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President Bush Blocks NSA Wireless Tapping Probe
scubamage writes "By denying security clearance to federal attorneys from the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) seeking to gather evidence in the NSA illegal surveillance scandal, President Bush has effectively blocked the Justice Department's investigation into the matter of who exactly authorized the illegal actions to take place. The president is apparently able to strictly control who does and does not have security clearance to examine documents regarding the program, citing that giving more people access would endanger national security. His denial is the first of its kind in American history. To quote the article, 'Since its creation some 31 years ago, OPR has conducted many highly sensitive investigations involving Executive Branch programs and has obtained access to information classified at the highest levels,' chief lawyer H. Marshall Jarrett wrote in a memorandum released Tuesday. 'In all those years, OPR has never been prevented from initiating or pursuing an investigation.'"
> President Bush has effectively blocked the Justice Department's investigation into the matter of
> who exactly authorized the illegal actions to take place
He sure as hell wouldn't have done that had it been an opportunity to point the finger at any of his rivals. Even if he wasn't responsible, he's now responsible for the cover up. If American voters aren't happy with his decision they can always vote him out. I'm sure by the time of the next election there'll be some other bogeyman to deal with - presumably lebenese or syrian terrorists, angry at all the US built/paid for planes and tanks pounding lebenon.
"Watergate II"..
twice the scandal, twice the criminal activity, twice the obstruction of justice..
*movie rated "R", all viewers must take delivery of dealer stock, offer void in utah, west virginia, and texas*
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Just aim the probe out of the garden, for God's sake!
The above is most likely humour. Slashdot foot icon goes here.
Juvenal is the ancient Roman who asked "Who will watch the watchmen?" For George Bush, the answer is evidently "Preferably, nobody."
To err is human. To forgive is good system design.
I'm sorry, but could you explain to me in what way George W. Bush has prevented the American public from remaining fat, ignorant and watching reality shows?
- These characters were randomly selected.
To risk a little bit of theoretical "personal privacy of innocent Americans" seems like an extremely reasonable price to pay.
Posted by an Anonymous Coward. Now that's irony, Alanis.
Oh no... it's the future.
Then too he has an odd definition of freedom. He seems to think freedom and democracy are exactly the same thing.
Don't get me wrong... Democracy and voting play substantial roles in assuring freedom. But they're not the only things.
Take for example the cohabitation law struck down in North Carolina recently. A democraticly elected majority said: an unrelated man and woman can't live with each other under the same roof unless they get married. Its fornication and society won't stand for it.
That's not freedom. Freedom says you can run your personal life pretty much any way you want to and its nobody else's business.
I don't think Dubya gets that.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." - Benjamin Franklin (maybe)
I decided to reply to this one because I think it's important for those of us who actually care about our country and the Constitution to realize that there are a lot of people who believe the parent's logic. It's basically a "think of the children" argument balanced against a "if you've done nothing wrong you have nothing to fear" mindset. It's a very, very scary argument for our country but I think a lot of Fox viewers believe this and no amount of parroting the Franklin quote or modding down anonymous postings will get them to change their mind.
So the question on the table to the people who belive in the Constitution is this: how do we convince the people who are this afraid of terrorists that a totalitarian state is not the solution to terrorism?
Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.
Then the write-up that convicts the entire program even before an investigation (which is apparently now stalled) has been started by calling it "illegal actions"
The program does indeed break the law. Only two points remain in-the-air - Who authorized it, and will Congress make similar future programs legal.
But breaking the law breaks the law - If you get convicted of "murder"ing your (literally) braindead spouse the day before congress passes an exception for assisted suicide, you still go to prison for murder.
Bush (or someone VERY high up, which the proposed investigation would determine) broke the law (again). I want to see Bush or Cheney do the perp walk. So do the majority of Americans at this point - It might have taken most of the sheep six years to catch on, but they've finally noticed that every time the wolf appears, some of them vanish.
It's called access control... it's there for a reason... and it's not to hinder an investigative probe into misconduct, but to prevent the hindering of investigations into terrorist activities.
Precisely!
So why is the President using it to block an investigative probe into misconduct? If he has nothing to hide, he has nothing to fear.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
"Yeah. You know that whole Watergate hotel thing you guys are investigating? I'm going to have to ask you to stop. New policy, you know. You got that memo, right? Great. So if you could just not look into that, that'd be great." - Nixon
The ______ Agenda
I'm a pretty strong social and fiscal conservative. As you may guess, this also means I believe in the rule of law.
:/
It's painful to consider, but I'm actually considering voting Democrat in the upcoming elections to help put the Democrats in the majority of at least one, but ideally two, houses of Congress. I don't want to enable them to pursue liberal agendas, but maybe at least they'll have the balls to keep the President under the rule of law via impeachment. Apparently the Republican Congress/Senate that I voted for last time is unwilling to perform their duties in this area. I'm going to want to take a shower after I leave the voting booths this time.
Simple. Let America become a totalitarian state. It won't last, but it will scare enough people for the time that it does last to buy another two hundred years of freedom, after maybe a twenty year civil war.
We have failed to learn history. Now we have to take our medicine and repeat it.
What sickens me is not so much that a politician would do this (who wouldn't want to have veto power over any investigations into their own conduct?) but that so-called "conservative" pundits will side with him. The side that ostensibly sides with limited, toothless government will enthusiastically support a President's authority to place himself beyond the reach of the law, just because that President is from their own party. It wouldn't be so grating, but I'm a conservative, one who believes in limited government, the fallibility of man, etc. I actually have the political principles that they claim to have (at least when a Democrat was in the White House) and so, in calling myself a conservative, I'm placing myself in the same wacko, Orwellian club that they've infected. But what else do I call myself, politically? I was reading James Bovard when Clinton was in office. I was concerned about runaway government. I was frightened by Ruby Ridge and Waco. I even agreed with a few David Horowitz articles.
But at the time the Republicans were right about where I was (though I couldn't have cared less about Clinton's sex life). After 9/11, they all went effectively crazy and I was left feeling like a schmuck because I actually thought they believed in small government and freedom, as I do. I'm effectively left without a party, because the Democrats are no better. I could vote Libertarian, but I really doubt the efficacy of that. It's a bit surreal to vote, to care about politics, in a nation where no one really cares about freedom. There is no political principle at work in either main party, and there isn't really a fiscally conservative/Amnesty International/ACLU/Torturewatch/anti-death-penalty etc party for me to vote for even as a weak compromise. There is just nothing. No, I don't believe it's a conspiracy. I'm just part of a ridiculously small minority of people who are abhorred by what's going on, and would be regardless of what party was running the show this week.
I'm beginning to understand how the abolitionists felt at the very beginning, when they were the only ones saying "slavery is wrong." When I tell people "torture is wrong," and I have to argue the point, that leaves a very surreal, bizarre, and uneasy feeling in the back of my mind for the rest of the day. No one cares. I don't really see any way we can prevent a headlong slide into totalitarianism. If Bush outright suspended the next election, I'm convinced that at least 40% of Americans would support him. His base, the evangelicals (especially the Christian Reconstructionists) would definitely support him, because that's what they're after anyway. But I just don't think Americans at large think or care about any of this. It's not a very encouraging outlook to have on things.
The Fourth Amendment. Currently, under the rule of King George, law enforcement can invade your home at will and without a warrant.
Do you think being on an international call during a time of war should somehow be protected from surveillance?
We're not a war. Congress has not declared a war on any person or nation.
I'm tempted to ask, "What are you saying on your calls anyway?" but that will set the slashbots off.
What I say on my calls are none of yours and the governments business. Especially if I make those calls in the privacy of my own house. Making such calls on a cell phone in public is another matter since everyone around you can hear your yammering.
Doesn't anyone work on corporate email systems?
That is a private entity who owns the equipment and the communication pathways. That is completely different than having a publicly financed telecommunication system where everyone and their grandmother are communicating.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
For instance, he would like to ban stem cell research, abortion, and gay marriage because they conflict with his notion of Christian values.
/Christian
//supports abortion rights, stem cell research, and gay marriage
Had to be repeated.
Wars end when when somebody is defeated.
And there is the rub. If you declare war, you can declare an end to the state of war. If you don't declare war, you run on "political expediency", and effectively you have a state of "war" without end.
I argue that Congress -did- abdicate their responsibility. It is not just their privelege to declare war, it is their responsibility to recognize the necessity and play their part. Then, yes, they get out of the way and let the CiC run the actual war.
By abdicating their responsibility to declare war, they have set us up for a constitutional crisis.
War declarations are not a prosaic artifact of the Constitution, they are a serious responsibility to be used as necessary.
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
The Supreme Court (bless them!) ruled that the President only has "extraordinary wartime powers" as a temporary expedient to quickly do things that would take Congress too much time.
I'm not sure I've heard that, though I have heard that such "extraordinary powers" most certainly do not extend to denying constitutional rights, no matter what Hollywood may tell us.
For example, I'm pretty sure that the Supreme Court later determined that Lincoln's suspension of Habeus Corpus was, in fact, unconstitutional. Also, the Supreme Court determined that the suspension in 1942 of civillian rule in favor of military courts in Hawaii was also unconstitutional (and this was a territory, not yet a state, that had just been attacked by a foreign power's military, and even under those incredibly exceptional circumstances the constitution wasn't permitted to be suspended).
Here are some remarks by the former Chief Justice in 2000, and again in 2002, that address the question of civilian versus military judical authority in wartime.
Can anyone provide clear case evidence of the court determining that the President *can* suspend certain civil rights or federal laws in wartime? So far as I've ever been able to ascertain, every single time a President has gone "too far" with the wartime powers argument, he's been rebuffed years later by the Supreme Court, which tells me, at least, that any argument that a president has special lattitude in wartime is a crock, at least from a legal perspective. From a practical perspective, though, since it's always taken the Court years to get around to it, it's certainly been proven true. (though if the Court can decide a presidential election question in a matter of days, you'd think they could handle these other serious issues more quickly, too...)
Lot of comments going around about impeachment and possibly having the other retake congress in the midterms. Unfortunately nothing will change for a number of reasons:
1) Bush doesn't care he is the decider.
2) Congress will not act because they are his rubber stamp.
3) The voters can't do anything since redistricting has given the Republican congress a comfortable majority in the house.
4) The courts, now packed with right wing activist judges (esp. the supremes), will do nothing to restore democracy.
5) The constant state of war can be used to manipulate information and therefore the public.
6) The Senate is not subject to redistricting and could be taken back but that would take 6 years. Also the Senate cannot begin impeachment, only the House can.
The only it is going to change is if the Dems take over more state legislatures, redistrict, then retake the House. This will be difficult due to pork barrel politics (by voting in a Rep. a district will get more money) and campaign contributions. And if the Reps. get into trouble again, they just trot out the terrorists and homos again.
Get used to it. It will probably be 'One Nation, One Party, One Deceider' type rule for the next 20 years.
Enjoy!
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Perhaps this is an exerpt from a longer bill wherein the Congress declares war? Granting the president war powers != declaring war, although the outcome is largely the same. Nonetheless, the person you're arguing against is correct. This is not a declaration of war. That involves 1.) declaring war, and 2.) declaring who we're at war with.
Bonus question! This authorizes force against those responsible for attacks on the United States. Please explain how this bill justifies a multi-year occupation of Iraq?
God is not malleable, the bible is not malleable, Christ's teachings are not malleable, they are there to read and to live by.
First of all, God may not be malleable, but your idea of him definitely is. Secondly, the bible is man-made (anyone having studied its history is forced to conclude this), so a valid opinion is that it is not the whole and accurate word of God, but rather a human perversion of God's message. There are many conflicting documents of christ's teachings, and once you start doubting the bible's accuracy and completeness, it's only a small step to doubting what was and wasn't a part of christ's teachings.
So, yeah, depending on where your beliefs lie, you can be a christian (someone who beliefs that christ was the son of God and sent to save us) and have completely different beliefs than what current bible canon dictates they should be.
Good luck with this stuff. Seriously.
It seems you've already started to vote away your freedoms. If the rest of your country is going to take this lying down, maybe it's time for the rest of you to start taking up the arms that you've so rigoursly been defending the right to own (regardless of the cost in your society) to start taking control of your country back from the religious oligarchy that is currently in charge.
You dragged one President through the mud because he cheated on his wife. Now you've got another one breaking your laws and turning your country into the sort of place that people fifty years ago used to write books about to prove points totalitarianism.
Instead of posting about it on Slashdot, maybe the time has come to start educating your less savvy friends and family that maybe they should stop watching Fox and start engaging their brains to figure out what is best for their country, their family and their friends.
Until you figure out a better way to spend untold billions of dollars and priceless amounts of human life, we, the undersigned, consider ourselves at great personal risk of your policies, attitudes, and actions.
Signed sincerely,
The Rest of the World. (Please consult an atlas for our exact location relative to the United States.)
PS, if you could take money out of politics, you might find - as a completely surprising corollary - you make your country a better place for your citizens.