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White House Derails Attempts to End Illegal Wiretapping
P. Rivacy writes "If you recall, last month we discussed Congress's attempts to outlaw the already illegal NSA wiretaps authorized by the President. The White House is now using delaying tactics to derail the passage of that bill. Their tactic is to stall on providing documents related to the President's warrantless wiretapping program, despite requests from the Senate Intelligence Committee that is currently reviewing the proposed legislation. '"Another critical priority for congressional oversight is government wiretapping of Americans, conducted under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and, illegally, under the President's warrantless wiretapping program," Senator Russ Feingold said. "When the program was finally placed within the FISA process, an opportunity arose for the Administration and the Congress to move forward, under the law. Unfortunately, the Administration has yet to demonstrate a real interest in doing so."'"
If you outlaw illegal wiretaps, only outlaws will use legal wiretaps.
The makers of rules are never motivated to personally abide them. Rules are for you to follow.
Ergo, it is up to us to demand that rulemakers comply at least as well as the rest of us.
FATMOUSE + YOU = FATMOUSE
This administration is going to be remembered as the one that tried to undo the separation of powers between the legislative, judicial and executive branches. The tactic of ignoring laws and judgments that do not fit the executive agenda has worked for 6 years now, with no sign of letting up until the next election (at best).
His approval ratings are so low that the Democrats could safely bring impeachment charges without any real damage if they stick to what are the more sober charges:
1) Violating the 4th amendment.
2) Failing to protect the border, which is a legal obligation under Article 4, Section IV of the US Constitution.
3) Lying to Congress about the intelligence that lead us into Iraq.
4) Lying to Congress about the true cost of his medicare expansion.
#2 would go over very well with a lot of the public because in most polls, about 70% of the population, cutting across ideology, firmly opposes Bush's amnesty plan.
Bill Clinton was impeached for perjury, and should have been removed. He didn't just lie, he lied while under oath in a court of law, which is a **felony**. Bush did far worse. The case against him should be a lot easier.
And, if you actually take the time to look into the entire program, I think you'll find that these alleged wiretaps are NOT occuring on domestic phone calls between American citizens. They are happening between people residing in this country (not necessarily citizens) and another party typically in al Queda-linked countries.
I mean, think about it, all Nixon did was send some spooks into the Watergate Hotel to snoop on the Democratic Convention. Suddenly he was Satan incarnate, and the whole country was on him like a cheap suit.
Dubya and his cronies spy on EVERYBODY, brag about it, torture people to death, invade other countries for personal gain, "out" CIA agents, fire U.S. attorneys, get cozy with the commies in China, kidnap people (extraordinary rendition)...
And nothing! Not a whimper! And the Red States think he's a Good Ole' Boy!
Seriously, people -- WTF???
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It's mind-boggling how difficult this seems to stop. It's already illegal for chrissakes, how do you put a ban on something that's already illegal?
Here's an idea. How about suing them and forcing them to stop? They've already demonstrated don't care about the law. They've broken FISA blatantly and repeatedly. And when they were caught they proved shameless enough to openly continue breaking the law. There is no reason to believe they will stop if we write more laws. Impeach them and sue them. Throw them out of office and in jail. It's the only way to restore the rule of law.
I am an Arab looking Indian dude who seldom ever calls home with my phone connection. I've installed Skype on my phone and call abroad with that because it's WAAAY cheaper... Now I wonder if they can/do tap into Skype... Fundamentally, this is akin to the DRM issue. Those that want to make calls and talk about anthrax will use modes of communication that aren't monitored and those who pay the penalty are Arab looking Indian dudes... *sigh*... Cheers!
Atheist: Buddhist in a Prius
Too bad until somebody figures out that they've been spied upon and sues the government we can't get a court ruling either way. But I do look to the Judiciary for help here, because even in todays climate they have handed Bush several major wakeup calls regarding his conception of how the law works.
The most telling thing to answer the question though of "were these wiretaps illegal without any new law needing to be passed making them so?" is the Bush team's defense of the program. They have never argued that they are operating in compliance with FISA, that the program was operating within the written law. They have only argued that Bush, being the President, has the inherent authority to conduct such searches as he deems fit in the interest of national security.
Obviously Bush's administration has been pushing very hard to increase the power of the Executive, and this is part of that. But if there was an actual legal explanation for the program that made it clear that Bush was complying with the law, wouldn't it be better to avoid the scandal and ongoing conflict? He wouldn't have to abandon the stance that he can do whatever he wants. So when his best reply is "yes I ignored the law but I can do that because I'm president", that's pretty much all I need to hear.
I highly doubt that should it come to it that SCOTUS would agree with the President's views.
P.S. I'm sure someone will bring up the "other presidents did warantless taps!" talking point, but if you actually read what all these other presidents did from Carter on it was in compliance with the terms of FISA that allow warrantless tapping. Bush isn't even pretending that he is doing the same thing, which is why it's only conservative talk show hosts and not the White House PR who bring this up.
The enemies of Democracy are
And since NONE of the facts have been released, exactly HOW is it that YOU know who has and has not been tapped?
IF that was the case, THEN it would be EXACTLY the kind of situation that FISA was supposed to handle.
The White House is nothing, if not consistent. It will not give ground on issues it deems important. They are convinced that the only way to catch terrorists on American soil is to tap everyone's phones and read everyone's email. While it may be a laudable idea in theory, the practice is far from certain to net anything useful. This is the information age. The terrorists no doubt know what is being tapped or watched. They haven't exactly proven themselves to be stupid or they would never have been able to pull off 9-11. So while the White House is sure that they'll catch them red-handed, the terrorists are no doubt finding other avenues of communication that the government can't tap into.
Al Qaeda took advantage of our false sense of security, and this is just more of that, only with bells, whistles, and the cry of "See?!? There hasn't been a terrorist attack here lately!". We're no more secure now than we were then, just more aware. What we do with that awareness will count for more than all the tapped phone calls the NSA listens to.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
"In doing so, the Administration violated the National Security Act, which allows restricted notification to the "Gang of Eight" only in certain limited cases involving covert action." At least they used the right terms in the article:
gang1 (gng) pronunciation n.
A group of criminals or hoodlums who band together for mutual protection and profit.
A group of adolescents who band together, especially a group of delinquents.
A pack of wolves or wild dogs.
One with a logical mind has to clearly wonder what this administration is really up to at this point. They've subverted laws across all boundaries (national and international) yet nothing is done. The second a prior idiot played with a cigar, they tried impeaching him. I don't know about you but a cigar is nothing in comparison to privacy invasion, AT&T wiretaps, warrantless searches and phone taps... Did this man never read the federalist papers let alone any paper outside of Hustler magazine.
Infiltrated dot Net
Check out http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/5/16/115444 /263
This is the testimony of James Comey, who was the acting AG while John Ashcroft was in the ICU after surgury. Al Gonzoles and Andrew Card sought to push a sick, bed ridden old man to agree to their illegal program (according to the AG, they guy who's job it was to determine that). It took the FBI (guys with guns) to ensure that the acting AG would NOT get pushed out of the way. Essentially, FBI direct Meuller ordered his men to protect the AG from the White House's representitives.
This is sh!t that's supposed to happen only in 3rd world dictatorships, not the US of A!
The White House went ahead with the illegal program anyway. And yes, according to the TOP guy hired to enforce the LAW of the USA, it was illegal!
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Bear in mind, Republicans supported freeing the slaves, pushed desegregation, formed the ACLU, allowed women to vote; and were fought on each item by Democrats.
Bear in mind that the parties have essentially reversed. In the 1950s/1960s, the Democrats were the party of the South and the Republicans the party of the North. It's backwards now. What happened is complicated, but it includes a number of factors including the decline of unions, the rise of the Religious Right, the general polarization of the parties into a "conservative party" (Republicans) and a "liberal party" (Democrats), the increasing geographical divide between secular and religious values, and a whole host of other issue.
Nothing says 'welcome to the neighborhood' like a gunny sack full of dead squirrels.
Haven't we ratified the Geneva conventions as well, and ignored that?
The US ratified the first four (through 1949) but not the last two protocols (1977).
They are a treaty. As such they are binding on the several states as long as the federal government considers them to be in force. But the fed (like any other government) abides by them or not as it finds convenient, and can declare them null and void at any time it finds convenient. (Meanwhile, treaties have no direct force within the country except through implementing legislation or executive orders. Such legislation is subject to the usual constitutional limits on congressional power. Congress' powers over the other two branches are severely limited. Executive orders are just the orders of a president to his underlings, automatically superseded by any later orders.)
Further, most of the Geneva Convention protections explicitly are not extended to terrorists and other paramilitary forces that don't themselves obey certain of their provisions - such as identifying themselves, wearing uniforms, not deliberately blowing up non-combatants (who aren't in the way of an attack on a "legitimate" military target), etc. The idea is to encourage everybody else to play by "the rules of civilized warfare".
Which is not to say that what the administration is doing is the right thing to do. Just that an appeal to the Geneva Conventions is not a particularly useful charge to make against a president and his administration. It's an attempt to seize moral high ground but has no force in law.
If you want to mount a binding legal attack on a sitting president it needs to be based on constitutional grounds.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Do not compare what this president is doing to other president. Look at the actions He is doing. Doing anything else is a waste of time and folly.
/mpit/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[im-peech] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
The fact that other presidents may have done something wrong doesn't excuse this one.
"He was charged with purgery for presenting a false document to a grand jury... that is a felony offense. I bet none of you think he should have been impeached."
He was impeached, and he should have been.
"Why should George Bush, who hasn't been charged with a crime let alone convincted of one even be considered for impeachment"
do you know what impeachment means? your post doesn't seem to reflect that if you do. Impeachment does not mean removal from office.
Just in case:
impeach
-verb (used with object)
1. to accuse (a public official) before an appropriate tribunal of misconduct in office.
2. Chiefly Law. to challenge the credibility of: to impeach a witness.
3. to bring an accusation against.
4. to call in question; cast an imputation upon: to impeach a person's motives.
5. to call to account.
So an impeachment would be the finding of misconduct, or not.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Wow. You totally drank the kool-ade. That's the most credulous yes-man line of BS I've ever heard, and that goes a ways.
Hmm... Let's take 'em one by one.
Spying on Everybody: How this works is, the NSA sets up filters at choke points in the network (where the majority of packets will pass through on their way somewhere else). They configure their gear to automatically start recording and analysing whenever certain phrases are detected. These phrases can be anything from "Bush sucks" to "bomb" to "protest march". The fact that it's targeted means they can tell the public anything they want about who they're supposedly after, while making it look like they aren't filtering all packets. Look up Echelon sometime. And that's the OLD system everybody knows about.
This is how the "Big Brother" concept works, by the way. It stifles conversations because you know they're listening, and you never know whether they'll take an interest in this particular phone call. This is why the constitution is supposed to ban this sort of thing, by the way.
And why would they do that? BECAUSE THEY CAN. Because it gives them more power than they had before. Because it enables them to crush dissent and remove opponents. Duh.
Next up... The FISA court oversees only what Bush et al allow it to oversee. They're supposed to ASK FISA for permission to do wiretaps. So far they've been IGNORING IT and doing whatever they want, so don't talk to me about FISA.
Next... Who have they tortured to death? Are you serious? THEY ADMITTED THAT THEY'VE DONE THIS. There are photos circulating around the web of bodies of people who've died in interrogation in Afghanistan and Iraq. There have been coroners reports stating matter of factly that people have been tortured to death. Don't you read the news? Ok, fine, here's an article. It's from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and has a nice interview for you: http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2006/s1576271.h tm. Ok, here's one more, from Amnesty International: http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGAMR5106120 06.
Ok, next up... The paragraph about the justification for Iraq was just dumb, man. All of that has been debunked long ago, and if I gave you a list of articles this post would be a mile long. The fact is, Bush lied about Iraq to trick everybody into the war, and he keeps lying about it. I don't even respect your claim enough to discuss it further. Let's move along.
Next: Scooter's going to jail; that's good enough for me. Of course, Bush will try to pardon him -- no justice for friends of the president, don'cha know! Cronyism at its best. Totally unAmerican. And you know damn well the order to out poor Ms. Plame came down from on high, don't be ridiculous. Her husband outed Bush on the phony yellow cake claims, and the administration wanted to punish him for it. It's telling that they picked on his WIFE, it shows you what juvenile scum they are. These people don't deserve to run a world power.
U.S. Attorneys are NOT supposed to be fired for refusing to act as tools of a political agenda, pal! They're supposed to be civil servants guarding the interests of justice, not the republican party's attack dogs! So your suggestion, here, is crap.
Cozy with the commies in China = allowing China to hold all of our debt, not doing anything about trade imbalances with China, not taking any action to force China to improve its human rights record, not making any effort to force China to throttle back their amazing level of air pollution (which is contributing to global warming and air pollution throughout the region)... Come on, are you serious?
Extraordinary Rendition -- YES, which has been used against several TOTALLY INNOCENT PEOPLE who were torn from their families for a year for torture in a foreign country. Remember that poor Canuck who got yanked out of JFK in NY, s
NO CARRIER
Parent starts out saying something everyone can agree with:
Were GWB's recess appointments any less questionable than Clinton's?
Then takes a left turn into fairytale land:
Was the firing of certain federal prosecutes by bush any less questionable than Clinton firing *all* of them?
You are sorely mistaken as to why matters are different in this case. I copied this nice summary: "During the Clinton administration, there were just four people in the White House -- the President, the Vice President, the White House Counsel, and the Deputy White House Counsel -- who could participate in discussions with the Justice Department "regarding pending criminal investigations and criminal cases." There were just three Justice Department officials authorized to talk with the White House. This arrangement was intended restrict political interference in the administration of justice.
Yesterday in his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said that it was important that the Justice Department "be independent from" the White House. But as Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) pointed out, the firewalls that had existed during the Clinton administration have been ripped down. In the Bush administration, the rules have been rewritten so that 417 White House officials and 30 Justice Department officials are eligible to have discussions about criminal cases."
struggle between branches
The current administration is not struggling. They _have_ vastly expanded the executive offices powers. Nixon tried and failed. They got it right this time.
heck we have the speaker of the house trying to make herself the face of American foreign policy
This comment suggest you believe in an executive branch with infinite powers. I respectfully disagree.
Got Trader Joe's? friendwich.com RSS feeds work now!
Islam, you mean the religion that preserved the knowledge of the Greeks while the Christians in Europe killed each other? It wasn't until the Mongol attacks and the rise of Saudi Arabia's Wahabi sect that Islam turned into what it is now. And it wasn't until the rise of petroleum(the Black Devil, as I like to call it, as it's the closest thing on this Earth to Satan, as it corrupts anything it touches) that the diplomatic tension started. And just so you know, the fault of Communism wasn't the concept of workers owning the means of production(that concept works just fine when it comes about peacefully) but of armed revolution, a concept which only produced even vaguely successful results once, and even that can be attributed to the fact that the Patriots fought mostly foreign soldiers in the American "Revolution" and that afterwards even the Loyalists were allowed to stay.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.