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Government May Help Bells Defend Against Wiretap Suits
Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "As lawsuits mount against phone companies from plaintiffs who allege their call records were handed over to the National Security Agency illegally, the companies' defense may get help from the U.S. government, the Wall Street Journal reports. From the article: 'The plaintiffs, who accuse Bell phone companies of privacy violations and are seeking billions of dollars in damages, would need to delve into the depths of the NSA's surveillance program to make their cases. But the government considers such information top secret, and legal experts expect the Bush administration to assert the "state secrets" privilege in the 20 or more lawsuits filed by privacy advocates in recent weeks. If judges accept the claim, as has been the case in nearly every instance in which it has been asserted since the early 1950s, the suits will dissolve.'"
...to your police state.
"I might have made a tactical error in not going to a physician for 20 years." -- Warren Zevon
If the Government wants to find out who I talk to and when... it's pretty easy to get that information now as it is.
If they want to actually listen... it's a waste of time but hey, what do I care? Knock yourself out.
My point: I hardly think the Government is interested in what I am asking my wife to make for dinner tonight, or whether I need to pick up anything at the store on the way home to help in making said dinner.
They want to know when, where and how the next attack on our country is going to take place. I don't break any laws as I conduct my telephone conversations, nor do (I would speculate) 99.99% of Americans.
But if we catch terrorists and avert attacks, what's the harm in the government monitoring these phone calls? It doesn't affect my daily life one bit - but an attack not thwarted most definitely would!
I asked the above question seriously, not rhetorically. And folks, please spare me the privacy argument/nonsense... the moment it became technically feasible to "violate" one's privacy, that privacy is already gone forever.
I think the lawsuits were already a non-starter, and now that the government is said to be stepping in, this matter will likely be put down so quickly, you'll be able to count the times the judge pounds the gavel on one hand.
The problem with socialism is that they always run out of other people's money. - Margaret Thatcher
America thinks they have some moral obligation to police the world, since when they didn't Hitler came to power. There is a collective guilt trip about not getting into WW2 earlier, and this leads to poor foreign policy.
Ummmmm.... No.
Most Americans were indeed isolationist at the time. You left out a fairly large and extremely powerful group though. Most of the Industrialists, the wealthy elite and the like (The Republican base in other words) supported Hitler wholeheartedly. Some like Henry Ford were gung ho supporters of the holocaust as well, although cetainly not all. Others like our current president's grandfather went as far as to actively support the Nazi regime while we were at war with them. It's critical to keep in mind that while horrendous the holocaust was not the only thing wrong with the fascists. The holocaust certainly had nothing to do with why we went to war with them.
So after Roosevely manipulated us into WW2 he put himself on the receiving end of the undying hatred of the Republicans since after that we were forced to go to war against the people that they most admired.
So now that they have managed to completely demonize anything with a hint of leftism and even moderate right wingers like the Democrats bear the brunt of their screeching mindless hatred. So it took them some time, but at long last they won what they were striving for.
So pretending that they are doing this becasue they feel bad about not acting against Hitler sooner shows a total lack of understanding of the history of these people as well as a complete lack of understanding of their reasoning.
I'd hate to break it to you, but he's not a criminal. A weak president perhaps, but not a criminal.
Sorry, but treason is a crime no matter what else you want to believe.
Because anyone who disagrees with your personal beliefs must be an idiot. Isn't that the start of facist thinking? Perhaps you are heading twards facism, while the US is heading twards foriegn policy bankrupcy.
If you disagree that the sky is blue preferring to say that it's really red, then you aren't an idiot because you disagree with me, you're an idiot due to demonstrated idiocy.