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Senate Committee Votes to Authorize Warrentless Wiretapping
LividBlivet writes, "The Senate Judiciary Committee approved a bill that not only authorizes, but extends, US warrentless wiretapping. No accountability. No oversight. No definition of 'terrorist.' No record of who voted for what. Great way to devolve a democratic republic into a fascist theocracy. Me worried? Yea." Here is the text of SB2453, the National Security Surveillance Act (PDF). Confusingly, the committee also voted out two other bills, one of which "all but declares the warrantless wiretapping illegal," according to Wired.
In case you'd forgotten.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
See Thomas for more information.
Section 7 contains the information about Congressional Oversight
> What are they getting out of the deal by giving away our rights?
To quote Orwell's 1984:
'The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power. We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?'
More precise headline: "Senate Committee Republicans Vote to Authorize Warrantless Wiretapping".
More accurate headline: "Senate Committee Republicans Vote Bush as Emperor Nixon II"
The FISA law that Bush broke, that his Republican Congress is now scrambling to drop from the laws, was written to outlaw the warrantless wiretapping that Nixon's CIA/NSA abused. Now that Bush is obviously incompetent/malevolent/dangerous, the Republican Party is handing him even more power than Nixon had.
I note that Bush's father was the chair of the Republican Party during Watergate, then the 1st ambassador to China, then head of the CIA while the Church Committee was detailing Nixon's CIA's abuses. After Bush Sr left the CIA, Congress passed the FISA to stop it from spying on Americans without due process. Now Bush Jr has admitted doing exactly that for the last 5 years.
--
make install -not war
"That said, I'm convinced there were shennanigans from both sides in 2000 and 2004 -- but taking exit polls as fact is fundamentally flawed."
Statistically, no. They were never flawed. The polls match the vote results, as statisticians know what they are doing, and history backs me up. Not to mention that the elections in Chechnya were anulled and redone because the exit polls didn't match the counts -- and the polls were right, and the votes WERE manipulated in the first election as the second election (far better monitored) changed the results enormously.
The idea that exit polls are flawed came from the Republicans in 2000 on those talking head shows, trying to explain away the obvious fact that someone rigged the election results in the contested areas, as those were the only places where statistics magically stopped functioning. The networks threw up their hands at their own exit-poll operations, which were fantastically accurate until they hit Florida in 2000, and decided rather than conclude that statistic work and vote counts were fishy, that Republicans were right and statistics somehow didn't work anymore ipso facto. Bullshit, of course. But the Republicans were in power in both the government and their own network boardrooms, and butting heads with them has been shown not to be a good career move.
So now we don't have exit polls. Hooray! Now there is absolutely NO evidence if someone electronically rigs an election, no backup system as we used to have. Exit poll stats don't match outcome, stats therefore are "flawed", therefore get rid exit polls, end of problem. This is magical thinking, and works well in the US which is a magic-based nation, anyway.
Exit polls were never "flawed", as their performance has shown for over a decade. Someone has fucked us in the collective asses, and then used the outcome to remove the assfucking detectors.
What you posted sounds very much like the lyrics to this Anti-Flag song. It was written soon after 9/11.
The Anatomy of Your Enemy
by Anti-Flag on "Mobilize"
10 easy steps to create an enemy and start a war:
Listen closely because we will all see this weapon used in our lives.
It can be used on a society of the most ignorant to the most highly educated.
We need to see these tactics as a weapon against humanity and not as truth.
THIS IS HOW TO CREATE AN ENEMY! THIS IS HOW TO START A WAR!
THIS IS HOW TO CREATE AN ENEMY!
First step: create the enemy. Sometimes this will be done for you.
Second step: be sure the enemy you have chosen is nothing like you.
Find obvious differences like race, language, religion, dietary habits
fashion. Emphasize that their soldiers are not doing a job,
they are heartless murderers who enjoy killing.
Third step: Once these differences are established continue to reinforce them with all disseminated information.
Fourth step: Have the media broadcast only the ruling party's information
this can be done through state run media.
Remember, in times of conflict all for-profit media repeats the ruling party's information, therefore all for-profit media is state-run.
Fifth step: show this enemy in actions that seem strange, militant, or different.
Always portray the enemy as non-human, evil, a killing machine.
THIS IS HOW TO CREATE AN ENEMY. THIS IS HOW TO START A WAR.
THIS IS HOW TO CREATE AN ENEMY.
Sixth step: Eliminate opposition to the ruling party.
Create an "Us versus Them" mentality. Leave no room for opinions in between.
One that does not support all actions of the ruling party should be considered a traitor.
Seventh step: Use nationalistic and/or religious symbols and rhetoric to define all actions.
This can be achieved by slogans such as "freedom loving people versus those who hate freedom."
This can also be achieved by the use of flags.
Eighth step: Align all actions with the dominant deity.
It is very effective to use terms like, "It is god's will" or "god bless our nation."
Ninth step: Design propaganda to show that your soldiers
have feelings, hopes, families, and loved ones.
Make it clear that your soldiers are doing a duty; they do not want or like to kill.
Tenth step: Create and atmosphere of fear, and instability
then offer the ruling party as the only solutions to comfort the public's fears.
Remembering the fear of the unknown is always the strongest fear.
THIS IS HOW TO CREATE AN ENEMY! THIS IS HOW TO START A WAR!
THIS IS HOW TO CREATE AN ENEMY!
We are not countries. We are not nations.(enemy)
we are not religions. We are not gods. We are not weapons. We are not ammunition.(enemy) We are not killers.We will NOT be tools.
Mother fuckers
I will not die
I will not kill
I will not be your slave
I will not fight your battle
I will not die on your battlefield
I will not fight for your wealth
I am not a fighter
I am a human being
"It ain't a war against drugs.it's a war against personal freedom" --Bill Hicks
Only solution to the spoiler problem is to change to approval voting. That way, those who are worried about "throwing their vote away" will vote for the third party plus their main party choice.
Approval voting is the least complicated of all the voting systems that gives a fair result. IRV is far too complicated for the type of people who will accidentally vote for Buchanan.
To implement it, we have to get the local races to use it first. So go to a town hall meeting once in a while and bring up approval voting. It's the only way it will ever happen.
The two-party system exists because it is implicit to our Constitution. Period. If you don't get past this fact we are lost.
Really? Back this up. I think you have problems with reading comprehension.
Rampant gerrymandering.
Certainly a problem.
The primary system
What do you find wrong with this?
Lack of "Ranked Voting".
Not sure how this would help..
The electoral college.
So you say the constitution supports only two parties, then turn around and bash it. Sorry, but you can't pick and choose.. The electoral college is there for a very good reason: to help undermine mob rule.
The unrepresentative Senate.
The Senates original purpose was to represent the STATE GOVERNMENTS. For that purpose, it is fine. If you look back in history, you'll see the feds started grabbing way more power than they were supposed to. The fed government was supposed to be weak.
The weak party system.
I don't think any kind of 'party system' is dicated anywhere in law.
Lack of a modern parliamentary system.
Not sure what you mean by this..
Buckley v Valeo (money = free speech).
I'm not sure you understand the purpose behind the ruling in that case..
The removal of only one or two of these structural problem would likely be a catalyst for much greater change.
I would like to think so, but I don't think that those problems alone will fix things.