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FBI Raids Home of Suspected NSA Leaker
During the hours that Congress was debating codifying the Bush administration's wiretapping by revising the FISA law, the Department of Justice was raiding the home of former Justice official Thomas M. Tamm to identify the person who first brought the illicit program to light: "The agents seized Tamm's desktop computer, two of his children's laptops and a cache of personal files... the raid was related to a Justice criminal probe into who leaked details of the warrantless eavesdropping program to the news media... James X. Dempsey of the Center for Democracy and Technology said the raid was 'amazing' and shows the administration's misplaced priorities: using FBI agents to track down leakers instead of processing intel warrants to close the [purported surveillance] gaps."
While most of the people on slashdot will agree with you. And quite possiably others who are heavy into politics and keeping up with there goverment like they should. I think a big part of the problem is joe blow average doesnt keep up with what his/her goverment is doing for/to them. Untill people do the people in office will abuuse power the temptation is VERY hard to resisit. So if you want to change things like this talk with your neighbors and get people back into politics the people can make a change.
Actions like these are the difference between a fascist dictatorship and a democracy (yes, even though the USA is a republic, it is also ment to be a democracy so don't bring it up thanks).
Saying that "The State" is right no matter what, is fascist. Currently the government is purging or minimalizing the non-fascist elements within the state. Of course they're doing it on the path of least resistance, so they're keeping up the veil of the justice system, but with the swampy legal system, far reaching laws and by simply ignoring basic rights (habeas corpus, etc.), without means to challenge the state it is a mere facade.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
Without the leaker, we -- the American public -- would still be in the dark. Without the leaker, our government would still be conducting warrantless wiretapping. The leaker actually helped to strengthen our democracy. He did not endanger it.
Yet, why is Washington trying to send the leaker to federal prison? This massive raid by the FBI smacks of Russian-style fascism.
and getting states, banks, credit companies, airlines, etc. to do massive data collection. And it's not like it started with them - the FBI wiretap enthusiasts like Louis Freeh, the NSA anti-public-crypto people, the Echelon project, etc. all date to the Clinton or GHWBush/Reagan administrations or earlier.
It's going to take a *long* time to tear down that stuff and turn this back into America again, and most of that won't happen unless we replace the current Executive Branch with one that's actually committed to doing it. Most of the major candidates aren't talking like that - certainly Hillary and Rudy and John Edwards and McCain and Romney don't have a history of wanting to do that, and you're pretty much down to Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul before you'd get to anybody who'd talk about that kind of concept as a campaign strategy. Perhaps if the Democrats not only win the White House but also increase their control of the Senate and House they'll have some willingness to do that after a couple of years.
For now, though, Homeland Security Anonymous Spokescritters report that Enhanced Terrorist Surveillance Program has been reporting increased frequency of terrorist chatter saying "Booga Booga", so if you're even suggesting that we decrease wiretapping then you're a threat to national security and our precious bodily fluids.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
You may have an honest disagreement with Clinton about what the correct way to use the US's resources is. Maybe you would rather have lower taxes, or better infrastructure, or aid to the Third World, or free nationally subsidized porn, than universal health care -- that's a debate our nation is going to have to have, and sensible honest citizens can have differences of opinion.
But Bush isn't even *attempting* to use his power, or your money, for anything beneficial to the USA. He is actively using our country's resources to harm the US, for ideological and political reasons.
Hillary might use your tax money to do the wrong sort of good. Bush is using it to do harm.
I was researching the USA PATRIOT Act for Wikipedia, and all those people like Orin Kerr insisted that the changes to FISA wouldn't lead to abuses. Guess we can see what a hollow promise that was.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
If a secret service agent raped your sister and then the President declared his identity "classified" would it be okay for your sister to say who did it? She's be outing a CIA member and leaking information that was deemed classified?
Now, that was an extreme example. But it would be a situation that would leave one person wronged - your sister. Warrantless wiretaps left countless people wronged and in ways we will never know.
By your logic - the government can do whatever it wants whenever it wants and call it classified and if anyone talks about it they go to jail. That would be something that Saddaam would have done. Or Hitler.
Rape is such a nasty word. Couldn't we call it "suprise sex"?
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
Finding this leak is important, but finding the Valerie Plame leaker isn't. Why wasn't Cheney's or Rove's office raided?
The purpose of the raid is as much to deter others who are thinking of exposing government wrongdoing as it is to punnish Mr Tamm.
Strictly speaking the Enabling Act (aka "Law to Remedy the Distress of the People and the Nation") equivalent was the Patriot act (aka "UNITING AND STRENGTHENING AMERICA BY PROVIDING APPROPRIATE TOOLS REQUIRED TO INTERCEPT AND OBSTRUCT TERRORISM").
The systematic placement of Bush cronies throughout the government was the like the period 1933-37.
The extension of the 'Enabling act' twice corresponds to the extending of the Patriot act.
The burning down of the Reichstag, is the burning of the twin towers.
So far we haven't (thank god) had a night of the long knives where opponents were executed in extra judicial killings.
But we have had a build up of weapons to control a US populace, the Homeland Security's 'Puke Ray' and the Microwave burn ray.
However, there is a difference between the US and the UK. The last time the Met became really corrupt, the Hertfordshire Police Force was called in to investigate them. (Disclaimer: Guess where I grew up.) Even so, it happened, and a significant number of Met officers were exposed. This is one example of why separate and independent police forces with local rather that national accoujntability are such a good idea.
The problem is, who will investigate the FBI? That seems to be the fundamental weakness of the US system. In the UK, MI5 and MI6 have no powers of arrest. They have to get in regular police to arrest suspects. Although clunky, this provides a check and balance. If the FBI is corrupted or ordered by the Administration to do corrupt things, who is to stop them?
Pining for the fjords
That is the weakness of representative democracy. The people must be "eternally vigilant," just as Thomas Jefferson warned. As soon as the people become apathetic, and no longer care to be involved in the process, the process itself is then open to be usurped by the so-called "representatives." It really is not difficult to understand. So why is it being allowed to happen? Personally, I believe the answer lies in "Panem et Circenses."
"We may face a scorched and lifeless earth, but they're accountable to their shareholders first."
In other words, focus on the perceived foreign threats rather than on real governement abuse.
Jawohl mein Führer.
Individuals simply do not have the right to expose secret programs even if they do not like them. If you are angry about this but support the prosecution of Scooter Libby then you have some explaining to do ( particularly when Scooter leaked NOTHING; it was Bush critic Richard Armitage in the State Department who did the actual Valerie Plame leaking ) If this guy really did the leak, then he hurt national security by tipping-off enemies. It matters not if most enemies assumed we were listening; if even ONE enemy did not think of it but was clued-in by the leak then harm was done. If he leaked but the program ultimately is found to be an illegal program and people involved in the program are sent off to jail, then the leaker should get leniency as Scooter got a break... but even if you like this leak, it is still NO LESS ILLEGAL to DO the leak.
The people must be "eternally vigilant"
The interesting thing about that is that no people (meaning subject class) has ever been vigilant enough to stop the expansion of centralized power (measured both in revenue and power over the people). Judging by history, the natural course of every government is to expand in both power and revenue over its lifetime. No government has ever significantly and permanently reduced its power or revenue through the process of democracy! (If someone can point to an actual historical example of this, I'd be very interested.) Wouldn't reduction of power -- or at least a halt to expansion of power -- be the result of vigilance?
My point is that, not only is vigilance not enough to stop the growth of government today -- judging by history it never has been enough. Power is, after all, power: the special right to employ coercion as the means, as all governments rely on by definition. How can vigilance compete against that?
In fact, I'm almost tempted to say that vigilance (meaning the ability to put a stop to the continuous centralization and consolidation of power) is next to impossible, given the natural course of every government which is consolidation of power.
Do I have a solution to any of this? Of course not -- but that doesn't mean we shouldn't pay close attention to the true nature of power, those who desire it, and how they employ it.
Of course, if the agent in question is a friend of the president, he can always be pardoned if he should be found guilty in court. =P
/.Mattsson - My native language is not English, so please don't whine over linguistic errors. (That's lame anyway...)
If you think /. is far left that probably means you're so far out in right field you can't see the game anymore. Let go of the partisan outlook a little bit, eh?
Slashdot has a heavy libertarian bias, particularly on social issues, and isn't particularly well represented by either mainstream party. The wannabe-fascist trend in the Republican party lately has made them particularly reviled here, but there's little love for the Democrats, especially their ties to the entertainment industry. If we have a Democrat president, expect /. bitching about the RIAA and MPAA to increase even beyond its already prodigious levels. On the other hand, the fact that Hillary is actually a viable presidential candidate is probably Bush's fault, too. ;)
Besides, honestly now. Slashdot? Not complaining about politics? Madness!
"just check the threats that are actually coming in across the news"
The biggest threats are internal - in this case, the people running the White House. They have done exactly what the terrorists wanted. Bush had it right for once, when he first said "Go about your daily lives, otherwise the terrorists have won." But look what he's done since. The constitution is a "piece of paper" that just "gets in the way," "posse commitas" is forgotten, and most of what is done is just "security theatre".
It would have been better to have Bush in the White House stoned on coke and booze continuously, rather than getting intoxicated on raw power.
Even those in the military chain-of-command are obligated to refuse to obey unlawful orders. Executive abuse in the name of national security is illegal -- even the Roman Republic only gave their dictators free reign for renewable one-year periods.
Michel
Fedora Project Contribut
And therein lies the corruption in a two party system. *Everybody* should have to pencil in their party on their voters registration.
Makes me wonder why someone who leaks info in favor of Bush gets a pardon...
"The need to build the internet comes from something inside us, something programmed... something we can't resist."
It's actually worse than that. Ideally, the people should have a kind of public virtue, and virtue, as Aristotle teaches, lies in moderation. Democracy doesn't work when the people hate the government, nor does it work when they are infatuated with it. Accountability is the midpoint between paranoia and automatic trust. The government shouldn't do everything, but what it does, it should do robustly: if you stare the beast, you don't end up with good government, you end up with a ravenous beast.
People ought to be involved in government, but not to the point where it becomes an instrument of their irrational passions. And human nature being inconsistent as it is, it is quite possible to be apathetic, angry, fearful and infatuated all at the same it.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
It helps to know what you're talking about, though. No informed person is under the impression that anyone can "see and hear everything you do". This NSA program we are discussing involves listening to specific "targets" who are necessarily located outside of the United States. The only controversy is whether a warrant is required if a non-target who is on US soil is involved in a call with a target on foreign soil or, as we have learned recently, if an entirely foreign call passes through switches in the United States.
A judge recently ruled that if two guys are talking to each other and both are physically in Pakistan, but the call passes through the US in route from jihadi A and jihadi B then a FISA warrant is required. That is why FISA was ridiculously irrelevant and needed to be overhauled. Don't listen to people on slashdot. They're idiots and 95% don't have a clue what they're talking about. All of the 8th-grader conspiracy, fascism, blah blah talk may be "fun" for the... er... "intellectually incurious" on these forums, but in reality there's nothing sinister about this. It's common sense stuff.
Okay.
/. Bush and his cronies are all fascists, keeping a war alive in order to keep up oppression, yadda, yadda, yadda.
I understand that, of late, the game is rigged on
But I honestly wonder how much of this response is based on what we think of as being "right". This guy was right because he exposed an "illegal" program. He narked on a program we don't like, therefore he is a hero.
But who is to determine what an illegal program is? Should each federal employee sworn to secrecy decide on his own whether something is legal or illegal?
I can hear the "heck yeah!" calls right now. You will say it was obvious that it was illegal. He had a moral duty to leak.
The problem with these moral arguments is that one can always take another tack -- perhaps it was legal. Or rather, perhaps it was illegal, but known to all branches of the government, which was working to make it legal. Or perhaps it was legal all along. The way we figure out whether something is legal or not is we have a charge, we have a trial, and we have a verdict.
If the employee sued the government for illegal acts (using the FISA court), then I would agree he was acting on his morals. But to hide behind anonymity, make his own decision for the entire country, and then claim to he a hero? Heck no. I will not condone such actions, EVEN if they are for a greater good. If we can't keep secrets, we're screwed. End of story. I'd rather have illegal acts by a country that has dedicated public servants, than each servant deciding on his own whether he likes a program or not.
This is the problem with the highly-charged partisan BS we have going on. It's not just that Bush had a program, it's that it was BUSH. Heck -- he's like the devil or something. We must stop him before he gets to the children! In an atmosphere like that, each side plays to the public servants to do the "moral" thing. The system just won't work like that, guys. We got a lot more problems than one president or program going on here.
That is why you as a Republican should be worried about it. Hillary is going to get in, and you want her to have the same sort of powers Bush is exercising ?
"It doesn't cost enough, and it makes too much sense."
Too bad nobody seems to care that Armatage (the real leak) is still untouched. No bias here.
Hello? Bletchley Park anyone?
You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
Why would they raid the Oval Office when the prosecutor could not prove that the White House had anything to do with the leak?
Fixed it for you.
There is a reason that one of the charges that Scooter Libby was charged and convicted on was 'Obstruction of Justice'.
Bullshit. There's no need for the government to violate the Constitution to "protect" us, either in warrentless eavesdropping, or in attempting to silence those who would talk about it.
Terrorism is a simple form of criminality that predates the founding of the U.S. and the establishment of our Constitution. It's not something new and unique in human experience that requires us to shred the law in order to be "protected".
There is no Constitutionl authority to declare certain facts "classified". Indeed, under the common law, every citizen has the duty to raise a "hue and cry" if they witness a crime, and warrentless eavesdropping is a crime; at the very least, silence would have make the leaker an accessory. The leaker is a hero, not a criminal.
Are there bad guys out there who want to commit acts of murder, both individual and mass? Yes. Is keeping an eye on them, trying to intercept them before they can do it, a good idea? Absolutely. Is there a legal way to do it, to provide some (though not absolute) assurance that this won't be misused? Sure - GET A FUCKING WARRANT .
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
This was not a case of civil disobedience. The leaker released details on an unlawful program. This is no different (from a legal standpoint) from an informer giving the police information on a drug ring, or providing information about corporate malfeasance.
The only difference was he released information damning to the government. This is just one more bit of evidence that the government of the United States believes it is above the law, above the constitution, and above the best interest of the citizens they have sworn to serve.
The administration is getting back at him, just like they did Joseph Wilson. This is pure vindictiveness.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
At the time, Gonzo tried to justify the program in a similar but more direct way,
and it's complete bullshit. Actual terrorists know that FISA can authorize wiretaps though a secret court and that their communications may be monitored without any public record. No information of use was gained by them learning the court was bypassed by a corrupt administration. Harm was only done to the administration and the backlash is purely political. What the administration is doing is both illegal and immoral. The only reason for them to bypass the already friendly FISA court is to spy on political opposition. FISA has given them all they might need for legitimate terrorist hunting and is dangerous enough on it's own. Domestic spying is Orwellian, unconstitutional and deeply unAmerican - it's opponents are patriots.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
James X. Dempsey of the Center for Democracy and Technology said the raid was 'amazing' and shows the administration's misplaced priorities: using FBI agents to track down leakers instead of processing intel warrants to close the [purported surveillance] gaps.
Oh, I'm all for using FBI agents to track down people that leak information. There was recently someone that leaked the name of a covert operative to the media in a time of war. Based on the timing and the identity of the person exposed, it appeared to be politically motivated. Please use the FBI to track down things like that. However, for someone that exposes an illegal government activity, knowing that the whistle blowing protections are really honey pots, what are they expecting to do with him? Have the FBI track him down to give him a medal? He did what the FBI should have been doing.
Learn to love Alaska
You mean the conservative roots of small government? Maybe you're thinking of a balanced budget, or perhaps you mean upholding the Constitution and fighting for individual and state rights instead of federal power? Or maybe environmental issues like Roosevelt suggested, or the Clean Air Act that Nixon promoted?
Or possibly could you mean "christian values" or something similar? (Just for edification, religion and politics aren't supposed to mix in the USA.)
I'll agree that slashdot readers seem to be liberal, but I wouldn't say "far left" or "radical left" in the slightest. As you suggest the poles make the opposite seem even further from center, when in reality it seems there's actually a fairly mixed bag. You seem to be "far right" while others seem to be "far left". Most of us, however, see both sides fairly reasonably and recognize them for what they are; two heads of the same beast.
As for the rest of your flame and it's anti-muslim sentiment, I'll just suggest that some folks view the same issue for the US and the "Fundamental Christian" movement.
"Growing old is inevitable; growing up is optional."