uh... leaking classified information to anyone, especially the press is illegal.

How many liberals wanted to see Rove "frog-marched" out of the White House when he was accused of leaking. How come no one is calling for a "frog-marching" of whoever this leaker may be?

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[gaspar ilom]

> Not sure why you got labelled a troll.

Maybe they're doing more than just "watching," now.

(without transparency and openness -- who's to say?)

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[Anonymous Coward]

this is almost too appropriate. I mean, they are going after people who are leaking things about illegal programs using those illegal programs!!! All the while being under investigation for leaking things!!!

Plus, they're denying security clearances to the people who are investigating them: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12727867

Everybody who wants to do something wrong/illegal/unethical, just take a lesson from this administration: do it as BLATANTLY as possible, then say you have your reasons, and don't say anything else. You'll get away with it.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[Jafafa Hots]

The current Republicans in power have flat out called Douglas Feith, the leak in Watergate, a traitor for what he did, and that he should have been jailed. The current Repubs (Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rove) are in fact the SAME growd that was behind the nixonian mess... so it should come as no surprise.

It is now the official policy of the GOP that when they are in power, their President can break any law, and anyone attempting to reveal these crimes is a traitor.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[Ohreally_factor]

It's gone past partisan politics. I'm a conservative, a registered Republican, and I am sickened by the actions of the Bush Administration. How can there be a more pressing issue than a political leader overturning the same Constitution he is sworn to uphold?

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[On Lawn]

LOL.

You really took off to the weeds on that one. Let me help you out some more, just to get to the bottom of what you are really trying to say.

If they enumerate these particular rights, some idiot is going to assume that that's all the rights that the government cannot infringe.

Actually the ninth and tenth ammendment cover that pretty well. In any case, you presumably (in talking about warrants) would say that this program violates an enumerated right to privacy from illegal search and seizure.

Then it would seem lack of enumeration is not the issue here. (BTW, my memory about the numbers of each ammendment might be off, I hope you don't dock me for that I'm in a rush yet very interested in getting to your point).

Alright, run with that and see if you can make your point better.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[SmokedS]

Because, as is pointed out again and again, it is NOT illegal to disobey illegal orders or to expose illegal activities. The government is NOT above the law no matter how much they like to believe they are.

What you are saying that is that the government may bypass any and all laws just by classifying the activity in question. That's utter nonsense. It is the moral duty of any citizen of any country to expose illegal acts by its government.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[gentlemen_loser]

Divulging classified information is not "whistleblowing", no matter how you look at it. There are policies in place to report corruption or illegal activities in regards to classifired material. Leaking the info to reporters is not one of those procedures.

What are you fucking stupid? Speaking as someone familiar with clearances and classified material myself, do you REALLY think those "procedures" to report abuses would result in any sort of outcome that would actually solve the problem? In my view, the highest clearances have typically been used to protect information that violates some sort of international treaty. I'm also of the opinion that using clearances to hide violations of international treaties is fine. I'm not stupid. If you think that China or other European countries are not doing the EXACT same thing in that regard, you are fucking kidding yourself. As a soverign nation, we'd be doing ourself a disservice if we were not "keeping up with the Joneses".

The problem that I have with this administration is that they seem to be using clearances to hide their own illegal and unconstitutional activities and THAT is a fucking MAJOR problem. I take my hat off to the people who leaked it and wish them the best. I'm sure they know the sacrifice they made and I can only hope that the people of our country wake up and realize that the "real" terrorist wears a tie and is currently sitting in the Oval Office.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[Gorshkov]

Anybody remember the Pueblo?

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[Anonymous Coward]

Whether or not a program is illegal or unconstittutional, leakers have to expect to take a hit. They are violating their oaths of secrecy.

Today was my first day at work. In addition to filling out paperwork for benefits, medical forms, and getting a little badge, I signed a paper containing an Oath of Office:

I (name), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.

Sometimes leakers have to decide between their oath to keep things secret, and their oath to defend the Constitution. Heaven forbid I should be placed in such a situation, but if I do I pray I have the strength to do the right thing.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[Ohreally_factor]

I find only small comfort is government disclaimers about what is actually being monitored.

You aren't troubled by the fact that each revelation makes the previous disclaimer/assurance untrue? How can you find any comfort at all?

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[bennomatic]

I just wanted to say I really appreciated your post. Well written, preserving the emotional impact of what you wanted to say without sacrificing factual accuracy. Cheers to you.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[shutdown -p now]

Who decides? Why, one's conscience, of course.

And he already gave you an objective criterion: when keeping a secret leads to violation of the Constitution, then it is time to come out.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[Gorshkov]

You're absolutly right .... but there's only one, tiny, little problem with it.

Traffic analysis is normally differential - that is, you establish a "normal" pattern, for "normal" behaviour. Any changes in that pattern then tells you that something unusual is happening - different changes signifying different things, etc.

You have somebody (a reporter) who's job it is to talk to government officials and politicos of all stripes in the NORMAL course of doing his job. So just how, pray tell, is knowing that said reporter talked to official XXX going to give you any clues as to who might be leaking what?

Unless the reporter/leak are stupid enough to talk to each other at 3AM when both are normally in bed (a break in the pattern), there's not going to be anything to be found. Certainly not by traffic analysis, anyway.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[Malakusen]

All the better form of cover then.

"She can't be a NOC, she's too public."

Hiding in plain sight much?

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[EQ]

Shamne is you have one point completely wrong:

The "wiretapping" is legal - as long as at lesat one end is in a forgien nation, the NSA, as directed by the PResidane under article III of the Constitution, does have the power to "wiretap" without warrant. This goes back to WW2 and FDR.

As for the CIA secret prisons - try fact checking - the Boston Globe (hardly a right wind bastion that) investigated as did others and there is no evidence that such prisons exist or existed - the conlcusion many have come to is that it was a fabricated story used to entrap leakers.

"I don't see how a single life was endangered by any of those leaks."

And you were trained as an intellgience analyst when and where? Your criticisms of this on an intelligence basis are as invlaid as they would be to a neurosurgeon (unles you happned to be either an intelligence analyst or a neurosurgeon of course - then again you're posting flames to slashdot so...)

Certainly such severe accusations as you make require at least amodicum of proff, none of which has been produced.

Stop the conspiracy truck, take off the tinfol hat and *gather*evidence* - all of it, not jsut what agrees with you and dont discard that which disagrees with you (like evidence that there is atrror thret to the US). Paranoid hysteria is not the right way to bring such charges (your error), nor is it a way to secure the nation against an implacable enemy (Bush's error).

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[WheelDweller]

Which administration? I've not seen anything good spoken of this administration since Bush gave the education bill to Ted Kenedy to write. That just confused us all...but not Ted! He acts like he had nothing to do with it, and complains, too.

The mind-programming from the left is really hilarious at times.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[jemenake]

This is the canary in the coal-mine. We're not served by minimizing it when the canary laying at the bottom of its cage, gasping for air.

I haven't seen it put this way before, but I like the analogy.

The way I tell it to people is "If you wait until it's obvious that we're turning into a fascist police-state, it will be too late to stop it". (In fact, a friend of mine who even *voted* for Bush in 2004 told me "The main problem with Bush is that he's turning the country into NAZI Germany.... but he's doing it slowly enough so that nobody notices..."). Think about it for a moment. If you were trying to nullify the liberty and democracy that we, for the time being, enjoy, how would you go about it? You certainly wouldn't write it into a bill and put it before Congress. You'd have to slowly, patiently, chisel away at the safeguards.

Topping the to-do list would be to make "freedom of the press" a cliche' with no real meaning. Start with revoking the White House press pool credentials of any reporter that asks the president a hard-ball question so that all of the press pool is afraid to really go after him. Next, intimidate the non-press-pool reporters with surveilance so that all reporters are wary about exposing gov't misdoings.

It reminds me a lot of high-school. The school had rules against violence between students. So, if I saw some jock cheating on an exam in class, I should have been able to report him without fear of reprisal, right? Not. The analogy isn't perfect, but I think it gets the point across. When it's possible to exert intimidation, then it doesn't matter what rights are actually written down... they're just window dressing. Maybe Bush was right after all... the Constitution reall is "just a goddamn piece of paper".

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[Ohreally_factor]

1) . . .

Put agents *actually* in the field at risk

How? How does it put individual agents at risk?

. . . puts Europeans at risk in the event that terrorists attempt a rescue . . .

I think you watch too many movies.

2) . . . 3) . . . 4) . . .

Put American service members and civilians at risk by interfering with legitimate intelligence operations.

Overly broad, and you're ignoring that persons on US soil have Constitutional protections, regardless of whether or not the end result is criminal prosecution. If you're going to engage in domestic spying, you need effective oversight from the other two branches of government. If the executive branch deceives the other branches, then the American people's only recourse is thru oversight by the press.

Basically, you're just using a smoke screen. Why not take it to the extreme? How many service members' lives could we save if we lived in a complete police state where the executive could do whatever it wished?

You're basically saying, "In theory", and I'm not willing to trade my civil liberties for your "In theory, lives could be put at risk".

5) The only ACTUAL disclosure of an agent's identity, and you say conveniently say that her ID was no longer relevant. Meanwhile, anyone she had contact with could be in danger, regardless of whether or not she was their case officer. Innocent people might come to harm, let alone filed agents. And what sort of effect does this sort of disclosure have on field agents, knowing that your bosses will hang you out to dry, not merely for political expedience, but to attack political critics!

Basically, you can apologize all you want for the Bush administration, but as far as this Republican is concerned, your apology is no longer accepted.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[youngone]

The real problem here is that the USA is no longer a democracy, and hasn't been for some time. This administration just happens to be the first to really take advantage of the fact that a tiny minority of Americans vote, and those that do vote selfishly. There might be howls of protest from some, but none the less, the facts bear me out. Check out what percentage of the total voter pool Bush won with last time around. Not much will change as long as the ignorant voting public continue to either swallow the crap they're fed, or ignore it.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[patomuerto]

That is not the point. If the government wants to stop drugs they CANNOT search every citizen of the US. They have a process they must follow and get search warrents. They have to do the same in this case. It even says so.

(b) Required Certification.-- (1) ...billing records sought are relevant to an authorized investigation to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities, provided that such an investigation of a United States person is not conducted solely on the basis of activities protected by the first amendment to the Constitution of the United States;

If a crime has been committed then investigate it. They can even do it secretly so only the justice dept can see it. But by following the process they ensure oversight by judges.

They then cant say "Abortioninst/Drug Users/Gun Owners/PGP Users/ETC are terrorist so we can spy on them all we want."

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[letxa2000]

If by "leaks" we mean things that are not politically expedient for the Administration that the public knows, this is a bad thing. If by "leaks" we mean legitimate security breaches of classified information, then by all means the phone records of journalist should be scrutinized. *

* Note: I do not like the idea of the phone call database. But if we go from the premise that the damn thing already exists, for better or for worse, I definitely think that plugging holes in national security is *not* a "bad thing." Again, assuming that by "leaks" we mean "issues of national security."

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[R3d M3rcury]

"Don't be so quick to discount the possibility that the reporter might be an Al Kaida affiliate."

I have it under good authority that the reporters in question know somebody named Al. They also have been seen using A1 Steal Sauce and saw the movie "AI". So it's close enough that we should investigate...

(That was one of the standard jokes we had in Riyadh: "Why is everybody named Al?" It was sort-of a blonde-type joke...)

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[R3d M3rcury]

"I expect that Nixon felt that the leaks which exposed Watergate were threats to national security, and would have stopped them if they could."

In fact, Nixon tried that. He asked the CIA to interfere with the FBI's investigation of the Watergate break-in because of unnamed "National Security" implications. Nixon also edited the transcripts of the tapes, again claiming National Security.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[sgt_doom]

puts Europeans at risk in the event that terrorists attempt a rescue

Gee, some bad a** Muslim who didn't care for his neighbor and turned him or her in under the fiction of being tight with al Qaeda is not on their list to be rescued - assuming there was an actual organization that existed - and seeing as how we have to rely upon the Bush Administration for such evidence (which hasn't been forthcoming, and somehow I don't think this administration has established any track record on telling the truth,

There *is* a war going on and I am not referring to Iraq.

You are right, Iraq is not a war - it is an invasion and occupation by foreign troops - and a rebellion against said occupiers.

A damn smart thing to do in order to do traffic analysis and discover covert networks.

Funny, J. Edgar Hoover said the exact same thing about his secret political files....

Reporters have a right to publish what they learn, they do not have a right to break the law to acquire that knowledge.

And the prez, vice-prez, Rumsfeldstilskin, and Condo Rice are not bound by those same laws????

Real combat vets do not support an Imperial Army - that's why the Founders believed in citizen-soldiers only]

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[ArcherB]

Because, as is pointed out again and again, it is NOT illegal to disobey illegal orders or to expose illegal activities. The government is NOT above the law no matter how much they like to believe they are.

What you are saying that is that the government may bypass any and all laws just by classifying the activity in question. That's utter nonsense. It is the moral duty of any citizen of any country to expose illegal acts by its government.

Are these activities illegal? That's for a judge or grand-jury to decide. I guess that's the risk you take when you leak. If the government's activities are illegal, then the leaker is a wistle-blower and a hero. If not, then the leaker is a traitor and a threat to national security. The only other possibility is if this leaker was politically motivated, then he's a complete and utter slime ball who sold out his country for political purposes.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[homer_ca]

"1) Secret CIA prisons in Eastern Europe

Put agents *actually* in the field at risk, puts Europeans at risk in the event that terrorists attempt a rescue or kidnap locals to coerce the local government to release prisoners, put American service members and civilians at risk by interfering with interrogations (torture not required) involving time sensitive information."

The secret prisons were never disclosed with enough specificity to endanger any operations. All we know are former military bases in two Eastern European countries. In any case they would likely be heavily-guarded, hard targets. The chance of a terrorist commando raid to bust out their buddies is approximately zero. The chance of terrorist kidnapping local civilians to ransom for their buddies is also approximately zero. The governments of those two Eastern European countries have no leverage with the US to negotiate a release, and the CIA is unpopular enough as it is in Europe.

BTW the ticking timebomb scenario that you imply by "time sensitive information" is a load of crap. Most of the high-value targets were captured in 2002. Not going to get much fresh info out of them this year. The Wall Street terror alert of Oct 2004 was based on 4 year old pictures, basically pre-9/11 target recon.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[Peaceful_Patriot]

"...5) Identifying CIA case officer to scare a whistle blower

So far, Novak is the only "journalist" who has put anyone in potential danger, and we know the leak came out of the Vice President's office."

Thank you for the reminder that the only 'dangerous leak' came from the White House itself. For the obvious disregard this Administration has for the Constitution, the law, the courts, the Congress, or pretty much any type of oversight, it is only the press standing between the People and a regime which is obsessed with power, secrecy and an attitude that 'anything goes as long as you don't get caught.'

Sure, they don't like the press talking about faked evidence of WMDs, torture, secret prisons and detentions, warrantless spying, and on and on, but the press needs to keep talking because in this warped Administration, they are the only check/balance we have left.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[Da_Weasel]

I'm a rabid Bush-hater. What's wrong with that? Just because I hate him doesn't mean that any and all anti-Bush comments I might make are with out merit. Yea, sure my hatred for him, his actions and his administration might skew my views of things at times, but it certainly doesn't mean i'm going to simply speak out against everything he does just out of spite. Besides I don't think it's my hatred that skews my views so much as it's my distrust of his actions. He is quite simply a dishonest and shady character, and I could never trust him no matter what he did now.

It's like dealing with a child. He's standing there with chocolate frosting all over his mouth and telling me he didn't eat the cake.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[joshsisk]

and you believed them? why? because CBS told you to?

I haven't had a tv that was hooked up to get channels since the mid 90s (and then i was young and uninterested in current events), so no.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a standing rule in the military that you don't carry out illegal orders from your commanding officer.

Hitler invaded Poland.
The U.S. invaded Iraq.
Both were unprovoked wars of agression based on lies.
In effect, war crimes.
In effect, illegal.

So, then, how often are we seeing our military refusing orders?

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[damian cosmas]

Nothing wrong with that. Hate can just as easily motivate a person to express cogent and well-reasoned arguments as it can cause incoherent gibbering. The post to which I replied, unfortunately, tended toward the latter.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[Foobar of Borg]

Basically, you can apologize all you want for the Bush administration, but as far as this Republican is concerned, your apology is no longer accepted.

Sorry to be a little off-topic, but it reminds me of what an old friend of mine sometimes says. Reagan made him a Republican, Bush '41 made him an independent, Bush '43 made him a Democrat.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[BalanceOfJudgement]

"So, then, how often are we seeing our military refusing orders?"

Not in the slightest my point. I would invoke the saying "All that is necessary for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing," but it seems redundant in this case. (eh? eh? I have a flair for the ridiculous..)

Whether they refuse them or not was not my point. My point is that they should.

I wonder, had more Generals, Lieutenants, and Captains spoken up that March 20, 2003, how would our history have been written differently.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[Ohreally_factor]

That's a great quote! Tell your friend he should print it on a bumper sticker.

Reagan was a great President and a great man, but he left us with two very negative legacies. One was the alliance with the Christian Extreme Right. The other was allowing "shadow government" operatives to run loose in his administration, which lead to the Iran/Contra scandal. Regarding the later, Reagan accepted responsibility and apologized to America on national TV, a sign of his greatness that he could admit mistakes.

Some twenty years later, we find many of the same bad players riddled thru out the Bush Administration, some of which have a lineage all the way to Nixon.

I'm really hoping that we (the GOP) lose control of the house in 2006. We need that sort of wake up call. As far as 2008, the only thing that I think would be worse than Hilary Clinton in the White House would be a continuation of the Bush regime thru the election of Jeb. If Jeb is nominated, I just might register as a Dem. (Frist is a toss up; I think he's equally as bad as Clinton. If any of the other GOP hopefuls get the nomination, I'll back them wholeheartedly.)

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[multimediavt]

"Your party" hasn't had credibility since Abraham Lincoln was in office...please. History speaks for itself.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[modecx]

The Republican species is extinct. I fail to see why people identify themselves with the party, except when they're using other people who call themselves Republicans as a source of polotical power.

The way I see it, the rug was pulled out from under the normal Republicans, and the neo-conservatives have taken their place using the people we normally associate as Republican to power their way up to the top. Naturally, being Republicans, they still vote Republican, because that's just what they do, and the New Republicans have taken advantage of this.

The neo-conservatives are like Cuckoo birds: they've laid their eggs in the Republicans' nest, the Republicans, serving as foster parents, have hatched the Cuckoo-Conservatives' eggs and have fed their chicks well. Soon enough, I expect that the Cuckoo-Conservative's offspring will push the Republican chicks out of the nest... Maybe we can call them Libertarians!

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[lendude]

Bravo. You've nailed him and he has nowhere to go. In a prev. post in this discussion he wrote:

"Don't make inferences from what I said. I did not say, nor would I say, they should not go public. I am saying that what they did was illegal, and violated their oaths. If they leak this information, they should face the consequences."

Compare this to what he said in the parent, and you can see his progressive softening of his argument coz it's collapsing under the stress: he's backpedalled all the way to the generic 'they should expect consequences' rather than 'they should expect the specific consequences of their illegal (my italics) actions of violating their oaths'.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[lendude]

Just want to say, great post. It captures the entire basis of the discussion.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[modecx]

Well, I think you've either encountered Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf or possibly a PR person for the Bush Administration...

Either way, it's a confusingly deadly beast.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[asituationist]

If the people you are supposed to report corrupt or illegal activities to are responsible for those corrupt or illegal activities, who do you report to?

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[Ohreally_factor]

Don't forget the theo-cons, who have made an unholy alliance with the neo-cons.

Anyway, your dismal assessment of the GOP doesn't account for the (admittedly) few bright lights. Arlen Spector, for example. John McCain, Olympia Snow, Mit Romney for other examples.

It is my fervent hope that we get our asses kicked in 2006, mostly in the House. If we don't, we'll never be able to reconstruct the party.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[Ohreally_factor]

I don't know if I should even dignify this with a response, but:

Try on Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, and Ronald Reagan for size. You might not agree with their politics, but they were giants, especially in comparison to the moral midget we currently have occupying the oval office.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[Scudsucker]

Try on Teddy Roosevelt

Yup. Bit of a racist dick, but ya gotta love the trust-busting.

Dwight Eisenhower

Yup. But next to today's GOP, he'd almost be a communist by now.

Ronald Reagan

No thanks. He had bucketloads of charisma, but not much else. Inventing the multi-trillion dollar defecit and helping to get the God-gun nut-free market jihad rolling weren't his most notable achievements. I would take Reagan on his worst day over Bush on his best day in a heartbeat, however.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[Bjorn_Redtail]

"If you're going to engage in domestic spying, you need effective oversight from the other two branches of government. If the executive branch deceives the other branches, then the American people's only recourse is thru oversight by the press."

I don't really think you could go at this with a seperation of powers or checks and ballences argument as congress was briefed on the matter, thus fufilling his Article 2, Section 3 duities.

Now reguarding the 4th amendment, there may, or may not be an argument there.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[joss]

> We didn't attack Iraq, we attacked its government.
> There is a huge difference.

No, there really isn't. In no war that I can think of did
the aggressors not claim they were attacking the regime
rather that the country or its people. eg Germany claimed,
and even somewhat believed, that when they invaded Russia
they would be greated as liberators for freeing the Russian
people from Stalin's yoke. [btw, fuck Godwin]

> FYI, you forget a couple of things: the term "illegal"
> has no meaning outside the context of a nation,
> and "war crimes" is supposed to describe actual crimes
> committed during wartime, not simply an unjust war itself.
> Tone down the rhetoric.

Part of a nations law depends on the treaties that it has signed up for.
A signed treaty is considered by the constitution to be legally binding
so breaking it is illegal.

> "war crimes" is supposed to describe actual crimes
> committed during wartime, not simply an unjust war itself.

Wrong again, launching a war of agression is the number one war
crime from which all others flow.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_war_crimes

What is it, opposite day ?

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[inode_buddha]

"Manipulating the media with "leaks" is one thing, but leaks endangering field agents or operatives is different."

Yeah, but its the nature of the business.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[inode_buddha]

"...persons on US soil have Constitutional protections, regardless of whether or not the end result is criminal prosecution."

No, they don't. The Constitutional protections only extend to those natural-born or naturalized citizens of the several states. The states themselves must deal with the Fed., which is where the criminal and war powers come into play. Just ask any service-member who actually owns them and what their citizenship is.

As for reporters, they actually enjoy greater protections than soldiers in that regard. Of course, they run a huge risk and sometimes flat-out lose the game; that seems to be the case here.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[z0idberg]

This smacks of journalists pompously elevating their self-importance to levels higher than they deserve. There are many examples of inappropriate treatment of journalists. This doesn't feel like one of them.

If you^H^H^Hthe government has nothing to hide, you^H^H^Hthe government has nothing to fear from leaks to the press.

Seems like they have plenty to hide to me.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[inode_buddha]

"The country is going downhill quickly due to nothing more then hate. Conservatives hating liberals and liberals hating conservatives. I think there are bigger problems to solve then the government checking to see who called who."

Better still, fix whatever it is that is broken about human nature itself. Overcome oneself, but don't expect a nanny state to do it for you. After all, the state itself is composed of individuals who must all overcome their own human nature.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[Anonymous Coward]

I once thought that Clinton was the epitome of arrogance during the Lewinsky scandal, but this is so much worse.

A married man lies about getting some nookie on the side and that's the epitome of arrogance? daaamn. Where were you raised, an all girls school or something?

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[Thecarpe]

I don't think you are out of line at all. The concept of wire tapping / phone record collection is a bit disturbing to the average person, but I think most can't really put their finger on why exactly that is...it just has a creep factor to it.

If the government wants to know that I called my wife 3 times today and my parents once this week, well, my condolences to the poor schmo that has to sit in a cube and sift through that riveting piece of data. I'm not involved in any illegal activity, so there are no repercussions from them knowing whom I call.

What people fear, I think, is a shift of identity. If no one is collecting information on me, I'm free to be whomever I think I am. As a consumer, I can be as random or predictable as I want, and as a citizen I can live in what I see as a tax payer's anonymity - if I pay my taxes and don't commit crimes, I can do and be as I please. Where that breaks down now is that peoples' online activity has been tracked by cookies and spyware and have been categorized and put on the radar by advertisers. The fear is the same with government tracking. There is a fear of being "defined" (categorized) by someone other than yourself. That's not what the average American understands freedom to be, and that is the essence of the discomfort, IMHO.

I don't think you're wrong. I just think we are in a defining period of learning how to talk about how we feel about having more of our lives available for public display than we were aware of...when we were kids, the worst thing that could happen in our innocent years was having our name on the chalk board for doing something bad.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[RockDoctor]

Manipulating the media with "leaks" is one thing, but leaks endangering field agents or operatives is different.

A significant part of the reason that America is in the shit, world-wide, is that there are next to no Americans with the ability to function in any society other than their own. Add to that their deep and obvious contempt for any societies other than their own, and you can see just why America (in the "man on the Clapham omnibus" sense) was unaware that the events of 2001-09-11 were looming until they hit.
So don't worry, there are very, very few Americans "out there" as "field agents". Most of America's "field agents" are either local criminals or mercenaries, who know what they are getting because they count the notes (not USD - too easily forged and too hard to spend!) before they accept the job.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[Ender Ryan]

Wow, you're really spun beyond belief. Keep defending this administration though, while they perform illegal, catastrophic, life destroying acts. It's cute.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[arose]

The classic "there would be no problem if everyone would keep his mouth shut"...

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[computer_redneck]

9/11 had not even happened yet, yet the previous administration implemented the domestic spying NSA program. They did not even have the excuse of terrorism.

Umm not to defend Billy boy but
1: Bombing of the Trade Center
2: US Cole Bombing
3,4,5: Few other attacks that happened during that administration.



On second thought - Don't Impeach Bush. I do not want Cheney as President.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[Ohreally_factor]

The Constitutional protections only extend to those natural-born or naturalized citizens of the several states.

I'm not even sure what you mean by "several states", but otherwise, you are flat out wrong. Can you show me the exclusionary language in the Constitution that limits civil liberties to citizens? No, you can't, because it's not there.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[Ender Ryan]

"I don't think you're naive, so you're being disingenuous."

Nominated for Understatement of the Day :)

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[Ohreally_factor]

Congress wasn't briefed. The full committees weren't briefed. A few members of congress were briefed.

Effective oversight requires the ability to discuss, even if it's behind close doors. The tiny handful of congress people that were given a peek were not allowed to discuss the matter with anyone, consult with their own experts or aides, or ask questions after the fact. Attempts to glean more information were stonewalled.

What you are calling oversight isn't oversight in any meaningful sense.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[rahrens]

The war to topple Hussein wasn't a war of aggression like you reference.

It was based upon information provided by numerous sources, including the UN inspectors, that pointed to Irag's efforts to build a nuclear weapon, if not chemical or biological as well. Don't forget, Saddam was doing all he could to PREVENT either the UN or the US from penetrating his security. As it turns out, if we HAD penetrated his security, we would have gotten information that would have stopped Bush's war plans in their tracks!

Bush went to war on the premise that Hussein was building weapons that could kill masses of Americans at once. According to all the intelligence info he had at the time, (and much of that was, according to the PRESS, corroborated by foreign intelligence services) Irag could have been succesful in as little as a year or so. Just because we found out we were wrong doesn't invalidate the reasons we had at the time.

Don't forget, to Hussein, to fool his neighbors into thinking that he had nuclear capability was to enhance his influence in the region, and to cement his power at home, which was his real goal.

It just seems ironic that his efforts came back to bite him on the ass.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[Urusai]

I can't agree with that Reagan assertion. He has the same fiscal policy as Bush, i.e., cut taxes, borrow, spend like crazy, run up a massive debt. That's not fiscal conservatism, that's plain irresponsibility.

The big difference is that Reagan spent on programs that "trickled down" to the middle class by hiring a lot of technical people. Bush's policies don't do this. Getting money to the middle class is guaranteed to make a country prosper, which is why Reagan's approach seemed to work. For a little while.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[Maximum Prophet]

Exactly. Most of these leaks may be nothing more than the current administration trying to scare it's opponents. "We can listen in on your phone conversations. We know who you are talking to..."

Sure they can. Certainly they can get *some* information, but these leaks could be designed into scaring people into thinking that They Know Everything.

When really important secret stuff gets into the newspapers, the very last thing a competent spy agency does is to scream and shout and wave it about. Doing so only confirms the leaked information. It's better to do silent damage control and plant counter misinformation.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[inode_buddha]

OK, let me try again: Can you show me where the civil liberties in the Constitution *do* extend to non-citizens?

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[damian cosmas]

Wow, you're really spun beyond belief. Keep defending this administration though, while they perform illegal, catastrophic, life destroying acts. It's cute.

And you're damn near illiterate, if you interpret my failure to rabidly criticize Bush as a defense of any and all of his policies. I never endorsed the outing of Joe Wilson's wife, nor said that there couldn't possibly be adverse consequences of that action. I merely stated that the post to which I originally replied was trivializing a potentially huge security risk in order to let the Valarie Plame canard quack once more.

The only mistake I made was feeding a giant troll, who as of 8:00 this morning had posted at least 26 comments in this story alone.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[Ohreally_factor]

Yes. It's called the 5th Ammendment.

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.

Please note the emphasis I gave to the phrase, "nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law".

(Assuming that you're in the US), are you sure you've ever studied civics? And if "no person" isn't explicit enough for you, I've got to wonder if you've ever studied logic. Sorry if this sounds harsh, but you obviously didn't bother to look for yourself.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[inode_buddha]

Fair point, and yes as a matter of fact I *have* studied civics and *was* born in the USA. Your emphases from the 5th do shed a new light on it, but I do still question what the founders and framers meant by "no person" or "any person" as opposed to whatever the currently taught claptrap is.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[mstahl]

Reporters have a right to publish what they learn, they do not have a right to break the law to acquire that knowledge.

While that is absolutely true, the use of anonymous sources does not break the law. It is a freedom that the press has, protected by the first ammendment to the Constitution, as that ammendment has been interpreted by the Supreme Court since it was written. Nobody's saying that reporters stole this information, it was leaked to them. That means that nobody is breaking the law except the person who is leaking the information, and their identity is protected by the anonymity afforded them because they are a journalistic source. If the Nixon presidency had the same unprecedented level of executive power that the Bush administration has grabbed for itself, Deep Throat would have been outed the same way and the Watergate story would never have been broken.

The press, as written into the first ammendment, must have the capability to bring important stories to the public. Would you rather not know what the NSA is up to? Do you think we even have the full story? This administration, behind the guise of an abstracted war on terror, has created an environment from which we may never see another Bernstein or Woodward. That prospect makes me sad and it makes me even sadder to know that more people aren't saddened by it.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[Ender Ryan]

Except your post was absolutely disengenuous, citing things as security concerns where, AFAICT, noone with any credibility has agreed. I'm sure you weren't meaning to defend the Bush administration though.

Did I misinfer? If so, then I do apologize.

But maybe you're right. In fact, I'm just positive that thousands of people will die because the mere fact of these illegal activities the Bush administration is engaging in have been leaked to the public...

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[SmokedS]

Basing a war on lies is wrong for the person who does it, but our soldiers, the people GP was talking about, did not base their actions in this ware on lies. They based them on fairly accurate opinions of the Iraq situation built up over the last 12 years.

You know I'm amazed some americans still believe this.

The Downing street memo
Doubts, dissent stripped from public version of Iraq assessment
CIA leak illustrates selective use of intelligence on Iraq
Bush talking on the political advantages of war in 99

We didn't attack Iraq, we attacked its government. There is a huge difference. The country as a whole still suffers consequences, but that doesn't diminish the distinction.

The people of Iraq may not agree. I sure as hell don't. Collateral damage is newspeak:
U.S. invasion responsible deaths of over 250,000 civilians in Iraq
THE REAL WMD'S IN IRAQ - OURS
Displaced Iraqis 'living like animals'
'unknown Americans' are provoking civil war in Iraq
The Missing Girls of Iraq

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[Ohreally_factor]

Seriously, logic and set theory. Look at the sets. People is the set of people, regardless of their citizenship or birthplace. If the framers had wanted to restrict the set, they would have. They were very careful in crafting the language.

How the framers defined "people" racially is another discussion, to be sure.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[Floody]

The ends to not justify the means.

I think you've hit the nail on the head, in a round-about fashion. There's an entire sub-branch of philosophy dedicated to this, but I don't think it gets examined enough in the context of modern issues.

Sometimes, the ends do justify the mean. Before you come down on me like the wrath of god, hear me out.

It's easy to take an extreme example and conclude that "the ends do not justify the means." Invading most of Europe and attempting to systematically anhilate an entire culture is pretty damn hard to justify for any rational person. But what about the other end of the spectrum? Take "white lies" for example. Everyone knows, generally, that honesty is not a license for cruelty. Most adults find no issue with very small non-harmful mistruths when the primary intention is not to deceive but to prevent a slight avoidable injury to another's identity or ego. No big deal.

Obviously then, in-between these two polars there is a line which people feel uncomfortable crossing. The problem, really part of the human condition, is that the line is a little fuzzy and not in the same place for every individual. As a society we must make some attempt to rigidly define such a boundary; but obviously we cannot expect each and every person to have the exact same perspective of where that line is and how fuzzy it might be. Combine this with mankind's social nature and ability to intentionally or unintentionally manipulate others, and we find groups of people can often delude each other into believing that the line should be/has been moved.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[Darby]

Reagan was a great President and a great man, but he left us with two very negative legacies. One was the alliance with the Christian Extreme Right. The other was allowing "shadow government" operatives to run loose in his administration, which lead to the Iran/Contra scandal. Regarding the later, Reagan accepted responsibility and apologized to America on national TV, a sign of his greatness that he could admit mistakes.

That demonstrates the caustic power of a cult of personality.
Reagan's legacy *is* torture camps in Central America, Iran Contra, Christofascism, and the funding and training of the exact same terrorists we're now "at war" with. You really need to wake up and realise that this absolutely makes Reagan a horrible president. Shrub's abuses are just taking Reagan's legacy one step further.
You're giving him credit for apologising?!?! Then why the fuck did he then pardon the traitors involved who made their triumphant return under Shrub with Total information awareness.

Seriously, you need to take a step back, take a long hard look at yourself and your entirely faith based belief in Reagan. His administration is the point at which the old school Republican beliefs were totally and completely rejected in favor of support for fascist theocracy.
Maintaining your completely contradictory belief that Reagan was anything but a horrible president (or drooling imbecile as the case may be) will only lead you to blindly swallow the lies some other politician sells you. You need to recognize the Republican party for what it is and has been for the last 30 years. What it once was is long dead and the stinking corpse is all that is left.

If any of the other GOP hopefuls get the nomination, I'll back them wholeheartedly.)

Fool you 3 times and you're begging to get fooled again.
Look, everybody who was paying attention knew what would happen if Bush was elected in 2000. The same exact things will continue even worse under *any* other Republican. That is what that party stands for, and it is *all* that that party stands for. Pretending a different Republican would be different is totally delusional. It's your duty as a citizen to recognize that simple obvious 30+
year old fact.

I'm certainly not saying the Democrats are any prize, but be realistic. The Republican party has 2 and only 2 groups it supports. The ultra rich, and psuedo Christian extremists. If you vote Republican then you *are* voting for that. Pretending otherwise and claiming you were fooled or misled does nothing to address *your* failing as a citizen. Were you willing to take your responsibilities seriously, then you would have known what a vote for Bush would lead to. Doing the same thing again is quite simply inexcusable.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[AdmiralWeirdbeard]

You're not actually disagreeing with me.
I'm talking about doing something that we have decided is wrong, conducting wiretaps without judicial oversight, because to do something right, conducting wiretaps with judicial oversight, "wouldnt work."

This is not analogous to telling a little white lie, say to spare someone's feelings. Little white lies are a social convention, an accepted practice that is a norm in our society.
The legal analogy to this phenomenon is a law. The bush administration, like many administrations of both parties before it, is, through its arrogance and conceit, breaking a law that it finds to be inconvenient.

Additionally, if you really think about it, it is anything but easy to hold to the idea of the ends never justify the means. I think you are attributing an understanding of this idea to me that I do not hold. You seem to be arguing against an absolutist notion of the universality of a given means, that one can decide a priori whether or not a given means is ethical. This would be narrow minded. The situation is always fluid. the situation is comprised both of ends and means. and focussing on one as the determinant of an ethical good will always leave something.
My position is that by saying the Ends justify the Means in the way the Bush Administration has, you focus entirely on the validity of the end, at the expense of any consideration of the means. The means do not matter, because the End is Good. I just think thats bullshit.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[Darby]

If our party is going to have any credibility going forward, it will be because a few of us recognize that Bush and his followers have betrayed this nation.

I appreciate your sentiment, and it is very refreshing to hear any Republican break their lock step goose stepping long enough to say anything with even a scrap of honesty, but you're really not even close to going far enough.

First, the Republican party will never have *any* integrity again. For the ;ast 30 years they have been showing their true colors. This is the most corrupt administration and congress in the history of our nation by a long shot. There is no coming back from that.
You need to face the fact that the Republican party of small government, fiscal responsibility and state's rights has been dead as a doornail for at least 30 years. That's generously assuming that those things were ever anything but lies. With the takeover of the Christofascists spearheaded by Reagan, any scraps of integrity that party once may have had are absolutely and completely gone.

It's way past time for a new party anyhow.

Also, your recognition didn't go far enough. It's all well and good to admit that this administration has betrayed this nation when it's obvious to everybody, but you do not get off that easy. It was obvious who and what these people were long before the 2000 election. The fact that you refused to do your duty to be an informed citizen before the election is why we are here right now. Bush could not have done any of this without lots of people actively aiding and abetting him in his treason. What you need to do if you ever want to have any respectability, honor, or integrity ever agin is take a long hard look at yourself and admit that *you* betrayed your country as well. Your actions are arguably even worse than Bush's, for if you and others like you had done *anything* to inform yourself then he never would have been given the opportunity to do what he has done.
Claiming you were misled doesn't cut it either. His lies were transparant from the start to anybody who was actually looking rather than merely voting based on faith in a prty that betrayed its ideals decades ago.

Until a lot of Republicans have the courage and integrity to point the finger at themselves, nothing will change on their side but I don't forsee that happenning. They are the party who most despises personal responsibility at least as applied to themselves.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[Savantissimo]

No, the Bill of Rights reads: "the rights of the people". In other contexts, the Constitution refers specifically to "citizens". In any event, the rights are natural, not conferred by the Constitution so even spying on private foreign persons abroad is a violation of their natural right to privacy.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[Tom]

You have somebody (a reporter) who's job it is to talk to government officials and politicos of all stripes in the NORMAL course of doing his job. So just how, pray tell, is knowing that said reporter talked to official XXX going to give you any clues as to who might be leaking what?

Let's see... maybe because something official XXX (and not many other people) happens to know appears in said reporters article a few days later?

You only need to establish a normal pattern if you do strictly mathematical traffic analysis. If you look beyond the small box there's a whole world out there. The US continued to spy on russian leaders' cell phones long after they started using encryption because there's a lot you can infer from knowing that minister X called the party leader at 3am and later talked to Y while the leader called minister Z. Add a few other intelligence sources to the mix and you have a fairly good picture of what they're up to.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks.

[Gorshkov]

because there's a lot you can infer from knowing that minister X called the party leader at 3am and later talked to Y while the leader called minister Z.

Absolutly ..... and there is nothing in what you said that contradicts what *I* said, and only goes to reinforce my point.

If minister X regularly talks to the party leader at 3AM, you know nothing.

It is the *departure* from the norms that give you information.

Given that there is nothing an inside source can tell a reporter at 3AM that couldn't wait untill normal office hours, you're not going to be having that particular problem. And unless the reporter is exceedingly stupid, he'll also be talking to others in his sources area of expertise/knowledge to help him cover his track, so he doesn't stand out ..... most of which would also be part of the reporter's natural pattern.

How many Washington reporters don't talk to somebody at State at least once a day, for example? Good luck trying to use THAT to figure out who the leak is. If reporter X talks to person Y, then the odds are reporter Z is *also* going to call the same guy - or somebody very similar, at least - for the same type of information. So you wind up getting exactly bumpkis .... unless, as I said, the call comes in at 3AM, when nobody would normally be calling anybody else.

Good stuff!

[grub]

Send all these freedom-hating reporters who seek the so-called "truth" to Gitmo!

Re:Good stuff!

[AuMatar]

Who needs the truth when you have truthiness!

Re:Good stuff!

[TubeSteak]

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=tru thiness
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truthiness

The truthiness of this statement is 100%

Re:Good stuff!

[wanna_be_a_developer]

Pre-paid cell phones paid for with cash. Simple.

Re:Good stuff!

[Ohreally_factor]

Negative, Sir!! We can't have these reporters finding out about conditions at Gitmo, Sir! I suggest we house them in the secret Eastern European torture prisons, instead, Sir!

Re:Good stuff!

[skiddie]

Oh, America! We should stop using cell phone plans because it appears that the Bush administration is looking through our phone records. Oh well, at least the solution is simple.

The most worrying part...

[Ant P.]

Without reading the article, it's not obvious at first glance which country the summary's referring to...

Re:The most worrying part...

[Tackhead]

> Without reading the article, it's not obvious at first glance which country the summary's referring to...

In Soviet Russia, people listen to their government!

Re:The most worrying part...

[AuMatar]

In facist US, people listen to their government- or they go to gitmo!

Re:The most worrying part...

[chgros]

Without reading the article, it's not obvious at first glance which country the summary's referring to...
Well, any country with a New-York and a Washington.

Re:The most worrying part...

[slashflood]

Germany.

This is not a joke. The german "CIA" did exactly the same. It came out just a few days ago.

Re:The most worrying part...

[Cl1mh4224rd]

Well, any country with a New-York and a Washington.

And news sources with the names New York Times, ABC News, and Washington Post. *tongue-in-cheek*

Re:The most worrying part...

[Lord Ender]

NY Times? Washington Post? ABC News? NSA? Washington? It doesn't get any more obvious. But you got your post in early enough you are going +5 despite your post being completely wrong.

Re:The most worrying part...

[LordOfTheNoobs]

I wonder how long until the switch ends up "In Soviet Russia, the Government listens to the People!" ...

I (heart) Big Brother!

[khasim]

Those who have nothing to hide have nothing to fear.

Of course, having an inside contact at the government is something to hide.

Hmmm, need to update that a little bit. "Those who have no criticism of the government have nothing to fear."

Re:I (heart) Big Brother!

[Jamesday]

Having a contact inside the government isn't something to hide. This is a way to intimidate contacts and discourage entirely legal contact with the press. Perhaps you're forgetting that phone calls have innocent content most of the time and that most relationships have nothing at all wrong in their conduct?

Re:I (heart) Big Brother!

[hoggoth]

Haha! Thank you for my new sig.

Of course I will remove this sig if it offends any officials in the NSA, FBI, CIA, Executive, Judicial, or Legislative branches, the military, the police, local government, Freemasons, Royal Order of the Moose lodge, the school principle, or any other entity who may view this message via Carnivore, DCS-1000, Echelon, or any other eavesdropping program.

Re:I (heart) Big Brother!

[drooling-dog]

Hmmm, need to update that a little bit. "Those who have no criticism of the government have nothing to fear."

It's worse than even that, actually. What makes you think that people inside the government won't misuse their power and access to information for purely private purposes?

For example: If you run a business and one of your competitors has an inside track to the gatekeepers of this information, I'd say it's time to start worrying...

Re:I (heart) Big Brother!

[arodland]

Royal Order of the Moose lodge, the school principle, or any other entity

Schools don't have "principles". I mean, just take a look at the things that public school administrations do these days. Instead they have "principals", a word that shares its derivation with "prince".

Re:I (heart) Big Brother!

[hoggoth]

> ..."principles"...
> ..."principals", a word that shares its derivation with "prince"...

Aaaaaugh! Oh God! Oh God! Make it stop! I know what you want me to say! DO IT TO HER! DO IT TO HER! DO IT TO THE ONE I LOVE! Correct HER spelling! Just don't correct my spelling anymore!

Oh.... what have I done... I've been broken...

Re:I (heart) Big Brother!

[timeOday]

For that matter, the administration might find it interesting to datamine another certain social network you may have heard about, the Democratic Party. Oh how sweet it is to blow the lid off your opponent's marital infidelity or his brother's shady business dealings a couple weeks before an election. Besides, if you just know your political opponent would be weak on terrorism, isn't defeating him really a matter of national security, even if it requires a bit of spying?

Re:I (heart) Big Brother!

[cold fjord]

For that matter, the administration might find it interesting to datamine another certain social network you may have heard about, the Democratic Party. Oh how sweet it is to blow the lid off your opponent's marital infidelity or his brother's shady business dealings a couple weeks before an election.

So, are you saying that is what this was about?

Re:Haha..

[crotherm]

You mean how Bush outed Plame and thus caused the undercover company that watched Iran's nukes to fold? That kind of leak?

where's the al-queda connection?

[ActionAL]

I thought the u.s. government was only supposed to be looking at calls to/from al-queda persons. At least that is what they keep repeating in defending their nsa spying on u.s. citizens fiasco. I guess it's just another lie.

Re:where's the al-queda connection?

[jfengel]

Strictly speaking, the article doesn't say that this was derived from the data that the government got from Verizon et al., which is what they were referring to when they said that they looking at the call graph only for terrorist-related stuff. Perhaps they had a judicially-warranted pen register put on their line because they showed reasonable concern about a leak of classified information.

I'm not saying it DID happen that way. But I am saying that there isn't necessarily a contradiction, in which case it's not "just another lie". Perhaps it's a completely different lie.

Re:where's the al-queda connection?

[lawpoop]

I will tell you what their line will be: Our domestic programs are to protect us against terrorism, and any compromising of that program exposes us to and increased terror risk. Therefore, any leak inside the government is a threat to the anti-terror efforts.

IMNSHO, this is one of the scariest things that has happened in the US in my lifetime.

Re:where's the al-queda connection?

[Jafafa Hots]

I agree. Everything up until now has just pissed me off, enraged me, upset me, worried me, etc...

This latest thing just goddamned fucking SCARES me. The government tracing the phone calls of journalists to track down their sources, sources of stories that reveal questionable and possibly illegal government actions... damn. Just fucking DAMN. In America. Not some tin pot south american dictatorship, not in the USSR, but right here in the US.

It's proper to be enraged when others are being made the targets unfairly... but now WE'RE the targets.

I feel like hanging black crepe - I'm in mourning for my country.

Re:where's the al-queda connection?

[kalirion]

I'm leaning toward's "The People's States of America" myself.

Re:where's the al-queda connection?

[HumanisticJones]

"Its a simple plan really. I'm going to use fear and scare tactics to convince them to let me have my way."
"Dude, isn't that like terrorism?"
"It's not LIKE terrorism, it IS terrorism!"

Ah the the wonders of the modern english language. Its all conotation and no denotation. Terrorism has been given new definitions, but what people don't see is that the very tactics the current administration uses fit the definitions of terrorism. Terror is the key. We're supposed to be terrified of the rest of the world and terrified of what might happen if we drop our guard, and that's why we're supposed to hand over every liberty and freedom so that we don't have to be scared anymore.

So why am I more scared today than I was on 9/11 or even yesterday?

Ah Ain't No Crook

[American AC in Paris]

If the President were to wake up tomorrow morning and decide that Howard Dean needs to be monitored because the President believes Mr. Dean may be the recipient of leaked information, what is there to stop him from ordering the NSA to do just that, no questions asked? If the monitoring turned up all sorts of politically interesting information but no ties to terrorists, what stops the President from simply taking whatever information was gathered and using it for political gain?

Is there any oversight of this program whatsoever?

Re:Ah Ain't No Crook

[Profane MuthaFucka]

I'm sure GW Bush is an excellent person and can be trusted with anything at all. But to the 29% that think GW Bush is a great president I ask you: How are you so sure that the NEXT president is going to be as trustworthy as the current president?

Ah, OK, Now I see how you know the trustworthiness of the next president. I forgot about that. Diebold. LOL.

Re:Ah Ain't No Crook

[the_demiurge]

That's the scariest part of the whole thing. There is no oversight whatsoever unless Congress manages to do something personally.

The justice department attempted to investigate the NSA spying program, but they were denied a security clearance. With this sort of political climate, the public has to rely on leaks from people inside to even know what's going on.

Re:Ah Ain't No Crook

[Threni]

> If the President were to wake up tomorrow morning and decide that Howard Dean
> needs to be monitored because the President believes Mr. Dean may be the
> recipient of leaked information, what is there to stop him from ordering the NSA
> to do just that, no questions asked?

If the President can get away with starting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq then there's really no need for speculation or conspiracy theories about stuff like phone taps. They'll just do whatever they want, regardless of US law, internation law/conventions etc until they're voted out of office or impeached - not that the next lot are going to be remotely different.

All of the progress that's occurred (minimum wages, worker's rights, votes for women/blacks etc) has been pushed past the government/big business by the people - it's not like Government is this democratic institution that's doing what's best for the majority of people.

If you want to change things, don't piss about with shit like `who's ordering the NSA to bug phones` or whatever. Instead, work out in whose interests the phones are being tapped - the general population/freedom/democracy? Or the usual suspects?

Re:Ah Ain't No Crook

[morcheeba]

With this sort of political climate, the public has to rely on leaks from people inside to even know what's going on.

Forget that... the Congress has to rely on leaks to know what's going on! Only 4 of the 535 members were briefed on the domestic/international warrant-less wiretaps. Who knows how many were briefed on this new privacy invasion.

Re:Ah Ain't No Crook

[Akoma The Immortal]

So let me get this straight..

The JD (Governement) was denied a security clearance to investigate the wired taping by the NSA (a Governement's agency)?

WTF???

I am dreaming this or what?

Re:Ah Ain't No Crook

[dr_dank]

With this sort of political climate, the public has to rely on leaks from people inside to even know what's going on.

As is the trouble with anonymous sources, its difficult, if not impossible, to verify the information given. You're not going to get an offical to admit on the record or get a FOIA request confirming the fact in this lifetime. The environment of secrecy and plausible deniability has the express purpose of shrouding the truth, whatever it may be.

In fact, a covert network of "leaks" could keep the press going around in circles, giving out bogus and contradictory information and then becomes a handy tool to discredit the news outlets and reporters in question if they take the bait public.

Re:Ah Ain't No Crook

[aussersterne]

You are not dreaming. And the most important thing you can do is to TELL YOUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY and give them links to these stories (that get buried so quickly) at reputable news sources.

There's still this mentality out there that no matter how much Bush seems to suck, nothing *really wrong* can happen with the US government simply because "this is America," and anyone who says that we're in dire straits is really just a black helicopters tinfoil hat freak.

And all the while, the black helicopters are gathering overhead and the supply of tinfoil to make hats has been silently cut off. Things really are very bad right now (do a little more research into these cases, and into the name Russell Tice, you'll be shocked at what you find) but the public is absolutely unaware of it, and because "big media" won't panic, they refuse to think anyone who does panic is sane.

The best thing any of us can do is go to friends and family who trust our judgment and tell them that things are very, very bad with the US government right now and the 2006 election *may actually be* the last possible turning point, beyond which there is no return.

This genie is not going back in the bottle. We are stuck with these departments and a national information gathering infrastructure that is not only monitoring citizens phones, positions (via cell phone tracking), and habits (via bank/credit account tracking), but that is also strong enough to simply leave 99% of congress in the dark about such operations, and to simply brush off official investigations when the remaining 1% get freaked about what they *do* know.

But what we can do is decide to try to acknowledge and control the genie by selecting the next administration(s) carefully with our votes, rather than conceding to the genie's assurances that genie's don't exist, that nobody that seems to be missing is actually missing, that nobody *really* needs a trial, that torture and secret detention aren't *really* all that bad...

Re:Ah Ain't No Crook

[ArcherB]

Uh... Isn't that what the last administration did, only they used the IRS and FBI instead of the NSA?

Re:Ah Ain't No Crook

[Wah]

It's worse than that. The rationalization is already there. You may remember Mr. Cheney mentioning during the last election cycle that if the Democrats took control, we would most assuredly be attacked by terrorists. Therefore, it IS national security to keep the neocons in power.

"It's absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on November 2nd, we make the right choice, because if we make the wrong choice then the danger is that we'll get hit again," the vice president said, "that we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States, and that we'll fall back into the pre-9/11 mind-set, if you will, that in fact these terrorist attacks are just criminal acts and that we are not really at war."

Re:Ah Ain't No Crook

[killjoe]

Both the congress and the court system now cares more about their own political party then the constitution or the citizens. Unless you get a democratic house or senate don't expect any investigation at all. Even if you get a democratic congress they probably won't investigate because "it's all in the past".

Say goodbye the checks and balances.

Re:Ah Ain't No Crook

[rainman_bc]

the 2006 election *may actually be* the last possible turning point, beyond which there is no return.

When only 65% of you even bother to register to vote, and of those only 62% actually vote (totallying about 35% of America)... It's really sad that it only takes ~18% of the population to elect a President.

And you like to think you're defending democracy, when your same country who is indifferent to it.

Re:Ah Ain't No Crook

[Lindril]

Yeeeeeeaaaaahhh!!!!

Re:Ah Ain't No Crook

[ischorr]

Yes. The US government is big and made up of many, many mostly independent parts. The lunch lady at my old Elementary school is also a government employee, but I'm guessing she also would have been denied security clearance.

Then again, it's not her job to do legal investigations of possible breaches of the law =)

Re:Ah Ain't No Crook

[Ohreally_factor]

Just to clarify.

The Justice Department is part of the Executive branch, not the Judicial branch, so they're not really the ideal people for performing oversight.

But I think it speaks volumes when the Administration, while claiming that it has it's own "rigorous" oversight procedures in place, effectively destroys that oversight.

There are such incredible volumes of smoke coming off of this administration that there is no way that there is no fire.

Re:Ah Ain't No Crook

[SpaceLifeForm]

Perhaps dick said that because he's got connections.

The reality is that the terrorists could strike again,
almost anywhere at any time. Why? Because the bush
administration really hasn't done much to protect the
borders, especially shipping. Perhaps on purpose.

Re:Ah Ain't No Crook

[WindBourne]

What is being missed is that the leaks are occuring slowly. The employees are wanting an oversight to see exactly what is going on, so are leaking a bit at a time. I am guessing that if a real oversight committee looked into this, and stopped what is bothering them, then the leaks will stop. These employees are patriots, not traitors.

In contrast, leaking the ID of a agent most likely has cost lives in other countries and certainly ruined connections. That is treason.

Re:Ah Ain't No Crook

[Ohreally_factor]

Afghanistan was fully justified and had worldwide support. If we had focused our resources there, we might have caught Bin Laden by now.

Re:Ah Ain't No Crook

[SQLz]

But what we can do is decide to try to acknowledge and control the genie by selecting the next administration(s) carefully with our votes, rather than conceding to the genie's assurances that genie's don't exist, that nobody that seems to be missing is actually missing, that nobody *really* needs a trial, that torture and secret detention aren't *really* all that bad...

But will the next candidate look good in a hunting jacket? Thats the real question because thats pretty much all that matters.

Re:Ah Ain't No Crook

[cold fjord]

You should reread the article. The Justice Department wasn't reviewing the NSA program, an office in the Justice Department wanted to review the role of the Justice Department's own lawyers who were advising the NSA. This looks like it may have been politically motivated at the request of Rep. Maurice Hinchey.

A key sentence in the article is this:

In February, the OPR announced it would examine the conduct of their own agency's lawyers in the program, though they were not authorized to investigate NSA activities.

To put is simply, this was never their turf to begin with. They overstepped their authority and were denied. Nothing to see.

With this sort of political climate, the public has to rely on leaks from people inside to even know what's going on.

The public has no right to know the details of the most highly classified intelligence programs the country has. How do you think that 300,000,000 people are going to keep the secret from the bad guys? Oversight is the role of Congress and the rest of the Executive branch. Congress was notified, as is customary, and the Court was briefed about this program.

A significant part of your fear seems to be based on misunderstanding.

Re:Ah Ain't No Crook

[cold fjord]

Only 4 of the 535 members were briefed on the domestic/international warrant-less wiretaps.

This isn't unusual.

Highly classified information is often only revealed to select members of Congressional committees. It helps meet the dual goal of keeping Congress informed (the select members represent Congress, and have to use their judgment) while helping to keep classified information secret. That is difficult in a large, diverse body of people that make up Congress. That is especially so when some of them don't honor their responsibility to keep classified information secret, like Senator Leahy.

There is nothing sinister in that

Re:Ah Ain't No Crook

[Threni]

> Afghanistan was fully justified and had worldwide support. If we had focused our
> resources there, we might have caught Bin Laden by now.

On Fox news, maybe. It was the disastrous events there which resulted in most of the world considering Bush more dangerous than Bin Laden.

Catching him would mean nothing, and change nothing.

Re:Ah Ain't No Crook

[Ohreally_factor]

You know what's to like about your approach to the facts? It has a certain truthiness to it.

Re:Ah Ain't No Crook

[kthejoker]

Actually, since we don't have any quorum calls in our electorate, the president could be elected by as few as 10 people.

That is, if only 1 person showed up to vote in California, Texas, New York, Ohio, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and North Carolina, and voted for the same person, then that person will receive 271 electoral votes, enough to win the Presidency.

Doing the math (assuming a population of 320 million people), that is .000003125% of the population.

Re:Ah Ain't No Crook

[kalirion]

It's really sad that it only takes ~18% of the population to elect a President. In these days, it would only take someone in the electronic voting machine industry, or a hacker or two.

Re:Ah Ain't No Crook

[Ender Ryan]

The Bad Guys(TM) huh? It's truly reassuring to know that supporters of this type of shit understand the world so well...

Re:Ah Ain't No Crook

[rainman_bc]

Google for it yourself, I'm not going to do your work for you. The facts are out there - I have info that supports it. POst otherwise if you disagree; this isn't a scientific journal nor is this a place where I need to cite references.

Re:Ah Ain't No Crook

[Anonymous Coward]

I missed the urls and citations in your post. Maybe one of my browser extensions was hiding it, but what reputable sources did you capture these figures from?

First, I want to start by saying you are correct. Those numbers were way off.

That doesn't make it ok for you to be a total jerk. Cut off with the stupid pointless sarcasm. The first 2/3 of your post make you sound like a child, then to make matters worse, you do exactly what you seem so upset about. You think everyone should have to provide proper references, but you are exempt.

If you want to be something other than a worthless asswipe, find the numbers and politly post them.

Re:Ah Ain't No Crook

[truthsearch]

Your facts are incorrect. 61% of the eligible population voted. These stats don't count how many are registered, just voted.

Re:Ah Ain't No Crook

[hacker]

In other words, you have no references or citations. That's what I thought. Sorry, but rectal approximations don't cut it in this century. Try again.

Ignorance is Strength

[StefanJ]

[searing sarcasm]
If leakers are allowed to reveal to reporters how incompetent, corrupt, and dishonest our leaders are, the terrorists have won.
[/searing sarcasm]

Re:Ignorance is Strength

[moochfish]

Last I checked, we didn't need leakers to know how incompetent our leader is. ;D

Leaks have kept our government in check

[gcnaddict]

If it wasn't for leaks, out government would have been capturd by corruption many more times than it has. Remember deepthroat? He helped get rid of the Nixon administration, which was responsible for one of the most embarrasing scandals of all time.

This is no different; leakers leak based on moral obligations to their people.

Re:Haha..

[swngnmonk]

I'm calling BS - name one story broken by any media organization that precipitated a terrorist attack.

Plain and simple, this is a way for the powers-that-be to clamp down on news that makes them look bad.

Re:Haha..

[Spytap]

Looks like the commies are going to get owned.

Every time the New York Times or the Washington Post leaks about some secret program that is used in the war on terror, therefor invalidating it, I wonder to myself if they will take responsibility for the next terrorist attack.

God Forbid the terrorists be blamed for the attacks. Much better to use the fear of terrorism to fight against whatever political beliefs you disagree with, right?

Man, they've sure taught you well haven't they...

Re:Haha..

[flooey]

Looks like the commies are going to get owned.

Yeah, because media that's critical of the government is a cornerstone of communist regimes.

Re:Great!

[grub]

Every time a Marine babykiller is wasted in Iraq, Allah's cock goes just a little deeper up Jesus' ass.

Wrong.

[TheNoxx]

Dead wrong. The reason we have journalistst and freedom of the press is because we can't trust the government. 99% of the time, the leak is someone who can't take whistleblower status but wants to tell the public about wrongdoing in the government. Should gool ol' dubya have been allowed to keep the leak about the secret CIA prisons from escaping? Absolutely not. But it's okay for him to out an active CIA agent, Mrs. Plame?

Read the fucking constitution and look up some judicial records before you open your big, dumb mouth please. The law is very specific about protecting journalistic sources, there is supposed to be no way around it.

Re:Wrong.

[User0x45]

Your statistic "99%" is baseless.

The word 'leak' is a poor choice to describe
this phenomena. These leaks are techniques
to do politics. These are conscious choices
to sway opinion and politics toward the goals
of the leaker.

There is also the noble libertarian overworked
underpaid (slashdot reader) government employee
who stands up and 'outs' nefarious government
actions.

Mostly this second type is found in movies. Most
leakers are trying to furthering their own goals,
objectives, and careers.

--User0x45

Re:Wrong.

[esper]

But wouldn't you say that it's important for us to know when our government is taking illegal actions in our names, regardless of the motives of the person who brings those activities to light?

Re:Wrong.

[kalel666]

Not to be an ass, but what secret CIA prisons? The ones in Europe that Dana Priest reported on, after a leak from Mary McCarthy, that won him a Pulitzer? The ones that the EU investigated and found no proof of (http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2006/04 /21/eu_official_no_evidence_of_illegal_cia_action/ /)? Those?

And while Valerie Plame could be described as an active agent of the CIA, there is no law about divulging that info. There is a law against divulging it if she is a covert agent, but her appearance on the cover of Vanity Fair would seem to argue against that.

Re:Wrong.

[Bob9113]

The reason we have journalistst and freedom of the press is because we can't trust the government.

Well said, and to the grandparent, I would go a step further.

Even if/when you can trust the gov't, it is your duty as a US Citizen to not trust the government. Try reading the Declaration of Independance sometime. It makes it pretty clear that your obligation as a citizen of this great nation is to defend it against all aggressors, foreign and domestic. Defend the nation, not the government. It is not necessary now (IMO), but may someday become necessary to defend this nation against the government, just as was done in 1776. The media is the fourth estate that guarantees that it is possible for us to know when we must fulfill that duty.

To make it more explicit, while I do not know nor automatically believe that such is the case here, any attempt to prevent the media from fulfilling their role as the fourth estate is every bit as treasonous as trying to short-circuit one of the three branches of government.

If you don't feel you can live up to this obligation, you are not required to stay in this country. Our Founding Fathers had some very big and difficult goals. It is times like these that test our resolve to live up to their ideals.

Re:Wrong.

[maddash1946]

I agree, but also question the suspicious absence of the following from your list:

- Ordering a wiretap without a warrant could land me in jail, unless I'm the President

Re:Wrong.

[msuarezalvarez]

And while Valerie Plame could be described as an active agent of the CIA, there is no law about divulging that info. There is a law against divulging it if she is a covert agent, but her appearance on the cover of Vanity Fair would seem to argue against that.

Are you really arguing that it was OK to divulge that info? Is that an argument even those charged to doing the divulging dare present?

Reading /. is sometimes quite an extreme experience: one needs a very, very strong optimism if one wants not to immediately conclude we humans are idiots...

Re:Wrong.

[kalel666]

I don't have to argue it. To my knowledge, no one has been or will be charged for leaking the information. In the most literal sense, it was not leaked, the information was public.

Re:Wrong.

[Mr. Slippery]

Not to be an ass, but what secret CIA prisons? The ones that the EU investigated and found no proof of...

Ahem.

"The CIA has, on several occasions, clearly been responsible for kidnapping and illegally detaining alleged terrorists on the territory of (EU) member states, as well as for extraordinary renditions," Claudio Fava said in his first interim report of the European Parliament's probe into the alleged CIA abuses.

The article you cite says "De Vries [the CIA-abuse denier] came under sharp criticism from the EU parliamentarians for refusing to consider earlier testimonies from a German and a Canadian who described to the committee how they were kidnapped and imprisoned by foreign agents, and from a former British ambassador to Uzbekistan who alleged that British intelligence services used information obtained under torture".

Asserting that the EU investigated and found no proof of CIA kidnapping may have a comforting feel of "truthiness" for you, but I'm afraid that reality once again is showing a liberal bias.

Re:Wrong.

[Malakusen]

Her existence was not classified. Her job was. The nature of her job was. She was not a Jason Bourne-like nonentity assassin, who didn't exist anywhere outside of her handlers, she was a real person with a clandestine job and a cover. Would you expect someone who appeared on a magazine cover to be a spy?

Re:Wrong.

[hacker]

"Read the fucking constitution and look up some judicial records before you open your big, dumb mouth please. The law is very specific about protecting journalistic sources, there is supposed to be no way around it."

Didn't you get the memo? The Constitution was put on hold, in the name of national security. Besides, the NSA is already rewriting the 4th Amendment to suit their own needs now.

Pretty soon whistleblowing will be the norm and Thoughtcrime will be the next wave of neighborly telling-do.

Re:Wrong.

[Malakusen]

One of my friends that I was stationed in Korea with had a great saying. I have since adopted it for myself.

"I love my country, I do not trust my government."

Re:Wrong.

[why-is-it]

Let's assume that you totally trust GWB and believe he would *never* lie to you or do anything even remotely dishonest. Would you have wanted Bill Clinton to have the same set of powers? What if Hillary gets elected president - would you want her to have the same lack of oversight that Bush currently enjoys?

Sooner or later, a politician you don't respect or trust will be elected. If the prospect of such an individual abusing their powers bothers you, the reasonable course of action would be to deny such power to all politicians.

Re:Wrong.

[node 3]

If you don't feel you can live up to this obligation, you are not required to stay in this country.

An unfortunate sentence in an otherwise splendid post.

The purpose of a phrase in the category of, "America, love it or leave it," is to circumvent rational thought and discourse by asserting that anyone who disagrees with you doesn't deserve to be an American.

Re:Wrong.

[Ohreally_factor]

You've crossed the line from engaging in debate to spreading misinformation.

Are you really such a true believer, or are you getting paid to astroturf?

Re:Wrong.

[Ohreally_factor]

This is the exact sort of spin and parsing of words that were the Clintonites' downfall. So long as Scooter is willing to take the fall for obstructing justice, and absent any other avenues we might not know about, the cover up has succeeded.

Re:Wrong.

[Bob9113]

An unfortunate sentence in an otherwise splendid post.

Yeah, agreed. I regretted it after hitting submit. It was just an impulsive desire to turn that bloody phrase back on one of the "support the gov't blindly" people.

FWIW, I also regret the "these are the times" part. I actually don't think we are at that level. (but perhaps I being overly prudent, or disposed to suffer, haha)

Re:Wrong.

[User0x45]

Of course. Let the illeagality be known.

If Plame pulled strings in the pursuit of
getting Amb. Wilson to Niger to study the
yellowcake case. And Chaney leaked the
identity of an undercover agent(Plame) ostensibly
due to her minor infraction and in reality
for political payback. His "Chenney's"
leak was political with a fig leaf of
responding to her string pulling.

The principle of an appropriate response
is where Chenney's leak falls. He could
have quietly had her reprimanded. But
alas, he had no political gain in that.

--User0x45

Re:Wrong.

[Carpe PM]

There IS a difference between the following concepts: "Obey and agree or GET OUT" vs. "If you aren't happy here, maybe you would be happier elsewhere" Most of us would reject the former, while expressing the latter or something like it. The thing is, we know that deep down they believe that the US is still preferable, even when they may talk like a spouse in a bad marriage they are not inclined to leave.

Re:Wrong.

[node 3]

You are either being pedantic, or are trying to justify an offensive argument tactic.

If the latter: In practice, they are the same thing, one is just more polite-sounding. Both are, in practice, variations on "America, love it or leave it".

If you're just being pedantic, then yes, *literally*, the phrases are different, even if in actual use, in the most important ways, they are the same. Is your pedantry more important than standing up for what's good? If you reject the meaner version of the phrase, but defend the nicer version, even if they are used in the same way, aren't you promoting something you find repugnant?

I reject the notion that you are merely trying to convince those that criticize America that they still love America. It should be taken as given (unless there's strong reason to believe otherwise) that *every* American who criticizes America loves America very much.

What you are implying is that, because America is the freest nation on Earth, that America cannot be criticized, which is an absurd notion. America is not perfect, and in order to improve our great nation, it's important to identify the areas that need addressing. Trying to silence dissent is one of the surest ways to guarantee America's decline.

It should also be noted that the "America, love it or leave it" tactic is overwhelmingly used by conservatives. When a conservative complains about this ecological policy, or that social policy, liberals don't respond with "America, love it or leave it". That distinction is very telling.

My point still stands: anytime someone says, "America, love it or leave it" (or a variant of that), they are attempting to bypass rational, constructive debate.

Re:Haha..

[Dis*abstraction]

Every time America angers the Middle East with its hypocrisy by torturing terror suspects or by denying them human rights at Gitmo, I wonder if the Bush administration will take responsibility for the next attack they provoked.

"There is no crime in the Soviet Union"

[hirschma]

That was the first line of the first college lecture I ever had. Although the absolute veracity of the statement is likely untrue, the blunt assertion was given to make one point: Give up your rights, have more "security".

The point is this: leaks, crime, terrorism, etc. are a REQUIRED side effect of freedom. Americans will never get that, and will be happy to toss liberty away in order to prevent nebulous bad things from happening.

The United States is truly starting to resemble the old Soviet Union in so many ways. The Soviets had official state media; we have totally co-opted media outlets. The Soviets had strong controls on copy machines; we have DRM'd/watermarked copy machines (and output devices). The Soviets had one party rule; we have outright one party rule right now, which stemmed from effective one-party rule of the past (seems that the Democratic-Republican party has split, and one side came out on top). The Soviets had no expectation of privacy... and soon, neither will we.

The big difference is that the Soviets used an iron fist, as opposed to the USA's velvet glove, to smother freedom. The net result is the same.

Re:"There is no crime in the Soviet Union"

[Goblez]

Velvet Glove == Lube. Bend Over America.

Re:"There is no crime in the Soviet Union"

[Crazy Man on Fire]

Great point. Security and freedom oppose one another. Complete freedom implies no security. Complete security implies no freedom. My guess is that most people wouldn't be happy at either end. For my part, I'd rather have more freedom and less security. Even where we were on 9/11 is too much security and not enough freedom. People who want to attack us will do so no matter how much security we have.

Re:"There is no crime in the Soviet Union"

[Cthefuture]

Yes but absolute freedom is anarchy.

People should be free but only free enough that they don't encroach on the freedom of others. That's the tough part.

Re:"There is no crime in the Soviet Union"

[swanriversean]

"The point is this: leaks, crime, terrorism, etc. are a REQUIRED side effect of freedom. Americans will never get that, and will be happy to toss liberty away in order to prevent nebulous bad things from happening."

Very true, but I don't think that this only applies to Americans. Given the right circumstances this can (and has) happened in most (all) Western democracies (even if it was only a minority group that has been repressed).

People are always willing to make some sacrifices of freedom for added security, and when politians can get them whipped up about a particular threat they are willing to give up more (especially if they think they really aren't the ones who are losing freedom). I think it is wholely expected that Americans are trading in freedoms for security given 9/11 and the general trend in society to avoid any sacrifices or pain (especially on a personal level).

I wonder what the people will have to do to get these freedoms back once they decide they are no longer warrented by threats to their security? Of course, as I think we already see in many respects, the government will continue to tell the people that the next threat is even worse than the previous one, and they just need the people to give up a little more freedom. It really is like 1984.

Re:"There is no crime in the Soviet Union"

[maxume]

In Soviet Russia, jail comes to you!

Re:"There is no crime in the Soviet Union"

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

>Security and freedom oppose one another.

Thought experiment: how safe was a prisoner in the gulag? A professor during the Cultural Revolution? Anybody under Pol Pot?

Freedom is a precondition for security. As useful a tool as governments are, they're appallingly dangerous and freedom is the way to keep us safe from them.

Re:"There is no crime in the Soviet Union"

[WoodieR]

yeah, so if this is the start of the velvet glove treatment, just imagine once they start using the Iron Fist approach ... Bushie's 1000 year Reich has begun

MOD PARENT UP

[thefirelane]

This is exactly the point of checks and balances... and it is something all the other posts about 'they should stop leaking programs that help us fight terrorists' are missing.

There is not reply to this other than 'we don't think the president would do this'

Well... "conservatives"... this wasn't the point of founding this country What about the next president, or the one after that... still trust them?

Re:MOD PARENT UP

[sjwest]

Blessed be Jeb Bush your next american president - europe shudders at that prospect - remember democrats look good in Orange.

Re:MOD PARENT UP

[brian0918]

"Blessed be Jeb Bush your next american president"

I'm a liberal, but I'd take Jeb over Dubya any day. He is fluent in two more languages than his brother (Spanish and English).

Re:MOD PARENT UP

[sjwest]

Good for you - perhaps the Bushes might rename America to USB (bit geeky - usb2,usb3?), I like 'Bushland' myself

Re:MOD PARENT UP

[Ohreally_factor]

Please don't lump the Bush operatives and true believers with patriotic conservatives who oppose this Imperial Presidency. It's become increasingly obvious to those not brainwashed that the President and his men, as well as many in the formerly great GOP, are power mad and corrupt.

Re:MOD PARENT UP

[Ohreally_factor]

For the record, I've opposed Bush since the 2000 election. I was a McCain man, and I was truly disturbed and disgusted by the campaign Bush ran. Fast forward to 9/11 and I supported our president. I wasn't alone in getting behind him. The invasion of Iraq: I originally supported this, but I had trepidation about how the reconstruction would unfold. Also, even though I supported the war, it became clear to me early on that the Administration had manipulated intelligence as a pretext for war. Anyway, it also became quickly apparent that the Administration's plan and execution of the reconstruction was completely inadequate to the point of incompetency.

And don't even get me started on domestic issues. (I long for the good old days of the Clinton Administration's fiscal responsibility.)

Long story short, I believe that the GOP has been taken over by a gang of crooks, and I welcome other Republicans to this view if we are to have any hope of salvaging our party. There's still a few good Republicans in Congress that I am not ashamed of.

Re:MOD PARENT UP

[Tim Doran]

Fair enough - props for integrity, it seems vanishingly rare on the right these days.

Re:mod parent up

[American AC in Paris]

Entirely too long, and I didn't really intend to to "take apart" the grandparent--if anything, I left the bulk of his points unanswered. The GP just struck the wrong nerve at the wrong time, and my post took on a life of its own...

Re:MOD PARENT UP

[Gooba42]

Long live the anonymous troll!

Re:MOD PARENT UP

[Ohreally_factor]

Bush has already anointed his brother for 2008. If Jeb were elected, we'd have the same or similar behind-the-scenes guys.

Let me put it this way: I'm a conservative, but I'd take Hillary Clinton over Jeb any day. I hope and pray it doesn't come to that.

Re:MOD PARENT UP

[Ohreally_factor]

Don't get too high and mighty. A crook is a crook, no matter what their party affiliation. The GOP doesn't have a monopoly on corruption.

Re:MOD PARENT UP

[brian0918]

"Let me put it this way: I'm a conservative, but I'd take Hillary Clinton over Jeb any day. I hope and pray it doesn't come to that."

Hillary v. Jeb '08 seems like the ideal situation for a random person with $100,000 to make some primetime TV ads asking people to write in their vote for him, and become elected president. Really, what is the point to the two parties anymore, besides to keep the public busy dividing themselves?

A shock?

[Billosaur]

Other sources have told us that phone calls and contacts by reporters for ABC News, along with the New York Times and the Washington Post, are being examined as part of a widespread CIA leak investigation.

Come on. Brian Ross, big time investigative journalist for ABC News, didn't realize that this was an issue until now? Even before the revelations about the NSA it would have been prudent to avoid using the samephone to contact informants or have them contact you. Pay phones, throwaway cell phones, heck even courtesy phones in hotel lobbies -- I could see them using all sorts of phones to get in touch with people, so as not to leave a visible trail. After all, phone records are accessible legally by the cops, and they could certainly pull phone records for a reporter if they thought the reporter was involved in something nefarious, though I believe they require a warrant (IANAL).

And for those of you naive enough to believe that because all the NSA is getting is phone numbers, perhaps the phrase "reverse lookup" has not passed your ear recently, but nowadays you can even do it through Google. Privacy is tissue-paper compared to what it used to be. I suspect an unlisted number isn't even really unlisted anymore.

Re:A shock?

[BRSQUIRRL]

and they could certainly pull phone records for a reporter if they thought the reporter was involved in something nefarious, though I believe they require a warrant (IANAL)

Not these days, it seems.

Re:A shock?

[Khammurabi]

Privacy is tissue-paper compared to what it used to be.

A more accurate statement: "The privacy of U.S. Citizens is tissue-paper compared to what it used to be."

I can assure you that unlike the american people, the government that rules them is fighting vehemently for its privacy.

Re:Down with Old Men!

[apflwr3]

Neat. Of course these "Old Men" you speak of were your age once, and you will be one of them one day, so, you know, there you go.

RTFA

[oh_my_080980980]

"A senior federal law enforcement official tells ABC News the government is tracking the phone numbers we (Brian Ross and Richard Esposito) call in an effort to root out confidential sources."

That should make a chill go up your spine! So much for the 1st Amendment.

This has NOTHING to do with protecting undercover agents as someone put it. If it was, then why isn't Robert Novak behind bars! Why hasn't Robert Novak's phone records been confiscated!! He was the one that outed Valerie Plame-Wislon. Oh and the Scooter Libbey case clearly shows the Bush Whitehouse passed along her information so she can be exposed to the public. Thus why are you pretending that this is anything more than trying to prevent the people from finding out about illegal spying activities of the Bush Administration.

Nice job comrade!

Apples and Oranges

[HighOrbit]

Remember deepthroat?

Yes I do remember. Watergate had nothing to do with classified information/national security. It was about election-year dirty tricks which embarrassed the administration so they tried to cover it up.

This case is about national security. Don't confuse the two.

Re:Apples and Oranges

[LordKazan]

a false sense of national security does not come before the law or the constitution

the government under bush is violating both

Re:Apples and Oranges

[Anonymous Coward]

And "DeepThroat" spoke up, not because of some feeling of patriotism. He spoke up for he same reason most of them did. He felt he was slighted and struck out.

(He felt that he should have become head of the FBI, when nixon named someone else, deepthroat was born...)

Re:Apples and Oranges

[stinerman]

This case is about national security.

Are you sure? I'm not.

Re:Apples and Oranges

[Mad Bad Rabbit]

Watergate had nothing to do with classified information/national security

Sure it did. Daniel Ellsberg leaked classified documents about the Vietnam War to the New York Times; and the Supreme Court refused to block publication. Nixon was so infuriated that he ordered Liddy and Hunt to fly to California and break into the office of Ellsberg's psychiatrist, hoping to find some dirt they could use against him. This burglary, along with the one at the DNC offices, was part of the Watergate Scandal.

Re:Apples and Oranges

[orthogonal]

Watergate had nothing to do with classified information/national security

You remember the Pentagon Papers?

Daniel Ellsberg, a former Marine and a researcher for the RAND corporation surreptitiously copied "the Pentagon Papers", a multi-volume history of the U.S. involvement in Vietnam. Hoping to inform the American public of U.S. mistakes in Vietnam, Ellsberg then released the papers to the New York Times.

President Nixon attempted, on national security grounds, to halt their publication. When the Supreme Court declined to uphold the suppression of the papers, Nixon ordered G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt to break in to Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office, hoping to find information with which to publicly smear Ellsberg.

That break-in, and the others that followed at the Watergate Building, became known as the Watergate conspiracy.

It also destroyed the government's case against Ellsberg: because of the break-in and an allegation that Nixon had ordered the CIA to "totally incapacitate" (e.g., kill) Ellsberg, the government's case against Ellsberg for conspiracy and espionage was dropped.

Re:Apples and Oranges

[hausmaus]

Nixon ordered G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt to break in to Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office, hoping to find information with which to publicly smear Ellsberg.

GE: We bring good things to light!

(Sorry, I had to say it - I read that post and for some reason, that popped into my mind...)

Leaks Save Lives

[Doc Ruby]

The part of you that's shuddering is your conscience, which is doing its best to protect you.

The only way Americans have to get important info from our government that officials don't want to release because it reveals their wrongdoing (eg. negligence, crimes or both) is from leaks to the press. We've got entirely too little government disclosure to the press, and press publication.

Where's the evidence for these leaks endangering lives of agents, or any other real security problem, that overbalances the security gained from publishing stories of inside government problems? The best-known one is the Plame leak, by the Cheney, Rove, Libby crew, to attack an ambassador whose investigation showed Bush was lying in the State of the Union about fake Niger uranium going to Iraq. We need more disclosure of how those officials leaked their attack to the press, not less. If more Bush administration people who knew Bush was determined to go to war in Iraq, even at the expense of stopping the Qaeda and bin Laden (where is bin Laden?), leaked the truth to the press, we might not be down thousands of killed Americans, tens of thousands of gravely wounded Americans, and even more killed and wounded Iraqis. Or facing the prospect of many times that amount of deaths, if the Iraq catastrophe even stays at the current unacceptable scale of killing.

That didn't take long....

[size1one]

That didn't take long for intelligence gathered to "fight terrorists" be used for another purpose. "Its ok because im not a terrorist" has now become "Its ok because im not in the media."

We study history to prevent the same mistakes of the past

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.

Remember When . . .

[Badgerman]

. . . we supposedly had no worries over calls being tracked inside the country? That it was only suspected terrorists. Apparently that was, no surprise, a lie.

Though leaking classified information is obviously somehting to be concerned about, this sounds more like someone's casting a wide net to try and catch a few fish. It's the kind of thing that's ripe for abuse, and smells like an unwarranted search and siezure (of data).

So, what will next week bring? All our phones are tapped? It seems every week or so things get worse . . .

Re:Remember When . . .

[jc42]

So, what will next week bring? All our phones are tapped?

Do you really think this is something new?

Story: Back in the 70's, I was a grad student at the U of Wisconsin, and lived in an apartment upstairs from a fellow who was very active in local radical politics. He never paid his phone bill, and it occasionally got shut off for short periods. A few such times he borrowed my phone until his service was restored.

One week, there was a phone-workers strike, and there were announcements that until the strike ended, no repairs would be done except to "emergency" phones such as police and medical lines.

On Friday afternoon, my phone stopped working, so I called (from another phone) to report it. They were very nice about it, but told me it couldn't be repaired until the strike ended.

Bright and early Saturday morning some phone company workers showed up, tested my phone line, and fixed the problem. I asked them why they were there during the strike, and they said "Dunno; we just had this address on our list."

I told this story to everyone I knew, and it got me no end of points on campus. Pretty much everyone just grinned. It was obvious to the meanest intelligence what had happened.

Anyone who assumes that their phone won't be tapped without notice is simply naive. The same applies to your internet connection. That's the way it's been for decades. Anything else you may read or hear is just posing, propaganda to impress the rubes.

Re:Great!

[RockClimbingFool]

Any how exactly are top secret, illegal activities supposed to be exposed? Whistle blowers are the only way.

Re:Haha..

[Qzukk]

some secret program that is used in the war on terror

Oh shut up. It's not like all these phone taps are going to save anyone's life. You want my phone records? I called pizzahut and ordered a pizza. How many thousands of my tax dollars were spent so that the government could find out I like pepperoni?

Maybe if the government focused their money on a working border control policy rather than admitting that they have no fucking clue who the terrorists are (if there are any) in the country and are instead simply spying on everyone in hopes that they get lucky, then Bush might have kept his 51% approval rating.

Re:Nothing to see Here.... move along

[steveargonman]

It is standard police procedure in a criminal investigation to subpoena or to get a search warrant for telephone records.

Exactly.. when you have a warrant or subpoena. Neither of which they have now.

Re:Great!

[StillDocked]

You are kidding, right? The NSA collecting call data (and maybe monitoring traffic) without a warrent is a violation of federal law. Seeing that this is domestic, how could it be putting our troops in danger?!?

Honestly, if you are worried about the troops and their safety, work to bring them home. The madman who was selected (not elected) has put more of them in harms way out of some sense of Dr. Evil-esque vision than any reporter asking the questions that need to be asked in a democracy.

Hmm, Johnny-come-lately

[Phoenix666]

wonder if they're reconsidering their uncritical coverage of the Bush agenda? maybe they're finally catching up to where most of us have been since 2 years before Bush was selected president the first time around, ie. that their agenda portends nothing good for the future of the American republic and human rights generally?

republican majority delenda est...

Re:Nothing to see Here.... move along

[moochfish]

It is standard police procedure in a criminal investigation to subpoena or to get a search warrant for telephone records. Nothing new or sensational to see here, move along.

Subpeona? Search warrant? Crime or no crime, this article makes no mention of those. Have you been reading the news lately?

A global trend we sure could live without?

[D4C5CE]

Over in Europe, another agency's hands have allegedly just been caught in a very similar kind of cookie jar indeed.

Standard Police procedure

[Aexia]

It is standard police procedure in a criminal investigation to subpoena or to get a search warrant for telephone records.

Somehow, I doubt the administration bothered with technicalities like "warrants".

Re:Standard Police procedure

[jsac]

We know that they did not bother with such technicalities. They explicitly refused to get an order from the FISA court, when Qwest asked for one.

Re:Standard Police procedure

[hacker]

"Somehow, I doubt the administration bothered with technicalities like "warrants"."

You mean like this statement of lies straight from Bush's mouth? I love the statement "Constitutional guarantees are in place.." and "...we value the Constitution...", and then you look at this article where Bush says (and I quote):

""Stop throwing the Constitution in my face," Bush screamed back. "It's just a goddamned piece of paper!"

Re:Standard Police procedure

[jaycagey]

According to the Supreme Court (Smith v Maryland, 1979), law enforcement agencies don't need warrants to obtain phone call records. It has something to do with how, when you dial a number, you openly transmit it to your phone company, you know they (and any other carrier that takes part in handling the call) keep a record of what you've dialed and you know they can provide that info back to you on your billing statement. Therefore you don't have an expectation to privacy when you dial. So no, the FBI probably didn't bother with warrants if they obtained these records as part of a criminal investigation.

Re:Standard Police procedure

[rainman_bc]

and then you look at this article [capitolhillblue.com] where Bush says (and I quote

I hate to say this, but unless names are mentioned, that article is just conjecture. Although I wouldn't put it past him, it is still conjecture.

Re:Standard Police procedure

[Requiem Aristos]

That case is why Congress passed ECPA in the mid-80s.

Please review 18 USC, Section 2511(2)(f).

Title III, ECPA, and FISA are the only legal means for the government to engage in domestic electronic surveillance.

Re:Standard Police procedure

[jaycagey]

IANAL, but it looks like the section you quote concerns intercepts of foreign communications. We're discussing whether or not the FBI needs a warrant to obtain the phone records of the reporters who were in contact with individuals who leaked classified information. In that instance, it looks like Section 2511(2)(h)(i) may be more applicable. Or not. I don't have the stamina (or ability) to read, cross-reference and decipher all that legalese, but I don't think your point applies to this situation.

Re:Standard Police procedure

[Frozen Void]

Isn't it just a formality or FISA shares its info to newspapers/media/etc?

Wrong again.

[TheNoxx]

Er, and when the CIA has been using our tax dollars to violate international treaties and laws, as with the secret torture prisons, what then?
Does any agency just get blanket permission to do whatever the fuck it wants by calling what it does classified information?

The CIA needs to be held to a greater degree of oversight, but it isn't. Leaks are important to keep them from going hog wild. Who gives a flying fuck if we know that they used some CIA bullshit "predator missiles" in pakistan? You know that's not the real reason why the FBI is investigating. The FBI is trying to scare any would-be whistleblowers from leaking information that could severely damage (further) the reputation of the agency and/or the administration.

Re:Wrong again.

[HighOrbit]

Oversight is the constitutional responsibility of Congress. They have intelligence committees for that purpose. If you don't think they are doing their job, vote and write your congressman. Just because somebody disagrees with a policy, does not give them the right to break the law by leaking classified info. Also, every agency has an Inspector General for internal investigations. Disclosure to Congress and IGs are protected activities under federal law. Leaking to reporters is not.

Re:Wrong again.

[TheNoxx]

Sorry, but when neither is doing their job and people are being tortured and possibly killed without fair trial, it's time to start leaking to the press. That's the bottom line, and you don't get to hide behind "classified information" when you do something that unethical. Period.

Re:Wrong again.

[Chandon Seldon]

A free press was designed into the american system of government. It's one of the checks and balances that is supposed to allow the USA to work, which is why it's in the first section of the bill of rights. "Classified information" is just a semantic game to get around that.

Re:Wrong again.

[DAldredge]

My congressmen have been ignoring me since I wrote them asking what laws I could break since I wasn't in a labor intensive industry and had no need to hire illegals.

They don't listen to the "Common Folk" unless they have a lot of money and/or whores they are willing to donate to them

Re:Wrong again.

[WoodieR]

no, it is NOT time to start leaking to the press ... it is far far too late for that ... Now is the time to take up arms, and do your duty for your fellow citizens and remove the rogue / illegal / illegitimate government that you have in power ... the 4th Reich has begun.

Get a court order

[chazzzzy]

If these taps are important for national security, then GET A COURT order for them! This is not an issue of the media being sour pusses.. this is a matter of the country self-destructing in the name of protecting ourselves from supposed terrorists.

I got $20 that says Fox News won't be checked.

[khasim]

Having a contact inside the government isn't something to hide.

You would think so, wouldn't you?

I mean, I'm sure that there are a lot of calls made to "reporters" at Fox News. But I'll bet $20 that we're not going to hear about any phone records of Fox News "reporters" being checked.

Makes you wonder, eh?

This is a way to intimidate contacts and discourage entirely legal contact with the press. Perhaps you're forgetting that phone calls have innocent content most of the time and that most relationships have nothing at all wrong in their conduct?

That's why I put in the "Those who have no criticism of the government have nothing to fear."

If you're "reporting" a "leak" that hurts Bush and Co's political opponents ... no problem.

If you're "reporting" a "leak" that says Bush and Co are doing good ... no problem.

If you're reporting a leak that says Bush and Co are doing something that may be illegal ... expect an investigation from the FBI, CIA, NSA and a speech from Bush saying that you're a traitor and hurting our troops and our security and helping the terrorists.

Re:I got $20 that says Fox News won't be checked.

[NMerriam]

Yeah, remember when Clinton was being impeached and none of the newspapers would cover it because of their "liberal bias"?

Gimme a break. Whoever is in power has a big target on their ass.

Re:I got $20 that says Fox News won't be checked.

[Jamesday]

That's why I put in the "Those who have no criticism of the government have nothing to fear."

I'm sorry that I misinterpreted your meaning of that sentence. :)

Re:I got $20 that says Fox News won't be checked.

[Facekhan]

FOX actually stands for Fueling Our Xenophobia.

Re:I got $20 that says Fox News won't be checked.

[jfern]

Well of course not. Members of the inner party may turn off the surveillance of themselves.

Re:I got $20 that says Fox News won't be checked.

[lendude]

That's $20 USD coz Rupert is an American citizen now.

Re:I got $20 that says Fox News won't be checked.

[Ludedude]

"If you're reporting a leak that says Bush and Co are doing something that may be illegal ... expect an investigation from the FBI, CIA, NSA and a speech from Bush saying that you're a traitor and hurting our troops and our security and helping the terrorists."

Silly person. Have you forgotten the children?

Re:I got $20 that says Fox News won't be checked.

[SQL_SAM]

If you're "reporting" a "leak" that says Bush and Co are doing good ... no problem.

LMAO!

Please name ONE 'leak' that says Bush is doing good! - I'll wait for the response.....

Hopefully they have also traced the calls of Dana Priest of the Washington Post, who was the reporter that won the Pulitzer for reporting fired ex-CIA agent Mary McCarthy's claim about United States having secret terrorist prisons in Europe that no one can find.

What a surprise...

[Pedrito]

Boy, I never saw this one coming. The government using their phone number records to investigate things that aren't related to terrorists. I sure thought they were going to stick to protecting us from terrorists with this data.

I have no problem with the government obtaining a warrant to get this information. But that's not what they've done. What they've done is about as good as tapping phones. Anyone who sees it differently has WAY too much trust of the U.S. government.

And I know that they'll argue that these leaks somehow put us in danger of a terrorist attack. I mean, if the subject had been something as mundane as outting a CIA operative, then of course, they'd be sure to overlook it, particularly if the leak came out of the offices of the President and Vice President.

It amazes me that people aren't yelling and screaming about this and marching in front of the White House. People in this country have become too complacent and they're going to lose the freedoms that so many people have died to protect over the years. And when it comes to that, we'll have nobody to blame but ourselves.

We can blame Bush and his administration, but when it comes down to it, they're not to blame. Because we know what they're doing and we're not kicking their asses out on the street.

Re: What a surprise...

[Black Parrot]

> I have no problem with the government obtaining a warrant to get this information.

Except that back when they bothered with things like warrants, they got most of them via a special court created to rubber-stamp the requests.

Re:What a surprise...

[inKubus]

It amazes me that people aren't yelling and screaming about this and marching in front of the White House.

I'll be right behind you. Go, march, at LEAST yell and scream. Donate to the EFF. CALL your representatives, city, state, and federal. If you already have, choose one and do it again. Once is not always enough.

Re:What a surprise...

[hacker]

"It amazes me that people aren't yelling and screaming about this and marching in front of the White House. People in this country have become too complacent and they're going to lose the freedoms that so many people have died to protect over the years. And when it comes to that, we'll have nobody to blame but ourselves."

More than 11 million people protested in cities throughout the world to oppose an invasion of Iraq. Bush dismissed the protests, saying that he doesn't "decide policy based upon a focus group."

I don't think yelling and screaming will do much now, other than get yourself fast-tracked to the front of "Some List" that you probably don't want to be on at all.

Re:What a surprise...

[Arandir]

Boy, I never saw this one coming. The government using their phone number records to investigate things that aren't related to terrorists.

1) You have a problem with leaks related to terrorist information.

2) You have a database of phone records that can be used to trace the leaks.

3) Let's use the database to trace the leaks!

Re:What a surprise...

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

>I don't think yelling and screaming will do much now, other than get yourself fast-tracked to the front of "Some List" that you probably don't want to be on at all.

It should be only terrorists and terrorist suspects who are on the no-fly and special scrutiny list.

Re:What a surprise...

[hacker]

"It should be only terrorists and terrorist suspects who are on the no-fly and special scrutiny list"

True, and it should only be international calls, specifically those who are being made to or from existing suspects which are being tapped and monitored.

But we all know that ALL calls are now being monitored, as well as 100% of Internet traffic.

You can bet "The List" includes a lot of people who are not on the no-fly and special scrutiny lists.

Re:What a surprise...

[Cyno]

Could you imagine the look on their face if 30 million frustrated Americans marched up to D.C. with their guns in hand, demanding their rights, etc..

That's my American dream..

It'll never happen..

Re:What a surprise...

[inKubus]

terrorist ( P ) Pronunciation Key (trr-st)
n. One that engages in acts or an act of terrorism.

adj. Of or relating to terrorism.

The calculated use of violence (or threat of violence) against civilians in order to attain goals that are political or religious or ideological in nature; this is done through intimindation or coercion or instilling fear.

I wonder what definition they will use to describe the people who are going to remove this administration from power through WORDS. Maybe they will make their own dictionary up, just like they publish their own medical papers, their own research reports, their own "findings" about the attacks. They will tap those poor souls phones, those poor people who just want to be free to live their lives without feeling like someone or something is looking over their shoulder and making sure they are doing the "Right Thing (tm)". They will plant evidence, and they will whisk these people who merely SPOKE away to a prison camp without a trial. Why? Because the president says so.

Jesus, since he can talk directly with you, can you please tell George he's WRONG.

Re:What a surprise...

[nuzak]

> I don't think yelling and screaming will do much now, other than get yourself fast-tracked to the front of "Some List" that you probably don't want to be on at all.

Perhaps the answer is that we should all be petitioning to be on that list. Millions and millions of names.

Fuck it, I think I'm going to make a hundred random phone calls right now.

Re:What a surprise...

[spirality]

This is the basic problem with big government in Washington. I simply can not afford to protest it. Washington is pretty much 2000 miles from my house. I don't have the time or money. Power should be kept as close to home as possible so that it can be appropriately watched. If I HAD to I could protest at my state capital daily or at least weekly. It's about a 50 mile drive.

The answer to our problems is to progressively, but drastically cut the size and scope of the federal government. That means less military, less social programs, everything. Let the states deal with the social programs. Unfortunately we are going the exact opposite direction and are always accelerating the pace. This means more corruption, more abuse and less freedom. The republicans are taking us toward a police state. The democrats are taking us toward communism. Liberty and freedom are in serious danger.

What I've always found funny is that people/the media people are genuinely supprised to find our there is corruption in Washington. With 3 trillion dollars to be spent every year I would be suprised to NOT find any corruption or abuse of power.

Re:What a surprise...

[hacker]

"I wonder what definition they will use to describe the people who are going to remove this administration from power through WORDS. Maybe they will make their own dictionary up, just like they publish their own medical papers, their own research reports, their own "findings" about the attacks."

As has been predicted nearly 1/2 century ago, this is not unheard of...

Some days I wonder if they're not taking that FICTIONAL work and instead of using it as a warning, using it as a script to run this country... scary how many parallels there are in there. Watching the movie recently was as eerie as watching the nightly news.

Re:What a surprise...

[hacker]

Fuck it, I think I'm going to make a hundred random phone calls right now.

I've recently been pondering answering every phone call to the house with the pre-declaration of the obvious keywords:

Ring, ring... "Hi.. [Bomb, Iraq, Saddam, Osama, Nuclear, Iran, Anthrax, Kill, CIA, NSA, wiretap, oil, regime, republican] how are you? Sure, I..." and so on.

Or the even more succinct...

Ring, ring.. "Hi, how [bomb] are you [Iraq] today? Sure, I [Saddam] was going to [Osama] head down to [Nuclear] the mall [Iran] to pick up [Anthrax] some new [Kill] shirts for [CIA] my trip [NSA] to the [wiretap] islands in a few weeks. I might [oil] need to stop [regime] at GNC to [republican] get some new vitamins too."

Re:Nothing to see Here.... move along

[syphax]

Subpoenas? Warrants? We don't need no stinking warrants!

Re:Nothing to see Here.... move along

[moochfish]

Do you know that they have a warrant? Are you somehow privy to classified investigations?

Like I said. Have you not been reading the news lately? First there was the WARRANTLESS wiretapping. You think its is a COINCIDENCE that this news surfaces not even a week since the phone-record-dragnet news came out? Did you not read about 10 BILLION dollar lawsuit against the phone companies for violating customer privacy laws **without proper warrants**?

Nixon was an amateur

[ENOENT]

I mean, he only spied on ONE HOTEL ROOM.

How awfully nice to have the technology to spy on everyone in the country at once, and sufficiently rabid supporters to shout down anyone who questions the practice.

Re:Nixon was an amateur

[Hard_Code]

Yeah, bring Nixon back. That guy was the paragon of ethics compared to this administration.

Re:Nixon was an amateur

[bjohnson]

Damn near what John Dean said in an interview the other day...

Re:Nixon was an amateur

[n8_f]

Not quite. Here's some history (new to me, too):
Excerpt from Rick Perlstein's upcoming Nixonland

Bottom line, the Nixon administration went as far as they could with the technology available to them. It is also worth pointing out that quite a few members of the current administration worked in the Nixon administration, most notably Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney.

Re:Nixon was an amateur

[hirebrand]

"A single hotel room is a tragedy; a million phone lines is a statistic."

Control the information... control what we know.

[10100111001]

Who ever controls the present controls the past. - Orwell

If we don't know the past, it is like we were born yesterday. - Zinn

Who ever controls the past controls the future. - Orwell

Re:Nothing to see Here.... move along

[Silent sound]

Leaking classified information is a crime.

Unless the White House does it, you mean?

Sheesh! Has Orwell taught you nothing??

[Guysmiley777]

Remember kids:

War is peace
Freedom is slavery
Ignorance is strength

You're seeing the oversight in action

[jet_silver]

Can you not understand that well-paid, highly-cleared NSA employees do not scuttle their careers without good reason? The people doing the leaking are being asked to do something really evil, and they are not happy about it.

They're also taking a good-sized risk of winding up in an unmarked jail cell, or grave.

They're good people, they are saying "this is out of control and the citizenry must not take it any more".

Re:You're seeing the oversight in action

[JanneM]

Can you not understand that well-paid, highly-cleared NSA employees do not scuttle their careers without good reason? The people doing the leaking are being asked to do something really evil, and they are not happy about it.

And they will gradually be found and dismissed, or quit over this or unrelated reasons and be replaced with new hires that don't mind the shady reputation of the agency. Thus gradually leaving only people who see no problem with the whole thing.

Re:You're seeing the oversight in action

[American AC in Paris]

Frankly, I do not equate "individual civil servants willing to risk career, public castigation and prison time to do what is right" with "oversight". True oversight can only be performed by peers, not subordinates.

I agree completely, though, that when civil servants take this kind of a risk, something is decidedly rotten...and whoever is doing this leaking is going to go through absolute hell should they ever be found out.

Re:You're seeing the oversight in action

[MemoryAid]

Presumably, those highly-paid NSA personnel are also well-trained, at least enough to use disposable pre-paid cell phones that they purchased with cash somewhere without security cameras.

Seriously, many government phones have stickers on them that say "this line subject to monitoring," or similar. Also, we have a rich culture of spy thriller movies where the protagonists go through extraordinary lenghts not to have their phone calls traced or monitored. Anyone contemplating leaking information to the press should be well-prepared to render these phone records useless in tracking them down.

Re:You're seeing the oversight in action

[bill_kress]

They're good people, they are saying "this is out of control and the citizenry must not take it any more".

Which makes it all the much sadder that we don't do anything about it.

All these people are putting their carreers (and lives) on the line to let us know that now is the time to care and now is the time to act and we just sit here and say "Yeah, that really sucks, someone should complain about this".

I'm sure that as Hitler came to power there were many conversations similar to these in pubs and taverns, but they never went beyond that.

What we have this time is going to be looked back as the most well-documented failure of a citizenry ever to stop an obvious, looming world-wide disaster. They are going to be able to look at the idiots who supported this mess and say "They were wrong", they will look at those of us who didn't support it and yet did almost nothing and say "They were worse".

Anyone have any good ideas?

Preferably one that doesn't simply involve switching rule to the other branch of the corporate-republicrat party?

Re:You're seeing the oversight in action

[flynns]

Militant Libertarianism.

=)

Re:You're seeing the oversight in action

[dhasenan]

Of course, we could rebel. We tend not to do that until people we know have been injured publicly, or at least people nearby. Also, we tend not to do that unless we are reasonably certain that we'll be able to do something worthwhile before we're likely to die, and that death is less likely with rebellion.

So, the words "bat's chance in hell" spring to mind. Not until it's dangerous to walk the streets, and then only if the propaganda corps slips.

Re:You're seeing the oversight in action

[surprise_audit]

They could also just type up the information, print it out and mail it. Printers are cheap enough to be able to just drop one in a dumpster and get another, making it harder to pin the leak to a particular person.

Re:You're seeing the oversight in action

[cold fjord]

I agree completely, though, that when civil servants take this kind of a risk, something is decidedly rotten.

That is by no means certain.

It could simply mean that they are committed to their own cause, which could be anything from A-F below:

A. Truth, Justice, and the American Way
B. I don't like what's going on, and leaking is easier than filing a complaint through proper channels
C. Embarrassing Bush will help Hillary win, and I probably won't get caught
D. Bring down Bush, no matter the cost.
E. Bring down America, no matter the cost.
F. Other

There is some very interesting information about Mary McCarthy, let go for leaking at NSA. I'm holding out for B, C, or D. Probably a mix.
A map of associations
Some defenders
Is there a bigger pattern?

Re:You're seeing the oversight in action

[Ender Ryan]

Given the nature of the leaks, I think it's safe to say that you're a fucking asshat who will never see any wrong in the Bush admin. and continue to blame those who want to guard the Constitutional rights of the citizenry.

Re:You're seeing the oversight in action

[Jasin Natael]

Who's to say that having the 'internal', eg phone-company assigned ID of a call record wouldn't give them access to a complete wealth of information about that call? Even if a gov't informant did what you suggest by purchasing a prepaid phone and using it once, then throwing it away, try this on for size:

From the complete call record, you can get a routing table and a cell-tower ID. That phone was activated, probably at the location and time it was purchased. That gives you a time & place to find the purchaser. Possibly even the serial number of the phone, which could be traced to a specific merchant (or chain of stores, which then would be correlated with the first-known cell tower the phone connected with). From there, it's a simple matter of setting a few people to watch traffic cameras or comb through toll records, or whatever.

And all of this assumes that the person didn't make the sensitive call from their home! Probably the only safe place to use the phone would be from a busy government building during working hours, but that in itself carries risk.

After-the-fact investigation can be very intensive, and very accurate, even if all reasonable precautions are taken by the investigatee. It's just a question of what kind of resources you're willing to invest to get an answer. I think that this administration has shown no qualms about using taxpayer resources for this type of activity when it furthers their private agenda.

Re:Nothing to see Here.... move along

[Crazy Man on Fire]

Leaking classified information is a crime.

It sure is. Do you think the reporters involved have top-secret clearance and are the ones who leaked the information? The information was leaked to the reportes, not by the reporters. If somebody on the inside broke the law, they should be investigated, tried, and punnished if found guilty. The first person in line should be GW. Not only does he leak when it is convenient, but he's broke most of the other laws of our country.

Re:Great!

[Fo0eY]

Posts like this are so mind boggling, it's hard to tell if it's just sarcasm/trolling, but my gut tells me you're actually serious.

Calling them traitors and claiming they are putting troops at danger is flat out intentional ignorance. Mainly, because none of this has anything to do with our troops in Iraq. So, while it makes a great sound bite to the folks too lazy to take a moment to use their own brains to come to a conclusion, it simply makes you look like an idiot to the rest of us who bother to figure things out for ourselves.

Your "traitors" are truly hero's who are literally putting their lives on the line for the real greater good of the country, exposing massive government corruption and widespread illegal activies of those in charge.

The true traitors are those folks in power supressing the truth about their own illegal activities.

look at both ends of that phoneline, bicches!

[Thud457]

Selective enforcement of the law is one of the hallmarks of corruption.

Re:look at both ends of that phoneline, bicches!

[raehl]

Selective enforcement of the law is one of the hallmarks of corruption.

There's a greeting card for that?

What's it say? "We know who is wishing you a Happy Birthday!" ??

this is only the beginning

[kludge99]

We have forsaken liberty and our right to privacy for security.
.
.
.
.
.
but now we need security from ourselves.

Their own records?!

[grahamsz]

Surely if you are high enough up in the government that you want to leak information to the press without revealing your identity then you'll be smart enough to make sure that those calls don't appear on your employers phone bill.

Re:Their own records?!

[TheNoxx]

The location of the pay phone or anything else used to call in a leak would be more than enough for a clever man. Stake out that spot and other places like it, record who uses it and when and compare with the next list of phone calls.

Re:Their own records?!

[grahamsz]

The parent however suggested that the government was in reality only going through their own phone records. My employer doesn't know if i walk down the street and use a payphone, and neither should the government employers.

Re:Nothing to see Here.... move along

[Sylver Dragon]

It is standard police procedure in a criminal investigation to subpoena or to get a search warrant for telephone records. Nothing new or sensational to see here, move along.

This would be nothing new, if this is what they had done. Instead, the NSA coerced the phone companies into giving them information which would normally require a warrant to get. They then handed that data over to the FBI to weed out leaks.
The problem isn't that they have the data, it's how they got it. If the FBI wanted to conduct and investigation about a leak, great, that's part of their job. They could then request a warrant for the records, look at them and go from there. It's that whole pesky fourth amendment which this is running afoul of:

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.

What the NSA did was grab information, which should be private, without the whole "Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." We are supposed to be a nation of laws, that applies doubly to the government. The reason for warrants to to provide oversight of the executive branch by the judicial branch and by the public. Yes, there are times where it is necessary to keep a warrant from being public, this is what the FISA act did, it setup a process by which security agencies could react to a situation, and get a warrant retroactivly. Bush's claim that the process impedes investigations is pure bullshit. What it impedes is his unchecked power to do as he pleases. The NSA/FBI/CIA can go get whatever data they want, and ask a judge about it after the fact. They can do everything they have done, including the wiretappung and data collection when they want to do it. The only restriction placed on it is that they have to go before a judge within 72 hours and justify their actions. Sending a lawyer over to the FISA court, after the fact, does nothing to impede investigations, unless those investigations violate the Constitution.
What they are doing is trying to silence the leaks which make them look bad. The current administration has been beat up pretty bad over it's actions. Those actions would not have been know without the leaks; so, they aim to silence the leakers.

Re:Haha..

[DAldredge]

Does that mean those on the Mexico/Texas boarder can blame George Bush to the increase in crime caused by illegals?

Obligatory Dubya quote:

[mmell]

"All your base are belong to us."

Whaddya mean the Dubya never said that?

Re:Haha..

[tyler_larson]

name one story broken by any media organization that precipitated a terrorist attack.

While I don't think anything you're suggesting has ever happened, we did find out from Al Qaeda records that they had never seriously considered using chemical & biological weapons in terrorist strikes until the American press detailed how easy they are to obtain and how devestating the effect would be.

Now, that wasn't classified information; but it does show, at least, that when the American media publishes information useful to terrorists, it doesn't go unnoticied.

Look out!

[thewiz]

Remember that slippery slope people have been talking about?

Well, we're on it and we're accelerating!

Re:Nothing to see Here.... move along

[cplusplus]

Leaking classified information is a crime.

True, but any presidential administration can classify pretty much anything they want, just because they want to. They could abuse that privelege for the purposes of covering their involvment in illegal activity. See a problem with this? It's a slippery slope we're on, and it seems to be getting steeper.

Americans scared?

[Goblez]

When did we as Americans become scared of everything that might happen? Those aren't the ideals this country was founded on. Liberty had a price, and it was in blood. It still does. So why should we mistakenly trade away our freedoms earned with blood in order to avoid future blood? This cost won't go away. When did most Americans become sheep afraid to speak out and protect what they care about? This is an obvious abuse of power that should be checked, and if the other branches of our government won't do their jobs, then it's our job as people to address it.

Re:Americans scared?

[The Queen]

I think it was 'round about the time when they started making kids wear helmets to play in the park. http://holophrastic.com/javascopes/october_02.php

Safety is out of hand; if we let stupid people continue to live and breed then we get the future we deserve.

Who's the federal source

[portwojc]

Well who's this federal source? I trust the media as much as I trust the government. To say "in-person interview" means nothing. We need names and people not hiding in dark alleys to come forward.

Sure you could argue what they (the government) are doing with this (if they are) is illegal but the leaks to start with were illegal. Regardless of how you feel about what was leaked.

That call database should be gathered. It should be maintained by a seperate entity where queries to the database are approved by a panel of judges with the sole purpose of fighting terrorism. That ends the problem.

Re:Who's the federal source

[JoeBuck]

Judges can issue warrants to tap phones if the prosecutor presents probable cause that a crime has been committed. This was not done.

hey morons

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone that thought the Bush administration would not abuse their power, wake the fuck up. If anyone has doubts about whether or not those taps were illegal or would be mis-used. the evidence is right in your moronic face. wake the fuck up, because the ones who trust unconditionally are the first to get locked away.

Posted to the site's blogger's comment area

[bsandersen]

Time for the Fourth Estate to pick up the challenge. Its passivity and timidity post 9/11 and the run-up to the war in Iraq fed this kind of arrogance. If we want to ensure Orwell's tale is only cautionary and not prescient, the press will need to act quickly and deliberately, challenging these bullies instead of simply being their mouthpieces. Quit worrying about ratings; start worrying about credibility and the truth.

Re:Posted to the site's blogger's comment area

[aussersterne]

The people who own the media don't have to care about the truth so long as they have the ratings. It is their cash (gained through ratings) that guarantees they will never be subject to any tyrannical regime; they can simply buy their way out of it. They can go to any place on the planet that suits them and live amidst kingly riches.

In fact, protecting their ratings is precisely what they must do, for as long as they can do it, in order to protect this fortune that keeps them above the law, that guarantees their place in international capital, free to go wherever they can buy the lifestyle they want unharassed by officials that are only to happy to have some fraction of their wealthy patronage.

This is why there can never be a useful public information machine in capitalism.

Re:Posted to the site's blogger's comment area

[Thaelon]

Are you kidding if some major "news" source started saying stuff like: "Government gone fucking batshit crazy, for the love of god people, so something!!!" instead of playing nice with, "Should the Government be allowed to tap phones? Find, out after this word from our sponsors." its ratings would go through the roof!

Imagine the ratings you'd get for that; they'd outstrip the FCC censorship fines for sure.

[side rant]God I hate that teaser shit. I deliberately change channels when they do that crap (and go read it on google before the first commercial is up).[/side rant]

Here's the al-queda connection?

[ugmoe]

>> I thought the u.s. government was only supposed to be looking at calls

>> to/from al-queda persons. At least that is what they keep repeating in

>> defending their nsa spying on u.s. citizens fiasco. I guess it's just

>> another lie.

1) This article is about the call records (number, duration) - not the contents of the calls was the case in the NSA monitoring calls between U.S. citizens and Al Queda members (where one party was outside of the U.S).

2) Then ABC revealed the use of CIA predator missiles inside Pakistan, it certainly does touch on Al Queda.

The Afgnanistan/Pakistan border area is reportedly a site of Al Queda activity. Pakistan does aid the U.S. in this area, but also has an internal situation that makes it difficult for them when Pakistan's government is revealed as aiding the U.S. in this area. So, revealing information about such aid makes it more difficult to secure future aid because the Pakistan leaders will be worried that the U.S. will be unable to keep their assistance secret.

So, if ABC news used leakers inside the CIA as the source of their story on the predator missiles inside of Pakistan they are directly interfering with the Al Queda situation.

The friendly article touches (very lightly) on this: http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2006/05/federa l_source_.html

People questioned by the FBI about leaks of intelligence information say the CIA was also disturbed by ABC News reports that revealed the use of CIA predator missiles inside Pakistan.

Re:Here's the al-queda connection?

[timeOday]

1) This article is about the call records (number, duration) - not the contents of the calls

So, how does that make it not spying? Do we get to see the call logs of the President and Congress from their private phones? Or even their taxpayer supported calls on government time? Dick Cheney won't even tell us with whom he consults to form our national energy policy. So tell me again, how the identities of contacts are not sensitive information?

Re:Here's the al-queda connection?

[ashayh]

Pakistan does aid the U.S. in this area, but also has an internal situation that makes it difficult for them when Pakistan's government is revealed as aiding the U.S. in this area.

Right. And in these remote inaccessible villages, the al Queda is so stupid they have no clue that the US is helping Pakistan against them. Which is why, when it was 'leaked' that the blond and black chaps they'd been fighting all this time were not russians or pakistanis, they were summararily shocked. They were hurt when it was revealed that the shiny new pakistani weaponry wasnt locally made stuff. The US?? Against us ?? No way !!1 @:(

Read the ABC blog comments

[greg_barton]

It amazes me how many of the comments on the ABC News blog say, "the government should put leakers away for life!" and "treasonous journalists should be shot!"

Don't they realize that those are the attitudes that allowed Hitler and Stalin to operate? (And don't give me any lip about Goodwin's Law. This is serious.) I'm absolutely floored by folks who would like nothing better than to live in a police state coocoon when it's "their people in charge," but then scream bloody murder if "the wrong people" hold power. They just can't see that this attitude makes ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE. Give the government an inch and they will take a mile, always. There is ALWAYS someone out there who wants more power, and it is our duty to ensure they cannot take it, whether we agree with them ideologically or not.

Re:Read the ABC blog comments

[DAldredge]

Such comments are driven by sites like freerepubic.com and their armies of BushBots. Democrateunderground does the same thing on issues they do not like.

Echo chambers kind of lead to that sort of behavior.

Re:Read the ABC blog comments

[greg_barton]

Echo chambers kind of lead to that sort of behavior.

True, but the echoes from the right wing seem to lead to threats of imprisonment and/or death. There's a qualitative difference and insinuating that both sides are equivalent is disingenuous.

Re:Read the ABC blog comments

[DAldredge]

I have had plenty of death threats from those claiming to be liberals sent to my slashdotemail@gmail.com address. I have had about as many from those claiming to be gopers...

Both sides have about an equal number of insane people on their side who are, unfortuntaly, very loud.

Re:Read the ABC blog comments

[greg_barton]

I have had plenty of death threats from those claiming to be liberals...

Look. I live in Texas. Here, you don't flip someone off on the highway because you're likely to get shot. You don't get in an argument with some bubba for the same reason. Arguing with some pencil neck fruity guy? Fine. Safe territory. Chaw chewin' redneck? Nope. And that's just the law of the jungle. Some angry conservative dude is far more likely to haul off and shoot you.

Re:Read the ABC blog comments

[esper]

The thing I found most interesting about it was how many of the pro-snooping comments were extremely similar, if not verbatim identical. At least none of them claim to result from independent thought.

Re:Read the ABC blog comments

[DAldredge]

I live in Texas also, hell some wack job tried to post my address to ./ a few months back. Besides, those with CC permits commit much less gun/violent crime then those who do not have them.

You make it sound like getting into a fight with Bubba will get you shot, which it won't. It may get you beaten by him and his friends, but they most likely won't shot you :)

Re:Read the ABC blog comments

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Don't they realize that those are the attitudes that allowed Hitler and Stalin to operate?

Of course they do. An integral part of authoritarian regiemes is their willingness to share a portion of their absolute power with anyone willing to following their ideals and serve up their neighbours on a plate. Sycophants profit enourmously under dictatorships, and their unscrupulous devotion is just what tyrannical regiemes need to stay in power.

For a fresher look at this, read "Wild Swans" by Jung Chang for a good example of just how much the most twisted and unscrupulous of people profit when repression is required. Jung's father, a regional commander of extremely high principles and integrity, is almost beaten to death and hounded during the cultural revolution. Meanwhile, various people who you wouldn't trust as far as you could throw, continue to rise up the ranks and reel in the dough. Most notably a husband, wife pair known as the Tings, though they did eventually get ousted when they went altogether too far.

Basically, in a dictatorship, the most toxic and evil elements of society finally rise to the top and take their pleasure in stamping on the necks of all those under them. This is why dicatorships succeed. Not because of enigmatic leaders, weighty ideaologies or rhetoric; but because there are all too many willing to lick the tyrants boot so that the rest of us in turn might lick theirs.

Re:Read the ABC blog comments

[greg_barton]

You make it sound like getting into a fight with Bubba will get you shot, which it won't.

All I know is, the only times I've ever heard anyone brag about shooting someone "in self defense" it's come from the lips of a hyperconservative gun nut.

And, being from Texas, how many times have you encountered an "ultraliberal gun nut"? I've never met such a beast. I've met my share of paleoconservative homosexual Catholics, tree hugging pro-nuclear activists, and a fair share of pro-war Unitarians. Ultraliberal gun nut? Never.

Re:Read the ABC blog comments

[nuzak]

> Look. I live in Texas. Here, you don't flip someone off on the highway because you're likely to get shot.

I live in California ... trust me, you don't do that here either. San Francisco, maybe you're safe, but not in Hunters Point.

In Texas, most people don't want to get into a gunfight, they assume you have a shotgun too. However, it's still good advice to not flip off anyone who already has dents in his truck.

Re:Read the ABC blog comments

[greg_barton]

I have Anonymous Coward problems, so suck it.

Re:Read the ABC blog comments

[DAldredge]

That was one of my 'friends' they appear to follow me around :) He/she must not have a life if they can find time to harass me.

Re:Read the ABC blog comments

[spun]

No, no, no. Liberals are just as bad as conservatives, which makes conservatives okay. And liberals still bad. See how that works?

Seriously, neocon fanboys are obviously running scared when their best arguments amount to a rehash of "But moooommmmm! Timmy did it and he didn't get in trouble!"

Re:Read the ABC blog comments

[Tiro]

It's clearly astroturfing. People are being paid to post that shit.

Re:Read the ABC blog comments

[TCM]

(And don't give me any lip about Goodwin's Law. This is serious.)

It's scary that not invoking Godwin's Law actually seems reasonable whenever there's a discussion about the latest US behaviour.

bootycall time!

[Thud457]

does anyone know...

just what is Jeff Gannon's phonenumber?

goddamnit, why can't I post annonymously?!!!

Actually, No... there is no federal Shield law

[HighOrbit]

Read the fucking constitution and look up some judicial records before you open your big, dumb mouth please. The law is very specific about protecting journalistic sources, there is supposed to be no way around it.

No it is not. While most (if not all) states have "shield laws" to protect journalists and their sources, there is not federal equivalent. This is why NY Times reporter Judith Miller went to jail for refusing to disclose her sources. Here is a NY Times editorial advocating a shield law, but there still is not one yet. Perhaps you should do some research before slinging terms like "big, dumb mouth".

Actually, the phone logs on civilians

[WillAffleckUW]

are also being used to correlate with databases on your credit purchases, credit reports, banking records, passport applications (and travel), airline travel, and gas fuel records to try to find linkages, all without your permission.

Trust the computer. The computer is your friend, citizen.

Stop using soldiers to hide bad policy

[NorseWarrior]

I get so tired of people running out the old saw about putting people's lives in danger...I'm one of those people...and I signed on to protect and defend the constitution. You either have to be a right-wing nutcase or have your head in the sand not to realize that the current administration is vastly expanding its role in relationship to the other branches.

Bottom line: if guaranteeing the 1st and 4th amendments (free press and unreasonable searches, for those of you who slept through Civics class) means we lose a few good guys, then that's the cost of doing business. Cold, but true.

And, for all the chickenhawks out there who use soldiers as shields for illegal acts-- to quote my favorite actor, "Pick up a rifle and stand a post."

Re:Stop using soldiers to hide bad policy

[Anonymous Coward]

Bottom line: if guaranteeing the 1st and 4th amendments (free press and unreasonable searches, for those of you who slept through Civics class) means we lose a few good guys, then that's the cost of doing business. Cold, but true.


And, by the way, it's the cheapest possible course of action. The 1st and 4th amendments are worth many lives - they're worth as many lives as would be lost if they were not there. The *vast* majority of all governments that have controlled press and warrentless search and seizure become totalitarian and/or massive human rights violators within maybe a decade or two. I challenge the conservatives on /. to find a counterexample to this, because I don't think I can.

So when people say "Never again", they mean, "support your first and fourth amendments"

You know who the enemy is?

[gaspar ilom]

It's about time we recognize who the phone-tappers, surveillance-freaks, torture-defenders, and black-box voting stooges really are:

They are a threat to Americans, our way of life, and our democracy.

They are a national security threat.

So are their defenders.

Re:You know who the enemy is?

[Trigun]

You're either with us, or you're with the terrorists!
Claw it back a little bit. You're not helping your cause by painting with such a wide brush.

Re:You know who the enemy is?

[gaspar ilom]

Irony.

I'm using the same rhetorical style they've shamelessly applied for the last 5 years.

Unintentional Comedy 101

[DrSbaitso]

Brian Ross, Chief Investigative Correspondent for ABC news says a confidential source informed him that reporter's phone records are being used by the administration to track down leaks.

Man. I hope they didn't talk over the phone, or that confidential source is getting his door kicked in tonight :)

Re:Unintentional Comedy 101

[Animats]

From the article: ""It's time for you to get some new cell phones, quick," the source told us in an in-person conversation."

This is getting bad.

Do you have your papers, citizen?

[WillAffleckUW]

Leaking classified information is a crime. Obviously, the FBI is going to investigate a (potentially criminal) leak of classified inforomation, because it is part of the FBI counter-intelligence and law enforcement missions to do so. It is standard police procedure in a criminal investigation to subpoena or to get a search warrant for telephone records. Nothing new or sensational to see here, move along.

I've declassified material from Secret, Confidential and Restricted to lower levels. I can attest, as a fact, that two-thirds of all material classified to a level higher than Restricted, is in fact classified too high.

And as a former Acting Security Officer, Records Supervisor, and Chief Clerk - in addition to other military duties as a combat field engineer before that - I disagree strongly with your incorrect interpretation of our Constitution and rules of intelligence.

You're entitled to your opinion, but we can disagree as to your interpretation.

Re:Yeah!

[finkployd]

Yeah, the one Bush promised that nobody in his administration had anything to do with leaking the identity of, but if they did they would be fired. The one that Bush appointed an investigator to look into at the request of the CIA.

I'm sure they went to all that trouble for someone who wasn't really covert. You can make the argument that she was not really a secret agent all you want, but Bush can't. He committed himself to finding (and punishing) the one who leaked her identity, right? Why was the CIA pissed and Bush appointing investigators and promising to fire anyone in his administration involved with the leak?

If she was not covert (as many in talk radio love to claim) why didn't Bush just come out and say "Cheney did it, but it is no big deal since she was not covert and I declassified everything" and this whole episode could have been avoided?

Finkployd

Re:Haha..

[lucabrasi999]

Every time the New York Times or the Washington Post leaks about some secret program that is used in the war on terror, therefor invalidating it, I wonder to myself if they will take responsibility for the next terrorist attack.

Every time the White House leaks the name of a CIA Secret Agent, I wonder if they will take responsibility for that Agent's very life.

Re:Nothing to see Here.... move along

[Dan Ost]

Exactly.. when you have a warrant or subpoena. Neither of which they have now.

We don't know what they have yet. This is all purely rumor and speculation. Wait until
we get some facts before jumping to conclusions about what's going on.

The media are government hackers

[VonGuard]

It is difficult enough for the media to keep itself from chewing on its cheeks at the moment. A constant inundation of information is possible these days, and as a result, many television news channels find themselves reporting for hours on meaningless stories, navel-gazing media-on-media coverage, and the latest celebrity items. The quality and necessary work is still being done by reputable mainstream and blogging outlets, but these almost universally require subterfuge, lying, and secrecy to be successful.

The media, when it's good, is underhanded. The media are the original hackers. Woodward and Bernstein hacked Nixon through a backdoor. This backdoor just happened to smoke and hang out in parking structures.

Stories come out much better when the subjects don't initially know they are being observed and written about. It's that hidden observation that lies at the heart of any good story, and it's where those dangerous questions that the media must ask come from. Nixon had no idea that his crimes had been discovered until the Washington Post printed the W&B piece.

A good writer digs through stinking shit-piles to pull out juicy bits of information just as a hacker dumpster-dives to find passwords and old hardware.

But being hidden will be quite hard if the government skirts privacy laws to spy on journalists. It's perfectly, 100% reasonable for the government to check its own records to look for leaks. If these ABC journalists' numbers show up as being called from internal NSA phone lines, then the NSA are perfectly able to track down the leakers internally.

But once they cross the line out into the real world by checking these journalists' personal phone records, a giant leap is made across the gray area that exists between legal and illegal, ethical and unethical, freedom and tyranny.

Speaking as a journalist, I must say that this is probably the single most outrageous thing I've head of this administration doing. Freedom of the press is one of our most dear and treasured rights, and attempts made to quash this freedom undermine not only the media as a whole, but the American people at large.

So, I say unto you, the media and bloggers and pundits and speakers and writers and photographers, stand up for the media's rights. The government is already afraid of the media. It's not afraid of the people as a whole. It's not afraid of a revolution: it has all the guns. But it is certainly afraid of bad publicity.

Fight this injustice, if true, and attack it's creators. They deserve the harshest of punishments for these deeds.

So you take the law into your own hands?

[HighOrbit]

Since when is it ethical to take the law into your own hands? We live in a democratic republic of laws. There are both legal and democratic ways (congressional oversight, elections, reports to IG) of approaching things. Deciding that you are above the law is neither lawful, democratic, or ethical.

As an aside, I find your statement to be curious
Sorry, but when neither is doing their job and people are being tortured and possibly killed without fair trial, it's time to start leaking to the press. That's the bottom line, and you don't get to hide behind "classified information" when you do something that unethical. Period.

Since when have we expected the CIA to be Boy Scouts? I always expected them to be rather low-down and willing to do dirty tricks and willing to kill people as a necessary part of their job. It is what they are hired to do.

Re:So you take the law into your own hands?

[DAldredge]

If our Founding Fathers didn't break unjust laws the United States of America would not be here...

Don't let what is moral stop you from doing what is right.

Re:So you take the law into your own hands?

[nuzak]

> I always expected them to be rather low-down and willing to do dirty tricks and willing to kill people as a necessary part of their job. It is what they are hired to do.

Okay. Let's start with your family.

Re:So you take the law into your own hands?

[rossifer]

Deciding that you are above the law is neither lawful, democratic, or ethical.

I suggest that you do some reading and thinking about the concept of an "unjust law". Many rather famous thinkers through history have come to the conclusion that law and morality are only occasionally aligned and as human beings first, and citizens of a country second, we have a critically important obligation to do what we know is the right thing, even when that is illegal.

It's also commonly noted that you should be willing to submit to the legal punishment for your action.

Since when have we expected the CIA to be Boy Scouts? I always expected them to be rather low-down and willing to do dirty tricks and willing to kill people as a necessary part of their job. It is what they are hired to do.

This statement makes you seem to be a pragmatic (if slightly amoral) fellow. If you are really pragmatic, you probably weren't even slightly suprised when the people who have been mistreated by the CIA (usually relatives or friends of the dead) came to the US seeking your (and my) blood.

Were you suprised by the events of 9/11? I was shocked, but I wasn't suprised.

Ross

Re:So you take the law into your own hands?

[rhakka]

It may not be legal. Whether it's "democratic" or not is irrelevant, we don't live in a democracy, and a representative republic is not the same thing, not even really that close in our current system. Breaking a law may, however, be *quite* ethical, depending on the law. If the law said, for example, you are required to report all black people trying to learn to read to the local authorities... as it has in the past, by implication if not explicitly... because they were breaking a law and by not doing so you were an accomplice to a crime, would it not be ethical to resist such a law?

Laws are important. They are not, however, the be all and end all of civilized society. If they were, we'd all live in Monarchies to this day. Omelets and eggs, remember.

Using the law as your sole judge of right and wrong is lazy, simplistic, and frightenly narrow minded.

Re:So you take the law into your own hands?

[Gooba42]

"Certainly one of the highest duties of the citizen is a scrupulous obedience to the laws of the nation. But it is not the highest duty."

"We are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it."

"It is strangely absurd to suppose that a million of human beings, collected together, are not under the same moral laws which bind each of them separately."

"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it."

"What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance?"

"Let this be the distinctive mark of an American that in cases of commotion, he enlists himself under no man's banner, inquires for no man's name, but repairs to the standard of the laws. Do this, and you need never fear anarchy or tyranny. Your government will be perpetual."

- Thomas Jefferson

This guy seemed pretty on the ball a couple of hundred years back.

Obedience to the law is *not* a moral obligation but in a nation where the leaders are subject to law, no citizen should find want to break them. Should those leaders act as though beyond the scope of the law then it is in fact a moral obligation that we the people should take them to task and force lawful justice upon them as on any other of the citizenry.

Party lines be damned, wake up people! Your labels of Democrat, Republican, Conservative and Liberal are the millstones dragging you into the muck. Do what's right. Vote. Pick the best candidate. Call out those would would commit treason against the spirit of liberty. It *is* this simple. You *are* the power behind the government.

You have fallen for the hype. You are following the script. You are being played for pawns. Just wake up and think! Stop the name calling, stop the labelling and just *think*.

Re:So you take the law into your own hands?

[metamatic]

Since when is it ethical to take the law into your own hands? We live in a democratic republic of laws. There are both legal and democratic ways (congressional oversight, elections, reports to IG) of approaching things. Deciding that you are above the law is neither lawful, democratic, or ethical.

And I bet there were a lot of people just like you, saying exactly the same things, in 1930s Germany.

Incorrect

[Overzeetop]

Information shall not be classified for the purpose of circumventing the laws of the United States. Since you do not necessarily need to divulge the actual classified information to inform the public that an unlawful act has occured, a breach of the classified material must be material which has been classified to keep the unlawful act from becoming public.

I agree that leaking classified info to reporters is not SOP, but there are times when the proper chain of command is not sufficient.

Suprise Hat

[Anonymous Coward]

I, as an IT nerd, am applying to business school for an MBA because, frankly, modern IT bores me. We're on the cusp of machines engineering machines (10 years), making diversification an essential pursuit. When I got into IT, it was like the Wild West and today central administration has taken much of the fun out of the field.

As I started studying economics, I came across a startling paradigm: "if it can exist, then it must." I had heard "if it can exist, it will"; the difference is the probable to the imperative. I'd never considered the imperative of entity existence yet the examples are limitless. If something can exist, then it does and it packaged and sold and someone makes money off it. Witness Japanese 7-11s selling air and the giant bottled water industry. That's all marketing. Do you really believe a two minute shot of pure oxygen does you any long term good? Is the solution for water-borne pollution to consume water in hydrocarbon bottles versus more stringent environmental regulations? It's fucking madness.

Back to IT. Look around you, people, you're nerds and you're smart. The first thing any IT person worth their salt will do is build a database of problems and start tracking needs, for you need to build a history in order to predict how much money you will need next year; it's about tracking resources.

Those resources can be anything, toner, ink cartridges, gigabit fiber ethernet transceivers, SCSI cables, Exchange licenses, web queries. Let's not fuck with the definition of resources.

Instead let's fuck with the concept that we have micro-databases and macro-databases. Micro-databases track the number of bits flowing over port 24 of router XYZ. Macro-databases aggregate all of your micro-databases into "our backbone is 39% utilized and we should plan for capital investment in 2007 of $xx based on 12% traffic growth per year."

Now, replace toner cartridge with New York Times reporter and bandwidth capacity with voter sentiment.

You think 1984 is scary? Open your mind and start changing up the nouns in your daily work. Imagine applying web metrics to health care premiums. Compare intellectual dissent to bugs in program code. We can dance with whatever metaphor you like but while you pussy sissy's debate monolithic kernels and the cost of the PlayStation 3, someone is making sure to build a database that will prohibit your children from having any social mobility and terminate your gene line in a coal mine somewhere.

As I write, I get more vitriolic because the IT and software people I know are among the smartest, most well-educated and most selfish people I know. You think Linux is a project borne of love? Naw look at the psychology behind it all. You have a bunch of pasty nerds who were never cool and always felt excluded by the mainstream social community at different levels of compulsory education and escaped their angst by climbing into a computer screen and fabricating a virtual world.

Unfortunately, they didn't watch Real Genius closely enough for the software code that eventually made them cool is now going to enslave them because they care more about putting an MP3 player in their toilet that their fucking freedom.

Surprise hat. Welcome to hive brain nerd. I'm a marketer with degrees in sociology and psychology. I'll keep telling you linux will get you pussy and you'll keep trading your civil liberties for new Playstations.

nuckcl@yahoo.com

Re:Suprise Hat

[PenGun]

Who gave this well educated moron a one? Why do you even come here, either of you ;)?

    PenGun
  Do What Now ??? ... Standards and Practices !

Re:Suprise Hat

[Anonymous Coward]

putting an MP3 player in their toilet

Sweet, something to do this weekend!

Re:Suprise Hat

[Lord Ender]

Um... what's your point? Seriously. What I got out of that is "you guys are smart" (mod up), bottled water is dumb (mod up), and "quit building and designing new things and... um... realize that data mining is probably being done to snoop on people."

Huh? So I should stop designing new things and... do what exactly? You failed to mention that part.

Re:Suprise Hat

[evought]

I, as an IT nerd, helped Sprint PCS design the database that collects the data which the NSA uses. With the terrabytes of CDRs coming off of their switches every day, it was a hell of a challenge.

The problem with your statement is that this database, like so many others, was developed for a good reason: streamlined, more accurate billing, and fraud detection. The problem, just like with guns, writable DVDs, and UWB scanners is most often in the way the technology is used, not in what it is. How do you separate the legitimate need from the abusive one? How do you separate knowledge of nucleonics that tells us how our Sun works from that which lets us construct bombs?

This is what law is for. This is also why government oversite exists. Both have failed.

Re:Suprise Hat

[Coventry]

As a fellow IT 'nerd' I'm curious - what sort of platform did Sprint use for such a large DB? Custom? BerklyDB? Distributed mysql databases? MS Access (j/k)? Oracle? What OS does the main system use, and is it a teired system (data for past x days in online db, archived data available on seperatly mounted dbs), a cluster or a flat system? If Terabytes of source data enter the system each day, how large was the final db, ballpark of course.

Re:Suprise Hat

[evought]

It was a PS/2 cluster with IBM DB/2 on AIX. If I remember right, it had 25 (4 processor) nodes when we built it, with 50 planned for launch and an increase to 75 within the first year. It was the second largest SP/2 cluster at te time. The largest, Deep Blue (yes, that one), is what we tested on.

The actual program to receive the CDRs and make the database inserts was the hardest and most processor intensive component. It was written in C but designed in an OO fashion. We needed very low-level control over allocation and execution that C++ did not (easily) give us. It processed the records, spread the database inserts across the nodes and sent each batch to a near-line storage system (tape robot). Everything had to have an audit trail to make sure that all the records were processed and nothing was tampered with.

The database expired records on a regular basis and tapes were overwritten (I forget what time period they decided on). This was so their burden in the case of subpoenas was strictly limited (ironic, no?).

We opted to eschew threading and just run multiple processes synchronized through file locks where necessary. It turned out to be seldom necessary and avoided a lot of potential thread-safety issues. There were still under-cooked routines in the AIX threaded C library that we would have needed. The other nicety is that the lock state gave us a lot of information when/if the system went down.

The hardest part of the project was dealing with poor specifications for the CDRs. They used ASN.1 for the encoding, but did not use it to actually *define* the fields, so we had the overhead of converting over-the-wire formats, but no benefit of portability. The sample data we were given was mostly empty (so we *still* had no idea what many fields contained). The database fields and conversion routines were changing daily right up to the testing phase.

Another extremely annoying part was trying to figure out the base times for the records. Each switch reported the call time in its own local time but did not note its time zone or its location. This lead to calls of negative lengths and all sorts of trouble when the program guessed wrong.

Anyway, it was an interesting project. It was actually quite fun to soak test the database loader and get to the point where we could throw essentially anything at it and have it synchronize and throttle correctly. DB/2 handled most of the database side psuedo-automatically. Once the schema was set up, it just worked. The Oracle rep said they could not have guaranteed proper performance over 100+ processors.

Re:Suprise Hat

[khallow]

In other words, you are a parasite. And a pretty screwed up one at that.

Re:Nothing to see Here.... move along

[bidule]

Let me be the first to state that my phone number is classified information. Now try to call me you criminal.

Wasn't there an uproar some time ago about innocent documents being re-classified? Maybe Clinton should have had his sex life classified top secret.
</tongue firmly in cheek>

1984 in 2006

[midian_va]

Just like the "National Security" issue with the illegal wiretapping mentioned before, this is yet another example of the US government overstepping its bounds. The reason (I hope, ideally at least) that people even become informants is because they see something wrong, where an official or entity has illegally or immorally done something that violates ours or anothers freedoms, whether it be life, privacy, or whatever. This will further stifle the ability of informants to help provide the checks and balances needed to make sure that our government entities, whether it be the CIA, FBI, NSA, or worse, have the discipline needed to keep them in check. If "deepthroat" would not have come forward, what else would nixon have done. What about the illegal wiretapping? I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but there is probably a lot that we do not know currently that we should.

Informants provide the leash around the dogs that are out of control, lets keep it that way.

He who controls the mail...

[msbmsb]

He who controls the mail, controls ... Information! - Newman

Re:He who controls the mail...

[nuzak]

He controls the power button, co

Re: Great!

[Black Parrot]

> About time they figure out who is leaking top secret information to the press! I hope they find the traitors and put them in jail for disclosing secret information that could put our troops in danger.

If you want to enjail people for putting our troops in danger, you should start with Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and their cronies. They've gotten 2400 of our troops killed and about ten times that many maimed by starting an unnecessary war on false pretexts.

Bullshit. Illegal orders are not protected.

[khasim]

Divulging classified information is not "whistleblowing", no matter how you look at it.

Bullshit. "Classified" has NOTHING to do with it.

If I give someone an order to rape some little girl and then I get that order classified they would be wrong to follow the order OR to obey the classification.

There are policies in place to report corruption or illegal activities in regards to classifired material.

Yes there are.

So? When the corruption goes to the top then there is nothing wrong with going to the public.

Honestly, people who who security clearance know better than this.

People who have security clearances know that if they do go public, they will face the consequences.

Going public is always an option.

It is the final option.

Whether or not a program is illegal or unconstittutional, leakers have to expect to take a hit.

No one is saying that they shouldn't expect that.

What you're saying is that they should NEVER go public.

I'm saying that going public with an illegal order is the LAST resort and does NOT violate any oath.

They are violating their oaths of secrecy.

Again, you are wrong.

When they go public with information about an ILLEGAL operation / order, they have broken no oaths.

Re:Bullshit. Illegal orders are not protected.

[Ohreally_factor]

You're still not getting the underlying concept.

When the secret activity is illegal activity, then the oath no longer holds legal force. In fact, not breaking an oath might be seen as illegal, as it is engaging in a cover up of an illegal act. If there had been proper judicial and congressional oversight of the activity, we could then have some confidence that the activity was not illegal. Since the Bush Administration has intentionally hid these activities from oversight, it's not unreasonable to doubt their legality.

Re:Bullshit. Illegal orders are not protected.

[GaryPatterson]

People have to individually judge whether they follow any order, based on their own morality. If they don't want to do it, they are morally obliged to speak out. First to their superiors, secondly to an ombudsman and finally to the general public. In that order.

The problem is when their superiors are compromised, and the ombudsman is similarly compromised. All that's left is the public.

Yes, they violated their oaths. Their oaths cannot exceed their constitutional rights though, and they can never be ordered to break a law.

Speaking up against an illegal act is in no way illegal, except under totalitarian regimes.

If the acts themselves are illegal, as they seem to be, then they absolutely did not break the law. However, given their belief in the compromised nature of the government, they have no option but to do this in secret.

Re: The media never misses an opportunity to panic

[Black Parrot]

> If I was running some classified program and information was leaked to the press, you can bet I'd check my department's phone records to see if there were any calls placed to the reporters in question.

What would you do if you were running a classified program and you were expected to do things that violate the law, mislead the public, perpetuate injustice, etc?

What's scary are the comments left on the ABC blog

[inertialmatrix]

The part I find incredibly frightening is that it seems so many citizens of this country do see a problem with this. Sure, they are coming for the communists first, but then what? I am afraid of the hysterical masses that are willing to hand over MY rights to the government. I grew up thinking that the whole purpose of the Bill of Rights was to protect me and others like me from the wacko majority?

You know, we spend a lot of time teaching our children about the men that founded this country, however flawed personally they were, and the ideals they believed in. Maybe it's time we actually stood by those words.

"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Benjamin Franklin


Quotes from ABC News Blog by members of the public:
"Good! I hope they do find out who is leaking national security info to the press. I'm tired of the press helping our enemies. Maybe you guys should start trying to "FOR the USA" instead of "AGAINST the USA" ALL THE TIME. I hope the FBI nails lots of idiots who are out to destroy the intelligence agencies and cost us more soldiers and spys!"

"'Bout time you guys are roped in."

"Excellent the Media needs looking after, Traitors most of them......."

"good, you seditionist creeps deserve what you get. who knows how many serviceman have died because of your "right to know""

"I hope the information they gain allows them to catch the scum that leak information, and helps them arrest the communist scum who publish it."

"Well maybe ABC news better stop leaking classified information. This only helps our enemies and right now I believe ABC news is an enemy of the US."

"You didn't inconvenience someone, you broke the law. It's called a criminal investigation!!!!"

"I believe that it is a great idea to maintain telephone surveilance over news organizations who disclose classified and sensitive secret information. Lets nail the government employees who knowingly break their oath to not divulge classified information."

"GOOD! I hope they find out who is reporting all of these leaks. And I hope you are tried and perhaps spend some time in jail for it. KEEP CALLING and I hope they track your every word!"

Does The Constitution Still Matter?

[viewtouch]

The Constitution specifically states that there can be no laws which abridge (i.e., curtail) the freedom of the press. In plain English that means that The Constitution specifially withholds from the government any authority to even investigate the activities of the people when they are about the business of publishing information.

There are no exceptions to this - not even 'national security'.

Of course if The Constitution is considered merely to be a 'Goddamned Piece of Paper', as Bush has described it, and if the people who are involved in violating The Constitution don't care about adhering to it, then all bets are off, which is pretty much where we in the US are at these days.

Re:Does The Constitution Still Matter?

[coscarart]

Actually there is one major exception relating to national security. That is the publishing of when troops ships are going to be loaded and their destinations. This was during WWII but could probably be extended today for similiar things like troop movements, the location of nuclear submarines and the like.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks. Violations

[erbmjw]

Violating oaths of secrecy .... violating the constitution - you may want to take a look into which one is worse?

IANAL but, no oath of secrecy should take precedence over the responsibilty to uphold/protect the constitution.

What could possibly be wrong with surveillance?

[Malakusen]

Well, here's something. Of course, nobody would ever misuse a government agency for political goals.

SF-312 Nondisclosure Agreement

[aquatone282]

Did the leaker(s) sign the same Standard Form 312 I and every other government employee with access to classified information did?

Please take note of Paragraph 3:

3. I have been advised that the unauthorized disclosure, unauthorized retention, or negligent handling of classified information by me could cause damage or irreparable injury to the United States or could be used to advantage by a foreign nation. I hereby agree that I will never divulge classified information to anyone unless: (a) I have officially verified that the recipient has been properly authorized by the United States Government to receive it; or (b) I have been given prior written notice of authorization from the United States Government Department or Agency (hereinafter Department or Agency) responsible for the classification of the information or last granting me a security clearance that such disclosure is permitted. I understand that if I am uncertain about the classification status of information, I am required to confirm from an authorized official that the information is unclassified before I may disclose it, except to a person as provided in (a) or (b), above. I further understand that I am obligated to comply with laws and regulations that prohibit the unauthorized disclosure of classified information.

Also, please note paragraph 4:

4. I have been advised that any breach of this Agreement may result in the termination of any security clearances I hold; removal from any position of special confidence and trust requiring such clearances; or the termination of my employment or other relationships with the Departments or Agencies that granted my security clearance or clearances. In addition, I have been advised that any unauthorized disclosure of classified information by me may constitute a violation, or violations, of United States criminal laws, including the provisions of Sections 641, 793, 794, 798, *952 and 1924, Title 18, United StatesCode, * the provisions of Section 783(b), Title 50, United States Code, and the provisions of the Intelligence IdentitiesProtection Act of 1982. I recognize that nothing in this Agreement constitutes a waiver by the United States of the right toprosecute me for any statutory violation.

It's high time the people who have taken it upon themselves to sabotage this administration be brought to justice.

Re:SF-312 Nondisclosure Agreement

[Anonymous Coward]

Law may be Law, but sometimes speaking out and breaking the law while doing it is the right thing. As we have found out, via illegal leaks, the government is doing some pretty dishonest and unethical things.

Unfortunately, if George W. Bush himself was found to do something illegal and terrible, such as cold blooded murder, via a leak of confidential government information, there would still be people who would rather condemn the leaker instead of the illegal act that the government was trying to hide.

Re:SF-312 Nondisclosure Agreement

[nagora]

Clearly, any law which exists to protect law-breakers has an internal contradiction. It is up to the individual as to which side of that contradiction to stand on: to obey their SF-312 and thereby allow someone else to act unlawfully, or to break the law and thereby prevent the other person(s) from breaking the law.

Keeping classified information secret when it reveals an abuse of the law is the coward's way out of the dilemma. Even if the actions revealed are not illegal, but simply immoral, the dilema does not go away. Unless you are a spineless weakling who kowtows to the government in the way that the original American rebels refused to do theirs. If you are going to roll over and let (largely unelected) people in the administration act without fear of observation or accountability, you might as well still be living under King George III.

It's high time the people who have taken it upon themselves to sabotage this administration be brought to justice.

Any member of the administration who has done nothing wrong has nothing to fear. Right?

TWW

Re:SF-312 Nondisclosure Agreement

[greg_barton]

It's high time the people who have taken it upon themselves to sabotage this administration be brought to justice.

I agree with part of your statement: It's high time this administration be brought to justice.

Re:SF-312 Nondisclosure Agreement

[UncleFluffy]

... I have been given prior written notice of authorization ...

Question: does the Constitution count as "prior written notice of authorization" in this context?

Re:Nothing to see Here.... move along

[TBone]

Do you know that they don't have a warrant? Are you somehow privy to classified investigations?

Because if they did have warrants, there would be a documented paper trail. In some court somewhere, the NSA would be generating 200 million sealed warrants and subpoenas. This kind of volume would be noticed.

Even if the administration were going through the FISA court, those warrants are only good for gathering enough evidence, on short notice and immediate need, to follow up and come along behind with real warrants and subpoenas.

The reports of what is going on is unwarranted, unsupported data collection on the phone habits of over 200 million US citizens. Not even in the Kevin Bacon game can you possibly come up with 200 million people who are seven degrees related to each other through identified terror suspects.

Re:Nothing to see Here.... move along

[mshiltonj]

Leaking classified information is a crime.

And if the classified information is documentation of crimes committed by the government? Which the government marked as classfied because it doesn't want the public to know it is committing these crimes? What do you do, then?

Which "criminal" do you want to protect? Which "criminal" is doing something wrong?

Exposing the government's criminal and illegal activity to the public is not wrong! These abuses of government power needs to be brought to light.

Traitors

[Hard_Code]

By revealing the government's conspiracy to infringe on our freedoms you are leaking sensitive information and are obstructing the government's ability to protect the freedoms of ours that we now no longer have. Shame on you liberal elitist Slashdot.

AC/Paris, a few corrections and some info for you

[EQ]

"nebulous bad things"?

Umm, there are some craters in NYC and PA and a lot of relatives of dead people that differ with you on your opinion of "nebulous". One of them is a firefighter cousin of mine.

There is a substantive threat out there, and all the naysaying you put forth doesnt change it. Please start dealing with reality, not fantasy.

Whats important is that we do recoginize that there is a threat and as a nation PUBLICLY decide what we are going to do about it. Pretending its not there and we can go back to 1996 isn't going to work (thats your mistkae). Neither is hiding all our efforts under blanket secrecy to prevent such a thing from happening (thats Bush's mistake).

As for this article, please go read it - and other related articles for more detail. The FBI is investigating a crime - the unlawful disclosure of classified information to those not authorized to recieve it USC 18 700-something (you can look it up - its on the books online someplace). Its also a crime to recieve such information and not notify the proper authority, so the reporters may be culpable as well (but may be exempt under Freedom of the Press - thats for the court to decide).

As a result the FBI have gotten court orders to get the call detail records of those suspected of being complicit in this crime. From my time in telecom, I can tell you that this is a routine occurance, and most telcos even have an office that deals with these things, one that is in weekly contact with the local FBI field offices. The surprising thing is that they dont even need a warrant - a simple "Section 2701" court order suffices - and the law even orders that the judge "Shall Issue" such an order when it comes to these kinds of records (in other words the judge doesn't have much choice if the FBI says the need it for investigation into a possible criminal offense - they show up, tell them what they want and walk out with a court order for the telco). There is very little legal protection for this sort of record when a crime is being investigated.

Just though a few facts might counter the hysteria. The sky isnt falling - at least in this instance - the laws are working as they are written to do. And those of you who cite "Secret Prison Camps" - go back and re-research that. They apparently never existed and were a story planted in order to catch leakers (which is what this may be all about).

[And mods, please remember an opposing point of view is not flamebait nor is it a troll. Funny that I oppose both sides, so Im probably going to get modded into oblivion by both sides]

disheartening as ever...

[rootology]

"People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people."

Re:Haha..

[Dis*abstraction]

yeah, much better to bend over and take it up the ass like a nice little politically correct, weak minded sheep

You're talking about the people apologizing for the administration's behavior, right? Right?

The Press should be the ally of the People.

[khasim]

The Press should be the ally of the People.

When the Government considers the Press to be the Enemy, that means that the Government considers an ally of the People to be the Enemy.

That's one step away from considering the People to be the Enemy of the Government.

Re:The Press should be the ally of the People.

[80 85 83 83 89 33]

yes, the press SHOULD be an ally of the people. but the press IS NOT an ally of the people. dude, read some chomsky or something. the mass media is part of the mass mind rape going on. if anyone thinks the powerful big media has mine and your best interests in mind, think again. they are entirely used to spread propaganda and controll and subdue the population. GE, Disney, et al control the freaking world.

Re:The Press should be the ally of the People.

[goldspider]

The press stopped being an ally of the people long ago. That's not to say they are an enemy, but their allegiance clearly lies with The Almighty Dollar.

The only Al Qaida Affiliates

[Philip K Dickhead]

In the US are in the CIA.

I'll probably get more Troll mods for this one. It's not.

http://www.orlingrabbe.com/binladin_timosman.htm

http://www.pnionline.com/dnblog/attytood/archives/ 002721.html

http://invisionfree.com/forums/4th_Space_Cafe/inde x.php?showtopic=285&view=getnewpost

Re:The only Al Qaida Affiliates

[Ohreally_factor]

Don't tell me the reporters have gotten to you already, Phil!

Shades of Ferris Fremont, don't you think?

Re:The only Al Qaida Affiliates

[Philip K Dickhead]

Radio Free America. ;-)

Re:The only Al Qaida Affiliates

[Philip K Dickhead]

Yeah.. Poor Galbraith just died. It's his for attribution.

Re:Nothing to see Here.... move along

[tinkerghost]

You didn't hear the explination? As president, Bush CANNOT LEAK CLASSIFIED INFORMATION because as the chief executive, he has the authority to DECLASIFY anything he wants. So if he said go ahead & blow a CIA cover, that cover becomes declassified by default - nothing illegal here.

It's illegal to not report the government's crimes

[bigtrike]

In this country it is illegal to witness a crime and not report it. When an employee sees the government violating the law, even if it is the CIA, they are obligated to report it. If the employee realizes that the proper channels for investigating such crimes are corrupt and illegally ignorning illegal acts by others, then should it still illegal for them to report crimes to reporters who can embarass the government into following the will of the people?

I'm glad Clinton was not allowed to use his executive privilege to prevent him from being put to trial for lying about a relationship. Surely the trial made us look weak and possibly compromised our national security, but it was necessary. Should this administration be allowed to do anything it wants without similar restrictions?

Or even better

[Malakusen]

What is Abramoff's phone number?

Re:Yawn....

[DAldredge]

A record of everyone who calls gun shops, ammo shops, hunting shops and mags, the NRA and all their friends would be perfect for the ATF to use to generate a list of most of those who have guns.

It would sure make it easier to take peoples guns away if they had that sort of list, would it not?

Re:Haha..

[CKW]

.

Yeah no shit.

Dear sir:

Explain to me how the fuck prisons work any better if they're "secret"?

Explain to me again why you need to be tried and convicted in our triple-party judicial system in public by a jury of citizens with guaranteed access to legal representation, the right to cross-examine your accusers and see and challenge the evidence against you - all under the laws of the land, BUT why "your enemies" need to be tortured and tried in secret without knowing the evidence against them without access to a lawer and held indefinitely based on the arbitrary whim of who again?

WHERE THE FUCK AM I????

.

Why you U.S. Citizens are not fighting back ?

[unity100]

Seriously i mean ? All i hear that loose organisations with small representative base among population trying to do something.

Arent these YOUR rights ? Why arent you fighting back ? Isnt being ripped off your rights by your government similar to being ripped off your rights by a foreign power, like in 1774 ?

Re:Why you U.S. Citizens are not fighting back ?

[zerocool^]

Because we feel desperately hopeless. Those who question are made out to be unpatriotic. We have no opposition leadership, no one is willing to stand up and lead the challange to the Administration: The other party is (rightly) afraid that whoever stands up against them will get nuked the fuck out in the press.

The administration is ruthless. Nothing that they don't want to happen takes hold. Which just leads us back to "What can we do?". I'm worried about paying for my gasoline, and I only fill up once a month. Daycare, healthcare, rent, debt. These are the things that concern me. I apologize on behalf of the rest of us 'Muricans, but it's honestly hard to worry about marching on Washington over privacy rights when I'm more concerned with paying for daycare and health insurance and working unapproved, unpaid overtime. It's a more pressing concern.

~Will

Re:Why you U.S. Citizens are not fighting back ?

[unity100]

You are being held in a state of worry through the economic practices so you would not rise to object. On another side your taxes and dearly paid gasoline fees goes to be paid to military-industrial complex for the purchase of weapons, they feed the adminstration and cycle goes on. You need to break it from some place, be it privacy rights, or your economical supression.

Re:Why you U.S. Citizens are not fighting back ?

[eander315]

Some of us are. I think a huge percentage of the US public is just getting used to the idea that Bush isn't great, his policies are questionable at best, and that the rest of our government is rapidly becoming as bad as the ones they're trying to replace. Those people will probably take awhile to actually get off the fence and raise their voice.

That's in the Blue States. Here in the heart of Bushland (Houston, TX), you can get your teeth knocked out for criticising our President too loudly. It's difficult to get your point across to people who get all of their information from FOX News, and write you off as nuts the moment they realize what you're saying.

There are people trying to do something about this mess. Tom Delay has been effectively removed from power, Cindy Sheehan parked herself on Bush's doorstep for weeks, and I have a feeling the Hispanic population isn't very pleased with our current government right now, and will probably turn out to vote in massive numbers, with or without formal organization.

Even in the middle of a Red State, Americans are slowly changing their minds. I can't imagine what it looks like outside the US looking in, but I assure you we're not all sitting idly by watching our rights slip away.

Re:Why you U.S. Citizens are not fighting back ?

[dfenstrate]

Template A (note to editors: to be used after every terrorist atrocity): "Angry family members, experts and opposition politicians demand to know why complacent government didn't connect the dots."

Template B (note to editors: to be used in the run-up to the next terrorist atrocity): "Shocking new report leaked to New York Times for Pulitzer Prize Leak Of The Year Award nomination reveals that paranoid government officials are trying to connect the dots! See pages 3,4,6,7,8, 13-37." -- Mark Steyn

Re:Why you U.S. Citizens are not fighting back ?

[kilfarsnar]

I think that Zerocool^'s response was a good partial explanation. I'm not sure where you are or how well you know American culture. But we Americans are a self-absorbed bunch. Many of us have a comfortable life here, and we don't want to disturb that. Many of us, having been shocked by the 9/11 attacks, now look to the government for safety and security. So we are wary of the government's actions, but also still scared of the "terrorists". So we are pulled in different directions at once. I think that violations of our rights and freedoms would need to become more flagrant and obvious before most Americans would take to the streets. Our mistrust of the government would have to outweigh our fear of terrorists. On the whole, that has not happened.

While it may seem obvious to outsiders what is happening, we do not have the same viewpoint. We trust our government more than you do. More than we should, IMO. There are a lot of psychic hurdles that must be overcome before most people will think that their own countrymen, their own President, indeed their own government has turned on them.

Finally, I think part of the reason that more people are not speaking up is that the implications of coming to the conclusion that you have a rogue government are so serious and profound. It's the same reason we do nothing about our dependence on oil. In the face of all the hard work and difficulty and pain involved with making these changes, many of us prefer to pretend it will all work out okay somehow. We desprately need to hold on to this fantasy, because the alternative will bring our world crashing down.

Re:Why you U.S. Citizens are not fighting back ?

[unity100]

I admit that you have put all perfectly together in this post ...

Shocking recollections in spite of Godwin's Law

[D4C5CE]

I realize that by Godwin's Law I've lost this argument already, but if Goering's comments from 60 years ago don't make your spine tingle, what does?

Then at least the arguments of someone even higher up in that particular hierarchy that's fortunately history probably will...give everyone the creeps:
Shirer (1959) has this translation:

If anyone reproaches me and asks why I did not resort to the regular courts of justice, then all I can say is this: In this hour I was responsible for the fate of the German people, and thereby I became the supreme judge (oberster Gerichtsherr) of the German people.

MOD UP

[Zork the Almighty]

If the government were operating within the law, citizens would not need to resort to illegal actions to check their power. The leaking of information about corruption and abuse is the last resort of non-violent persons. Without this measure, the only remaining recourse is to overthrow the government by force. That's an even bigger mess, because then people have to trust someone (either the government, or the revolutionaries) without any real facts or information. Being both violent and ignorant, that is far from a civilized solution.

We should not let the government have this power (legal or illegal) to prevent leaks. It is not a noble cause, and the result is a more barbaric society because people have fewer avenues of recourse to address injustice.

Re:Haha..

[hacker]

"Plain and simple, this is a way for the powers-that-be to clamp down on news that makes them look bad."

Ironic how close this situation is to modeling Al Jazeera, now isn't it?

With all of this "Sorry, we suspended the Constitution in the name of national security", and "We can't tell you what illegal activities we're using, because that would be a violation of national security" rhetoric, we're getting closer and closer to exactly where they are with their extreme regime.

Nice.

To the Government I say:

[erroneus]

"If you haven't been doing anything wrong, then you have nothing to worry about." Isn't that the line we've been fed for decades?

Seems like over and over, the government blocks legal recourse against government activity under the guise of national security. The courts system is now broken since they cannot access the information they need to take action. Congress and the Senate have the same troubles. That's two critical parts of the US government being held back by the executive.

IMPEACH NOW and let's get some real truth.

Re:To the Government I say:

[caluml]

Can someone explain to the rest of us how the impeachment process works?
Can't a random American start the ball rolling?

Re:To the Government I say:

[nuzak]

> Can't a random American start the ball rolling?

If your name is Richard Mellon Scaife, the answer is yes. I guess it's not really random, is it?

Otherwise, no. Impeachment is basically a censure vote of the house, that goes to the senate for a special session, and requires a 2/3 supermajority.

You will not see the GOP-controlled senate impeach Bush, no matter how bad it gets. If Bush personally tortured someone to death in Gitmo on live TV, you might get Spectre's and McCain's votes, but no more than that.

If they want to prosecute, they have a warrant

[HighOrbit]

If they are approaching this as a criminal matter with intent to prosecute, they have a warrant because the evidence would otherwise be inadmissible. So you can bet your bottom dollar that they have a warrant.

The other matters that you refer to involve the NSA, which is not an law enformence agency. So those have been approached as intelligence operations. In those cases, they apparantly have no intent of prosecuting anybody, but appear to be more interested in the security aspects. Indeed, posse commitatus would prevent NSA from gathering information to be used in criminal prosecutiongs since NSA is part of DoD.

Re:If they want to prosecute, they have a warrant

[retards]

If they are approaching this as a criminal matter with intent to prosecute, they have a warrant because the evidence would otherwise be inadmissible. So you can bet your bottom dollar that they have a warrant.

Who needs to prosecute when you have 'anomalies' like Gitmo? Or how about the deranged man who was shot to death last year by an air marshall _after_ leaving the plane, an act which in most countries would be gross man-slaughter if not murder, an act which most politicians in the US championed as proof that the 'system works'. The system works because because an innocent and unarmed man was shot to death by government agents. It would seem to me that your belief that due process will never be side-stepped by the US government is a bit naive.

Also, it's probably very naive for me to post comments like this on an American sever. Maybe I'll be extradited in 15 years for 'spreading subersive propaganda'.

Re:If they want to prosecute, they have a warrant

[Mad_Rain]

While I agree that the man was unarmed, he acted in a suspicious and dangerous way because of his mental illness. The Air Marshals acted in accordance with their training. They're not mental health professionals. They don't have x-ray vision, and they don't have any knowledge about what was in his backpack, so when he says "I have a bomb," they believed him, and acted in a way to protect themselves and the civilians on the plane and in the terminal. It is unfortunate, but I wouldn't hold that example up as a violation of "due process."

CNN article here.

Re:If they want to prosecute, they have a warrant

[aztec rain god]

Prosecution? Prosecution? Ha! Thats good. Picture this- Johnny Terrorist dials your number by accident. The communication gets logged in the NSA database. Over to your house come the agents to offer a little extraordinary rendition fun! Badges? We don't need no stinking badges!

Re:If they want to prosecute, they have a warrant

[retards]

Most countries do not allow weapons of any kind on aircraft. I have not heard of any case where armed air marshalls have saved lives, only taken lives.

They're not mental health professionals.

They should be, since they apparently are allowed to shoot people for things they say.

They don't have x-ray vision, and they don't have any knowledge about what was in his backpack

That backpack had been x-rayed before it got on the plane.

The only reason I can see that this kind of behavior is tolerated is that a great many in the US are in a state of complete paranoia. I mean, come on, they _killed_ him! They didn't shoot him in the leg to stop him, they shot him dead!

It is unfortunate, but I wouldn't hold that example up as a violation of "due process."

You see no problem with the fact that plain-clothes officers shoot unarmed people to death because they will not follow orders yelled at them? No problem in the fact that these officers are not prosecuted, rather touted as heroes? Too bad for Mr. Alpizar he didn't get a trial, but hey, he had dark skin and said 'bomb', he should have known better, he deserved to die. Right?

Re:If they want to prosecute, they have a warrant

[Mad_Rain]

They should be, since they apparently are allowed to shoot people for things they say.

As a mental health professional (PhD in Clinical Psychology), who has worked with dangerous populations (severely mentally ill people, both in and out of the legal system), the air marshals thought processes and training does not have time to include doing provisional rule-out diagnoses of mental illness. Even if they did have time to diagnose him with bipolar, or paranoid schizophrenia, he could still have a bomb and intend to harm people. They have to be law enforcement officers first.

That backpack had been x-rayed before it got on the plane.

1. He was traveling from Medellin, Columbia, a place not well-known for security and cooperation with law-enforcement. 2. Although I can't find more recent link to back it up right now, I'm sure that air marshals are aware that airport security still has a high failure rate at identifying dangerous materials coming on and off planes.

They didn't shoot him in the leg to stop him, they shot him dead!

Again, this is part of their training. Aiming for an arm or leg increases the chance of missing and hitting unintended targets. If he had a bomb, wounding him may have prompted him to try and detonate it.

You see no problem with the fact that plain-clothes officers shoot unarmed people to death because they will not follow orders yelled at them? No problem in the fact that these officers are not prosecuted, rather touted as heroes? Too bad for Mr. Alpizar he didn't get a trial, but hey, he had dark skin and said 'bomb', he should have known better, he deserved to die. Right?

The CNN article I linked to previously stated that both officers had clean records from their previous jobs. I don't think they should be touted as heroes though, and Mr. Alpizar certainly didn't deserve to die. They were people doing their job, in a way consistent with their training, in a manner that would be upheld by the court. Given their limited available information, they took steps to protect the greatest number of people.

Re:If they want to prosecute, they have a warrant

[retards]

As a mental health professional (PhD in Clinical Psychology), who has worked with dangerous populations

OK, credit where credit is due. However, this does not change the fact that someone was killed. I'm sure there are plenty of examples of people being trained to kill others in certain situations that you do NOT approve of. I can only assume that your argument is based on the assumption that there are lots of people with bombs on airplanes and that therefore there is a need to give carte blanche to air marshals. The only problem with this argument is that planes are not blowing up all the time nor are there lots of thwarted plots.

He was traveling from Medellin, Columbia, a place not well-known for security and cooperation with law-enforcement.

So what? Do all people travelling from there get shot? No, apparently only people acting crazy. So, again, behave on the airplane or you are dead. If you want to detonate a bomb, do it without the antics and you'll be fine.

If he had a bomb, wounding him may have prompted him to try and detonate it.

A bomb small enough to go undetected would not do a lot of damage on the ground. It might have killed the agents, however, depending on how close they were. Even if he had some really evil explosives, more than a few pounds would be very hard to conceal. But there was no bomb. There _could_ be a bomb on lots flights, quick, call the cops! Somebody fucked up big time.

They were people doing their job, in a way consistent with their training, in a manner that would be upheld by the court. Given their limited available information, they took steps to protect the greatest number of people.

And I'm saying the job sucks and the US is the only country I've heard of that has armed guards on commercial flights. It's insane to have firearms on an airplane, you cannot start punching holes in the airplane hull at 10 km. The air marshal program is nothing but a dog-and-pony show to give people a sense of security.

But, there could have been a bomb, and it could have taken out the whole plane in the air without the marshals having time to even blink. Because Mr. Alpizar acted up on the ground he got killed by mistake. Tell me again how these agents were doing their part to make air travel safer?

Re:If they want to prosecute, they have a warrant

[Mad_Rain]

I can only assume that your argument is based on the assumption that there are lots of people with bombs on airplanes and that therefore there is a need to give carte blanche to air marshals. The only problem with this argument is that planes are not blowing up all the time nor are there lots of thwarted plots.

Well, your first mistake is making unwarranted assumptions. In fact, my thinking was closer to the opposite. First, I don't think law enforcement officials should ever get carte blanche in any situation. All of their actions should be overseen, scrutinized, and their actions should fit the circumstances (and if their behavior doesn't fit, they get prosecuted to the full extent of the law). Second, if the Air Marshals were seeing this kind of bizarre behavior all the time, then I would expect their training would be different, and the situation would be handled differently.

So what? Do all people travelling from there get shot? No, apparently only people acting crazy.

I'm saying that the chances of smuggling something from Columbia are slightly higher, so I imagine they're already suspicious. When you believe that your life and lives you are sworn to protect are being threatened by a person who is behaving in a crazy way, then what would you do in that officer's place?

A bomb small enough to go undetected would not do a lot of damage on the ground. It might have killed the agents, however, depending on how close they were. Even if he had some really evil explosives, more than a few pounds would be very hard to conceal.

Well, maybe I'm being "creative" (the result of too many bad movies, I'm sure) but a bomb could be elsewhere on the plane, and the detonator was all he had. What if it was near the hundred of gallons of jet fuel that are on planes and at airports? The point is, they did not know at that time. Hindsight is 20-20.

The air marshal program is nothing but a dog-and-pony show to give people a sense of security.

I'll agree that there is a great deal of false security involved in air transportation. However, they were placed in an unfortunate no-win situation, (if nothing, read the last paragraph) and having well-publicized security in place is a deterrent to some people who might attempt something outrageous.

Tell me again how these agents were doing their part to make air travel safer?

Let me flip that around - Tell me how you'd explain to the general population how allowing a mentally ill guy who is making bomb threats run free around an airport is safe or acceptable? I'm not saying that the answer is "shoot him, no questions," but the limited amount of information and the limited amount of time to make a different decision in this case just is not there. (Again, hindsight 20-20, and they are in a no-win situation).

oversight

[rodentia]

Given what little we've been able to glean about these programs (which increasingly appear part of a broad, focused initiative to enable domestic information gathering without *wiretapping*) and that thousands of false leads seem decidedly counter-productive, their primary utility appears to be the extortion of political opponents and intimidation of the press.

And no, there is no oversight. That is the statutory role of the FISA court, whose creation was in direct response to the preceived need for warrantless surveillance. This court was avoided precisely because the true scope of this fishing expedition is in direct violation of the 4th Amendment, as the court would have informed Cheney, Hayden, Gonzalez, et. al. directly and in no uncertain terms.

Dubya makes Tricky Dick look like a patsy. These actions have threatened the foundation of the Republic and as they have sown, so shall they reap. Far from strengthening authority, they are challenging American's respect for it; this will not be without consequences for the health of our political system. Let's not forget that the *malaise* of the Carter years was largely a consequence of the betrayal of America's trust in civil institutions by a sitting President.

Who elected the reporters?

[geoffrobinson]

This post makes a good point. Let me add to it.

Who elected the reporters and gave them this authority? No one? Are they a law unto themselves?

If you do this, looking at your phone calls is mild.

Re:Haha..

[rk]

"I called pizzahut and ordered a pizza. How many thousands of my tax dollars were spent so that the government could find out I like pepperoni?"

Oh, really? Terrorists communicate between cells with messages encoded by the position of pepperoni on pizzas. And you like pepperoni...Hmmm!

We'll be sending a car over for you momentarily.

Nothing to Fear

[tengu1sd]

If you're not questioning the Imperial Bush Administration, you have nothing to fear. Only the terroristreporters need to worry about their records, the Good American(tm) reporters can go about their business.

Who else believe that G W Bush studied for the Presidency? He just stopped reading the Constitution afer The President shall have power. . .

Again, BULLSHIT!

[khasim]

I am saying that what they did was illegal, and violated their oaths.

BULLSHIT!

There is nothing "illegal" about dis-obeying an illegal order. FUCK!!! Didn't we go through that sufficiently back at the Nurnberg Trials?

There is nothing "illegal" about telling someone that you were given an illegal order.

If the order / operation is ILLEGAL then refusing it or revealing it cannot be illegal.

If they leak this information, they should face the consequences.

Get a fucking clue you ass-sucking moron!

Look up the "Witness Protection Program". We have a long history of protecting people who broke illegal oaths to reveal the facts and who didn't want to "face the consequences" that criminals would like to bring down upon them.

Why do you want them to suffer just because the CRIMINALS are part of the GOVERNMENT?

Oh, it's because you don't want them to reveal the lies in the first place, isn't it?

Re:Again, BULLSHIT!

[Dread_ed]

"There is nothing "illegal" about dis-obeying an illegal order. FUCK!!! "

Re-writing for the mindless massses...

Didn't we go through that sufficiently back in "A few Good Men"?

You owe me a new keyboard!

[spun]

Anyone know how to get that coffee taste out of your sinuses after you blow it through your nose? Damn, I'm writing that one down. No, I'm memorizing it.

To paraphrase Crocadile Dundee, "You call that a troll? This is a troll!"

Nixon would never make it.

[mcmonkey]

Wonder how f'ed up the G.O.P. has become?

Nixon couldn't make today--he'd be way too liberal! The guy set up the EPA, visited Moscow and China, negotiated SALT I...

Don't get me wrong, I'm a big Nixon fan. But here we have one of the most power-hungry, fascist, paranoid figures in the history of American politics, and there's no way he'd get within a mile of the White House today. He wasn't power-hungry, fascist, or paranoid enough!

Re:Nixon would never make it.

[sconeu]

Until Watergate, Nixon was actually on his way to being one of the best Presidents of the 20th Century.

When government breaks the law

[cohomology]

When it is the government that breaks the law, a citizen has the obligation to expose it. Maybe the leaker (in government or not) should go to jail, but it is even more important that the government officials responsible for original crime do too -- they are more dangerous because they have more power.

As for reporters who refuse to identify leakers of classified information - Jail the lawbreaking reporters! I support the role of law. But I trust their reporting more than I trust the reporting of law-abiding reporters without principles.

"law-breaker" does not equal "untrustworthy"

Re:When government breaks the law

[trutek]

"law-breaker" does not equal "untrustworthy" is your iq below 50 or what?

Re:When government breaks the law

[vidarh]

It would appear yours might be. There's no implied connection between the two in the general case.

Re:When government breaks the law

[cohomology]

What is so surprising about the idea that breaking the law can
be honorable? Ever know anybody who went to jail for a principle?

Were Thoreau and Martin Luther King stupid?
How about the original Martin Luther, founder of the Lutheran church?

Civil disobedience, combined with accepting the punishment,
is an honorable traditional long practised by some brilliant
people.

I can't tell from your comment whether you disagree with the strategy
of civil disobedience, or with the people doing it today. The motives
of the people doing it today aren't clear yet.

Re:When government breaks the law

[trutek]

u r right and i am wrong. i did not read your original post well enough. i agree with you completly. sorry it apears that i am the one with an iq of less than 50. i thought you were refering to the politions when you said lawbreaker is not equal to untrustworthy. again i apoligize

Is it just me?

[erroneus]

Am I the only one who keeps hearing,

"But my lord?! Is the Legal?!"
"...I will MAKE it legal!"

Bush is starting to resemble Palpatine more and more each passing day. (I can only make this statement on Slashdot)

Re:Great!

[Goaway]

Man, that's some awesome gut feeling you have, to be able to tell so easily when people are actually stupider than you, and not just pulling your leg, trying to get you to act superior!

Re:Haha..

[mobby_6kl]

>God Forbid the terrorists be blamed for the attacks. Much better to use the fear of terrorism to fight against whatever political beliefs you disagree with, right?

No way! Terrorists can't be more than 50% responsible for their actions!

On Oct. 26, unanimously, the jury said the guys who carried out the [93 WTC] bombing were only 32 percent responsible for the damages. PointOfLaw

No, it doesn't.

[RLiegh]

We traded it in for the right to watch "The Apprentice" free of married homosexual neighbors and other terrorists.

REPUBLICANS ARE TRAITORS. PERIOD.

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no doubt about it, Republicans ARE traitors.

Re:REPUBLICANS ARE TRAITORS. PERIOD.

[aussersterne]

Agreed.

Re:REPUBLICANS ARE TRAITORS. PERIOD.

[abefij]

Do the math:

400,000+ in mass graves / 20 years = 20,000 lives lost per year under Saddam Hussien.

36,000 (IraqBodyCount) / 3 years = 12,000 lives lost per year since the war started.

So Bush and Blair are saving 8,000 lives per year. I would think any humanitarian would be happy that more people are living longer lives.

I suppose that status quo was Ok with you then?

The status quo was not peace. 20,000 lives lost per year was not peace.

It's only because of men like Bush and Blair that there is any hope for peace in the future... and there is hope where there wasn't any before.

Re:REPUBLICANS ARE TRAITORS. PERIOD.

[aussersterne]

The Iraqi body count exceeds 100k, you have been lied to by your government, check the NGO numbers, not the Bush administration numbers. The numbers are much, much higher if you count the years of sanctions.

More to the point, the ends to not justify the means. The damage done by the American administrations to the most highly developed, educated, and secular nation in the middle east will have repercussions for decades, perhaps even centuries to come. Your ilk have successfully destabilized the entire region, increased terrorism tenfold, set back global diplomacy to pre-enlightenment status, and all in order to line their own pockets (though some of you seem to be unable to grasp this fact, despite the lack of WMD, the lack of terrorist ties, the lack of any conceivable other gain, diplomatic or otherwise).

In short, yes, we and the Iraqis were all better off with Saddam. Two wrongs do not make a right, and make no mistake, Bush's wrongs are by far the greater. They should all be on trial for crimes against humanity, but so should the colonialists who fabricated Iraq in the first place, not to mention the ones that unleashed plauges on native Americans as they founded the godforsaken country that would become the US.

People like you have to be stopped. Civil war is coming, since you and people like you will settle for nothing less. Hopefully humanity will win.

Re:REPUBLICANS ARE TRAITORS. PERIOD.

[abefij]

IraqBodyCount.org is not the Bush administration. The 100K number is BS. I know exactly where it comes from, and the motives of those behind it.

Your personal burden of proof must be set on low. I'm astounded you would bring up sanctions after seeing the fallout from the Oil For Food program. By your logic, Bush1 should have finished the Job. I dare you to use widely accepted, and honest numbers and come up with a scenario where things were better under Saddam. I know you cannot honestly do it.

Re:REPUBLICANS ARE TRAITORS. PERIOD.

[aussersterne]

Give me a break, it was thanks to Bush One's blessing that Saddam felt that he could invade Kuwait with American support in the first place. Finish the job? Bush I should never have started it. The entire Iraq fiasco from the beginning has been a bow to the military industrial complex and the circle of capital at the top of US economic and military policy.

Stop drinking the Hannitized kool-aid and realize that not only are the numbers already much higher than those the administration give to you, but they will accumulate for many years to come--and that blood is on your hands, the hands of every American, and the hands of US soldiers and administrations.

Read the subject of this thread. It's the truth, only "TRAITORS" should probably be replaced with "CRIMINALS."

Re:REPUBLICANS ARE TRAITORS. PERIOD.

[abefij]

Give me a break, it was thanks to Bush One's blessing that Saddam felt that he could invade Kuwait with American support in the first place.

Funny.

Finish the job? Bush I should never have started it. The entire Iraq fiasco from the beginning has been a bow to the military industrial complex and the circle of capital at the top of US economic and military policy.

From your previous statements it appeared you preferred there be no sanctions. If Bush1 has finished the job, which was procluded by the U.N., then sanctions would never have been necessary. I suppose you found the annexation of Kuwait acceptable.

For those who didn't want war in Iraq, what did you think was going on before? Kurdish guerrillas were fighting on the north, and American and British planes were enforcing a no fly zone in order to keep Saddam from committing another act of genocide. Where do you think the mass graves came from? Do you really believe that in such a situation the world should stand idly by and watch in order to preserve the "peace"?

What peace? There was no peace. Amnesty international used to champion the cause of the Kurdish north, as long as nobody actually did anything about it. Now that fewer people are dieing in Iraq than at any time since Saddam gained power everyone is jumping on the 'beat up America' bandwagon.

Now everyone expects the USA to carry the water in Iran, and Sudan, while at the same time getting ready to jump all over anything that is done at the same time. It would be funny if it weren't so sad.

Stop drinking the Hannitized kool-aid and realize that not only are the numbers already much higher than those the administration give to you

When you can't debate the issues at hand, resort to name calling.

Iraqbodycount.org is not the Bush administration. It is based in the UK and associated with PeaceUK. Go and take a look, read how they actually verify their numbers. They counted all of the lives lost under the sanctions too, only they hid them when it was pointed out that fewer people were dying since the U.S. invaded. Did you even read the content of my last post?

but they will accumulate for many years to come--and that blood is on your hands, the hands of every American, and the hands of US soldiers and administrations.

The hands of every American? It is only because of America that the body count even has a chance to go down, as it has already done. Those 24,000 lives saved so far are real lives.

Leave emotion out of it, and only accept that which can be proven.

Re:REPUBLICANS ARE TRAITORS. PERIOD.

[aussersterne]

You miss the point. The Kuwaiti annexation was precipitated by Bush I. Without there would be no sanctions, no UN programs, no current Iraq war.

The Lancet and other preeminent, *peer-reviewed* medical journals who have published on the subject thanks to the first-hand work of international medical personnel peg the Iraqi civilian death count at 100k or more, and 'Iraqiyun, one of the multiple Iraqi NGOs that actually have to tag the bodies, provide social support, and notify the relatives put it at 128k plus. They are there, on the ground.

Your "facts" are little more than conservative propaganda, as is your notion that the Kuwaiti annexation was entirely Saddam's fault, rather than a calculated miscalculation by the first Bush administration and the defense industry.

Re:REPUBLICANS ARE TRAITORS. PERIOD.

[Wes Janson]

I have to take fault with your statistics. I'm not going to argue your actual numbers, because I don't think either of us really know for sure what they are. But let's assume that 400,000 and 36,000 are accurate. What I'd like to know is what the distribution of those 400,000 is. How many were being killed on average per year from, say, 1995 to 2000? Then tell me how long Saddam most likely had left to live, and how many would have died in that time period. That's a more equal representation of the numbers.

Re:REPUBLICANS ARE TRAITORS. PERIOD.

[Savantissimo]

The sanctions were the real killer, and the water system (which was fine until we bombed it in Gulf War I) is still killing tens of thousands of children and others every year. Perhaps 1 million children under the age of 5 have died due to bad water and malnutrition since Gulf War I.

The Iraqi under-5 mortality rate was 50 in 1990 and 125 in 2005. 122,000 Iraqi children under 5 died in 2005. (UNICEF
That is at least 512,000 excess child deaths since 1999 when UNICEF estimated there had been at least 500,000 excess child deaths since sanctions began.

The Politics of Dead Children"The other, far more credible source of the 500,000 number is a pair of 1999 UNICEF studies that estimated the under-5 mortality rates of both Iraqi regions based on interviews with a total of 40,000 households."

Is killing over a million infants, preschoolers and kindergarteners worth it? Maybe you should do that calculations again.

Picture a square mile of child graves.

Picture a solid pile of tiny bodies five hundred feet by five hundred feet and four feet high.

It makes me sick to know that my country has done this and continues to do this. This is a crime against humanity in the most revolting possible form, and all those who supported war and sanctions have the blood of a million children on their hands.

Re:What they are doing doesn't require the NSA

[ActionAL]

you must be of the 29%

for that matter

[Malakusen]

They tend to give medals to people they should be prosecuting.

It's ironic isn't it

[DoctaWatson]

I wonder if those same people would be so cavalier about bringing treason charges against the Plame leakers in the Bush Administration...

In Soviet Russia...

[Anonymous Coward]

...the NSA monitors you!

Wait a minute... holy f**k!

So what would YOU do?

[spun]

I suspect that you would bend over, spread your cheeks and say, "come and get it, Mr. Bush." I mean really, where do you draw the line? How far is too far? And what do you do when the government has gone too far, and then tried to make it illegal to say, "you've gone too far?" There comes a point when you have to say, "fuck it, this is not right, and I'm going to do somethign about it, even if it means (at the least) my job."

I have the upmost respect for people like that, and the upmost contempt for apologists for the abuse of power.

Great...

[Wildfox01]

I now live in a country where I am more afraid of the president then any terrorist. One of the differences is the terrorists don't have nuclear arms. Bush does... (shudder)

Confidential source?

[abefij]

How does anyone know if this is a real story or not? What we have so far is just hearsay, trumped up by a bunch of reporters who want to believe it, or want you to believe it based on last weeks story. This confidential source may in fact be made up. Who believes a single confidential source cited in a news story anyway? Apparently most slashdot readers do. I don't necessarily believe it's true, nor do I believe it's beyond the realm of possibility. The point is I won't believe it until my own personal burden of proof has been met. What is your personal acceptable burden of truth? Right now all I can do is rule it a possibility, which is what it was last week without the story, which means this is not news... yet. What amazes me is that there can be so much emotion and/or vitreol based on "No Provable Facts". Why comment on a story, until you know (yes actually know) whether its primary point is true? So many people leap to conclusions these days that it may soon be considered as a new Olympic event.

Re:Haha..

[Tsunayoshi]

You mean how Bush outed Plame and thus caused the undercover company that watched Iran's nukes to fold? That kind of leak?

Yep, that kind of leak. Funny how that one seemed to have slipped by. Personally, when I got my clearance I signed a letter to the effect that at any time for the rest of my life if I disclose classified information I am subject to X thousands of dollars in fines and Y number of year in a federal prison.

Apparently if you are important enough you can skip that signing part when you get a clearance.

I will be soooo glad

[a_greer2005]

when we can just be done with Bushes reign of criminality.

Re:Nothing to see Here.... move along

[ArcherB]

WTF is a predator missile (my emphasis)?

Watergate

[will_urbanski]

Am I the only one who remembers Watergate? When Nixon wiretapped it was illegal, the law HAS NOT CHANGED.

Re:Watergate

[fishbowl]

"Am I the only one who remembers Watergate? When Nixon wiretapped it was illegal, the law HAS NOT CHANGED."

I remember Watergate. And I clearly remember that the public perception of the hotel breakin was not widely understood to be significant until it was shown that it was a catalyst for a high-level coverup. Today, people don't seem to understand the significance of the Valerie Plame affair, and I suspect they will not, until investigating the subsequent coverup becomes a congressional priority.

As for the phone tapping, it's a crime. It is still a crime even if the President of the United States declares it not to be. So who tapped phones, and for what purpose? We cannot take this case straight from the evidence on the table to an impeachment hearing, as it sits.

Also, I don't understand why Qwest is getting a free pass on this. Yes, they refused to participate in a government conspiracy to deprive people of their constitutional right to not have evidence gathered against them without a warrant and suspicion of a specific crime. But while they refused to participate, they still helped cover it up.

Remember Moussaoui? His crime was knowing about the conspiracy and failing to report it.

As far as I'm concerned, the executives at Qwest should face the exact same punishment, because they have committed precisely the same crime.

Time to make Advocatus Diaboli

[Snarfangel]

...or Devil's Advocate, a cabinet position. The opposing party (or parties) in Congress should be able to choose one person who has complete access to the President, including top-secret meetings, so they can A) Tell him he's acting like a moron (Caesar, you too are mortal), and B) Let people know if he continues to act like a moron.

For those that claim this would simply feed the 24-hour scandal cycle on news programs, if the President can't act like some guy upstairs is scrutinizing his every move -- despite claiming to be a Christian -- then he can darned well tolerate it when some guy from downstairs does the same thing. The Democrats would certainly broadcast every little misstep of a Republican President (and vice versa), but they would go to great pains to at least pretend they are being fair and patriotic. As it is, decisions that affect everyone are done in total secrecy, and checks and balances is being tossed by the wayside.

If I was an investigative reporter .....

[nblender]

...I'd grab a government phone list and start calling high ranking officials and administrative assistants; like every day... "Hi how are you? Good. So, how what did you have for lunch today? Really. Ok; well, been good talking to you. Have a nice day."

Typo, Links, and such.

[inertialmatrix]

Just wanted to note that there was a typo in the first line... instead of "citizens of this country do see a problem ", it should be "citizens of this country don't see a problem". Sorry if there was any confusion.

For those interested, the link to the ABC blog is: http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2006/05/federa l_source_.html

The BF quote is from Wikiquote: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin

You know, I can't help but wonder if/when this country will ever fall from its current global position. I am reminded of a previous /. posting on a nuclear waste repository in New Mexico, and the plans on how to warn future generations of its dangers. In the article they mention that the NRC expects to have administrative control of the land for only the next 200 years. The presumption being that at some point in the relatively near future the country may not exist.

Sometimes I wonder how that fall will occur. If it will start with the slow erosion of our rights and freedoms, and transition into a some sort of repressive iron fisted govt. that falls from grace. But above all I am amazed that people don't seem to care all that much about the current situation. Where is the outrage? Where is the Press? If we did nuke Iran, would a majority in this country care? Would a majority in this country care if the govt. keeps track of and a central database listing who EVERYONE talks to and is associated with? Would a majority care if the govt. kept recordings of all our phone conversations? What about emails? Would a majority care if the government made a profile of every citizen in this country and assessed them a threat rating based off of who they talk to, their financial info, travel info, and their personal associations? What happens when a red flag goes up? Do they get renditioned by intelligence officers? Where is the line in the sand? Where is this all heading?

You don't have anything to fear if you don't have anything to hide. I guess thats how it starts.

Re:What they are doing doesn't require the NSA

[killjoe]

What do you mean stark raving mad. They are expressing the same thought as you "people who break laws ought to be locked up". Are they start raving mad because they are not you? Are they stark raving mad because they don't like Bush?

If you don't like the president are you insane? Oh wait a minute maybe that's right

It happened before

[JoeBuck]

Howard Dean's position is head of the DNC. Nixon went down because of Watergate, which was a breakin at DNC headquarters to tap phones. Bush doesn't need breakins to do this, as the NSA has had 34 years to improve the bugging technology. George Bush is Richard Nixon without the brains. We've seen this all before.

Re:It happened before

[Maserati]

"All of this has happened before, all of this will happen again."

Sorry.

Just last week I was speaking with an Irish friend and trying to reassure him about the path my country is likely to take. And how long it will be before we wake up and turn the hell around. Lincoln suspended habeas corpus, Roosevelt detained Japanse immigrant families, etc. We do this kind of stuff during wartime, and apologise and pay reparations later,

This still looks bad though.

Re:It happened before

[Daniel Dvorkin]

The difference between the crap that's going on now and what happened during the Civil War and both World Wars is that those were clearly defined wars with clearly defined endpoints. Americans were perhaps more willing than they should have been during those times to tolerate infringements on their liberty, but nobody in the government thought they could retain those powers after the Confederacy, Germany, and Japan were defeated. Now we've got war with an ever-changing enemy and no end in sight -- and a government which clearly has no intention of giving back any of the freedoms it has stolen, ever.

Re:It happened before

[Ohreally_factor]

Furthermore, those infringements you mentioned were not secret. They were above board and public, whether or not they were right or wrong. We don't really know the full extent of the Bush calumny because of the layers of secrecy, and we won't know unless Congress can put together a proper investigation.

A lot depends on the November election. If the Dems can gain control of the House, perhaps we'll get some answers.

Iwish I had mod points still

[gknoy]

... and could mod you up. Thanks.

Re:"America" is over.

[ArcherB]

Get out while you can.

And hurry. I hear Cuba is nice this time of year.

illegal acts

[gaspar ilom]

illegal and immoral:

The wiretapping is illegal.

Not using the FISA courts is illegal.

Blowing a CIA operative's cover is illegal.

Taking bribes from Big Oil and other corporations? illegal.

Stealing elections via a corrupt system? I guess that's just immoral.

Re:illegal acts

[will_die]

The wiretapping is illegal.
Wiretapping is perfectly legal in various situations in the US. Now if you are meaning President's authorizing NSA to perform the warrentless ones that can be kind of iffy and will be up to the supreme court to fully inteperet a federal statute, since it already recognized by most legal sources that it was constitutional.
The real quest comes down to if it was authorized under the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF), and based on Supreme Court decisions such as Hamdi v. Rumsfeld kind of indicate that the court will say it is.

Not using the FISA courts is illegal.
Even democrates in Congress do not believe that. One of the proposed changes by democrates is that FISA approval would be required for this. Even they have given up the press speeches that it is illegal.

Blowing a CIA operative's cover is illegal.
Yes it is and there are current court cases that are tring the person involved. If more evidence is found indicating more people then they also better be procecuted.

Taking bribes from Big Oil and other corporations?
Are you talking about this?

Stealing elections via a corrupt system
Let me guess you also accuse bush of blowing up the twin towers, the oklahoma city bombing, and firing a missle at TWA Flight 800?

Situationism

[lcde]

[sarcasm]

Clearly no one has heard of situational ethics.

[/sarcasm]

Re:AC/Paris, a few corrections and some info for y

[Anonymous Coward]

Please start dealing with reality, not fantasy.

You first.

Here's a fantasy: There was a substantive threat to the United States in Iraq.

Here's another: There was anybody in Iraq that had anything to do with your craters, either directly or indirectly.

Here's yet another: Iraq's WMD program was far enough advanced to represent a clear and present danger to the United States, either from Iraq itself or from nuclear-weapon-wielding terrorists.

Here's a new one: Iran's nuclear ambitions represent enough of a substantive threat to the United States to necessitate military action.

Apparently you haven't been paying attention.

Quick Question

[Arandir]

Quick question time. I really do want a rational answer to this one, and not some snarky shit just because I don't happen to share your worldview:

Why is so much angst being spent over this database that the NSA is collecting, but no one says anything at all about the database that the IRS is collecting? Why are phone records a privacy issue but financial records are not? When I filed my taxes last month I had to reveal the following information: my occupation, my employer, my salary, my age, the social security numbers of my children, whether my wife or I are blind, what charities I give to, what funds I invest in, how big my mortgate is, what my medical expenses were, etc. If someone rummaged through my garbage and found my phone bill, it would be no big deal. If someone found my tax returns, however, I could be the victim of some serious identity theft.

What's the difference?

Re:Quick Question

[igaborf]

The differences are:

1) The IRS is collecting information openly, with the acquiescence, albeit grudging, of the American people.

2) The IRS' use of the collected information is constrained by law, and they follow those rules.

3) The IRS' activity is monitored by Congress, which can and does call IRS officials to account for the actions of the agency.

Get it now?

Re:Quick Question

[buss_error]

You file your IRS information because that's the law.

You don't file who you called, for how long, and how often, because that is not the law.

Today it is legal to call the psychic hotline. However, many religions hold that to be traffic with Saten. This administration has aligned itself with several right wing extreme religions. How would you like it if that call got into the hands of the local Bible Thumpers? They'd be on your doorstep, telling your children how evil you are, trying to arrest you, and watching you like a cat at a mousehole.

No, the problem isn't only that they look at the data. The problem is they retain it. Those records could be used years from now against you in ways we can't imagine now. Just look how RICO laws are now used. When enacted, they were to be used against mobsters. Now they are used for common fraud and other things they were not originally designed to be used against.

Were I planning to do things I'd rather not have Law Enforcement interested in, I'd use no contract, cash payment cell phones on both ends. And if I didn't want to do that, I'd use a one time pad encryption system to email. Sling a 1gb USB drive with the one time pad, and I've got hundreds if not thousands of email exchanges.

Lastly, do you ever remember hearing the phrase "The Rule of LAW!"? That's what George Bush and his cohorts promised. In no way what they are doing is within the rule of law. Now, think about this: would you have stood for this kind of thing going on under William Jefferson Clinton? What if the President were Hillery Clinton?

The problem, my dear friend, is not that I don't trust George W Bush (and I don't), but that I do not trust my Government, no matter who heads it, and for the same reason why I do not want to see a national ID card. Frankly, it's no legitimate business of our government where I go, who I see, and what I think. They answer to ME, not the other way around.

Re:Quick Question

[evilviper]

Why is so much angst being spent over this database that the NSA is collecting, but no one says anything at all about the database that the IRS is collecting?

I'll skip the lecture on "openness and legality" as others have already covered that.

The real issue is that widespread spying VIOLATES the freedom to assemble, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and other rights explicitly enumerated in the constitution.

OTOH, the right of the government to collect taxes is explicitly PERMITTED in the constitution.

Re:Quick Question

[Arandir]

The problem, my dear friend, is not that I don't trust George W Bush (and I don't), but that I do not trust my Government, no matter who heads it, and for the same reason why I do not want to see a national ID card. Frankly, it's no legitimate business of our government where I go, who I see, and what I think. They answer to ME, not the other way around.

I absolutely agree with that. Which is why I find it so puzzling that no one is bitching about the IRS invading your privacy. What business do they have who I donate charity to? What gives them the power to audit anyone for any reason on whim?

Don't get me wrong! I am decidely NOT in favor of this phone database. But I want to know why there isn't similar concern over the IRS! Why are privacy advocates wearing such large blinders?

Re:Quick Question

[Arandir]

The real issue is that widespread spying VIOLATES the freedom to assemble, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and other rights explicitly enumerated in the constitution.

At the risk of being called a Bush supporter and Satanist for daring to ask the question, I will ask anyway: how exactly does this specific database restrict any of the above rights?

OTOH, the right of the government to collect taxes is explicitly PERMITTED in the constitution.

The right to collect financial information is NOT given in the Constitution. Even if one postulates the right to collect wage information, one cannot postulate the right to collect all the other information the IRS collects. And why is the information stored? Why is it not erased upon receipt of the taxes in question?

My problem is not that I agree with the phone database (I do not). My problem is that the left (yes, the left) is only concerned about privacy when it happens to be an issue that can embarrass Bush and the Republicans.

Re:Quick Question

[kilfarsnar]

"I absolutely agree with that. Which is why I find it so puzzling that no one is bitching about the IRS invading your privacy. What business do they have who I donate charity to? What gives them the power to audit anyone for any reason on whim?"

Some of the things you mention (like SS#'s, income info) are required. But you are not required to give the IRS your mortgage info. You are likewise not required to give them your charitable conributions info. You give them that info voluntarily to prove your eligibility for deductions. Outside of what is on your W2, there isn't much you are required to give them.

Re:What they are doing doesn't require the NSA

[rainman_bc]

or the Bush-is-God on the other sites.

Dunno if he's ever claimed to be god, but we all know he thinks he's the decider :)

IIRC He thinks god talks to him though...

Re:AC/Paris, a few corrections and some info for y

[killjoe]

More firefighters died from traffic accidents, smoking, and drinking EVERY WEEK then 9/11. If you love and honor firefighters and want to avenge their deaths I suggest you declare a jihad against tobacco companies, beer manufacturers and automobile makers.

I am sick of people using the firefighters to make political points. Oddly enough those same people will damn the firefighters when talking about unions. Shows how much of a weasel they are.

our rights

[trutek]

(how it should be)say what u want, 2 who u want, were u want. (How it is in the us) say what the man approves of to whom and were it is approved. and step out of line and enjoy your cuban vacation. (how it should be) worship, or dont, whatever or whoever you want. as long as your not hurting anyone else that doesnt want to be hurt. (How it is in the us) worship from this group of identified religions. if the government finds this to be offensive, mutanis, or oppistionist enjoy your cuban vacation or worse. (how it should be)the press should have free reign to print or say what the want without revieling any enforments. they should have no crimanal laws bearing down on them, civil law as oversight. (how it is in the us) print what will scare everyone into submission or we will cut off your access. if we dont like what you print we will send you to jail. (how it should be) protest what you dont like and the government will listen. (how it is in the us) protest were we tell you, about what we tell you to, when we tell you or we will call it a riot and kick your ass. (how it is in the us) you can have a firearm that is at least 100 years inferior in technology to what the millitary uses. (How it should be) everyone should be able to have an intercontinental bolistic missle in their back yard[ok that might be a little overboard, but you catch my drift] remember Waco and Ruby Ridge? is it only a war crime when Sahdam does it.

Re:"America" is over.

[kcbrown]

And go where? There's no place to go. The entire planet is on a downward spiral into darkness and despair, and very soon totalitarian governments, or those remote-controlled by totalitarian governments, will be the only kinds of government to be found.

Re:Haha..

[ArcherB]

Every time America angers the Middle East with its hypocrisy by torturing terror suspects or by denying them human rights at Gitmo, I wonder if the Bush administration will take responsibility for the next attack they provoked.

OK, last time I'm gonna tell you, so listen up.

AIR CONDITIONING AND SLEEP DEPREVATION DOES NOT CONSTITUTE TORTURE ... Especially to a society that stones women for leaving the house without being completely covered and escorted by a man, and institutes gang-rape of teen-aged daughters as punishment to a family.
So, that is not what is pissing off the young mid-eastern male. However, you, and the press constantly saying that we are torturing prisoners at Gitmo, even though they are provided a Koran, told which direction to pray, and given the opportunity to five times a day, is what is pissing everyone off.

By the way, what did the Bush administration do in the nine months in office to warrant 9-11?

Letter Sent To My Congressmen Today

[esme]

This is the letter I sent to my senators and rep today:

I am deeply troubled by the recent news that the National Security Agency has been building a database of millions of records of telephone calls. Combined with the earlier revelations of warrantless NSA wiretaps, indefinite detentions, and a host of other similar activities, it appears the Bush administration is completely unconcerned with civil liberties. Their public statements show deep contempt for the rule of law.

Congress must act now. Hearings must be held immediately to find out exactly what the NSA has been doing. Any budgetary or regulatory leverage must be brought to bear to stop illegal conduct. Existing law must be clarified, to make it absolutely clear that the executive branch does not have the authority to violate the Fourth Amendment guarantees of privacy.

If left unchallenged, these new assertions of executive power will form the foundation of a police state. Even though the current threat to our country is dire, and even though the current administration's intent may be noble, unchecked executive power will lead to tyranny.

I joined the ACLU, and my wife joined the EFF. What did you do?

-Esme

Ware are they? -- Re:Who elected the reporters?

[gaspar ilom]

Remember who these people are:

In the 80's, many of the folks in the current Bush Administration were defending right-wing, paramilitary death squads in Latin America.

Not exactly a strong track record of defending democracy.

Re:Ware are they? -- Re:Who elected the reporters?

[Gorshkov]

In the 80's, many of the folks in the current Bush Administration were defending right-wing, paramilitary death squads in Latin America.

And who were they defending them from? The people who were supporting left-wing, paramilitary death squads in Latin America.

I hate these dem/rep pissing matches you see so often on here. Republicans are nor more good, evil, closeminded, bigoted, rich, poor, smart or stupid than Democrats .... and the only think I can see, given the frequency that those "accusations" are thrown about here, is that the only people who take part in these discussions are the worst of both sides.

Anybody come up with an American political equivalent of Godwin? I want to invoke somebody's ass

Re:Ware are they? -- Re:Who elected the reporters?

[gaspar ilom]

Sorry, but you're wrong.

Time and again, the side that the U.S. supported was far more violent. Not to mention -- we shouldn't be intervening to decide other peoples' affairs, inthe first place.

The U.S. staged a Coup d'Etat of the democratically-elected government of Guatemala in 1954. A civil war and genocide ensued. Chile? El Salvador? Brazil?

It was Republican administrations that mostly initiated and supported these types of viscious, anti-democratic, and unprovoked interventions. The Dems occasionally did, too -- but it was mostly the GOP.

We should revisit this history. Where you stand is an indicator of your basic humanity.

Re:Ware are they? -- Re:Who elected the reporters?

[Gorshkov]

Time and again, the side that the U.S. supported was far more violent. Not to mention -- we shouldn't be intervening to decide other peoples' affairs, inthe first place.
[deleted for brevity]
We should revisit this history. Where you stand is an indicator of your basic humanity.

Yes, we should - and your humanity, apparently, is as selective as hell.

Re-read the post you're replying to. Nowhere in there did I say the Republicans were virginal, nor did I say the Democrats were neutral. *Both* parties are out to lunch - as you yourself admitted.

Right-wing bad, left-wing good because the left-wing didn't kill or torture *quite* as many people - is that it? That's exactly the left-right wing pissing match crap that I was referring to in the first place.

Sorry, I ain't buying what you're selling. BOTH sides were severly out to lunch in central america, left or right .... and anybody who says anything different is as revisionist as hell.

If you can sleep soundly at night because "your" side didn't kill quite as many as the other side, I see no reason whatsoever to think that what I said originally needs to be corrected.

Re:Nothing to see Here.... move along

[2short]

And since there was nothing wrong with doing it, he felt no need to mention that he had done it. Through years of expensive investigations, reporters going to jail, appeals to the supreme court, etc. Do you think maybe he could have helped out a bit and mentioned "Oh yeah, that was me", since it was all so innocent? Maybe it slipped his mind. No wait, he went on about how he sure would like to ge to the bottom of this, so he was certainly aware people cared.

But in anycase, the explination is BS. There are specific procedures for declassifying stuff, established by his own authority. He neither followed these, nor ammended them. He didn't declassify it. He leaked it, doing real damage to our national security interests for purely partisan political reasons.

No, just the Bush administration

[spun]

Just because some Republicans LOVE to use this tactic does not make it right to use it back against them. The Bush administration? Traitors. Hang the lot of 'em. Republicans? Misguided (I jest, I jest) but basically decent people with the country's best interest at heart.

The older I get, the less irrational hatred for "the other side" I have, and the more I can understand their position. Might not agree with it, but I no longer see all Republicans as greedy bastards out to rape the country.

I love Bush

[devfsadm]

So, it's ok for Bellsouth, Qwest, SBC, Verizon, and Comcast or any phone company to actually record some phone conversations and phone number for legal reasons and demographics but, if the government agency like the NSA records only phone numbers for pattern matching and it is done for the benefit of national security it is not.

I am not young enough to know everything.
-Oscar Wilde

Re:Nothing to see Here.... move along

[nuzak]

> Leaking classified information is a crime.

And leaking news of a crime is a moral duty.

If you ain't on a no fly list, you ain't a patriot

[khasim]

I don't think yelling and screaming will do much now, other than get yourself fast-tracked to the front of "Some List" that you probably don't want to be on at all.

Yelling and screaming won't help much.

But if you're reading this and you have NOT written to your Congress Critter, take 5 minutes and do so right now.

The way I look at it, if you haven't made your voice heard loud enough to get your name on one of the government's "lists", you aren't doing enough to protect your Freedom.

The people signing our Declaration of Independence were knowingly and publicly signing their death warrant if we lost that war.

Stand up and show the government what a real patriot is.

Re:Oh, but ...

[Eli Gottlieb]

Even better, some say Bush may simply carry fowards into a "permanent second term".

Re:It's illegal to not report the government's cri

[nuzak]

> In this country it is illegal to witness a crime and not report it.

In the United States? It is most definitely not. There is case law to that effect.

It's illegal to lie about it, but it is absolutely positively not illegal in the slightest to say or do nothing at all.

believe the ABC blog comments

[twitter]

It amazes me how many of the comments on the ABC News blog say, "the government should put leakers away for life!" and "treasonous journalists should be shot!"

I'd be able to dismiss that if I did not know people who actually think that way.

It's scary. Information gained this way can only be used for retribution because courts will throw it out. If any real laws were broken, they could get warrants. Secret jails, warantless searches, torture all with such perfect sang-froid. The people we are allowing to abuse foreigners in secret jails might develop domestic tastes.

The rot may be top down, but the fix must be bottom up. The same ugly attitudes will be ridden by whatever party is in power. The only thing that can stop such abuse is a national revulsion and attitude change. Given government control of broadcast and such underhanded tactics like this, it will be hard to effect that attitude change any other way than face to face.

You on a fact-free diet?

[Anonymous Coward]

Billy went through the legal process (look up FISA). Bully does not.

Nice "talking points", Mr. Shill.

Re:You on a fact-free diet?

[80 85 83 83 89 33]

Billy went through the legal process

nice pipe dream, Mr. Sheep.

Re:May be legit, maybe not

[symbolic]

Anything open to public participation is subject to potential abuse. If these people are real, they are in dire need of a history lesson or two. If they are PR shills for Wush & Co. (which I suspect some are), they are, in the truest sense of the word, idiots.

Actually it proves the opposite of your point

[HighOrbit]

The police only need a warrant for involuntary searches. If they ask, and you say "OK", then they can search without a warrant.

In the NSA case, the NSA (notice I said "NSA" and not "police") asked as they are free to do and most companies said "OK". Quest was free to say "no". In that instance, Quest said "No", so no search was conducted. Nothing was seized or searched from Quest without its permission and without a warrant.

Now I differentiated between police and NSA. NSA is a DoD agency. They are restricted from law enforcement by posse commitatus. Normally, nothing that NSA collects can be used in a criminal case.

Re:What they are doing doesn't require the NSA

[Lagged2Death]

Fact is, the NSA program still is for US to offshore calls.

The fact is that when Gonzales told us that the NSA only listens to international calls he didn't take an oath, and that he later rescinded or re-qualified much of his testimony, in particular making the point that although one particlar intelligence program involved listening to international calls, a certain gigantic multi-billion dollar signals-intelligence agency might actually be running more than one signals-gathering program. (Like, whoa, seriously?)

To attach the name "fact" to information obtained under such circumstances is, I think, very, very optimistic, in a sense.

The fact is that Bush has told us bald-faced lies about domestic spying activities, and at this point it would require a hearty steaming ladle-full of naivete to imagine that the general public now knows the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

The fact is that the Bush administration has aptly demonstrated that it simply cannot be trusted, and the sorry fact is that we can be certain of precious little beyond that.

The fact is, recognizing these facts does not constitute "fanaticism." I believe there's a saying down in Texas: "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me -- you can't get fooled again."

Re:What's scary are the comments left on the ABC b

[Ohreally_factor]

They're paid GOP astroturfers.

Alrighty...

[notyou2]

If the president and his lackeys are so committed to the notion that collection of these records doesn't constitute an invasion of privacy and doesn't require a warrant, then they naturally wouldn't care if someone published THEIR private AND professional phone call logs.

What that's they say, they don't want to? Why? Do they have something to hide?

This all makes me sick.

Re:Alrighty...

[devfsadm]

"then they naturally wouldn't care if someone published THEIR private AND professional phone call logs."

The President and his Lackeys phone records are being recorded by companies like Bell south, Qwest etc. and naturally by the NSA.

No one is publicly publishing anything here.
Get real -

But if you really need to call the president here:
Comments: 202-456-1111
Switchboard: 202-456-1414

What that's you say, you don't want to? Why? Do you have something to hide?

Re:Alrighty...

[notyou2]

I'll grant you that my "publish" wording was inaccurate. However, I stand by my original sentiment. For example...

Suppose someone installs hidden video cameras in my house and records everything that goes on inside. Does it matter whether they publish the video on the internet, or just keep it for their own private "collection?" Regardless of whether it gets published or not, it's an invasion of my privacy. And I would in fact call that a reasonable litmus test... if I don't want something private about me spread all over the internet, then it's private enough that I don't want "just anyone" (that includes the government) to have access either. It should require a warrant (and DOES, incidentally).

I submit that the president wouldn't care to have his phone call records handed over to just anyone (let's not even say published... let's just say collected and kept by some third party that he hasn't chosen to give them to). Those logs are private... for national security reasons, for political reasons, and for his own personal reasons. Thus he finds that his calling record has privacy value. So why is his logging of MY calling records not any kind of violation? And why do people accuse me of "having something to hide" simply because I (like the president, I think) don't want to turn over such records to just anyone?

People have taken the administration to court over records of who they've called and who they've had meetings with.

Re:Alrighty...

[devfsadm]

The phone companies have been recording this information for some time. I believe since 1991-1992. President Bush's phone history is part of phone companies' records as well. The NSA has been collecting this information via a third party since 2001 and this is not the same as having a camera installed in your home. But, it might be the same as having a camera installed down the street on top of a streetlight. Which records events that are out in the public. Just like a phone call to a private company that is recording your phone number. The recording/logging of the number you called is made from outside of your house at a privately owned switching station.
And the president's call to Saudi Arabia is not a call that would be planning the next 9-11 style attack. However, multiple calls to Saudi Arabia to a know terrorist from a middle eastern citizen or arms dealer in the united states might be useful to prevent another disaster. Your regular Sunday call to your mother is of no value to the NSA.

I hate the way the media has twisted this story. Most of the headlines are along the lines of "The NSA has secretly recorded" or "Our government has secretly recorded" and the democrat agenda is "Lets destroy the republican party so we can win in 2008". Seems like all the democrats are jumping on the bandwagon to try to use this story to influence people politically even though there is not much of a story there. "blah blah blah" is all I hear. This story will be dropped by the democrats and focus will be turned into the Presidents immigrant solutions.

I authorized the National Security Agency to intercept the international communications of people with known links to al Qaeda and related terrorist organizations.
-President Bush
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/05/20 060511-1.html

If This Was Pres. Hilary....

[Kozar_The_Malignant]

Imagine the sound and fury from Fox and the neocons if this was being done by President Hilary Clinton. They'd be screaming for impeachment, followed by hanging, drawing, and quartering.

Re:If This Was Pres. Hilary....

[jc42]

Imagine the sound and fury from Fox and the neocons if this was being done by President Hilary Clinton. They'd be screaming for impeachment, ...

Nah; that's only for sex acts (and not telling reporters all about it).

No politician would ever be prosecuted for merely violating the Constitution.

Re:If This Was Pres. Hilary....

[Stalyn]

I'm with Maher on this, I think we should impeach Bush on lying about catching a 7.5 pound perch (which he now says was a bass).

Re:If This Was Pres. Hilary....

[evilviper]

Imagine the sound and fury from Fox and the neocons if this was being done by President Hilary Clinton.

Everyone likes to blame Fox News for ALL the problems with the press, today. Frankly, nothing Fox is doing should have any effect on CBS, NBC, ABC, etc. And yet, they've got their tails between their legs, only occasionally, sheepishly bringing these things up, and getting instantly distracted by PR moves like the illegal immigration campaign-year issue, and the like.

People like to talk about 1984, but I think it's more likely we're living in a "Wag the Dog" senario.

Re:Nothing to see Here.... move along

[vought]

Leaking classified information is a crime.

Unless the leaked classified information details the commission of a crime. Haven't you heard of the whistleblower statutes?

There you go, bringing facts into the discussion

[spun]

Everyone knows that facts can be used to prove anything that's even remotely true.

Civil Disobedience

[fossilstar]

"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." -Benjamin Franklin

Maybe it's time to organize large numbers of people to mass-visit the offices of every member of the US Congress, and get inside, simply to spraypaint (with stencils) the above quote on one or more of their inside walls, and then leave. On an outside too, for that matter.

I have to put my affairs in order before being ready for jail, as I'm sure that if it's not "disturbing the peace" it could be construed as the more serious charge of "disturbing the war" or something. When summer is over, and elections draw closer, is anyone with me on this one?

Re:Civil Disobedience

[LifeNLiberty]

Absolutely, I think we should also organize a website to server as a central place to organize something like this. It's completely neccesary because as much as whining and bitching on the internet may feel good, it doesn't do much and politicians will be content to let us do it to our hearts content until they actually feel the weight of the people on their shoulders.

Re:Read the ABC blog comanments

[DAldredge]

I used to work for an "ultraliberal gun nut" when I was in Dallas. I have never had to fire my gun in selfdefense but I know those who have (shotgun with scattershot) and in every case simply firing in the air drove the people away. Now, this was out in the country and I would not recommend such a tactic in the cities.

I would talk to Office of Special Counsel or IG

[HighOrbit]

What would I do? I've been there before. If I thought something illegal was going on, I would inform the agency Inspector General, Office of Special Counsel (www.osc.gov) or inform the appropriate Congressional Committee. I actually have been a whistleblower before (about corruption, theft, and contract fraud, but nothing classified) and I was reprised against for making protected disclosures and for refusing to follow an illegal order , so I filed a greiveance both with the Agency and with the Office of Special Counsel under 5 USC 2302 (look it up on google - its the federal employee whistleblower protection program). The law was a little different back then (1998-99), it was also covered under 5 USC 2303 (which now only applies to the FBI it looks). My Agency greiveance was upheld but my OSC greivance was dismissed.

There are procedures for these types of things. Leaking classified information is just wrong and illegal.

Unlike most of the un-informed people spouting off here, I actually have been through this myself and I know from first hand experience what I am talking about. It was not pleasant to go through (hostile work enviromnent, constant professional and physical threats), but there are channels beside breaking the law. (BTW.. my corrupt boss evenually was fired)

Re:I would talk to Office of Special Counsel or IG

[shmlco]

Personally, I think it also lies with the nature of the information.

CIA prisons outside of the US? That strikes me as someone trying to sidestep the entire process, while leaving the administration free to state, "We don't torture people here in the US. Period."

Much like, " I did not have sexual relations with that woman."

Haven't we been over this already?

[Incongruity]

The Constitution specifically states that there can be no laws which abridge (i.e., curtail) the freedom of the press.

Who said anything about laws? I wasn't under the impression such archaic things applied any longer... You can do anything as long as it's in the name of national security.

(haven't we had enough of this crap yet?)

time to learn about 1984

[amigabill]

I've never read 1984, but it's feeling like I should read up on how my life will be soon.

I'd also like to send a copy to my reps in congress. Let them know how I feel about things over the past couple years. Maybe even send a copy to our buddies Dubya and Cheney. Anyone else like to join the project?

Re:time to learn about 1984

[briancarnell]

What a dumbass. Only on Slashdot would someone seriously recommend sending people a book which the poster hasn't bothered to read.

Whats the /. point system?

[Shivetya]

Bash Bush +1
Bash Fox +1

I guess I found two of your points (automatic scoring)

Honestly, how is this comment of yours rated so highly? It provides us with nothing except the typical moonbat accusations. Is this what /. is now? Home of the moonbats?

Its apparent the only way to generate good karma on this thread is to join in the innuendo brigade. There is nothing being discussed anymore, its just pull out every coincidence, true or imagined, and go after Bush and Co.

There is so much other crap to jump on that this Adminstration is doing yet people recycle the same tired old innuendo in attempt to score cheap points. Its too bad /. ever came up with a political section, it only tilts one way. Then again, what else should we expect? Most of those doing the bashing are the same chickenshits that will never march, never write a Congressman, and never do anything but flame away on a message board. You know why? Because it takes no effort. Hell I bet the bulk can't name their Senators and only a few could name their Congressman without searching Google.

Uninformed and spouting nonsense does not help the discussion of the problem at hand. Doing some real research and presenting facts does. I would love to find other sources other than this "blog entry". That speaks of deniability and no need of accountability. ABC is not running this as a story but as a blog entry. I guess this is their "escape clause".

Wait a few days, lets see what the real story is. Sensational reporting is nothing new, its great bait for forum trolls and people who react out of emotion instead of intelligence.

Treason?

[DigiShaman]

Durring a time of war, releasing classified information is an act of treason last I heard. So ya, it's serious shit that DOES rank up there with terrorism.

Hey, don't look at me, I didn't write the rules.

Re:Treason?

[SpaceLifeForm]

Oh, c'mon, Dick 'n Karl haven't even been charged yet.

Re:Treason?

[SmokedS]

1. Classify operation X.
2. Have operatives in operation X perform illegal acts.
3. Block any investigation with the operation being classified as the excuse.
4. Cheer and laugh at the crowd as another piece of the American constitution and the American soul turns to ashes.

Qwest isn't an angel either

[thule]

Check out this link:

http://www.epic.org/privacy/cpni/

I think some of the confusion about this call record thing is that CPNI information is (used to be?) telco owned data. That means we (the customer) don't own the data. We only "own" the contents of the call. The page linked above talks about how telco's used to tell this data. You can't sell something you don't own. They did own it and they did sell it. There are newer laws that try to control the discloser of this information, but I'm not sure it's all been worked out yet. Maybe some one else around here has more information on this.

That's why CPNI data is treated differently than a phone tap. Even if the government gets this:

"call-identifying information effected within its switching premises can be activated only in accordance with a court order or other lawful authorization."

They have to go through further hoops to tap (listen in) a call. So far what has come out of the newspaper articles is that the NSA is tapping (getting contents) international calls. They've always had this capibility. They are also getting CNPI data from the phone companies. Two different things. Two different ways of handling the information.

Re:Qwest isn't an angel either

[mhollis]

I do understand your fine point but one continues to have the right to demand that the phone company not sell your records or distribute your records to third parties and I have done that.

In this case, at least two telephone companies readily gave up information to the government without any court order, subpeona or warrant -- regardless of whether or not the customers made a demand that the phone companies not distribute this information.

The thing that bothers me is that this administration can choose to do anything they like with the data -- including search for leaks that are not specifically authorized by this administration and attack the reporters for receiving leaks (this has all ready happened in the Valerie Plame case). These kinds of wholesale attacks on freedom of the press violate the First Amendment by ignoring the Fourth Amendment.

Quest, in this case (and the various cable companies that offer VOIP) refused to hand over records without a court order, warrant or subpeona.

Re:Qwest isn't an angel either

[thule]

I do understand your fine point but one continues to have the right to demand that the phone company not sell your records or distribute your records to third parties and I have done that.

You missed the point. CPNI is not your data. It's the phone company's data. Your data is the contents of the call. There has been some change in the law with regards to this, but I don't know how much. It also, apparently, varies state to state.

CALEA might cover some of this stuff. I'm not a lawyer so I don't know what provisions laws like CALEA allow for.

Re:Qwest isn't an angel either

[thule]

One more follow-up...
CALEA says:
(2) expeditiously isolating and enabling the government, pursuant to a court order or other lawful authorization, to access call-identifying information that is reasonably available to the carrier--

What we all need to find out is what "other lawful authorization" is.

It doesn't really matter what telco you go to. They all fall under CALEA.

Re:Qwest isn't an angel either

[mhollis]

I'm not a lawyer, either but the Supreme Court decision regarding the release of telco records (and please notice, I stipulate that they belong to the telephone companies) was based on a particular device placed on one person's line to record who he called (and not the content of his calls). This was in order to give law enforcement proof that he was, indeed, telephoning a complainant and threatening her.

What we have here is not the application of a device on one person's telephone. We have a wholsale fishing expedition

with no warrant by a government that is extremely secretive and interested in finding its own leakers of internal information to the press so that it may attack the press. The government may tap its own lines and tell everyone at the White House or within the administration that all phone calls from the White House will be tapped, recorded, etc. But leakers have to go home sometime and they tend to talk to the press from lines that are not necessarily in the domain of the administration.

If the reader thinks that this kind of information was procured and processed only to go after al-Qaeda operatives, I would accuse the reader of being naïve.

Re:What's scary are the comments left on the ABC b

[barefootgenius]

Good god, its like reading /. Do you ever get the feeling that the U.S. government has really f**ked something up, like selling a nuke to Al-Qa'ida or something, and all this is is them trying to cover their ass's. It would explain a lot.

If Bush declassified it, he did it two weeks after

[WillAffleckUW]

Look, I used to be a subject matter expert for a lot of military information, held a SECRET clearance, handled various SECRET and lower message traffic (in person), had a combo safe, and declassified a lot of SECRET, CONFIDENTIAL, and RESTRICTED information.

The reality is that, yes, the President can declassify it, but he has to officially do so. It's just a notation, but everything we've heard indicates he declassified it two weeks after he had Cheney and Rove leak it.

You can't declare the barn door closed after you illegally opened it.

There are no do-overs in law. Especially in regards to secrets.

And, for that matter, the VP (Cheney) doesn't have that authority, and he acted without that express authority by his own and Rove's and Libby's admission.

The Clenis

[Anonymous Coward]

Bill Clinton's penis is the root of all evil!
The only reason the media ignored this before was because they were enthralled to it - since Bush needs a codpiece for his Mission Accomplished photo-ops the media has realized his just doesn't compare. Ever since then they do nothing but go after him about EVERYTHING. If only they would ignore the torture, secret prisons, and unconstitutional spying like they ignored Monica Lewinsky! Fucking librul traitors!

Re:Down with Old Men!

[maelstrom]

Yeah, we should prevent anyone who doesn't have a Myspace account running for office. On second thought...

German BND ordered NOT to spy on German reporters

[SpaceLifeForm]

Link.

Ah-fucking-men

[theolein]

You said it brother.

Re:Nothing to see Here.... move along

[Maserati]

That reminds me, here's my joke on the topic.

There's good news and bad news about the new telephone monitoring program. The good news is, only people with terrorist connections will be tracked. The bad news is, Kevin Bacon just converted to Islam.

Too soon ?

NSA to Qwest: we ain't got none

[barutanseijin]

The NSA explicitly told Qwest that they didn't have warrants. Qwest figured the whole scheme was illegal and said no. From the original USA Today article:

"Among the big telecommunications companies, only Qwest has refused to help the NSA, the sources said. According to multiple sources, Qwest declined to participate because it was uneasy about the legal implications of handing over customer information to the government without warrants."

Re:AC/Paris, a few corrections and some info for y

[complete loony]

It's called Guantanamo Bay Cuba. Where at least one Australian citizen has been held, by the US, without trial for 4 years. If he's guilty of something, hold a fair trial and send him to prison. If you can't convict him of anything, then let him go. It's as simple as that.

Re:AC/Paris, a few corrections and some info for y

[aussersterne]

There is a substantive threat out there.

No, there is not. There is an utterly statistically insignificant threat created in the first place only by American votes and American foreign policy, a mistake that conservatives seem to want to compound endlessly until they can build it into a substantive threat.

Well congratulations, given the current stories on NSA spying and the potential for a nuclear war with Iran, I'd say you may have managed to create the substantive threat that you want.

But don't for a moment make the stupid mistake of thinking that it's "terrorism" which is, and will remain, both nebulous and statistically insignificant.

I'm sorry your relatives were stuck by lightning. But contrary to what the American culture of the denial of mortality may tell you, that does not make anti-lighning a good cause to throw your weight behind, in particular when the lightning is your fault in the first place.

Re:Nothing to see Here.... move along

[shmlco]

Your emphasis indeed is in the wrong place, but since you insist, try "missle-armed Predator".

Re:Go after lib when hungry, but conserv for sport

[plalonde2]

And that's because the so-called "liberal" press is all owned by wealthy conservatives? go figure. and stuff yourself and your idea of a "liberal" press.

Re:"America" is over.

[aussersterne]

Sadly, you're entirely correct. Those that are above the law increasingly accumulate (by leveraging their position) greater power to remain above the law. Capital knows no boundaries and its owners know no laws and ultimately, despite their machinations at any given moment, no "national" affiliation or allegiance. The rest are merely subjects and labor.

People should be reading Marx, not Slashdot, especially given what's going on right now in the Bush administration.

"goddamned piece of paper"

[SpaceLifeForm]

128000 google hits.

Re:"goddamned piece of paper"

[jc42]

128000 google hits.

My, the references must be replicating rapidly. It's only two hours later, and the count is "about 139,000".

Re:Nothing to see Here.... move along

[Ohreally_factor]

That reminds me of the Blue Dress with the semen stain on it.

I guess it's a little funny that both Bush and Clinton will go down in history as "leakers".

Silly responses

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot reader over-reaction meter is off scale.

1) No other news source has confirmed this (CNN/NBC/BBC etc).
2) Which ever Washington post reporter that submitted the story that we were listening to Osama's phone calls needs to be prosecuted.
3) The NSA is getting a copy of the connection numbers, not the conversations. Can you be prosecuted for mis-dialing an AQ member? Not. The phone companies have been storing this information since 1992.
4) This was all public record back in December. Don't slashdot users read anything besides blogs?
5) The IRS knows more about you.
6) I would guess that the NSA is also monitoring money transfers from overseas. My $600 (300UK) ATM withdrawal in the UK in stored somewhere.
7) Gore/Kerry would have done the same damn thing.

Interesting legal discussion about phone records,

[Dorkmunder]

There is an excellent write-up on the legal battlefield for turning over phone records etc by Mark Rasch over at SecurityFocus News http://www.securityfocus.com/columnists/403?ref=rs s in case anyone wants to brush up on the corresponding laws.

Well, I'll make it really easy for you

[stupidpuppy]

I'm really not comfortable with simply letting the administration decide which internal leaks are whistleblowers, and which are national security risks.

The President of the United States is elected as the Executive of the US. Like Every Other President, He is empowered to release whatever the hell classified information he wants.

That's a nifty special power the President and (recently) the VP have. Also, elected officials (meaning the pres, VP, and members of congress) don't have to get investigated for security clearances, unlike all their staff. Even Condi and Rummy have to get insulted by Polygraphers.

There's a good reason he has this power : do you remember, before the Iraq War? Everyone was clamoring for more information? Even the democrats? (Especially the Democrats.) How do you think Bush was going to provide this information? Google? Of course he had to declassify stuff, and I can't imagine that anybody would not understand that.

Anyway, the "bad leakers" were not empowered to leak anything. They were not elected as president or VP. They were not authorized to leak by the president or the VP. In fact, they did what they did to undermine the elected representative of the people. What they did is illegal and they should go to jail.

I'm really not comfortable with simply letting the administration decide which internal leaks are whistleblowers, and which are national security risks.

And, as I've described above, the administration is not "deciding" who is legally leaking and who isn't. Prosecutors do. In fact, you can play the home game. If you aren't (A) the Pres or VP, or (B) authorized by the same, you go to jail if you leak to the press.

Re:Yeah!

[finkployd]

As for the definition of covert status, look it up yourself. Oh, wait you already did that, but in true MMoore fashion, you ignore and hope nobody will bother to find out for themselves.

Oh no you do not. Take it back, that is a massive (pun intended) insult :P

Let's play this game. She was not a covert agent, there was nothing wrong with "outing" her (in fact as non covert, she can't be outed). We both can accept that so far right?

So why did the CIA throw a hissy fit when her non-covert identity was revealed? Why was Bush so upset that he (1) said that nobody in his admin leaked her non-covert identity, (2) if anyone did they would be fired and (3) appoint a special prosecutor to find the source of the leak. For that matter why was a reporter held in jail over the leak of a non-covert agent?

Can someone please explain why Bush would waste so much time, effort, and money if there was no problem with revealing her identity?

Are we just supposed to pretend he didn't say this?

"Listen, I know of nobody -- I don't know of anybody in my administration who leaked classified information. If somebody did leak classified information, I'd like to know it, and we'll take the appropriate action. And this investigation is a good thing." --10/7/03

Or this?

"If someone committed a crime, they will no longer work in my administration." --7/18/05

Both of these are reponses to direction questions regarding Plame, not NSA wiretapping, not our CIA torture chambers, not any of the other things that they are pissed were revealed - Plame. So why say these things instead of just coming out and saying "It is a non-issue, she is not covert, and I can unclassify anything I damn well please. Next question". While that answer would have probably pissed off some, I would have welcomed the rare honesty.

Look, I am not a Bush basher by trade, and I consider myself pretty conservative (in the Gingrich/Regan sense) but I am also not an idiot. I know the constitution and I can detect hair splitting, sorry excuses bullshit when I hear it. Everything lately coming out of this admin regarding NSA spying, warrantless games, and the Plame affair sounds a whole lot like total weaseling bullshit. The defenses for these actions are getting weak and pathetic to the point where I cannot imagine how anyone is delivering them with a straight face. It seems only those paralysed by fear that Osama is lurking in every shadow and blinded by the belief that the government can do no wrong are still buying it. The rallying cry is "we are at war, the president can do everything he wants. Anyone calling for oversight or accountability in governemnt wants our children to die".

It still amuses me that those who somehow believe that Islamic terrorists are only after us because they hate our freedom consider removing those freedoms the best protection.

Finkployd

Regret is for when you do something wrong

[IgLou]

When I last checked the truth wasn't wrong.

Being Canadian, I don't always see eye to eye with some of the posters here but I worry lately when I look down south. I remember looking at the US being this amazing forward-thinking state that was really influencing the world to look twice on issues like equality and fairness. Then something happened and Americans are scared and that fear allows them to give up their freedoms in ways that scare me!

Democracy is a difficult, slippery thing for it to work you have to participate and be willing to listen to everyone involved. It's slow and cumbersome and hard and sometimes bureaucratic but when all is said and done you as a citizen felt empowered because you had your say and you participated and you influenced the outcome.

That's why I agree with you. If you're not willing to participate in Democracy then why live in one? Voter turnout in Canada has been pretty pathetic and now it gives us our own version of George W. This shouldn't have happened in the Canada I know but it did because people don't care. I sometimes think that democratic countries would be different if people who didn't vote were revoked their citizenship and kicked out of the country.

Anyways, I didn't intend to rant but what you said struck a cord and you're right.
And to all those who think all this wiretapping, big brother and pseudo-fascist alignment in the US is a good thing... There are plenty of fascist regime's out there already. Move and try it out for awhile!

Re:Regret is for when you do something wrong

[Yaa 101]

http://blogs.salon.com/0002007/2006/05/15.html

http://www.crab.rutgers.edu/~goertzel/fourthturnin g.htm

http://www.futureswatch.org/Timeline.htm

Re:Regret is for when you do something wrong

[node 3]

If you're not willing to participate in Democracy then why live in one?

Just because someone doesn't vote, or they blindly trust the government, whatever, does not imply that they want to leave the country. There are still plenty of reasons to stay in America (or any other democracy), even if you never vote.

Leave if you want, stay if you want. I agree that people really should actively participate in our government. But that's a far cry from telling people to leave the country just because they disagree with you on how to live their life.

I remember looking at the US being this amazing forward-thinking state that was really influencing the world to look twice on issues like equality and fairness.

I have hope that we'll once again live up to that standard. I know it looks bad now, but there really are a lot of people fighting to put America back on the right track.

Fortunately, not everyone who's been told to leave America has done so.

Re:AC/Paris, a few corrections and some info for y

[EQ]

I beg to differ. I was in Baghdad and in Kabul and Uzbekistan over the past few years (post invasion for both), and there *are* people that want nothing more than our destruction and subjugation. They may be few in number, but they are quite fanatical, and well funded by our stupid addiction to oil. I've seen their literature, heard the captives talk, seend them blow their fellow citizens to bits along with themselves to further the cause of Jihad and the Caliphate.

Try reading up on Wahabbism and the Salafists and Tahwidists. They "declared war" onn us back inthe 1990's, when we didnt bother to pay attention to them. 9/11 was a result of doing what you want to do: nothing. Get out of your cublice farm or dorm room, and learn that not everythign fed to you by the media or blogs is true, and a good deal of it is simply trash designed to inflame rather than inform.

And stuff your false pity for the deaths in NY. "Statistically Insignificant" is for jackasses liek you. Suppose a terrorist were to sniper shoot you in the head. Thats "Statistically insignificant" but very important to you and anyoen that values life and freedom - so do you value life so little that you dont care even about your own, that you are completely unreasonable when viewing and assessing risks? These risks probability are low, but very consequential and high impact if allowed to occur. Aside form the economic dislocations, the security backlash, military actions, etc - there is the simple fact of the large life of human life. I am unwilling to throw those people under the bus as "statistically insignificant" like you are. Collectivists like you are disgusting to individualists.

Your false positioning belies your purpose and your willingness to blind yourself for a political cause. You and yours are just a different kind of scum from the ones on the other side of the political coin from you.

And you might want to inform yoruself if you can get those idealogical blinders off. Not everythign is the propaganda that you have manged to ingest and regurgitate on command. In that way, you and the left are no better than the Right and its Rush Limbots. You refuse to see all the facts in your rage against your enemy, George Bush. You're as stupidly blind as the Republicans were against Clinton.

The problem is the Republicans could be dealt with - if they were "wrong" on thier impeachment we had a "liar" as president - nothign new there,they all lie, I think its congential. However, now, if you and yours are wrong, thousands more innocents will die, and many more will suffer.

Consider the cost. Carefully and fully. And value the individual, however "statistically insignificant" they are.

Re:Haha..

[crotherm]

hmm, so some Bush loving mod gave me a flamebait. Sheesh If you cannot stand reading bad things about Bush, the easiest way it to pluck thine own eye out.

Re:Go after lib when hungry, but conserv for sport

[AHumbleOpinion]

And that's because the so-called "liberal" press is all owned by wealthy conservatives? go figure. and stuff yourself and your idea of a "liberal" press.

When was the last time that the board of directors of Time Warner, General Electric, etc. were writing the on-air scripts and editing film clips and audio? The people who do those tasks overwhelmingly identify themselves are liberals and in all honesty when they are covering a topic a bias is evident. It's subtle sometimes, watch the coverage of a hot button issue, say gun control or abortion. They'll interview a lawyer/PR spokesperson from the pro-gun control or pro-choice side but not interview a lawyer/PR spokesperson for the other sides, rather they'll go find some fool wearing a bit too much camoflauge for a strip mall or some fire and brimstone spouting zealot. Now a liberal may not even notice something subtle like that, it confirms to their stereotyping and demonization of the "enemy". A conservative will probably notice because they're think "where did they find that idiot, he doesn't represent me or any of the people I know who agree with me". In short, when portrayed bias conforms to your bias, you don't see it. It doesn't matter if it's left leaning or right leaning.

Some serious overreaction.

[hirschma]

I'm sorry for the loss of your cousin.

At the same time, don't assume that I have no experience with this - I lived three blocks north of the WTC that day. I've had relatives die in the towers. I was evacuated. I'll probably suffer from some exotic respiratory illness in the future, thanks to the EPA's lies. I think that I can safely say that I've had my life touched by terrorism. I only mention it because you infer that somehow being a victim makes your arguement more relevant. It doesn't.

That being said: We live in a country where roughly 20,000 citizens are murdered, mostly by their fellow citizens, yearly. I'm sure that I can come up with many other salient figures, but let's stay with good old murder. So, 20k died in 2001, and every year since then. 100k dead because of the murderers.

Imagine if Bush had declared a War on Murder. We're going to do the following:

* Spend a trillion dollars, to rebuild lots and lots of stuff in major cities.
* Monitor the phones of all Americans. Without warrants.
* Have forced, unpaid overtime for all law-enforcement officials. Oh, and they cannot retire, either.
* Have private security forces, on the government payroll, also doing stuff. Except that they're unaccountable to anyone, so they do a lot of bad stuff.
* Put "known murderer associates" in prison, no trial, no representation.
* Torture said "known murderer associates" for information regarding the murderers.

This is a pretty direct analogy.

But, remember - we're going to end murder, right? We're going to Win the War on Murder! Mission Accomplished!

Yeah. Americans would never, ever allow this. It'd never happen. *You* probably wouldn't want it to happen.

Of course, the average American is much more likely to be murdered "normally" than as a result of terrorism. Hell, they're much more likely to be killed by their husband, wife, parent, friend, lover, neighbor - really, anyone BESIDES a "terrorist". So, what rights should we give up to stop these killers?

Please don't tell me about substantive threats. There are many threats to the safety and security of American citizens, but terrorism doesn't merit the supposed cure that this administration wants to foist on the people.

jh

Re:Some serious overreaction.

[Jafafa Hots]

Car accidents kill even more people than that. When do we get to start torturing bad drivers?

Re:Some serious overreaction.

[Stiletto]

Wow, you're making a lot of assumptions there, and presenting them as facts.

There are agents hostile to the US and all it's citizenry among us.
Proof? How about just evidence?

Now, I'm not 100% on board with everything the government tries to sell as 'fighting terrorism', but I'll be damned if I'm gonna get worked up because we're monitoring the phone calls of someone in the US who has connections to know terrorists.
How do you know they are only going after "the enemy"? Where is the accountability?

This isn't some crackhead looking for his next fix.
How do you know? Where is the accountability?

This isn't some worthless gangbanger getting gunned down by some other worthless gangbanger (~50% of murders).
How do you know? Where is the accountability?

This isn't some piece of white trash who went too far with his latest wife beating.
How do you know? Where is the accountability?

This isn't some crazy woman who drowned all her kids.
How do you know? Where is the accountability?

These are people who have made the cold, conscious decision that you need to die, and they work with others who feel the same, and they are funded by countries or entities who are hostile to us.
How do you know? Where is the accountability?

You seem to believe that these techniques are only being used on certain really bad people. How do you know this? Are you privvy to some government knowledge that the rest of us 99.9% aren't? How am I, a normal every day citizen, supposed to know this?

Re:Some serious overreaction.

[Anonymous Coward]

Terrorism is a negligible problem in America. We get less than $10 billion in damages per year this decade. Compare that to hurricanes, floods, the flu (regular, not bird), heart disease, cancer, traffic accidents, AIDS, accounting fraud, pension liabilities, obesity, political polarization, global competition, etc.

Terrorism isn't even in my top ten things to be afraid of. And it still wouldn't be if on 9/11/2007 three more buildings blew up. The biggest cost is the worrying and illusory "security" measures brought on as a safety blanket to assuage fears of those who can't see the big picture.

Re:Some serious overreaction.

[tkd720man]

These guys aren't an enemy like the Germans, the Japanese, or even the Russians were. For a thousand reasons it is simply inappropriate to compare Al Qaeda to any enemy we have known in the past or to suggest we should employ similar tactics in order to defeat them. The most important reason, though, is very simple: They're a couple of loons with bigger aspirations than they have capabilities. The miniscule danger they pose surely does not warrant (no pun intended) the surrender of our privacy and freedom. I'm sure 9/11 scared the crap out of you - it certainly shook me up - but that's no excuse for giving up every last ounce of freedom you've got in exchange for the promise of security. We live in a free country and the price we pay for that freedom is that sometimes it's difficult to track and catch bad guys, because the very nature of freedom requires that bad guys have as much as good guys and vice versa. Maybe you're willing to give up your freedom in order to limit theirs - but I'm sure as hell not, and neither is any other decent, self-respecting American. The only people who are willing to give up their own freedom in exchange for the promise of security are traitors - because they're willing to sell all of us out to the first tyrant who comes along and offers them a bargain. That's not American. That's cowardly, and it's got no place in this country.

Re:Some serious overreaction.

[dfenstrate]

Wow, you're making a lot of assumptions there, and presenting them as facts.

That's true of 99.999% of all posts on slashdot, and this thread is no exception.

Never forget we're all just assholes with opinions and no power, and this is just sport.

Re:Some serious overreaction.

[dfenstrate]

You seem to believe that these techniques are only being used on certain really bad people. How do you know this? Are you privvy to some government knowledge that the rest of us 99.9% aren't? How am I, a normal every day citizen, supposed to know this?

You aren't supposed to know the particulars. You are not entitled to know every facet of everything the government does to protect us.

Why should be obvious, but I'll spell it out for you.

If everyone knows precisely what the government is doing to pursue our self-proclaimed enemies, those enemies know as well. If the know the methods being used to pursue them, they can change their behavior to thwart such methods.

The people who are performing this surveillence are accountable to their superiors, who are accountable to the President. The president is accountable to Congress, who can impeach him, and pretty much no one else at this point.

Congress is of course ultimately accountable to you and I through re-elections.

That's the way it works, and I'm suprised you need this civics lesson.

You and your kind see this as citizens surrendering their liberties to obtain a small promise of security.

I see this as you being concerned with the rights of people whose stated objective is to kill us.

If stories start to surface about an incorrectly intercepted phone call being used to prosecute some petty criminal, then maybe I'll get concerned.

That being said, there are tons of examples of abuse of federal power that are in compliance with current law.

For example, confiscation of personal property under drug war laws without 4th amendment due process. Federal power (roe vs wade) over abortion when no such power is given under the constitution.The ATF performing military style raids over paperwork that's out of order. Even local state and city police engaging in dangerous no-knock warrants so they can get some petty conviction on drug charges.

But I don't hear about that from you, I hear self-rightous whining and bed wetting over survelience of our enemies who happen to be within our border. Yeah, the government has to cast a wide net to catch anything, and that includes shifting through the phone records of US citizens who are law-abiding or common criminals to get the very few that wish to make war against us.

I will trust them to do that until they show that they abuse that power, and not just because it's possible they might at some point in the future. There's no other way for it to work.

Moreover, I would not grant the courtesy of access to civilian courts for those that want to make war against us.

Zack Moussai should have come before a military tribunal and been hung as a traitor long ago, not put through some circus of a public court. It's good enough that he will spend the rest of his life isolated in a federal supermax prison, but he took himself out of the criminal judiciary when he decided to engage in war against the US.

How do you know? Where is the accountability?
I don't, and it's not to us.

Again, we are just assholes on the internet. Our knowing the details and workings of a particular program make those programs ineffective.

Re:Some serious overreaction.

[dfenstrate]

They're a couple of loons with bigger aspirations than they have capabilities. The miniscule danger they pose surely does not warrant (no pun intended) the surrender of our privacy and freedom. I'm sure 9/11 scared the crap out of you - it certainly shook me up - but that's no excuse for giving up every last ounce of freedom you've got in exchange for the promise of security.

I'm not scared, I just want them hunted down and killed. Anger would be more descriptive.

You're scared of the surveillence required to do such might, theoretically possibly be used against US citizens who are not engaged in war against the US.

You're scared of theoretical abuses, and I want proven threats hunted down and killed.

I do not consider it surrendering my rights to allow the government to sift through records anyone can purchase to find connections to known terrorists.

I do not consider it surrending my rights when the president uses his constitutional power to wage war (don't go into semantics with me on 'war', that's trite.) to monitor people who have been caught chatting with known enemies of the US, even if those enemies happen to be communicating wholly within the US. I do not consider it surrendering my rights when the authorization to perform those survelliences is given by the presidents constitutional authority to wage war, and not FISA, a construct of Congress, who does not have the constitutional authority to wage war.

Should such surveillence ever be used in a common criminal case, it would be thrown out as a violation of the fourth amendment, and any information gained as the result of such surveillence would also be thrown out as 'fruits of a bad tree.'

You and your ilk are desperately thrashing about for anything President Bush does that you can hold up and say to the rest of us (on the right) "See he's evil!." It's a rather tired line, truly, and everyone of these stories has been met with the Presidents approval rating going up, not down.

Not because the rest of us are sheep, but because we don't have our heads up our asses looking for every single possible reason to hate the president. No, they aren't a significant threat, but they shouldn't be tolerated either, or allowed to grow into a significant threat. This kind of surveillence has already saved the Brooklyn bridge, and probably a few other targets we haven't heard about. Go forth and use google, and find the brooklyn bridge story.

Yeah, lots of people on the right aren't happy with the president either, but not for the same reasons you despise him. And on this, you and your kind are simply wrong and appear very desperate for any dirt on the president. Sadly, your kind is also found in great numbers on slashdot.

Re:Some serious overreaction.

[jackbird]

You're scared of the surveillence required to do such might, theoretically possibly be used against US citizens who are not engaged in war against the US.

I suggest you re-read TF Summary again.

Re:Some serious overreaction.

[lloydtesterman]

Yes, Please!

Re:Some serious overreaction.

[BandwidthHog]

Wow.

Re:Some serious overreaction.

[dfenstrate]

Ack, you're right, I mentally wandered from the thread topic to government survillence in general lately.

That being said, the leakers comprimise anti-terror operations for the reasons I've stated in this sub thread, and should be found out and shut down. Seeing who the reporters (who broke the story) talked to is a perfectly reasonable investigative method.

This story is a non-starter really, and only in the lefty land of slashdot could the entire posting populus be so blinded by Bush hatred to not see that.

Re:Some serious overreaction.

[dfenstrate]

It's amusing to be called a pussy by an anonymous coward.

Re:Some serious overreaction.

[Stiletto]

When Congress first finds out about a government program by reading a newspaper article made possible only by an insider's leak, you know the system is not working. The checks and balances and chain of accountability you have painstakingly spelled out are clearly not being followed.

Congress and the President are also answerable to the Constitution, which forbids warrantless domestic spying.

Of course everyday people do not need to know the detailed tactics and methods of law enforcement, but they DO need to know that such tactics are lawful, have been authorized by Congress and have been reviewed by the judiciary. I'm surprised that someone who seems to know so much about civics needs THIS spelled out.

If you have ever read any of my posting history you would know that I am also against the Drug War and ATF raids on peaceful citizens, so I'm not sure why you brought that up.

You say you "might" be concerned when the government starts using this domestic spy network to harass ordinary (non-enemy) people? I doubt it.

1. The government has a secret court that it uses to get warrants for searches that it feels it can't go to a regular court for. It has been caught bypassing this court, presumably when it doesn't even have enough evidence for these kangaroo courts.

Where's your concern?

2. The government admitted to monitoring international phone calls and has a list of all phone numbers ever called domestically.

Where's your concern?

3. Now it looks like the government uses this list not for fighting terror, but for going after political enemies.

Where's your concern?

Now if a Democrat president were in office now, and he had such powers would you be concerned?

Re:Some serious overreaction.

[Hrodvitnir]

The NSA doesn't give a shit that you ordered a che guearra T-shirt and hang out at ANSWER rallies 'speaking truth to power.' They don't care that whenever some new leak comes out of the CIA you're furiously typing away on your blog about how much this adminstration sucks and is the most evil thing since hitler killed a puppy for fun. They have more important things to do.

I wouldn't be so sure about that.

Re:Go after lib when hungry, but conserv for sport

[Tim Doran]

None of the newspapers would cover the Clinton impeachment trial? What planet were you on? It was the biggest story in years and it was plastered all over every newspaper in the country!

The same newspapers that breathlessly printed every seedy leak from Ken Starr's office were right there wringing their little hankies about the example the president set with his tryst, but they never tried to tell anyone he was impeached for anything other than lying.

These are the same newpapers that participated in the character assassination of Al Gore in 2000, that breathlessly printed administration bullshit about Iraq, that participated in the character assassination of John Kerry, that printed Republican spin about the Social Security scam that Bush attempted...

You know, if you're going to bitch about "liberal" newspapers, you should try reading one sometime.

MOD PARENT UP

[spun]

I may not agree with him, but he knows whereof he speaks. Like the other poster responding to him, I think it depends on the information being leaked, and the possibilities of achieving justice going through normal channels weighed against the risk of same.

But I give the man credit, he put his money where his mouth is. That's a rare and valuable trait these days.

Re:lives are at stake with leaks; oaths of service

[evought]

Indeed, my oath when I got my TS clearance specifically included "defending The Constitution". Even the oath itself recognizes that a higher cause trumps strict secrecy. That being said, I was never in contact with information that put me in that position. I do not envy people who are asked to decide between their oaths.

Re:What they are doing doesn't require the NSA

[PixelScuba]

Or is that Tennessee?

Re:Great!

[wclacy]

If the left would stop cheering on the terrorists maybe our troops could come home sooner. After all the left are the best cheer leaders the terrorists have. And as long as the terrorists see that they are splitting this country down the middle, they will continue.

There have not been as many problems with this in Afghanistan but the country was not divided about going into afghanistan, and the terrorists were not getting the reaction from the left that they are getting in Iraq.

As far as bush not being elected, that is just false. If you don't like him fine, but he still received more votes than Bill Clinton ever received. If you want to talk about voting scandals we can talk about Clinton selling nuclear secrets China for money to buy the election and then he pardoned everyone he could when he left office.(I like bush better than the alternatives but I still don't like about 50% of what he does which is down from about 90% of what Clinton did.)

Highest popular vote received by President:
62,040,610 Bush - 2004
54,455,472 Reagan - 1984
50,460,110 Bush - 2000
48,886,597 GWH Bush - 1988
47,400,125 Clinton - 1996
47,168,710 Nixon - 1972
44,909,806 Clinton - 1996
43,903,230 Reagan - 1980
43,127,041 Johnson - 1964
40,831,881 Carter - 1976

Re:What they are doing doesn't require the NSA

[SmokedS]

Fact is, the NSA program still is for US to offshore calls.

That's not what I heard

Anyway, that's irrelevant. What is relevant is that the NSA was caught red handed and is trying it's hardest to find and punish the people that exposed their illegal activities.
So in short: The criminals are trying to track down the witness so they can silence/discredit him/her. Kudos to ABC for not being intimidated.
Three cheers for the anyone brave enough to blow the wistle on corruption and abuse of power.

Re:AC/Paris, a few corrections and some info for y

[Qzukk]

There is a substantive threat out there, and all the naysaying you put forth doesnt change it.

And? You're going to tell me that spending my tax money so the government can learn that I like pepperoni (wait.. scratch that, they "claim" they're just recording who I called, so supposedly they just know I phone in for pizza often) is going to... what exactly? Outline just one terrorism scenario where knowing who calls who makes the difference between the bomb going off (or insert other attack here) and saving the day. While we're playing 24, if news gets out that the administration already knew who the terrorist was, it goes down in flames for not arresting him immediately, and their party loses every election for the next 50 years. 100 if your plan fails to stop the bomb.

The money would be better spent on real border control, improving security of high-profile and high-risk structures (like oil refineries), and developing real security for airplane flights (such as swapping stupid rules like "no fingernail clippers" for air marshalls). And arresting the terrorists, instead of letting them run around thinking they're going to get away with their misdeeds, because once the terrorist gets the bomb on the bus/train/plane/whatever, no police, soldier, or NSA agent will save your life, no matter how much of it is on their harddrive.

Re:Go after lib when hungry, but conserv for sport

[AHumbleOpinion]

None of the newspapers would cover the Clinton impeachment trial? What planet were you on? It was the biggest story in years and it was plastered all over every newspaper in the country!

Nice straw man. They covered, but they went with the Dem party spin for the most part, that Ken Starr was persecuting Clinton for a private affair that should be left between a man and his wife.

The same newspapers that breathlessly printed every seedy leak from Ken Starr's office were right there wringing their little hankies about the example the president set with his tryst, but they never tried to tell anyone he was impeached for anything other than lying.

Of course they went for every bit of salacious info, the cigar, the dress, the tapes, etc. As I said, they *will* go after a fellow liberal when hungry. They want the glory and the pulitzer for taking down a president. My point, as opposed to your straw man, is that for a fellow liberal the threshold is far higher than for a conservative. They will attack a conservative with far less info, far less reliable info, etc.

Re:Down with Old Men!

[IdolizingStewie]

This is Slashdot. Of course the original poster is male.

Re:AC/Paris, a few corrections and some info for y

[aussersterne]

I was in Baghdad and in Kabul and Uzbekistan over the past few years (post invasion for both), and there *are* people that want nothing more than our destruction and subjugation.

So what? You gonna kill anyone who wants to kill you. They gonna kill anyone who they think wants to kill them. You're both gonna go at each other with tanks and guns and die inefficiently over time. Nobody will win, but you'll all manage to increase your likelihood of dying young nicely. The more you fight back, the higher the death rate. You're driving the statistics upward with every gunshot. Kill a terrorist, make two. Kill a terrorist-hating American, make two. It's a simple calculation that some people seem unable to get.

Someone has told you you can win. They're wrong. It's not any "different" this time, it's not any more "moral" this time, it's not any more "winnable" this time, it just goes on until old generations die out and new generations choose new enemies.

No need to tell me to read about the Middle East, my thesis was about the role of women in Palestinian terrorism and their socialization into ranks. I have done the fieldwork and I am very familiar. You might do better to listen to the blogs. Many of them are on the ground, as opposed to the mainstream media, who are in the hotels.

All your mentality does is create statistically significant forms of death from forms of death that began as statistically insignificant and could have been largely eliminated altogether with better policy administration and strategic and economic concessions. Yes, I know that conservatives hate concessions; the goal is to rule the world, naturally, and once you have gained a patch of ground, heaven forbid you should cede it to anyone else.

Some of this is a biblical mentality, some of it is a consumerist mentality, some of it is just postcolonial "protect the noble savage."

And stuff your false pity for the deaths in NY. "Statistically Insignificant" is for jackasses liek you. Suppose a terrorist were to sniper shoot you in the head. Thats "Statistically insignificant" but very important to you and anyoen that values life and freedom.

This is where you lose me. Someone shoots me in the head, the last thing I'm going to want to do is destroy all of society in the interest of getting revenge or trying to create a perfectly safe police state that won't manage to stop death anyway. If that's what I wanted, *I'd* be the jackass. I'm just one guy. It's not worth it. Is it worth destroying all of American society over three thousand American deaths? How many Americans die each year as the result of gun crimes? Poor health care? Are we prepared to dismantle a nation over those as well? Is that what the victims would want?

That's precisely what is going on here. Many, many more people are being made to suffer, and not just Americans. Entire ways of life are in danger of ending simply because a statistically insignificant number of people and their families are unable to cope with the fact that life is dangerous, murderers have always been around, helmets are required, and you may die young. Sure, get the murderers. But don't become so focused on that task that you are willing to destroy everyone and everything else in the process.

So you manage to wipe out all of "international terrorism" (which is laughable--terrorism is nothing less than a euphemism for "opposition to the status quo," it's a methodology and a location, not a person or people), and you manage to do it at the expense of all freedom, all multiculturalism, all understanding.

You create the perfect, homogenized dictatorship of safety. Guess what? Some people are still gonna die. Some people are still gonna die young. And more people will still die young by falling off their ladders than ever would have died thanks to some brown, foriegn boogeyman that terrifies the white post-colonialists.

Current American policy is racism, it's isolationism, its overreaction, its self-destructive policy, its a concession to Old Testament proto-messianism, but what it is not is any kind of assurance of safety, now or later, no matter how "successful" anyone is at it.

And you are at war

[cicho]

with whom, and since when? Just because Bush said so, cause he's "the decider"? Last I heard, it was for the Congress to declare war.

You are not at war just because Bush said so. Otherwise, the US has been waging the "war on drugs" for decades, so you could say leaking classified information was treason 10 years ago as well, because then too you were "at war".

You have confused a metaphor with the law. Thanks for playing.

Re:And you are at war

[DigiShaman]

You don't need an offical declaration of war by congress in order to try someone of treason. In fact John Walker Lindh (American Taliban) would have been tried for treason had he not pleaded guilty.

Second: Congress DID grant approval to the president for going to war with Afghanistan and Iraq even though it's not an offical declaration of war.

Note: The last offical declaration of war was with Romaina June 5, 1942 (WW-II)

Re:And you are at war

[MadUndergrad]

"Second: Congress DID grant approval to the president for going to war with Afghanistan and Iraq even though it's not an offical declaration of war." An official declaration of war is the only thing that puts us legally in a state of war. You're correct that the last declaration of war was in WWII. Thus, we haven't been at war since then. Congress granting approval for the use of military action is NOT a declaration of war, else it would be called just that. We don't have to be in a state of war to be able to try someone for treason, but specific laws like the one mentioned by GP aren't activated by anything less than that.

What is good for the goose...

[TiggertheMad]

I actually dont really object to having a place like gitmo, where people are stripped of their rights and summarily tortured, if we can send the people who implimented it there too, if/when they are deemed a 'threat to national security'.

Re:No, it proves the opposite of your point.

[Foamy]

The police only need a warrant for involuntary searches. If they ask, and you say "OK", then they can search without a warrant. Emphasis mine.

If you as an individual permit a search of your person or property, then no warrant is needed and any evidence is likely admissible.

That does not apply to the cases involving the phone companies giving out call information voluntarily. The release of that information without a warrant--which they clearly couldn't get or else they would have gotten one for Qwest--violates US Law.

Communications Act, Section 2703(c), provides exactly five exceptions that would permit a phone company to disclose to the government the list of calls to or from a subscriber: (i) a warrant; (ii) a court order; (iii) the customer's consent; (iv) for telemarketing enforcement; or (v) by "administrative subpoena." The first four clearly don't apply. As for administrative subpoenas, where a government agency asks for records without court approval, there is a simple answer - the NSA has no administrative subpoena authority, and it is the NSA that reportedly got the phone records.

Mail in phone books

[Anonymous Coward]

I think we should help the NSA correlate the data they're gathering by mailing in our phone books.

Imagine 214 million phone books showing up on the same day.

Given enough time (say 6 weeks to get the word out) it would send a strong message I think. In order to ensure that the phone books get recieved and open all we would need to do is mail them to the FOIA address and enclose a letter requesting access to any information they're gathering on us. This way they would have 20 days to respond and they're legally obliged to do so. Don't put your name on the package, only your address so that they MUST open it and read your letter.

I'm dead serious. It would be a great starting point and it's better than just complaining and worrying about it.

Let's pick a day and Mail them here:
National Security Agency
Attn: FOIA/PA Office (DC34)
9800 Savage Road, Suite 6248
Ft. George G. Meade, MD 20755-6248

Re:AC/Paris, a few corrections and some info for y

[R3d M3rcury]

"And those of you who cite 'Secret Prison Camps' - go back and re-research that. They apparently never existed and were a story planted in order to catch leakers (which is what this may be all about)."

Isn't that convenient. Nope--we have no secret prison camps. Forget the various people tracking CIA flights, testimony from people who have been involved, etc. It was all just an elaborate hoax.

Yeah, right.

Re:"missle-armed Predator".

[ArcherB]

People questioned by the FBI about leaks of intelligence information say the CIA was also disturbed by ABC News reports that revealed the use of CIA predator missiles inside Pakistan.

I got it, and in your defense, you were quoting TFA. I just thought I'd be a smart-ass and jab more of the article than you. No offence meant.

I just find it funny when either the editors or authors have no idea what the difference is between a Hell Fire Missile and Predator Drone.

News for Nerds how?

[tlynch001]

Just a flame fest. Anyway, to quote a friend of mine:

I may be wrong about this, but as I recall, the govt does not need a warrant to obtain the telephone #s called. That's because you have no expectation of privacy in that information as you're basically sending it out into the public domain. The contents of the convo require a warrant. So, there's nothing illegal about what the NSA has done.

It is not a threat to the "media's freedom." They are just as free to engage in the illegal distribution of classified info as they ever were. There are consequences. On balance, people should not leak classified info.

Re:News for Nerds how?

[Vegeta99]

I'm not sure about that.

Why would Joe Schmoe think that his phone records were public?

He doesn't pay the government for the line, does he?

Re:News for Nerds how?

[rahrens]

HIS phone records are protected by statute, but not the aggregate of phone numbers called, by which phone numbers, when and for how long, with personally identifying information removed.

THAT information is NOT protected by statute, and is specifically identified by law as being normal business records of the phone company, unprotected by privacy laws.

When you dial a number, you are telling the phone company (remember the old live operators?) which telephone you want to talk to. Since it is phone company switching equipment that actually makes the connection, you have to do that. In that action, you are disclosing, to a third party, certain business information. That information is not protected by privacy laws. Once you are connected, the CONTENT of that conversation IS.

Cops get phone number connection information all the time, using a simple subpoena, which they then need because personal ID is attached.

But the so called NSA "spying" program is using aggregate info, looking for calling patterns, which, when established, can then be used for the required warrant from the FISA court for the actual wiretap, or for just identifying particular individuals as persons of interest for further investigation.

If the government is interested in who is calling their phones, they can get that information, as a customer, without violating the law. I'd be willing to bet that the contract the government has with their carriers allows just that, since its not a standard user agreement. Once they have that database, its just a matter of knowing a reporter's phone number and looking it up in that database to see who they called.

No violation of law at all. The Washington Post is just crying wolf on this one.

Re:News for Nerds how?

[kilfarsnar]

"Cops get phone number connection information all the time, using a simple subpoena, which they then need because personal ID is attached."

Right, so where's the subpoena? Do you think the NSA does not know who's phone numbers these are? If so, you're absolutely adorable. "But the so called NSA "spying" program is using aggregate info, looking for calling patterns, which, when established, can then be used for the required warrant from the FISA court for the actual wiretap"

Which, to my knowledge, they are not getting. See that's the issue. There is little or no judicial oversight happening here. And it really really looks like the administration has been lying to us about it.

Re:News for Nerds how?

[rahrens]

Well, you don't really KNOW that there aren't warrants. You just have the press' word for it. How do you know they aren't asking for warrants for US citizens they find through this program? I assume the FISA court didn't just shut down, so I would guess they're still issuing warrants.

And yes, they probably do know who those numbers belong to, using on-line databases through Google or Yahoo just like you or I would! No need to violate the law, when they can get it legally and just look it up. Hey, they have a budget, too, and if they can get the info for free on line, they will.

No, in principle, I do agree that there is an alarming amount of chicanery going on, but let's not go overboard. Stick to the real issue, which is the government not using the FISA court like they should. This phone number networking thing is the press blowing smoke, looking for anything they can to nail Bush for.

Re:Down with Old Men!

[tecie]

That all depends on what the future holds. Who knows, maybe one day we'll be munching on our Soylent Green and wonder where Grandpa is...

moronic

[commodoresloat]

I can't believe I'm taking this bait but here we go. If Valerie was not covert, the CIA would never have asked for an investigation. If leaking her name was legal, the whole issue could have been settled with a simple phone call (not even a tapped one!) from Fitzgerald to the CIA. The CIA is the only entity in any position to tell us whether or not VPW was covert. Finally, Scooter is being charged with lying and obstructing justice, not with violating the IIPA.

These people defending Libby make me sick. It's one thing to minimize the nature of his crime, or to claim that the CIA wasn't doing a very good job of protecting VPW's cover, but it is quite another to act like Scooter is some kind of hero for this. Who knew that the Republican party would have a wing that is openly pro-treason.

Re:AC/Paris, a few corrections and some info for y

[American AC in Paris]

...as you mention me by name, I feel compelled to respond to a few things:

Umm, there are some craters in NYC and PA and a lot of relatives of dead people that differ with you on your opinion of "nebulous". One of them is a firefighter cousin of mine.

There is a substantive threat out there, and all the naysaying you put forth doesnt change it. Please start dealing with reality, not fantasy.

Whats important is that we do recoginize that there is a threat and as a nation PUBLICLY decide what we are going to do about it. Pretending its not there and we can go back to 1996 isn't going to work (thats your mistkae). Neither is hiding all our efforts under blanket secrecy to prevent such a thing from happening (thats Bush's mistake).

For starters, you're jumping to one hell of a conclusion by conflating my opposition to how our government is handling the terror threat with me somehow sticking my head in the sand and pretending that the whole wide world simply wuvs us and wouldn't hurt a hair on our heads. I don't think we should "go back" to ignoring terrorism. I also don't think that we're tackling the problem in the right fashion, either--and I get rather exercised by people who suggest that my failure to support the battle as it is currently being waged is, by extension, a failure to grasp the gravity of the situation.

I do take terrorism seriously, and frankly, I think the administration is making us far, far more enemies than allies in this regard. Nearly five years after 9/11, most of the world harbors dislike for our nation and our policies; startlingly large chunks of certain regions absolutely, vehemently abhor us, and actively wish to cause us harm. Tough talk about evil regimes and no negotiating with rogue nations looks good for the cameras, but it is simply unsustainable in the long term. Our military has been running at capacity with stop-loss orders for several years now, we're "meeting" reduced recruiting goals, and the crown jewel of our global offensive on terror is in an active civil war that we are pretty much powerless to stop--all we can do is supress it somewhat. On the international front, we've engaged in so much saber-rattling, "don't-fuck-with-us-we're-crazy"-style foreign relations that our allies are distancing themselves from us, and our enemies are starting to call our bluff. Our hands are pretty much tied when it comes to Iran, with our choices being largely restricted to "hope the EU 3 make a breakthrough" and "full war". We recently taught the Palestineans a valuable lesson about democracy in this brave new world: if you don't elect who we want you to elect, you'll pay dearly for it. North Korea is off the diplomatic radar again, since we're spending most of our diplomatic energy on keeping Iraq's civil war from erupting completely. Our president's staunchest ally is absolutely loathed by his populace and is on his way out. Our alliance with Pakistan will last only so long as the US-friendly military junta remains in power; a popular uprising would be all too happy to cut ties with America. Good 'ol "Pootie Poot" is finally showing his colors, which look something different from when he was chumming it with our president those years ago. Venezuela, should have been a fairly minor diplomatic thorn in our side, has turned into a full-scale pissing match between two men too proud to have anything short of their way. Even Afghanistan is still in limbo, with the Taliban making a limited resurgence and various warlords cum politicos jockeying for power.

How, exactly, is this the profile of a nation that is winning a struggle against international terrorism?

I care about national security. I care about combating terrorism. I also get a little ticked when people accuse me of living in a fantasy land simply because I think we're not going about things the right way. Since 9/11, I've lived in DC and Baltimore. I lived smack in the middle of the DC Sniper. If you think I spent those da

This is the most corrupt Presidency since Nixon...

[Money for Nothin']

(at least!)

Mod me down -1, Obvious...

Re:Yawn....

[dfenstrate]

Non-sequitir. Bad anaolgy. Really, do I have to explain this shit to you?

The journalists in question participated in a crime. The fact that they write for a newspaper does not make them special and above investigation for their participation in a crime.

not exactly

[commodoresloat]

when I got my clearance I signed a letter to the effect that at any time for the rest of my life if I disclose classified information I am subject to X thousands of dollars in fines and Y number of year in a federal prison. Apparently if you are important enough you can skip that signing part when you get a clearance.

No, no... you just get to set X and Y equal to "0".

Section 2701?

[TubeSteak]

I'm surprised no one has called you on this yet.

http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode18/u sc_sup_01_18_10_I_20_121.html

I read Section 2701 and all the Sections it references: 2703, 2704, 2518
For good measure, I read 2702.

None of those sections ever state that the FBI/Police can get any information without a warrant or subpoena signed by a judge.

Your statement that: "The surprising thing is that they dont even need a warrant - a simple "Section 2701" court order suffices - and the law even orders that the judge "Shall Issue" such an order when it comes to these kinds of records," is only partially correct. I say partially, because instead of a warrant, they can get a subpoena.

The law says nothing about 'the judge "Shall Issue"'

If you had read the law you referenced, you would have learned that the police/FBI must detail with specificity who/what/when/where/why in their application for a subpoena or warrant.

Possibly you meant Section 2709?
Counterintelligence access to telephone toll and transactional records

To get any information that way, "The Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, or his designee in a position not lower than Deputy Assistant Director at Bureau headquarters or a Special Agent in Charge in a Bureau field office designated by the Director" must certify that their request(s) "are relevant to an authorized investigation to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities"

And that section of the law requires that the FBI inform Committees in both the House and Senate on a semi-annual basis.

Re:Haha..

[commodoresloat]

It has nothing to do with the issue of leaking. But what it does show us is that when our fear of terrorism gets the better of us, it creates a self-fulfilling prophesy.

Re:Go after lib when hungry, but conserv for sport

[Tim Doran]

It's not a straw man, I was responding to the grandparent post. Jeez...

So the news coverage of the Clinton impeachment was *sympathetic* to Clinton? Can you back that up at all? Bob Somerby's Daily Howler has extensive analysis of just how absurdly pro-Republican the coverage actually was, to the point of abandoning common journalistic practices and ethics. Just throw "Starr" into the search box on his site.

And my greater point, which you completely ignored, is that the press has been on a right-wing tear for over a decade now. Again, I point to their performance on Gore/Election 2000, Iraq, John Kerry... all breathlessly repeating Republican spin no matter how absurd.

Can you address that at all? Or are you just going to call it a straw man again?

I'll take your $20

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll take your $20 and here's why:

1) There is no additional risk.
2) A quick (yet fairly deep) check on a single number should be about as hard and expensive to use as Google.
2) The time and money being spent by their Security Agency is not coming out of Neocon pockets anyways.
4) It would be a pain in the butt to keep them separate.
5) Reporters talk to interesting people.

You can donate it to the EFF.

Murray Rothbard said it best...

[Money for Nothin']

Government is a gigantic criminal enterprise, much like the Mafia.

Very Important Distinction

[Analogy Man]

Fact is, your local police department can do the same as what is being claimed here.

With a WARRANT as part of a criminal investigation.

I personnally feel "safe" in my annonimity, but am still concerned that our country is letting our liberty erode so quickly. Our country is already responsible for whisking away a German citizen, beating the crap out of him in some thrid world hole and dropping him off in the middle of nowhere Albania. Is blowing the whistle on this kind of mistake treason? If you think so it will be a shame if your lost cell phone is found by a group of young college students with family in Pakistan, Iraq and Indonesia...The black helicopter boys would have you flown off to "Kaz-beat-you-ek-like-pinata-stan" before their wife has dinner on the table.

Please take a look at the constitution sometime! Particularly Amendments 1,4,5,6 and 8.

If vigorous defense of my freedom is the act of a liberal count me as one! When Bush and Rove talk of a complete victory in the war on terror ask these questions:

• Where is the war? Iraq? Iran? Anywhere with sand? Anywhere with Muslim extremists? Anywhere there has been a politically or ideologically motivated act of violence? Everywhere?
• Who is the enemy? Al Queda? What if we kill all of them and another group pops up? What if they all unite under the Al Queda banner, but stop their violent ways and have a big picnic in Libya?
• Most importantly: when is the war over? Complete victory is a a BIG sounding thing. We beat the Germans to the last bunker, victory was obvious. We have a DMZ in Korea for 50 years...a cold standoff with no violence...is that a victory? If we have the top 95% of the named bad guys in some cell to rot is that complete victory? If we have all the bad guys plus another 10,000 odds and ends that happened to be farming, driving by, next door, went to the same school...is that complete victory?

Re:Very Important Distinction

[Ohreally_factor]

Where is the war?

Current events should make it clear: the war is here on our soil. Better to fight it here than in distant lands where we don't have nearly the same control of the telecommunication infrastructure.

Who is the enemy?

The press, which has finally shown it's true traitorous colors by reporting on sensitive politically damaging information. And of course, the enemy is anyone with access to such information that is critical of Bush and brave . . . I mean craven . . . enough to go public.

Most importantly: when is the war over?

It might take many years, but the war is over when we are free. Free from inconvenient civil liberties, free from liberal facts, free to live under the ruler-ship of a Bush Dynasty.

You forgot a couple points

[MarkusQ]

4) We went through the long, painful public process of amending the constitution before the IRS in its present form was created. In effect, We The People agreed, beforehand, to the IRS.

If the IRS was a secret program that was created by the president without the approval of congress or the people, and we only found out about it because someone leaked, you can bet there'd be a stink about it.

5) The IRS applies to everyone equally.

One of the big objections to this program is that it is being used to target people who might gather and report information damaging to this administration. Imagine if your tax rate depended on how loyal you were to the government. Wouldn't that be a teensy violation of the first amendment?

-- MarkusQ

Nonsense about "individuals"

[loqi]

Collectivists like you are disgusting to individualists.

So are you basically saying here that scale is not important when considering how to deal with something? If the individual is all that matters, why does 9/11 matter more than the odd American here or there getting killed by terrorists abroad? You seem to think things have changed substantially since 1996, so I'd like to know how that fits into your "individualist" philosophy.

GP's point is that it's absurd to ask us to compromise as citizens (i.e., give up our rights and pay for ridiculous wars) over something like 9/11. That's like your local police department asserting new rights for itself because of a serial killing in another state.

However, now, if you and yours are wrong, thousands more innocents will die, and many more will suffer.

Huh? Thousands more innocents will die if... ? That's a pretty powerful consequence to invoke without really coming clear about what you're saying. If Bush gets impeached? If it turns out that there were WMDs in Iraq? I'm also really confused as to how wrongfully removing Bush would cost so many lives, considering how much he's accomplished as far inciting the next generation of terrorists, and how studiously he ignored the threat of terrorism in the pre-9/11 days.

We know already that over 30,000 innocents have died in Iraq as a result of the war. Some might even go so far as to say the administration mislead us into that war, or that some members of the administration wanted to invade Iraq all along. I think, given their existing track record, it's far more dangerous to assume the administration is at all on the level.

Re:Haha..

[Gooba42]

Why doesn't that constitute torture? It's certainly the type of coercion used by the Nazi's to gain intelligence when they "interviewed" my great grandmother for 12 continuous hours.

It's also the type of thing which is frowned upon by our prison system when used against our *legal* prisoners. It's also not the limit of the tactics used against these prisoners, you might recall the phrase "water boarding" used pretty frequently.

You may also recall that Abu Ghraib was under our control at the time of the openly admitted action there. The supposedly rogue agents were trained by our military and intelligence agencies to perform such actions, supposedly that would be for them to *use* such tactics. Whether they did so under direction of our government or not makes little material difference when you consider the fact we trained them to do it under precisely the circumstances they were presented.

You might also consider the US government's insistence that the Red Cross and various other humanitarian groups *not* be allowed to conduct any extensive audit of our facilities at Gitmo and perhaps draw the conclusion that the government is afraid of what might be found there. This is obviously conjecture *but* why do we have to resort to conjecture in a supposedly free and democratic society where transparency is the only guarantee of continued freedom from tyranny? Isn't this precisely the kind of dodgy behavior which supposedly justfied "regime change" in Iraq?

We agreed to the Geneva Accords, can we not restrain ourselves from violating treaties we had a hand in drafting and forcing on other nations? Are these not the "crimes against humanity" which we are now prosecuting Saddam Hussein for having committed and now we prefer to opt out when it's our turn to show our cards?

The republic has only one true enemy right now and that is the willfull ignorance and tacit approval of its citizenry. I'm with "V" here, the people should not fear their government, the government should fear the people.

mod parent up

[adpowers]

Wow, that is quiet a post. It is very well written and takes apart all of the grandparents flawed arguments. If only I had mod points now. How long did it take to write all that?

And to think Dubya was a history major ...

[constantnormal]

At last! Finally we found some terrorists ... at an address on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Let's check the historical precedent -- when Nixon resigned to avoid impeachment, it was due to using the CIA to spy on the Democrats.

While there aren't many Democrats around anymore, messing with the folks who buy ink by the barrel is not terribly bright ... but then ...

Dubya's got a stubborn streak a mile wide and a mile deep -- he won't go quietly. And with his approval ratings, I could see a number of Republicans deciding they might be better off without him. So we might actually get to see what happens when a President is removed from the protections of the Executive Office.

Even if President Cheney would be inclined to pardon him (as I'm sure he would be), I suspect that he has his own skeletons in the closet to be wary of, and we might just get to see what kind of subsequent criminal charges could be brought against a President impeached and then removed from office by means of a trial for "High Crimes and Misdemeanors".

We definitely live in interesting times.

Re:What's scary are the comments left on the ABC b

[Boronx]

Your musings may seem over the top, but they bring to mind a recent analysis of a roadside bomb that was intercepted while being smuggled into Iraq from Iran.

The bomb was of British design, later sold to the IRA.

The British government is frequently Olympian in its stupidty and corruption, but anything they can do we can do better.

Re:AC/Paris, a few corrections and some info for y

[coaxial]

As a result the FBI have gotten court orders to get the call detail records of those suspected of being complicit in this crime. From my time in telecom, I can tell you that this is a routine occurance, and most telcos even have an office that deals with these things, one that is in weekly contact with the local FBI field offices. The surprising thing is that they dont even need a warrant - a simple "Section 2701" court order suffices - and the law even orders that the judge "Shall Issue" such an order when it comes to these kinds of records (in other words the judge doesn't have much choice if the FBI says the need it for investigation into a possible criminal offense - they show up, tell them what they want and walk out with a court order for the telco). There is very little legal protection for this sort of record when a crime is being investigated.

One word of about the legal defination of "shall." "Shall" doesn't always mean "will" or "must." It can also mean "may." As they say, "If you can't argue the facts, argue the law."

Now, on to the wiretaps.

Are the wiretaps being conducted by the FBI? The article doesn't say. Now they should be conducted by the FBI, since the FBI has sole jurisdiction within the United States, but as we've seen recently, the adminstration has little regard for that as seen with the NSA operating within the borders of the United States, which is explictly forbidden to do so. Was the required warrant issued? That's the question. If government did get a court order, then everything is cool. They showed probable cause to an independent judiciary. That's the way the system works, and how it should work. Unfortunately, there's real doubt these days that actually happened.

Currently there's a program, in violation of the 4th Amendment by the NSA. It's conducting surveillance on American cititzens without any judical oversight. Why is that? The FISA court was setup to issue secret warrants, and it only rejected only a handfull of requests in 30 years. Speed? The government could start wiretaps immediately and get a retroactive wiretap within 72 hours. That's plenty of time to fill out paper work.

The president has argued that he (through the executive) doesn't require court orders in manners of national security. Revealing state secrets would definately fall under the national security umbrella. So by this logic, no court order is required, so why would one be sought?

Just to recap what this adminstration has publically argued:

• The president can unilaterally order surveillance on American citizens.
• The president can order the arrest of an American citizen, and hold that citizen for an inderterminate amount of time in a secret location without charge.
• The president can declare that American citizen an "enemy combatant" and try him in an extra-judicial proceeding that where the executive branch serves as prosecutor, judge, and jury. This proceeding can order the death penalty.
• The president can order "extraordinary interogations" (i.e. torture) or individuals.
• The president has the power to violate the law in manners related to national security.
• The president is the sole determiner of when this may occur.
• The president's power in these matters are above oversight.

This is distrurbing. This is too much power for one man. That's why the founding fathers created a system of checks and balances on the executive. What does the adminstration say to a lay my fears? "Trust us." No. No I don't, and more importantly, I live in a country with a form a government where I don't have to.

Just though a few facts might counter the hysteria. The sky isnt falling - at least in this instance - the laws are working as they are written to do. And those of you who cite "Secret Prison Camps" - go back and re-research that. They apparently never existed and were a

Remember the constitution?

[SmokedS]

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.

Someone may argue some legal mumbo jumbo that purports to show that the constitution doesn't really say what you just read above, but that just sophistry. What is meant is eminently clear:

1. Government officials get to trespass on the privacy of citizens only when they have a warrant.
2. A warrant shall only be issued when there is probable cause.

The NSA have grabbed the records of tens of millions of American citizens without a warrant. That's all you need to know.

Before someone shouts: "But the PATRIOT ACT!":
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

The PATRIOT act. That name is one sick piece of propaganda. It goes against everything the constitution stands for. Speaking of the constitution: Anyone remember this quote?

I do solemnly swear 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.
That's what Bush swore. Remember?

How about these quotes? Remember them?

They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Without Freedom of Thought there can be no such Thing as Wisdom; and no such Thing as Public Liberty, without Freedom of Speech.

Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves, therefore, are its only safe depositories.

A free people claim their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.

I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.

I thought that was what Americans were supposed to stand for!

Re:Remember the constitution?

[ArcherB]

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.

And where is the part about PRIVACY ? I missed that part.

Actually, I'd debate unreasonable and persons, houses, papers, and effects . we are talking about phone records here, which are could be debated are more the property of the phone companies as they are the people, and not talking about wire tapping and not kicking doors in.
And sorry, but the gov't has leeway when it comes to national security. Take Abe Lincoln for example. From here:

More violations of the Constitution probably occurred during Abraham Lincoln's four years as president than during any other cohesively defined era in American history. Many have pointed out that Lincoln suspended habeas corpus to jail war protesters, shut down hundreds of newspapers that disagreed with his war, established a draft for the first time in American history (except in the seceded South, which had a draft a year earlier), instituted restrictions on firearms, and sent troops to violently suppress the New York draft riot. He also used the war to push through the "American System," a program of de facto nationalization of the transportation industry via massive subsidies to corporations that would agree to build "internal improvements" - railroads, waterways, and canals. The victory of the Union in 1865 not only established that, contrary to popular political theory in the antebellum era, the federal government was completely supreme over the states; it also established that a president could do literally anything he could get away with, no matter how many liberties were suspended, innocents jailed, and people killed in the process.

So I ask again, is this illegal? Is this guy a whistle blower, traitor or scumbag (see grandparent post)?

Re:Remember the constitution?

[SmokedS]

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.

And where is the part about PRIVACY ? I missed that part.

That would be the part i marked in bold. The founding fathers could hardly predict the technological state of today, but the intent and spirit of the constitution is very clear. It hardly takes any great mind to realize how "papers and effects" translates into digital data.

The founding fathers were big believers in Checks and Balances. And for a very good reason. The government cannot be trusted! The founding fathers knew this very well.
That's why the US has trial by jury. You did know that the jury has veto power over laws right? That's because the US is supposed to be a democracy and that is the final check and balance to be applied to a law. That the jury accepts it as just. The PATRIOT act does away with all that though. No jury. No trial. NO CONSTITUTION. NO HUMAN RIGHTS.

More violations of the Constitution probably occurred during Abraham Lincoln's four years as president than during any other cohesively defined era in American history. Many have pointed out that Lincoln suspended habeas corpus to jail war protesters, shut down hundreds of newspapers that disagreed with his war, established a draft for the first time in American history (except in the seceded South, which had a draft a year earlier), instituted restrictions on firearms, and sent troops to violently suppress the New York draft riot. He also used the war to push through the "American System," a program of de facto nationalization of the transportation industry via massive subsidies to corporations that would agree to build "internal improvements" - railroads, waterways, and canals. The victory of the Union in 1865 not only established that, contrary to popular political theory in the antebellum era, the federal government was completely supreme over the states; it also established that a president could do literally anything he could get away with, no matter how many liberties were suspended, innocents jailed, and people killed in the process.

These are examples of abuses of power. It most certainly is not legal, and the fact that he got away with it means nothing except just that. Crimes that someone got away with do not change the constitution. They do not mean we should ignore or accept new crimes.

Re:Remember the constitution?

[ArcherB]

The founding fathers could hardly predict the technological state of today, but the intent and spirit of the constitution is very clear. It hardly takes any great mind to realize how "papers and effects" translates into digital data.
You are absolutely correct. The intent of the founders can not be denied. If in doubt, read Madison's own words:
"The rights of the people to be secured in their persons, their houses, their papers, and their other property from all unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated by warrants issued without probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, or not particularly describing the places to be searched, or the persons or things to be seized."
So even though privacy is not listed, I'll grant you an implied right to privacy in your own home.
However, phone records are the property of the phone companies. If you want to right down everyone you call and calls you receive, that would be your personal affects and would be protected. But would a ferry receipt from the 1880's be protected? How about a guest log from the local inn or diner? Would these not be the 1800's equivelant of phone records?

These are examples of abuses of power. It most certainly is not legal, and the fact that he got away with it means nothing except just that. Crimes that someone got away with do not change the constitution. They do not mean we should ignore or accept new crimes.
Abe Lincoln wasn't alone. You could chalk up "abuses" by Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Andrew Jackson as well. (I'm sure there are others, but it's late). These "abuses" are legal by precedent. It is the sworn duty of the Prez to do whatever it takes to defend this country. After reading what Lincoln did, I'd say GWB has been pretty reserved. If the liberty survived Lincoln's and Roosevelt's "abuses", it will survive GWB!
http://www.sonic.net/sentinel/gvcon5.html has a pretty good read-up on what GWB could do, but hasn't. Maybe he's not the drunk-with-power-red-neck-Nazi every keeps calling him.
We are at war (What was that slogan? No *blank* for Oil!") In a time of war, the Prez is given authority to execute that war. Now if the Prez were to use this authority to spy on John Kerry to get election dirt (see Watergate), or use the FBI and IRS to dig up dirt on political opponents (see FileGate), then that would certainly be an illegal, impeachable offence. But that is not the case here. There are certain "high level government officials" who are leaking classified secrets like a drunken teenager. This can be very dangerous to national security and can get soldiers and civilians killed. In any other time in our history, this would be called treason. Men have been hung for less, so please don't tell me how liberty is being trampled more now than any time in our history, because, even though you don't like it, it's simply not true.

Re:Remember the constitution?

[SmokedS]

Enough of the splitting of hairs. Let's hear an honest opinion. Do you belive as I do that:
Checks and Balances must me maintained.
That a law that goes against the moral beliefs of a majority of the people is invalid.
That the government is not above the law.
That the aims cannot ever justify the means if those means include wars of aggression, gross injustices, or mass infringing on citizens freedom, including in freedom the intrinsically joined concept of privacy.
That the law is a tool to be shaped and used by free people guided by their sense of justice.
That any so called democratic society that forgets this has lost it's way.

Or do you believe, that the government should be almost whatever it likes, using a war, that IT STARTED UNILATERALLY WITH LIES AS MOTIVATION, as the excuse?
That the stated aims justifies the means?
That in fact the WORDS of KNOWN LIARS are more important than your own RIGHTS and those of all other Americans, not to mention Iraqis?
That the law is a tool to be used by the gowernment to control the people.

This is what you appear to me to imply. Let's hear what you believe, and how you motivate it!

Re:Remember the constitution?

[SmokedS]

"should be almost whatever it likes"
Should have been:
"should be allowed to do almost whatever it likes"

Re:Remember the constitution?

[ArcherB]

Enough of the splitting of hairs. Let's hear an honest opinion. Do you belive as I do that:
Checks and Balances must me maintained.
Yes
That a law that goes against the moral beliefs of a majority of the people is invalid.
In some instances, yes, others, no. Removing the 10 Commandments from a courthouse goes against the moral beliefs of the majority. Does that make it invalid? The right of the KKK to protest goes against the beliefs of the majority. The rights of spammers to breathe... you get my point.
That the government is not above the law.
Yes
That the aims cannot ever justify the means if those means include wars of aggression, gross injustices, or mass infringing on citizens freedom, including in freedom the intrinsically joined concept of privacy.
Yes, but I don't see the current means as you do.
That the law is a tool to be shaped and used by free people guided by their sense of justice.
Yes, but keep in mind that people's sense of justice tends to change.
That any so called democratic society that forgets this has lost it's way.
Sure

Or do you believe, that the government should be almost whatever it likes, using a war, that IT STARTED UNILATERALLY WITH LIES AS MOTIVATION, as the excuse?
No. But again, I don't think your description of the status quo is accurate. How many mass graves does it take to validate a war? The Iraq war was authorized by the UN, 17 times over. As to "LIES AS A MOTIVATION", I don't buy into that either. In Iraq for example, WMD's were not the only reason we went to Iraq, just the one the press latched onto. And to call bad intel, lies, is dishonest in itself. I think you should be asking France, Germany or Russia why they didn't want to go to war when all of their leaders thought WMD's were in Iraq? Why did they not stand up for the down trodden in Iraq? Why does the UN not stand up for human rights in places like Syria, Lebanon or much of Africa? If we are the only ones that will stand up to a tyrant that fills mass graves with the bodies of women, still holding thier children, then so be it.

That the stated aims justifies the means?
In this case, Yes. The stated aims (protecting Americans from terrorists) justifies the means (catching someone who has violated national security).
That in fact the WORDS of KNOWN LIARS are more important than your own RIGHTS and those of all other Americans, not to mention Iraqis?
Again, I disagree with the "known liars" bit. Tell that to the Iraqis who get to vote to more than one candidate for the first time in their lives.
That the law is a tool to be used by the gowernment to control the people.
No. To protect people. For that matter, I believe that laws that do not protect people should be abolished (See NORML)

This is what you appear to me to imply. Let's hear what you believe, and how you motivate it!
Done!
Believe it or not, you and I agree on more than we disagree. We just don't see the world from the same angle. I do see your point of view, however, as I will be quite nervous once the next administration takes over. I'll join your point of view when the first time these new security measures are used for anything other than security (see filegate and watergate).

Re:Remember the constitution?

[SmokedS]

Yes, we agree on many points. And I'm glad we managed to keep this civil. The points we disagree on are rather big though:

I do not believe that the death of tens of thousands of civilians can be justified by claiming to be bringing democracy.

I do not believe that you can force democracy on a country. All you can achive that way is a pseudo colony with a pseudo democracy. The kind of situation leading to the current state of Africa.

I do not believe that Bush believed there were WMDs in Iraq, nor that Iraq was closely tied to Al Quaeda, nor that Iraq was any kind of threat to the US.
I do believe that the "intelligence failures" were 100% intentional.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-15936 07,00.html
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/sp ecial_packages/iraq/intelligence/11901380.htm
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/sp ecial_packages/iraq/intelligence/12995512.htm

I do not believe that Bush invaded Iraq for humanitarian reasons.
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/
This count is most likely closer to the truth:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11 674.htm

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/ne ws/2006/05/12/wirq12.xml
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2162249, 00.html
http://www.time.com/time/archive/preview/0,10987,1 186519,00.html
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArti cle.asp?articleID=8218

The list is endless but I'll stop here.

I believe that Bush does and will continue to do exactly whatever he feels will benefit him, with no concern what so ever for how many dies for his gain. Not that you actually need anything but his actions and his statements to prove this, but here are more links:
http://downingstreetmemo.com/archive/2004-10-31-Ho ustonChron-Herskowitz/
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article12 885.htm

I believe that Bush is now planning his next war of aggression.
http://www.zaman.com/?bl=international&alt=&trh=20 060511&hn=33036
http://www.rense.com/general71/tdarg.htm
http://wakeupfromyourslumber.blogspot.com/2006/05/ us-feverishly-works-to-frame-iran_13.html
http://newswire.indymedia.org/en/2006/05/839133.sh tml
http://english.people.com.cn/200605/13/eng20060513 _265252.html
http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Condoleeza_Rice_ admits_she_responded_to_0509.html

Greetings from Sodom

[deltacephei]

How we wish you were here
The weather's getting warmer
Now that the trees are all cleared
There's no time for a conscience
And we recognize no crime
Yeah we got dogs and Valvoline
It's a pretty damn good time

There was one repressed do-gooder
And a few who still believed
Yes I think there were five good men here yesterday
But they were asked to leave
So we've kept the good old vices
And laboured to invent a few
With cake in vulgar surplus
We can have it and eat it, too

--Toy Matinee, 1990

I move Your Rights Online be renamed Your Rights Dismantled.

And perhaps a new category could be created entitled Restoring Your Rights.

Re:AC/Paris, a few corrections and some info for y

[BalanceOfJudgement]

My dear American AC in Paris,

I do not often use the vernacular of our times; having grown up on books like The Federalist Papers and The Prince, I generally prefer more intelligent discourse.

Every once in awhile however, someone so completely blows my mind with a position so clearly and powerfully written that I am forced to say...

Holy fucking shit that was a good post!

My hat's off to you. I'm keeping this one for posterity's sake, should I ever need these words again.

maybe not illegal, but Bush lied about it

[bigtrike]

"I don't know of anyone in my administration who has leaked," Mr. Bush told reporters in Chicago. But, he added, "If somebody did leak classified information, I'd like to know it, and we'll take the appropriate action. And this investigation is a good thing."

Presumably if Bush was the one who leaked the classified information, then he lied about it to the american people. If Bush did not know about it, then it was illegal. Either way, there are serious ethical problems with this administration.

Midterm Elections in 6 months

[Phoenix666]

The only way to change this situation is to get a Democratic majority in Congress. Sorry, Republicans and Independents, the Republican majority has already substantially demonstrated they have no interest in protecting and upholding the Constitution. They must out. A Democratic majority will investigate and impeach, and the Republic will be safe once again. Conservatives have an edge in SCOTUS; fine, they can stay for a while so we have balance again. But the administration and corrupt members of Congress must be impeached and imprisoned.

How do you make this happen? Work for a Democratic candidate where you live and help elect them. If you're in New York, there's a great organization called New Democratic Majority (newdemmajority.org) that has been working since 2003 on the grassroots level to win seats back from Republicans. Elsewhere there are lots of organizations working on the same thing. Pick one and pitch in. Personally, I like grassroots because you can do more interesting things than stuff envelopes, but pick whatever suits your fancy. Just do something. Heck, even if you're a disaffected Republican, it's really important to the future of the country that you put your shoulder to the wheel too. There are lots of groups that aren't loosie-goosie hippy-cum-bleeding hearts, in fact. Most are eminently reasonable and pragmatic.

Just do it!

Re:Midterm Elections in 6 months

[Intrinsic]

The only way to change this situation is to get a Democratic majority in Congress. Sorry, Republicans and Independents, the Republican majority has already substantially demonstrated they have no interest in protecting and upholding the Constitution. They must out. A Democratic majority will investigate and impeach, and the Republic will be safe once again. Conservatives have an edge in SCOTUS; fine, they can stay for a while so we have balance again. But the administration and corrupt members of Congress must be impeached and imprisoned.

Please, The Democratic Party is just as corrupt as Republicans. The two party system is a smoke screen that allows the government to continue its corrupt practices under the control of large corporations at our expense. We need a third party in congress. Voting for a third party means things are going to get worse before they get better. But it needs to happen if we are going to make any progress in changing the way our government works.

Re:Go after lib when hungry, but conserv for sport

[Ohreally_factor]

Save your breath (or your typing fingers). He's drunk the koolaid; for him, anything that doesn't fit the Party line has a liberal spin. His kind are like a wall I've been banging my head against for the past eight years (at least).

Besides, do you really expect any sort of intellectual honesty from the remaining 29%? You know, the backwash?

Re:It's never "Time to leak to the press"

[metamatic]

If something illegal is being done that's classified, you are fully within your rights to report it To Congress.

If there was any hope of a Republican-controlled Congress doing anything about illegal and unethical activities of a Republican administration, we'd have seen at least some action by now.

Re:Haha..

[ArcherB]

Why doesn't that constitute torture? It's certainly the type of coercion used by the Nazi's to gain intelligence when they "interviewed" my great grandmother for 12 continuous hours.

With all due respect to your grandmother, no, 12 hrs of talk does not constitute torture. I'm sorry, but when compared to say, 12 hrs of bamboo splints up the fingernails, or 12 hrs of having some guy named Hanz beat you with a sock full of coins, even 12 hrs of seeing your wife, daughter or mother raped is toruture... but no, sorry, 12 hrs of questioning is not turture.
Under your rules, is 6 hrs of questioning torture? How about 2 hrs. What if I ask a single question or look inquisitive? Is that torture? Where do you draw the line?
From Gitmo, the torture that has been reported has been having the AC too cold, sleep deprivation, having to hear a female and male prisoner talk to each other, and having a fellow inmate flush a Koran.

You may also recall that Abu Ghraib was under our control at the time of the openly admitted action there. The supposedly rogue agents were trained by our military and intelligence agencies to perform such actions, supposedly that would be for them to *use* such tactics. Whether they did so under direction of our government or not makes little material difference when you consider the fact we trained them to do it under precisely the circumstances they were presented.

The comment I was referring to mentioned the torture at Gitmo. I have heard of nothing coming out of Gitmo that I would call torture. As to the torture at Abu Ghraib, I'd call that abuse, but still does not qualify as torture in my book. Those responsibe for that are now in a military stockade. I've been to a military stockade. Trust me, they would much rather be in Abu Ghraib.

You might also consider the US government's insistence that the Red Cross and various other humanitarian groups *not* be allowed to conduct any extensive audit of our facilities at Gitmo and perhaps draw the conclusion that the government is afraid of what might be found there.

Sorry, but your're wrong. According to the Red Cross it is our very own government that requested the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to visit with the detainees. Stop drinking the Kool-Aid.
Maybe you are thinking of Amnesty International (or AmNasty Intl). They invited, but insisted they be left alone with prisoners. Of course, this was denied for their own security as well as the US's. The last thing the US needs is some anti-American Socialist from AI coaching prisoners or telling them information they are not supposed to have. Even worse, it would be a PR nightmare if a few AI reps were assaulted held hostage by a prisoner. Besides, AI has an agenda. From CNN: The chief of Amnesty International USA alleged Sunday that the Guantanamo Bay detention camp is part of a worldwide network of U.S. jails, some of them secret, where prisoners are mistreated and even killed. They also labeled the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay as "the gulag of our times." Of course, all this without actually going there. Yeah, they have no agenda. I had no idea that Gulag prisoners were fed three hot meals a day and given an opportunity to practice their faith.

We agreed to the Geneva Accords, can we not restrain ourselves from violating treaties we had a hand in drafting and forcing on other nations?

Geneva Accords refers to uniformed soldiers, not trained terrorists who dress as civilians and hide among and behind women and children.

Are these not the "crimes against humanity" which we are now prosecuting Saddam Hussein for having committed and now we prefer to opt out when

Re:What they are doing doesn't require the NSA

[Ohreally_factor]

An early part of my disenchantment with Bush was during his first presidential campaign when more than a few of my fellow Republicans with Christian backgrounds let it be known that they thought Bush was Chosen. I shit you not. And this was/is in Los Angeles, not exactly the Bible Belt.

Give Me A Break!

[N8F8]

1). This is the same press that has been nailed with scandal after scandal of lying to create sensationalism. I mean, what's the downside of lying here? They fcking hate the administration so a little lie gets them lots of attention and spins the haters even more.

2). You simply can't have a security policy where nutjobs working on secure projects figure their right to blab overrides everyone else's right to use technological advantages to catch the bad guys. This thing is self feeding because the press always tells half the truth and obscures the facts. Fck, most of the population now thinks the only reason we invaded Iraq was either because of WMD or Oil and that the government is listening in on everyone's phone conversations. LIES! LIES! LIES! LIES! Saddest of all, a bunch of you are happy to hear the lies and turn off your brains.

Re:Go after lib when hungry, but conserv for sport

[namespan]

Nice straw man.

But, ultimately, an assertion with just as much logical weight as yours. He offered his opinion on how the case was covered, you offered yours.

They covered, but they went with the Dem party spin for the most part, that Ken Starr was persecuting Clinton for a private affair that should be left between a man and his wife.

Not in the papers I read, or on the news programs I watched. The perjury and obstruction of justice charges figured significantly in most of them. Sure, the newspapers were full of opinion columns on both sides of the issues, and some of those columns presented the argument you're speaking of. But confusing that with some kind of unified general spin from the media is ludicrous.

Interesting anecdote from Schwarzenneger's run: you may recall that it appeared he had a history of harrasment that might have made Clinton blush. Of course this was brought up during his campaign. His campaign's response? No comment about whether or not the charges were true. Simply a statement: "These attacks were politically motivated." And that was enough for many people to simply drop the matter. It didn't matter whether or not they were true, verification wasn't an issue. Because the matter could have been used by his political opposition, it was considered tainted information and irrelevant.

This is essentially the strategy of those who would paint "the media" with a broad brush as "liberal" -- and therefore, possesed of a unified agenda against their political causes. Get people to distrust it, and they'll simply disbelieve when it says something they don't like.

Of course the media isn't perfectly trustworthy. With the exception of a rare, few pieces of real investigative journalism, most news stories are mere starting places for understanding an issue. Misconceptions are regularly propogated. Stories are pushed by all kinds of hidden interests. And especially in the land of punditry, political bias exists (though it is not, by any means, limited to a liberal slant). The solution is not to pronounce the media as a whole untrustworthy, nor is the solution to retreat to an outlet or community that caters to your personal worldview, as is rather easy to do. The solution is to verify. Read other versions of the story. Yes, even check an outlet that you feel is a haven for those with a skewed and opposing political perspective.

That's handling media consumption responsibly. Simply calling "the media" liberal -- or conservative, for that matter -- is just burying your head in the sand.

Re:GRAMMAR NAZI

[ugmoe]

Great - as soon as I get some mod points I'll mod myself down.

Re:What they are doing doesn't require the NSA

[Ohreally_factor]

Who the fuck modded this as a troll? If you disagree with the poster, respond in writing!

FWIW, Lord Ender, I disagree with your assessment. Fitzgerald, the prosecutor investigating the Plame leak, was unable to get a court order for reporters call records; he had to put a reporter in jail for contempt to get her to give up her source. So, it's not a stretch to assume that the unnamed government agency is working without any judicial oversight whatsoever. In fact, it's a pretty good bet

What seems to be going on, if we are to believe the reports, is that reporters' calls are being logged pre-emptively to scare their sources or possible sources.

I realize that my suspicions might be off the mark, but given what we have been learning about the Bush Administration's domestic spying, we are justified in being suspicious. Indeed, we'd be fools if we were not.

"McCain man" in general election, too?

[robla]

For the record, I've opposed Bush since the 2000 election. I was a McCain man ...

So does that mean you voted for McCain in the general election in 2000?

Re:"McCain man" in general election, too?

[Ohreally_factor]

Nope.

Re:Go after lib when hungry, but conserv for sport

[weston]

The solution is to verify. Read other versions of the story. Yes, even check an outlet that you feel is a haven for those with a skewed and opposing political perspective.

What a load of liberal poppycock. Any good conservative is right, and knows when they're right. Considering multiple points of view is soooo San Francisco.

typical

[bpd1069]

This just goes to show how selfish the common american is, they will tolerate a illegal war, tolerate torture of enemies of the state. Then when they realize the very rights of others that are being trampled are their own, then they wise up.

Wake Up People... The US is turning into a fascist state.

That should last a good 10 minutes

[Garse Janacek]

Brian Ross, Chief Investigative Correspondent for ABC news says a confidential source informed him...

Heh... yeah... good luck with that...

Re:Go after lib when hungry, but conserv for sport

[Scudsucker]

They covered, but they went with the Dem party spin for the most part,

That wasn't "spin", that was reality. Republicans in Congress were going to investigate Clinton until they found something...you'd think for a judge with unlimited time and resources they could have come up with something better than his sex life. Oh, and he didn't lie at the trail, either.

They will attack a conservative with far less info, far less reliable info, etc.

Complete horseshit. If that were remotely the case, we'd be in the middle of Al Gore's second term right now. As it is, the media is either wildy conservative, or so cowed by accusations of "liberal bias" that they go out of their way to be easy on Republicans.

Good ole Clinton

[Descalzo]

"I long for the good old days of the Clinton Administration's fiscal responsibility."

I think the Clinton fiscal responsibility was largely an illusion created by the fact that congress hated his guts and wouldn't support any spending, and he vetoed down everything congress threw at him. Also, I hear the 'balanced budget' was due to slick bookkeeping.

We have sown the financial wind, we will reap the financial whirlwind.

Re:Good ole Clinton

[mockchoi]

I hear the 'balanced budget' was due to slick bookkeeping

Oh, well, if you hear it, it's good enough for me! Evidence be damned.

Re:Good ole Clinton

[Descalzo]

http://www.dldewey.com/columns/budgetf.htm

Complete with links and everything.

Let me know what you think.

Re:Good ole Clinton

[Descalzo]

"The most fiscally irresponsible action the country has undertaken in the past 30 years."

But I thought that Bush was AGAINST nationalized health care!

No, seriously, you make a good point. I was trying to make the point, though, that Clinton wasn't doing it because he was fiscally responsible, but because he was being a punk to Congress.
I certainly do wish that Bush would veto something. This is making me sick. The Republican party used to be able to call itself the party of fiscal responsibility, but they are being very disappointing in that regard (to say the least).

Re:What they are doing doesn't require the NSA

[goldspider]

While I don't disagree with your general premise, I wish people such as yourself would stop confusing "strong opinion" for "fact". Speak softly and carry a big stick; which in this case would be credible (read: not left-leaning blogs) citations.

Re:Go after lib when hungry, but conserv for sport

[Scudsucker]

When was the last time that the board of directors of Time Warner, General Electric, etc. were writing the on-air scripts and editing film clips and audio?

Straw man. Ever hear of delegation?

The people who do those tasks overwhelmingly identify themselves are liberals

Conservative urban legend. "Studies" that demonstrate this are notoriously flawed.

They'll interview a lawyer/PR spokesperson from the pro-gun control or pro-choice side but not interview a lawyer/PR spokesperson for the other sides,

When. And being pro-choice should be a conservative position as well as a liberal one, as one of the long standing positions of conservatives and the GOP is that the government should stay out of people's private lives. But of course the GOP is now built on top of the God-gun nut-free market jihad, so you'll see this kind of double standards and hypocracy all the time.

And besides if you want to talk about how media covers stories, remmber that the media was overwhelmingly pro-NAFTA and pro globalization, as well as pro-deregulation and pro-big business. CEO's and other businesspoeple outnumber workers interests, such as unions, by thirty to one for media appearances. There are many television programs devoted to business, but not a one to workers or consumers.

rather they'll go find some fool wearing a bit too much camoflauge

Well, that is a rather accurate chariacature of the NRA. Rather than talking about gun education and the responsiblities of gun ownership, all of their political efforts focus on fighting off all forms of gun control. They talk about firearms as if they were magical firearms, guranteed to keep away robbers and evil governments. Speaking of evil governments, they complained about that a great deal during the Clinton years, going so far as to call federal agents "jack-booted government thugs". They've been oddly quiet during all of Bush's shenanigans, however. There's that hypocracy thing again.

Re:Haha..

[Gooba42]

I think you're defining torture arbitrarily narrowly.

The 12 hours of interrogation my great grandmother endured was designed to make her contradict herself in any small detail in order to wholly give over control of the local bank to the Nazi party. The fact that she came out of it at all, even with lost esteem, was a credit to her ability to BS with the best of them. Does the threat of death or "disappearance" of oneself and one's family constitute torture?

What degree of coercion do you believe is allowable? Obviously the AC doesn't fit your notion of "unbearable" but that line is incredibly arbitrary. How far do we stray from the straight and narrow before we consider a course correction?

If too-cold AC is okay, what about too-cold water? What about too-hot? How long can a given prisoner hold their breath? Is holding them underwater uncomfortably long but well within their survivability torture? Is holding them underwater until they have to be rescusitated torture? What if the water was hot? Or cold? Or dirty?

What, specifically, is torture?

And why aren't our uniformed soldiers bound by the Geneva Accords? You claim it's because the enemy combatants aren't uniformed members of a specific fighting force. Allowing for the peculiar anachronism, does this mean the Confederate conscripts in the American Civil War could be tortured but their officers could not? And why, pray tell, do we believe that these crimes against *humanity* can only be committed against soldiers? Is it truly our aim to abide by the letter of the law only, abandoning the spirit of a humanitarian attempt to enforce some kind of decency in a world where destructive capacities are measured in megatons?

I don't for a minute believe we get to have it both ways on this Geneva Accords issue. Our soldiers are protected by the accords when fighting Al Qaeda or Iraqis but Iraqis and Al Qaeda are *not* protected by the same? We can hold them incommunicado indefinitely under conditions which we cite in other nations as human rights abuses? Even convicted prisoners who have had actual trials and been proven to have committed actual crimes receive better treatment under our law. These men whom our own government has admitted were mostly conscripts with no material or intelligence value are being held in limbo.

And you use cultural relativism to your advantage when it comes to defining our torture methods, to paraphrase "This doesn't constitute torture to them" presumably because Saddam set the standard so high? So it's not torture unless Saddam did it? So we can do anything up to, but not including, public beheadings, rape, cutting, electrocution, etc.?

Re:Go after lib when hungry, but conserv for sport

[ultranova]

When. And being pro-choice should be a conservative position as well as a liberal one, as one of the long standing positions of conservatives and the GOP is that the government should stay out of people's private lives.

The controversy surrounding abortion is about whether or not the unborn things are humans or not, and therefore, whether abortion is murder or not. If a ball of cells is not a human being, then abortion is a private matter; if that ball of cells is a human, then abortion is murder. The government cannot possibly stay out of such a debate, since one of its prime missions is to enforce the laws, which forbid murder.

And no, despite what people on either side keep on shouting in their rallies, the matter is not obvious either way. If the ball of cells is not human, then when does it become a human - and is the division line sharp ? Can you become a human by degrees ? But it sure doesn't resemble a human being in any way either.

IP to IP addresses connections, to be tracked?

[juanzuluaga]

If keeping a list of phone_num to phone_num calls is not considered eavesdropping, so they can also keep track of IP to IP connections. Watch out what websites you visit then.

FUCK BUSH

[Kaphin]

If you voted for this asshat supreme, shame on you. MARS BITCHES

Simple logic

[aadvancedGIR]

"If you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide" sentence is strictly equivalent to "if you have something to hide, you've done something wrong", so if a governement want to use the first one against the population, it can't logically deny the second one about itself.

Re:Go after lib when hungry, but conserv for sport

[phiwum]

Well, that is a rather accurate chariacature of the NRA. Rather than talking about gun education and the responsiblities of gun ownership, all of their political efforts focus on fighting off all forms of gun control. They talk about firearms as if they were magical firearms, guranteed to keep away robbers and evil governments.

Wow. I was with you up until this. Speaking of straw man arguments.

Neither side of the discussion is well-served by caricaturing the other side. Instead of pretending that gun-rights advocates are right-wing nutjobs, why not dispute what was at issue? Namely, the claim that the media only interviews nutjobs when presenting the pro-gun side.

Re:German BND ordered NOT to spy on German reporte

[Zemran]

Forget BND, the British BNP (fascist party) has far better things to hide given their hatred of all things different :)

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/story.jsp?s tory=690481

Appologies for wandering off topic :(

Secede

[Mark_MF-WN]

Why not just secede from the Union? After all, Republicans couldn't really complain given that most of them think that Lincoln was a tyrant for stopping the south from seceding. Of course, given that the blue states are paying for the red states (farming and empty oil wells not being particularly profitable these days), it would result in total economic collapse of the remaining portions of the Union, but it's not like those states aren't already perilously close to third-world conditions anyway.

Re:Secede

[khallow]

One could point out the ethnic conflict and higher population densities of blue states as an indication that the red states are more likely to be stable. And of course, getting a relatively large share of the public funds pie indicates more either political power or competence rather than need. And most states just aren't particularly vulnerable one way or another.

Re:What's scary are the comments left on the ABC b

[z0idberg]

Perhaps the ABC could now go back through that page and post the IP address that every comment was made from next to each comment. Surely no-one would have a problem with that. Losing a little privacy/anonimity is a small price to pay in the War on Terror right?

Re:AC/Paris, a few corrections and some info for y

[Aceticon]

This little discussion reminds me of a common scene in movies. It goes more or less like this:

- The hero of the story comes running into somebody's house, grabs some unexpected (and usually valued) object (say a valuable antique statue) and takes it way/throws it into the swimingpool/gets rid of it in some way
- Everybody is surprised and shocked, maybe somebody even says "what the hell do you think you are doing?", and maybe even try to stop him.
- Then that object explodes! (but thanks to our hero nobody gets hurt)

The thing is, in movies the audience knows beforehand WHY the hero is doing what he is doing, we've followed him through it and saw how he found out about the imminent danger. To us (audience), the shock, surprise and even attempts to stop the hero from getting rid of the dangerous object look stupid and misguided.

In a way AC/Paris is the hero here. By having a deeper understanding of how the world works he can beter see how a chain of events started by the actions of the current US administration risks going around the world and ending up making things worse for the american people instead of beter.
By comparisson, those who cannot see further than their bellybuttons, who lack the mental ability to follow a chain of events further than 2 steps (action - reaction) and whose understanding of the world beyond their country can be summoned by "If you say something in english really loud to a non-english speaking foreigner they'll understand what you mean" just seem stupid and misguied.

Opinions?

[Lagged2Death]

I wish people such as yourself would stop confusing "strong opinion" for "fact".

Could you be more specific? I don't think I'm doing that here.

Speak softly and carry a big stick; which in this case would be credible (read: not left-leaning blogs) citations.

You're implying that my sources are no good without actually making a specific accusation.

My three links were:

1) A video and transcript of the opening of the Senate Judiciary Committee session. A factual record, not an opinion piece.

2) A Washington Post news story. Not an opinion piece. Not a left-leaning blog.

3) Remarks concerning the PATRIOT act by President George W. Bush, which included links to the official transcripts.

None of these items are matters of "strong opinion," and I frankly think that would be clear from even a cursory examination of the actual linked pages rather than just the domain names. The sources in these cases are ultimately 1) The Senate 2) The Attorney General 3) The President.

Re:Opinions?

[goldspider]

You are asserting your interpretation of those factual events as fact itself.

Re:Opinions?

[Lagged2Death]

It would be more helpful to my understanding if you could be specific. Specifically what sentence or point seems like interpretation to you?

Re:Opinions?

[goldspider]

The fact is that Bush has told us bald-faced lies about domestic spying activities, and at this point it would require a hearty steaming ladle-full of naivete to imagine that the general public now knows the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

He's certainly skirted around the truth, and most definitely hasn't been forthcoming with details on what his administration sees as essential security operations. But if you're going to claim he outright lied to the American people about the programs, this is where you need a source that doesn't lie by exclusion. Left out of the incriminating Bush quotes on wiretapping was this vital tidbit: "The Patriot Act authorizes what are called delayed notification search warrants." (from the actual speech). Without that, one could easily surmise that he was, in fact, directly contradicting himself. Michale Moore dupes a lot of people using the same method.

The fact is that the Bush administration has aptly demonstrated that it simply cannot be trusted, and the sorry fact is that we can be certain of precious little beyond that.

Yet many people (myself excluded) DO still trust him. Your assessment of his trustworthiness, while shared by fewer and fewer people every day, is still opinion, not fact.

Re:Opinions?

[Lagged2Death]

...if you're going to claim he outright lied to the American people about the programs, this is where you need a source that doesn't lie by exclusion. Left out of the incriminating Bush quotes on wiretapping was this vital tidbit: "The Patriot Act authorizes what are called delayed notification search warrants." Without that, one could easily surmise that he was, in fact, directly contradicting himself.

Is this the section you're referring to?

Bush: ...there's something called delayed notification warrants. Those are very important. I see some people, first responders nodding their heads about what they mean. These are a common tool used to catch mobsters. In other words, it allows people to collect data before everybody is aware of what's going on. It requires a court order. It requires protection under the law. We couldn't use these against terrorists, but we could use against gangs.

In other words, the "delayed notification" nature of a search may change the timeline of the legal proceedings that go on, but it doesn't change the fundemental requirement for a warrant, which Bush has deliberately avoided. "Delayed notification" means the authorities are permitted to notify the subject of a search after the search is over, instead of at the outset. How that applies to wiretaps isn't clear, since the subject of a wiretap is never notified while the wiretap is happening.

I don't see how this lets Bush off the hook. He assured us that he was pursuing terror suspects in a legal manner with judicial oversight. It wasn't true, and he knew it wasn't true. He said it anyway.

Yet many people (myself excluded) DO still trust him. Your assessment of his trustworthiness, while shared by fewer and fewer people every day, is still opinion, not fact.

I hope you meant to say that my assessment of his trustworthiness is shared by more and more people every day.

I agree that this comes closer to being an opinion than anything else I said. But to dismiss it as strictly an opinion is to say that "trust" and "trustworthiness" are strictly subjective concepts, and that every statement about trust is automatically an opinion. Do you really believe that? Is it never possible to confidently say "So-and-so cannot be trusted" knowing that the statement is a true fact?

Re:What they are doing doesn't require the NSA

[Lord Ender]

Actually, you don't disagree with me. It may be true. But we don't know, for sure, that there is no warrant in use here, do we? That was my only point.

And yeah, I think that mod is a coward. That was not a 'troll' by ANY definition of the word.

Big Brother is here and has set up shop

[ncstockguy]

Bush's folks are running full throttle to shut down our civil liberties. When they tap a reporter's phone or snag phone call data from a news room they are effectively putting a shutdown on your right to information. The press is a key component in keeping us free. Just ask anyone who lives in a country that does not have a free press. Obviously Dubya and company are getting some consulting help from Vladimir Putin.

Phone Evasion tips for Reporters and Leakers

[Anonymous Coward]

Purchase prepaid cell phones!

A completely anonymous cell phone loaded with a few hundred minutes can be had for under $50. I've seen some for as little as $29. Some companies like TracFone specialize in this market, but many leading cell phone companies are now into the game. For instance, one can walk up to any T-Mobile outlet and purchase any of their prepaid phones. They may ask for a name and contact info, but for cash transactions no ID is necessary, any name given will be accepted.

Purchasing a phone at a retail outlet or convenience store is even easier and more anonymous; they'll never even ask for contact information. Some phones purchased at retail are packaged with only a very small number of minutes. Additional minutes can often be purchased online, but that would defeat the purpose of this exercise. Typically, the retailers that sell these phones also sell phone cards specific to the phone.

Some other keys to staying anonymous with a prepaid cell phone:

ONLY purchase with cash. This should be obvious, but both the cell phone and any prepaid cards should be purchased with cash.

ONLY use the phone to call your contact. If the phone is EVER used to call your home, your work, or any of the people you typically call, then an investigation of the Local Usage Details (LUDs) from those other phones could tip investigators to the presence of the prepaid cell phone.

Regarding the recently revealed NSA phone number database. Reports suggest the NSA has developed a "spider" technology allowing suspect numbers to be easily associated and identified. One might gather that the phone numbers of prepaid, anonymous cell phones would be of particular interest to the NSA. These phones may even be automatically red-flagged by the system. One can see how the use of this anonymous phone to make even a single call to the phone owner's home or office could completely compromise the phone's anonymity.

Keep the phone OFF except when using it for a call. Better yet, take out the battery.

Don't ever turn the prepaid phone on while at or near your work or home, not even to simply verfiy that it is working. When a cell phone is on, the physical location of the phone can be determined by triangulating the phone's signal between any 3 cell phone towers. No, this isn't GPS, but it may as well be.

Location triangulation has been possible as long as cell phone networks have been around, even in the analog days. No mater the age or design of the phone, this triangulation is technically feasible. (Many if not most of the "GPS trackers" used by law enforcement and other investigators don't use GPS at all, they use the triangulation capability of the cellular network to follow suspects. So if one were worried that such a tracker had been attached to their vehicle, one may wish to invest in a cell phone jammer...)

While there is no evidence that this triangulated location information is being stored or shared with the government, one must remember that modern cell phone switches are just computers. And as computers, these switches are certainly "capable" of storing the location history of any cell phone, as long as that phone is turned on.

Don't forget, the location of your every-day personal cell phone can be triangulated as well. So if you plan to keep your personal cell phone or Blackberry (Blackberry uses cellular networks) with you while making the illicit call, turn them off well before activating the anonymous prepaid phone. For these protections to be complete, one would turn them off in another location. Even better, leave any personal cellular devices at home or at work, then relocate yourself before activating the prepaid phone.

Use one phone per contact. If you have multiple contacts, purchase multiple phones.

When done with the phone, wipe the memory, wipe the phone for prints and leave the working phone (with charger) at a bus stop or ot

Re:Phone Evasion tips for Reporters and Leakers

[devfsadm]

Darn it this e911 chip seems to screw up all my evil plans.
http://www.fcc.gov/911/enhanced/

Re:Nothing to see Here.... move along

[tinkerghost]

LOL WOW most comments and most mods I've ever gotten, and I'm not sure if it's because I said something interesting or if it's because I forgot the [sarcasm] tag :)
I believe it was from FOX news that I got that explanation - some spin DR talking about how Rove was being used as a partisan punching bag.
Personally, I sometimes wonder if we could just drop Bush off in central Iraq as a parting gift and walk away.

Re:Oh, but ...

[CrimsonAvenger]

Oh, but this is the "Permanent Republican Majority", right? AKA, the Thousand Year Right? Therefore there will never again be a non-Republican president, and therefore we can trust them all.

If most of the Left thinks the way you do, the Right is prolly right. Face it, the Democrats need to get together on some idea other than "Bush is teh debhil!!!!". Because if they don't they won't see much of the White House for a long time to come.

Have you ever bothered to keep up on Democratic Presidents since WW2? Clinton, Carter, Johnson, Kennedy, Truman. Of those, Clinton was elected twice. Truman served two terms as President, even though he was elected only once.

Republican Presidents, same period - Eisonhower, Nixon, (Ford), Reagan, Bush, Bush. Ford is questionable - the only US President never elected to either the Presidency or vice Presidency. Of the others, only one (Bush the Elder) failed of reelection.

See the pattern here? The Democrats have traditionally been very popular in Congress (though much of that popularity has been due to the Old South voting solidly Democrat since the Civil War - they were annoyed that the Republicans had freed the slaves - which Party loyalty has been fading in recent decades), but really haven't done so well in the White House. Their really bright period was pre-Civil war, when there was no real opposition (the Federalists imploded after Adams, and the Whigs never were a serious contender).

Alas, the Democrats have been trying their best to marginalize themselves for decades. The "working man" would be solidly Democratic, if only the Dems would stop embracing every lunatic fringe on the left (most "working men" are pretty conservative, except for their positions on the whole management-labor argument). Many religious types would be solidly Democratic as well, but for the same embracing of every lunatic fringe - most religious people are more comfortable with socialism than you might think from looking at current politics.

Frankly, if the Democrats were to dump their "loony left", then they'd solidly dominate American politics (if the Republicans would dump their "loony right", they'd get little real benefit - the Left won't shift Republican if the Republicans move more centrist).

It's a crime!

[skrowl]

Leaking confidential documents is a federal crime.

Even though you all seem to support the crime that has been committed, that doesn't change the fact that it's a crime. Criminals should be brought to justice.

Dissent is legal, propogating your dissent by leaking confidential documents is a crime.

THERE IS A DIFFERENCE!!!

Re:It's a crime!

[Wubby]

Writing pamphlets that critisized the government was once a crime. Writing articles that pointed out the unfair practices of the government was once a crime. That goverment sought to seek out the writers and punish them.

The American Revolution and Constitution that was created thereafter ensure that a people could freely discuss and inform itself about the activities of it's government. Keeping people in power honest requires the scrutiny of the people. Remove that process and they WILL become corrupt.

How many leaders throughout history have asked it's people to "Just trust us" then went on to commit evils against them? How many said "Its for you good/security/health/jobs"? How many then insisted that thier activites required secrecy?

The leaks we are discussing are not revealing the names of secret operatives, or the design of weapons, or the plans of Army campaigns. They are revealing the crimes our leaders are committing against the spirit of the American ideals and against us. Many patriots went to prisons and the gallows exposing the same thing over 200 years ago.

Which is a worse crime: Leaking a document that was classified just to cover-up an illegal act, or breaking your oath to uphold the constitution by letting the crime stay hidden?

Re:Nothing to see Here.... move along

[nosferatu1001]

It is illegial to follow an illegial order

this is illegial, therefore by reporting it they cannot in and of themselves by violating the law - in fact their contracts also state upholding the constitution, so they would still not be in violation...

Face it, you really have NO clue, hence AC>.....

The way I see it

[erroneus]

The way I see it is that people "in the know" have two means by which to draw attention to corruption:

1. Resigning
2. Leak the information to the free press

We are seeing both.

furtherfurthermore

[Ender Ryan]

And in addition to all that you and the OP said, in hindsight those actions were considered wrong regardless.

Re:Go after lib when hungry, but conserv for sport

[Skjellifetti]

You obviously don't read the Wall Street Journal, the NY Post, the Columbus Dispatch, or any other of the several hundred daily papers in major US cities that are owned by conservative Republicans and have conservative Republican editorial boards. The WSJ was running daily ads online for a book about Whitewater which they published. Most of what was in the book could not be proven by Ken Starr after spending multimillions of taxpayer money.

Re:What's scary are the comments left on the ABC b

[Johnny5000]

Perhaps the ABC could now go back through that page and post the IP address that every comment was made from next to each comment. Surely no-one would have a problem with that. Losing a little privacy/anonimity is a small price to pay in the War on Terror right?

Why stop there? I'm sure their ISPs would be happy to turn over the information if asked. Tell them it's for national security and they'll roll right over. You could publish their IP addresses with their names, home addresses, phone numbers, etc.

Re:AC/Paris, a few corrections and some info for y

[Java Ape]

Bravo, well said. This is one of the most articulate, well-reasoned responses I've read on Slashdot in a very long time. I'm adding you to my "friends" list so that I don't miss your future posts. Kudos.

But they do hava a subpoena

[HighOrbit]

Apparantly, the records were obtained by subpoena. A subpoena may be issued administratively (no court involved) to compel a witness to produce certain evidence for purposes of discovery.

ABC News explained that a National Security Letter (NSL) is "a version of an administrative subpoena and are not signed by a judge. Under the law, a phone company receiving a NSL for phone records must provide them and may not divulge to the customer that the records have been given to the government."

Re:Go after lib when hungry, but conserv for sport

[jheath314]

I figure the media is doing OK when the left and the right are both whining like little children about its "evident bias." One side's perception of "fair and balanced" might be a little different than the other's, so it's good to see them both unhappy.

where did they find that idiot, he doesn't represent me or any of the people I know [snip]

Yeah... I totally get that feeling every time I see [politician of choice] on TV. ;)

Re:AC/Paris, a few corrections and some info for y

[Jtheletter]

Bravo. That was the best spoken and most reasoned response to the chestbeating head-in-the-sand warhawks I've seen yet. I have saved it for reference in future conversations, hope you don't mind if I quote you from time to time. Also added you as a friend. Anyone on /. who can speak their mind with such clarity and logic is a welcome addition.

Regards,
Jtheletter

Apparantly they do have a subpoena

[HighOrbit]

Apparantly, the records were obtained by a type of subpoena called a "National Security Letter". The targets of the investigation are the federal employees who leaked the classified info, which is a crime. A subpoena may be issued administratively (no court involved) to compel a witness to produce certain evidence for purposes of discovery.

At the ABC news site they explain that a National Security Letter (NSL) is "a version of an administrative subpoena and are not signed by a judge. Under the law, a phone company receiving a NSL for phone records must provide them and may not divulge to the customer that the records have been given to the government."

My original post is entirely factual, but was modded "troll" by people who obviously can't tell a troll from things they simply disagree with. This entirely shows just how skewed the slashdot orthodoxy is.

What about YOU?

[lorcha]

It amazes me that people aren't yelling and screaming about this and marching in front of the White House.

How come you, personally, are not in front of the White House, yelling and screaming?

It amazes me how many people who berate others for not "doing something", are too lazy, chicken, busy, or whatever to actually themselves "do something".

So go for it. But just so you know, you won't be able to get very close, and you'll get arrested because it is illegal to yell and scream in front of the White House, but that's ok.

Re:Go after lib when hungry, but conserv for sport

[slashdot_commentator]

The government cannot possibly stay out of such a debate, since one of its prime missions is to enforce the laws, which forbid murder.

No, the prime mission of gov't is to enforce "order" in society; to establish an environment where people can conduct business, and live life as they choose as long as it doesn't infringe upon other people's right to do the same. Law is a tool that is used to preserve that "order". If gov't did not enforce an edict against murder, "order" would devolve in a system where the most effective killers, or most effective organization of killers would dictate how society would be run. There would be an edict against murder probably regardless whether there is a God. The vast majority of people do not want to spend their time defending against murderers, premptively killing potential threats, etc.

You (and many others) have the confused notion that law must exist to enforce principle. "Murder is in principle a bad thing, therefore all murder is bad, and thus gov't must prevent or punish anything which can be interpreted as murder." Abortion does not tangibly affect the function of society. There are societies that exist with laws permitting abortion, and they are not falling into disorder, nor suffering a specific ailment that can be attributed to abortion. People may desire a gov't to act in a manner that enhances quality of life, but that is not gov't's prime responsibility. When you have gov't enforcing laws to dictate morality, particularly the views of a minority, then you will have a gov't expending an inordinate amount of societies' resources fighting its citizens who believe otherwise. That's not gov't's legitimate purpose.

When gov't is used to enforce "morality", it really is being used to enforce theocracy; the opinions of a few, or many, people who think things must be done as the Noodly Appendage directs, regardless how silly it is, or how detrimental it may be. No, its is not morally obvious whether abortion is a medical procedure on a batch of cells, or if its murder. The problem is when one tries to use gov't to legislate morality, the law then needs to make determinations as to what is considered a medical requirement, and what is "murder". Thus, the legalistic hypocrisy.

The real problem is stupid people, who think because "I beleive its acceptable or "right" to murder ragheads for their oil, I am entitled to murder ragheads". Or, "because I like most of what my President does, I am obliged to disregard his violations of the law". These people are prepared to legislate that a woman who is made pregnant by rape, incest, or will suffer grievous disability be compelled to carry the fetus to term. That includes your mother and possible sister, or girlfriend. I will not indulge the pretense of intellectual credence or morality for such people.

Slashdot will be raided soon.

[unsigned integer]

I mean, seriously. With the amount of political talk these days, and the hate for the current administration, I just can't wait until there's "no route to host" when /. gets seized and the records / databases behind this site get ripped through - just another casualty in the 'war on freedom' because 'suspected terrorists' were posting their evil plans here.

I think I'm going to start correcting people - when they say "war on terror", I'll say "No, you mean the war on freedom.".

Rob, et al - please have a "emergency /. backup site" somewhere. I expect all icons on your site, that day, to be the guy with the gag in his mouth.

Re:Republicans are traitors. They are not American

[DahGhostfacedFiddlah]

You're a moron - read the thread and see the number of Republicans who are truly concerned about the way the country is going.

And *never* assume that Democrats are incapable of the same thing - that paves the way for the same assholes who took over the Republican party to do the same to the Dems 10 years from now.

Before we all go off half-cocked...

[TheConfusedOne]

Yeah, yeah, way too late for that.

You do realize that phone records of reporters could be legally subpoenaed as part of a leak investigation being performed by the DoJ instead of some nefarious link to the NSA program don't you?

I could also point out that pen register information (phone numbers dialed) is not considerred protected by the Fourth Ammendment either. There are other laws that may or may not protect these records depending on the circumstances but it's not a Fourth Ammendment issue.

Re:Before we all go off half-cocked...

[kilfarsnar]

"You do realize that phone records of reporters could be legally subpoenaed as part of a leak investigation being performed by the DoJ instead of some nefarious link to the NSA program don't you?"

Exactly. So let's see some subpoenas. Let's see some warrants. That's what is at issue here. The NSA is doing this without judicial oversight, and that's the problem.

Re:You're in denial

[commodoresloat]

It's public knowledge that the CIA asked for an investigation because they felt she was covert. The idea of Joe Wilson, whom Bush Sr. hailed as an American hero, being a "bitter partisan for a long time" is beyond ludicrous. It's also public knowledge that the yellowcake documents were forged, where have you been? The CIA asked for an investigation because they felt the intelligence agency had been compromised (whether or not there was a direct harm from it, the precedent of leaking undercover agents was not something they could allow). She was not on the cover of a magazine until after her cover was blown. She did not "let her husband write a letter to the NYT" - I'm pretty sure Joe Wilson is allowed to write letters without his wife's permission.

Re:Juvenile idiocy ... thy name is AC

[kilfarsnar]

"This is a criminal referral by the NSA to the Justice Dept. to find out who leaked National Security secrets (like, duh, how we find terrorist communications). Just like every other criminal investigation phone records are subpoenaed."

The linked article said nothing about this being a Justice Department investigation. It referenced "the government" as tracking phone calls. And they were not subpoenaed. That is the critical issue here, and the one that those making your arguement consistently ignore: THERE IS NO OVERSIGHT. No courts, FISA or otherwise; no warrants issued; no subpoenas issued. This is a case of the Executive branch, which is what the NSA is under, collecting information in a sweeping fashion on private citizens who are not the suspects or targets of any criminal investigation. This is not a criminal investigation. It is naked intimidation.

"The NSA program to listen in on Al Qaeda phone calls is limited. By if nothing else having people review the recordings."

How do you know? Because they told you? You know what else they told you? They told you that whenever the government talks about wire tapping, it is always under a court order. But that has been demonstrated to be false. So they have lied to you at least once about this. They have told us a lot of other stuff that is also not true, but that is outside the scope of this post. The point is, they have shown that they are willing to lie to you. Again, the issue is oversight, or the lack thereof. I think I would rather have a court ruling on the scope of this program rather than having it limited solely by a lack of resources.

"Qwest refused to hand over it's phone records but will sell them willingly (check out their home page) to anyone it has a business relationship to."

This is true. And I don't like it any more than I like the rest of this crap.

"The Dems have a gigantic database of personal info (if you ever gave to them) same with NARAL, NRA, ACLU, Sierra Club, NAACP, etc. So for that matter do marketers who will buy in bulk or Russian scammers who can buy in bulk not just your phone records but Credit Records and Credit Card transactions."

This is also true, but so what? The Dems have that for political action and fundraising. So do the Republicans. No one is taking issue with that here. Are they using those databases in conjunction with data from major telecom carriers to cross reference with your calling habits to establish patterns of who you call and why? No, they are not. Why? Because it's illegal.

What the Russian scammers and the like do is also illegal. If you were a victim of theirs, you would have legal recourse (such as it is) to do something about it and have the perpetrators brought to justice. However, with the NSA trolling you have no legal recourse. Don't like it? Tough. NSA invading your personal life? We can neither confirm nor deny that at this time. Your spouse was brought in for questioning and is now being tracked because his/her calling habits fit a pattern? We have no comment. Want to have the FBI investigate? They don't have enough security clearance, sorry.

"Bottom line: NSA program leakers ... broke the law, and are getting investigated."

Ok, this shows that your argument has the mental age of 12. The leakers leaked because they had no legal recourse to government law breaking! I love the double standard. If I see a person breaking the law, I have a duty to report them to the authorities. But according to you, if I see a government agency breaking the law I am supposed to accept it and get with the program, because it's all for my own good. Somehow, I don't buy it. Honestly, why do you trust the government so much?

"Choose one: listen in to who's calling Osama, protect methods and sources of intel; OR mondo profiling of Muslims in all walks of life (Abdul gets a full body cavity search while flying, and Al Gore gets a pass, not the other way around

Don't need reporter's phone records to do this

[John Jorsett]

All you really need is the reporter's phone numbers. Then you can do a search against outgoing call records from government phones. That might let calls by gov't officials from private phones get by (however, I'm not sure if high-security-clearance folks essentially sign away their rights to privacy in return for their clearances; if so, even calls from their private phones might be subject to this).

Re:Top Posts . . .

[kilfarsnar]

"I just scanned the level five posts. Every one of them are rampantly anti-Bush. Most lack one iota of actual fact. All operate under hyperbole."

Let's see if I can remedy that.

"The point is this: somebody leaked classified information. It does not matter what information was leaked. The fact that it was leaked is absolutely criminal."

It may have been criminal. If so, they should be tried for it so we can find out. But do you really think that if a government agency broke the law people should not reveal it? Because that's what's at issue here. The Bush Administration and the NSA broke the law. We need to know that. Besides, TFA is talking about going after not the leakers, but those leaked to. That is a very different thing; one not addressed in your post.

"What you do not realize is that information kept secure is kept that way for a reason. The people who leaked decided that they were above the law. They decided that what could be short-term political gain was more important that your personal security."

George Bush has also decided that he is above the law. Were you incensed when Karl Rove and I. Lewis Libby leaked the actual name of an actual undercover operative to the press to make her husband look bad? Talk about putting politics over security! That act affected our security in a very real way. Or is it that when you think the information leaked helps your side, you don't care?

"If Bush were really trying to silence opposition via an investigation, you can bet your sweet bippy that he will see to it that the Justice Department will dot all the Ies and cross all the Ts to ensure that those who need to go down do."

Um, yes, and that is exactly what he is doing, but using the NSA instead of the FBI. Do you think this is a good thing? What if Bill Clinton did it? By looking for patterns or particular numbers in reporters' phone records this administration is using the national security apparatus to intimidate and silence those who would tell the truth about it's illegal activities. This isn't about stopping leaks; they did nothing about the Valerie Wilson case. This is about covering up their illegal acts.

Re:It amazes me that so many of you are clueless..

[kilfarsnar]

Care to elucidate? Or are you just ranting?

Re:Haha..

[crotherm]

If that were so, why did this "fake" company have to close its doors? And why did the CIA ask for this investigation if that was all Plame was doing?

Re:Down with Old Men!

[Rakarra]

As I recall, Logan's Run had a solution for this.

Re:Go after lib when hungry, but conserv for sport

[Scudsucker]

Wow. I was with you up until this. Speaking of straw man arguments.

I belive the term you are looking for is "ad hominem": attaking the messenger rather than the message. But it's not and ad hominem if it's true.

Instead of pretending that gun-rights advocates are right-wing nutjobs

Certinally, not all members of the NRA or other gun-rights advocates or are nutjobs, but the public, political face of the NRA is pure nutjobbery. Rather than spending vast amounts of money on politics and fighting all forms of gun control, they should spend that cash talking about the responsiblities of gun ownership and the importance of getting training in the storage, maintainance and use of firearms. This would make gun ownership safer. It would make gun possesion more effective in defence of homes and families. Not only would gun owners (and the public) be better off, but it would also reinforce the NRA's positions that gun ownership is beneficial and the fundamental right to own a firearm is there for a reason.

If you go to their site, you can find information on youth education and women's self defence, but they take most of their millions of dollars into partisan races and treat firearms as magical talismans that will ward off evil-doers. Nutjobs. And considering the fact that Bush announced support for all existing gun control laws, government sponsored trigger locks, background checks at gun shows, and resigning the assault weapons ban without so much as a peep from the NRA, they are hypocritcal nutjobs as well.

Re:Go after lib when hungry, but conserv for sport

[Scudsucker]

The controversy surrounding abortion is about whether or not the unborn things are humans or not, and therefore, whether abortion is murder or not.

Not for the feminists, it's not. For them, it has always been "my body, my choice". As for the pro-lifers, one of their annoying habits is advocating state support of fetuses, but only until the moment of birth. After that, they don't give a shit.

And no, despite what people on either side keep on shouting in their rallies, the matter is not obvious either way. If the ball of cells is not human, then when does it become a human - and is the division line sharp?

Ah yes, the falacy of a false choice. We can't draw a single arbitrary line where a blob of cells becomes a human being, because we don't know on exactly which day out of that 9 months that action occurs. So you draw two arbitrary lines, one where it is obviously still a blob of cells and another where it is obviously a human being capapble of surviving outside of the womb. The two obvious places would be at the end of the first trimester and at the beginning of the third.

Polls show that most Americans believe that abortion should be legal, but that it should be more restricted towards the end of a pregnancy, which is also what I believe. We should have a Great Compromise on the subject of abortion: during the first trimester, any woman can get an abortion for any reason, without any of these BS waiting periods. The third trimester should be off-limits to any abortion except in the case of severe birth defects or if the mothers health is at risk. Unfortunatly, the right wing of the GOP is dead set against this, so don't expect any such compromise until the Dems regain a majority. Yes, there are hard core feminists who believe that abortion should be legal even late in a pregnancy, but there are currently 100 Jerry Falwells or Rick Santorums for every Gloria Steinem.

I also take the position, politically popular with neither end of the aboriton debate, that fathers should have exactly the same rights to terminate their parental responsiblities that mothers do. If a woman has a day, a week, three months or nine months to have an abortion, a man should also have a day, a week, three months or nine months to sever his parental responsibilities. To which the feminists first responce is: you made a choice to have sex, now deal with the consequences. So why doesn't that same rule apply to women that choose to have sex and become pregant? To which their second responce is: we have to carry the baby for nine months - our bodies, our choice. To which my responce is - you don't think my body and health will be on the line, toiling to make child support payments for a kid I didn't want? And 18 years of my life is rather more important than 9 months of yours, sorry.

Re:Go after lib when hungry, but conserv for sport

[phiwum]

Wow. I was with you up until this. Speaking of straw man arguments.

I belive the term you are looking for is "ad hominem": attaking the messenger rather than the message. But it's not and ad hominem if it's true.

You're right. It was not a straw man, since you weren't caricaturing an argument but rather a group.

It is not really an ad hominem either, because you weren't refuting an argument by attacking the messenger. (By the way, ad hominem is a fallacy regardless of whether it's true or not---the fallacy is about relevance, not truth.)

Instead, you said: The media isn't biased when they interview wacky nutjobs because wacky nutjobs are representative of the NRA. This isn't logical fallacy. It's simply a false statement, presumably due to prejudice and bias.

Rather than spending vast amounts of money on politics and fighting all forms of gun control, they should spend that cash talking about the responsiblities of gun ownership and the importance of getting training in the storage, maintainance and use of firearms.

In fact, the NRA spends considerable resources on training and safety programs. This fact isn't particularly newsworthy, however, at least not compared to their political lobbying. So one hears about political efforts much more often than safety training.

You might argue they still don't do enough in this area, but the fact is they don't ignore it. See http://www.nrahq.org/safety/.

Re:Go after lib when hungry, but conserv for sport

[Scudsucker]

In fact, the NRA spends considerable resources on training and safety programs. This fact isn't particularly newsworthy, however, at least not compared to their political lobbying. So one hears about political efforts much more often than safety training.

Oh, they do a a good deal of training that is quite valuable. Aside from youth education and women's self defense (tangent: why do we have women's self defense classes all over the place when men are far and away the #1 victims of violent crime?), they do a good deal of training of law enforcement officers. But when I pick up a paper and read a story dealing with the NRA, it's never about a training program or noted enthusiasts discussing the awsome responsibilities of gun ownership. It's only about how they are fighting for the right to own anti-tank rifles or pouring thousands of dollars into a congressional race to get some Republicans elected. And this isn't about what stories the media decides to report, but rather how the NRA decides to spend their money.

Re:You're in denial

[commodoresloat]

Iraq's yellowcake was under IAEA control. Actually, after the US invasion, one of the facilities was left unguarded and a lot of material went missing, so if it does wind up in the hands of terrorists, we can blame the US invasion. But that is neither here nor there -- it is in fact quite disputable that Iraq was trying to get more yellowcake; the only evidence that turned up about it turned out to be forged. Mint juleps are a Kentucky drink, not a Nigerien one. You're completely full of shit.

Too late for you I guess

[TheConfusedOne]

Mind that leaping to conclusions, you may strain something.

Why would the NSA even be involved in an investigation of leaks of classified information? That is completely outside their purview. Instead all we have right now is another "leak" that claims this is happening.

Shouldn't we demand that the leak be confirmed before we jump up and down and yell about "where are the warrants?!?" before we even know if there is any bloody investigation being carried out?

Re:Oh, but ...

[fossilstar]

Face it, the Democrats need to get together on some idea other than "Bush is teh debhil!!!!".

Just like the Republicans to make a complete mess of things, then demand that the other party come along with a complete reliable blueprint for cleaning it up.

CONGRESS!

[cwilli01]

I love Slashdot, but for the love of God don't spend more than 5 minutes here on this subject unless you've already sent correspondence to Congress demanding action on this issue. They have ability to impact this situation, and impacting their re-election chances will provide the necessary impetus. Thank you.