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US Intelligence Chiefs Urge Easing Of Spy Rules
The US admninistration is not looking for this law change to enable them to "Better fight the War On Terror". The truth is that the US Administration need the law relaxed because they think that it will then make it easier for them to get a retrospective law change that may further help them to crawl out of a rather deep set of legal and constitutional holes that they currently find themselves in. You see, the Dubya administration has trampled all over the laws of the US and the Constitution itself and they have, as seen in the video, admitted it along the way. The problems they now face are coming from all directions such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation's successful application to sue AT&T for handing over phone records without a warrant. The President has already blocked one investigation into his conduct regarding this issue and now they are looking to srike down all others before they even get started.
There's no new article here at all. I know just about all of us hate the wiretapping, but this is just a political jab and not anything substantive. You should be more professional than that- repost this with at least an update of the AT&T v. EFF case or something...
Just "gittin-r-done," day after day.
At risk of stating the obvious, YRO means "Your Rights, discussed here, online". Slashdot is more than just technology, dig?
qntm.org
Carefully crafted they may be, but even loyal party pundits are admitting that a certain number of Reps are in for a real fight this time around. When dissatisfaction, even among the incumbant's own party, hits a certain level, that incumbant is in trouble, no matter how carefully crafted his position is supposed to be.
The Republicans are also up against a very real general rule - the one that notes that the party in the White House almost always looses Congressional seats in the off year - that hasn't happened only twice in the last hundred years. Add to that the amount of opposition Bush faces among not only independants, but the dissaffected in his own party, and the Grand Ole Party has its work cut out for it before November.
There are a lot of moderate Republicans that are not comfortable with the far right wing bent to the Pres's policies. I am one of them. I voted for Bush because I thought maybe he'd shake things up. He did, but not in the way I had hoped. Fortunately, there has been just enough resistance form those of us moderates that don't like religious interference in government to at least slow things down.
Don't get me wrong - I don't think Dems are capable of the kind of hard decisions that will be required to get this country through this "War on Terror" we are involved in. I know that it is now considered Bush's war, but that is a huge mistake. Like it or not, we are really and truly at war with people who style themselves as fundamentalist Muslims. They have very real issues that they are successfully using to incite opposition to the US, and support for them, in the world at large, not just the Muslim world. The US policies that they object to are policies that are not specific to the Republicans - the Democrats have supported Israel strongly, too. Fighting our way out of this one will take not just diplomacy (and certainly more than Bush has managed) but strength of will and purpose. So far, I don't see many American politicians with those particular strengths on the public stage.
What America needs today is a government that can populate itself with moderates. People that believe in the things that most Americans value - not the far right or left of either major party. Someone that really will try to bring us together for the hard times we are going to go through in the next twenty years. Someone that will provide a strong leadership without making half of us feel like he thinks we are going to hell because we don't worship his way.
"Money is truthful. If a man speaks of his honor, make him pay cash." Notebooks of Lazarus Long, Robert A. Heinlein
"War is justified, sometimes, but not since World War 2."
The U.S. government has invaded 24 countries since the 2nd World War.
I agree. United States politics is dominated by those who believe they are Christian and George W. Bush is Christian, and who vote Republican. Actually, they often aren't Christian, they are often only angry. The other side is dominated by weak, disorganized Democrat politicians.
The operative word here is HIS - that is he wouldn't do anything that HIS lawyers or advisors deem unconstitutional. Have you even listened to the tortured logic that the Attorney General uses when defending TORTURE?? Or Donald Rumsfelds musings about the issue? What about John Yoo or David Addington?e nts/dojinterrogationmemo20020801.pdf
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/docum
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5197853/site/newsweek
(RANT)
Yeah, and I know what you are going to say..they are terrorists and deserve it. First of all, torture is WRONG. We are the good guys, remember? Second, we have no way of knowing that they are guilty. They have no evidence presented, and no chance at a trial. What if someone just wants the reward, and turns you in as a Qaeda operative? There have been many allegations of this happening.
(/RANT)
The wiretaps are the same thing. The fact is that we have judicial oversight to prevent this kind of overreaching. The fact is that FISA gives you 72 hours to tap and then ask questions later, so judicial oversight wouldn'd hold up the tapping of a phone in an emergency. The fact is that they didn't want to bother with it! And BTW, this is not a liberal rant, this is a _libertarian_ rant. I remember when the GOP used to be the friend of the libertarians....