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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.
It worked so well in Italy, for Berlusconi. If you break the law, just change the law, preferrably retroactively. You can stay out of jail for a long time like this.
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More at 9.
"I may be full of crap about this game, and I may be wrong, and that's fine." -Jack Thompson
Not voting is the same as a vote for the various (accused) incumbents.
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But at least include a link to the story the summary is about. What law, which chiefs, where is this being reported?
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.
But come on... The big scary Democrats are going to call it the "Dubay" adminstration and giggle while the world goes to crap... That's it, That's your plan? It didn't work in 2004 (or ever). what makes you think it will work now? I have a better idea... lets all stop bickering and elect people with IQs above 70 (all officals in both parties not just the president) and that repreent our real concerns (not ones made up every two to four years as needed) I would like a world (non Mad Max if I had a choice) to leave to my children. All polititians suck, contribute nothing, have too much power and they only care how there actions afect themselves in the extreme short term.
I don't give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way.
Mark Twain
... oh forget it. I was going to come up with some 'clever' parallel where other people want to make their jobs easier and sloppier.
The point of current law and regulation for government powers to get information and investigate is to ensure that the interests of civilians are preserved and balanced against the needs of the government in doing its job. What they are saying is that they can't do their jobs without even more easy and invasive permissions.
Maybe I'll be modded down for this, but I think I'd rather see another 9-11 than to see what is happening to the way of life we have enjoyed until now. But frankly, if we just stay out of their business and stop backing Israel, I think we'd have little to no threat since this is ultimately what this boils down to in the first place... that and oil which could be, I'm sure, managed in other ways. We're capitalists after all.
And while I'm on the subject, how about we punish the president for his flagrant violation of law before we move to change it. If we make murder legal today, that doesn't mean we need to free yesterday's murderers from prison does it? If we make speeding on our streets legal, does that mean speeders should get a refund?
I'm still somewhat baffled as to why there is so little focus on the violations that have occurred and the blocking of investigations.
keep new Islamic immigrants out of our country ... I say we end immigration from Islamic countries
... how about all Americans stay in theirs?
I say that works both ways
All things considered, nothing that Bush is doing will end Islamic terrorism. The harsh truth is that yes, there are millions of good people who are Muslims and do no support terrorism. There are, unfortunately, far more Muslims who are at least sympathetic to terrorism than there are religionists of any other persuasion. These are not people that we want in our borders--period!
I'm calling a big ole Bullshit on this one. While there are some Muslims who are sympathetic to the movement, and there are some (and this number is far fewer) that are actively involved, most Muslims are like most Christians, are like most Jews, are like most Pagans, are like most Buddhists, are like most Hindus... they couldn't care less about Terrorism except how it might affect their lives. They are no more terrorists than John or Jane Doe -- they are people! Not the bloody enemy!
No, maybe not an ethnic thing, but certainly a religious thing. The moment you've banned a religious group from immigrating to this country you've just announced and made clear your objections to that religion. Islam is not the problem, it's the way the world politic has been handling the issues. How you got modded insightful with that bullshit is beyond me, unless even the slashdot crowd is now caving in to political propaganda...
What the hell's a "gewie?"
All things considered, nothing that Bush is doing will end Islamic terrorism.
If USA stops bombing civilians, respect human rights and does not commit war crimes, I'm sure far fewer will be inclined to act out of desparation as terrorists.
The harsh truth is that yes, there are millions of good people who are Muslims and do no support terrorism.
Most Muslims, like most Christians, does not support terrorism. Bombing civilians from the air is, of course, not terrorism [/sarcasm].
Look, the only way to fight Islamic terrorism without falling prey to more of it at home, and not violating the rights of our citizens, non-Muslim and Muslim alike, is to keep new Islamic immigrants out of our country.
Respect human rights, don't invade other countries, stop toppling democratic governments and install/support dictatorships, and don't exploit poor people. See? I'm sure many more people on the planet will much less hostile to USA if the above was followed.
This is not an ethnic thing as I'd have just as much problem allowing a white Australian who admitted to being a Muslim come here as I would a Saudi.
Agreed, not an ething thing, just a racist one.
All religions have violent pasts because for a long period of time, the world was a truly brutal and uncivilized place.
The world is still a truly brutal and uncivilized place. Just look at airial bombings done in Lebanon and Iraq.
The real nightmare for people like the current President and some of his friends must be that to be safe, they must find a way to hold onto power for a long time. This has been the problem that has led to gerontocracies in places like fascist Spain, China and parts of the Middle East. But the US is not a dictatorship, it is a pluralist federation, and the possibility exists that in the revolution of the political cycle the time will come when a US government will indict a member of the present Administration for war crimes. Of course it could never happen...but the British and the French both once executed a monarch and the British allowed the deposition of another in what they called the Glorious Revolution. Perhaps, just as Putin has clawed back Russian oil from the kleptarchs, one day a US Government strapped for cash will start to go after the plutarchs.
A British Prime Minister, Harold Wilson,once famously said that three weeks was a long time in politics. I'm not sure that the present generation of politicians are thinking as far ahead as that.
Pining for the fjords
The modern Republican party is based on opposing Liberalism (though it opposes it with another kind of liberalism). It is a reactionary party, despite recent efforts to call it something else -- and the Democratic party has better do its damndest to not fall into the same reactionary mold. The entire basis of conservatism is fighting against liberalism.
As to electing intelligent people, that's not the solution. There are plenty of very intelligent people in office who do terrible things, or allow terrible things to happen. What's needed are people who are motivated by the public interest, and not by games, self-promotion, and party-promotion. They need to be sufficiently versed in history, economics, and political theory. The ability to treat subjects rationally is a must.
When every candidate meets those criteria, we can have meaningful elections based upon the views held by the candidates. Then again, this will NEVER happen, so we have to play the hand we're dealt... and frankly, I can't see a clear way of cleaning house while the corporate world is married to the political one.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos.
In other words: When you have no choice, it doesn't matter.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
There are, unfortunately, far more Muslims who are at least sympathetic to terrorism than there are religionists of any other persuasion.
You mean, "religionists" like, say Christians? I give you Rwanda, Northern Ireland, the USA (anti-abortion campaigners) and Serbia. All lovely folks who I'm sure you want inside your borders... Or Israel, which at the last count has managed to kill 600 "non-believers" in 2 weeks? Please get the reality, that religion really doesn't matter a damn.
The simple fact is that "the only way to fight Islamic terrorism" is to stop doing things that piss off the citizens of those countries, such as bombing civilians. Currently the US and the UK have royally fucked up Iraq to the extent of allowing a civil war to take place, Afghanistan is still in the shitter, and they're providing military and financial support for Israel while it bombs civilians and other non-military targets in Lebanon and Palestine. Meantime, George Bush is busy pointing the finger at Syria and Iran as the next targets, because they sponsor terrorism.
Hmm, a state which sponsors terrorism? How's about the USA? For US-supported countries whose governments actively terrorised their citizens, or where the US supported terrorist activities against the government, or where the US actively attacked/invaded to try and establish a government favourable to them, I give you: Cuba, Grenada, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Haiti, Congo, Vietnam, Cambodia, Argentina, Guatemala, Panama, Chile, Guyana, Angola... And that's just the ones I can remember easily.
Given how successful all this intervention has been (every single one of the examples above has been an unmitigated failure), an awful lot of people wish that the US would keep well out of international affairs, because the US government and the CIA clearly couldn't find their ass with both hands. And if they stopped fucking up other people's countries, maybe the citizens of those countries (and others) would feel more kindly towards the US.
I'm almost amused when I hear Americans saying how big a deal 9/11 was. In Iraq alone, that's about 2 weeks worth of civilian casualties (according to the most *optimistic* casualty figures). If you can imagine 9/11 happening every fortnight, maybe you will then understand why the US is not exactly appreciated abroad.
Grab.
Most people don't understand the background. The U.S. government has been helping oil companies in secret since before 1950, and that has led to an expectation by rich oil investors that the U.S. government will lower the cost of doing business by getting the U.S. taxpayer to pay for security arrangements. The U.S. government secretly, or semi-secretly, breaks the law, kills people, including Arabs and Muslims, and and destroys the property of anyone who stands in the way of oil and other profits. Here is a short summary of the kinds of actions that have caused the U.S. government to be corrupted: History surrounding the U.S. wars with Iraq: Four short stories.
The U.S. government is in dire circumstances. Money is being taken from the people and given to the rich in enormous quantities. See the old article, U.S. Federal Deficit by Political Party. See how much things have gotten worse since then: National Debt. Oil and weapons investors profit: Cost of Iraq War.
See a short review of books and movies about conflict of interest: Unprecedented Corruption: A guide to conflict of interest in the U.S. government.
It's far worse than these short references say.
Moderators: "I disagree" is not the same as "Flamebait".
Wow. I've never agreed so strongly with someone's first five sentences and disagreed so violently with the entire rest of their post before.
Please provide the merest hint of evidence that this is anything other than baseless, pulling-facts-out-of-my-arse racist bullshit, or be modded into oblivion.
Remember in your answer to differentiate between the truly violent religions and those which are merely prevalent in extremely deprived, politically-unstable parts of the world.
Also remember to excuse the (nominally-Christian) West's identical behaviour during periods of similar social strife and deprivation, and the fact that the entire Middle East region is so unstable pretty much entirely because of the machinations of european countries and the US over the course of the last hundred years or so.
Great idea - lose all the terrorist sympathisers... along with most of the middle- and far-eastern grad students who are the only ones counteracting the US's massive brain-drain to countries with less restrictive (and less religiously-inspired) research laws.
Also remember turnabout is fair play, and remove all your expatriots from the region. Specifically all the ones with guns, bombs and missiles who are doing such a bang-up job of convincing the terrorist sympathisers to invade your hallowed shores.
Or, y'know, stay out of theirs. Again, specifically the tooled-up tourists in uniforms.
Nope. Nor is there a fundamental human right allowing you to invade other countries who pose no threat to you, extort them to change their laws to ones you'd like purely for your own benefit, topple democratically-elected leaders, invade countries on false premises and then let the guy who did it off scot-free, etc, etc, etc.
Your point?
Well, personally the only "Christians" I hear about in the mass-media are the fundamentalist fuckwits intent on ousting evolution from schools, banning medical research and calling for the assassination of democratically-elected South American leaders. Can we ban all the Christians too while we're at it?
Was? Was? Dude, where are you living? Under a rock?
I kno wthe US is famous
Everything in moderation, including moderation itself
"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.
You may consider it a tired accusation, but until people actually see ideas from strong Democratic leaders that don't revolve around hating Bush, you will keep hearing it!
I style myself as largely independant - although I have voted Republican since Reagan - mainly since I haven't seen a Democratic leader with a real, strongly articulated vision that didn't involve turning the country so sharply left it scared me as much as the Republican right does now.
As I mentioned in my post above, what this country needs is a strong moderate leader that is capable of bringing this country together, based upon a strongly articulated vision that doesn't call half the country stupid names. Nobody has a problem with strengthening this country's values - but the one thing that has escaped the Republican right is that we don't all want those values to be labeled with a religious name.
Personally, I don't really care which party this leader comes from, as long as he focuses on bringing us together, by emphasizing commonly held values that don't have labels attached to them. There are enough values we can call American that we all can agree on; the more devisive ones can be put on the back burner until we can settle the major international problems we have today.
If the majority of Americans in the middle had a leader that truly attracted moderate voters, he would walk away with the next election, regardless of his party. I think most of us are getting very tired of the far right and the far left both!
"Money is truthful. If a man speaks of his honor, make him pay cash." Notebooks of Lazarus Long, Robert A. Heinlein
give yourself a few seconds to absorb this: George Bush used his executive powers to block an investigation into his own actions. He wants laws changed so that crimes he's committed will no longer be considered crimes. He signs laws that congress passes, adding a statement saying that he doesn't really have to obey that law. We have a president who walks around with his fingers crossed behind his back. Let's all remember that Republicans have governed this country completely since 2000. Are you and your family better of now than you were in 1999? Do you feel safer?
You are welcome on my lawn.
Well what the hell do you expect us Democrats to do? We don't have a majority in the House or Senate, the Republicans haven't and won't listen to us, and any attempt to stop Republican policies from being steamrolled through Congress gets blasted as being obstructionist. There is NOT a whole hell of a lot you can do when you're not in control of any of the three branches of the government, it's like getting pissed off at somebody for not trying to destroy a tank with an M-16.
Never give in--never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to conviction
Blatantly flamebait, but hell, I'll bite. The USA does and always will support any government that'll bend over and kiss american arse. Doesn't matter if said government is a totally pacifist democratic republic, or a tyranny consisting of a resurrected Adolf Hitler with Stalin as Minister for Information, Pol Pot as Minister for 'Justice' and Alexander The Great as Minister of War. The USA will happily support such regimes and give them cheap weapons, aid etc as long as said regime gives America whatever it wants, typically oil, military bases, freedom to roam through the regime's airspace or use it as a staging area, or the regime's backing against a larger enemy, like the USSR, or China or Iran, for example. Only way that'll ever change is if the US people get some balls and overthrow corrupt governments, stop electing them in the first place, or a decent US government gets into power and actually changes a few rules to stop it happening again. Don't hold your breath waiting. In fact, what am I saying? Please, feel free to hold your breath. One less of you to put against the wall when the revolution comes.
The truth shall always be free: Boris Floricic is Tron.
I cannot agree more with the "war within Islam" statement.
As I have been trying to explain to people for several years, the terrorists, while claiming to be fundamentalist Muslim, are really using the religion to shield their actual intent from exposure. The vast majority of Muslim people around the world live in countries that do not believe in universal literacy, so many of them depend upon the word of clerics to tell them what their holy book, the Koran, says. Since Islam has no central authority, like the Vatican in Catholicism, there is nobody that can definitively settle a dispute about what a passage means. This makes it easy for their friendly clerics to sway large numbers of Muslims to their support with relative ease.
The Koran, like the Bible, has entire sections that have been nullified by the passage of time, and the affect of different teachings and traditions over the centuries. Like the Bible has passages that condone slavery, the Koran has passages that require Muslims to attack and kill infidels. We don't condone slavery, and have finessed those passages so that we don't take them seriously anymore. So have most of the clerics in Islam glossed over and don't teach the anti-infidel passages, either.
But these newly-minted fundamentalists have taken these passages, which are still there in black and white, and are making them relavent again, using friendly clerics. Remember, within certain bounds, one cleric's fatwa is as good as another's, certainly to the unwashed, illiterate masses of Muslim people.
Combine that with the terrorists' use of US policies that are msotly unpopular in the Arab world anyway, and they have a ready-made platform for general mayhem.
The majority of moderate Muslim clerics around the world that do not condone the terrorists' actions have not yet recognized the terrorists threat to their way of life, and those that do are slow to react. It'll be a long, hard road, and it's a fight that will happen whether the US is involved or not.
"Money is truthful. If a man speaks of his honor, make him pay cash." Notebooks of Lazarus Long, Robert A. Heinlein
> I seriously believe Osama and every other terrorist organization would leave
> us alone if we stopped screwing around in world affairs. We stick our nose
> where it doesn't belong, and THAT is what breeds terrorism.
I'm not about to mindlessly repeat the tired old "they hate us because of our freedom" mantra. But there's got to be a whole lot more to it than just our fucked up foreign policy.
Look at Latin America. The United States has been royally screwing pretty much all of Latin America for pretty much all of our history, To put it crudely; we were fucking them over harder than we ever fucked anyone in the middle east for a good CENTURY before anyone in this country, other than bible scholars, took notice that the middle east was even there! If foreign policy that amounts to detrimental screwing around in other peoples' affairs were what causes terrorism, than by all rights, we ought to see a hundred terrorists pouring up from Mexico for every ONE middle easterner who gets a stick up his ass about "American Imperialism" and other such claptrap. (Hell, something like a third of the continental US used to BE Mexico!!! That's more land, by several orders of magnitude, than the Israelis "stole" from the "palestinians". But Mexicans aren't crossing our border with dynamite belts to murder us. They're crossing our border with tool belts to WORK for us and to make a better life for themselves and their families!)
The fact that we DON'T see Latin Americans in general, and Mexicans, Cubans, and Colombians in particular, swarming north, en masse, to blow up our buildings, suicide bomb our nightclubs and pizza parlors, launch rockets at our cities, nerve gas our subways, and kidnap and murder our citizens; when they have FAR more reason to do so than any middle easterner does or ever did; say to me that terrorism is NOT a reaction to out influence in foreign affairs. It's a war between cultures, west vs. middle east. Maybe they don't hate us because of our "freedom", but they definitely hate us because of our culture and our values and the fact that we don't worship allah.
cya,
john
Imagine all the people...
The lessons of history teach us - if they teach us anything - that nobody learns the lessons that history teaches us.
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....