FISA Court Sides With ACLU Against Administration

jamie caught a breaking news story this evening: the secret FISA Court has ordered the Bush administration to respond by August 31 to an ACLU request for orders and legal papers discussing the scope of the government's authority to engage in the secret wiretapping of Americans. The ACLU's press release calls it an "unprecedented order."

Comments

I wish I could join the ACLU

[Man On Pink Corner]

... but every time I get ready to write a check, I read about them doing something barking-mad like this:

International 'Tribunal' on Hurricanes Katrina and Rita

Second Amendment a 'Collective' right

Translation: The Bush Administration is responsible for Hurricane Katrina, but we still need to give them a monopoly on firearms, because that way, we'll all be safer.

Or something.

Re:I wish I could join the ACLU

[Captain Splendid]

Second Amendment a 'Collective' right

Hey at least they're willing to state, with some persuasion I might add, what their position is, and how they came by it.

Much as I like the second amendment, some people are going to have to learn that the right to bear arms is a little fucking vague, and could do with a little polish after 200 years of wear and tear.

Also, and something that's not been adequately explained to me, but where is the line? M-16s OK? What about RPGs? AA Missiles? Nukes? There's either a line that most people can get behind, and shut your griping, or it's all in or all out. Make up your minds.

Honestly, is it that fucking hard to buy a gun in the States?

Re:I wish I could join the ACLU

[pionzypher]

Agreed, sometimes they seem a little rabid or flat out wrong on particular issues. On the whole though, I believe they are a vital organization in protecting freedoms whatever their shortcomings.

Offtopic sidenote: While I disagree with their decision on the Second Ammendment. I have to admit that they at least have a rational reason for their choice. For those that haven't followed parents link, this is the aclus take on gun rights: We believe that the constitutional right to bear arms is primarily a collective one, intended mainly to protect the right of the states to maintain militias to assure their own freedom and security against the central government. In today's world, that idea is somewhat anachronistic and in any case would require weapons much more powerful than handguns or hunting rifles. They're right. For any sort of citizen militia to be effective at present, they'd need much more than what we can have legally. They don't address hunting or protection issues though.

Re:I wish I could join the ACLU

[belmolis]

What's so crazy about the International Tribunal on Hurricanes Katrina and Rita? The name and casting of it as a court is a little funny, but basically it is just an inquiry into the Bush administration's mishandling of the relief and reconstruction efforts. Since this not only affects the people in the area but involves the waste of hundreds of millions of tax dollars, this certainly seems a worthwhile topic for investigation, and there is ample evidence already of gross inefficiency and corruption.

With regard to the Second Amendment, while I like you disagree with the ACLU's position, I don't see why that should prevent you from supporting the ACLU. The ACLU doesn't actively oppose individual gun rights, it just doesn't include them in its agenda.

Re:I wish I could join the ACLU

[dlthomas]

The first *is* a little hokey. As to the second, they say right there that they're neutral on the matter, and it's not as though the issue is going unaddressed. *Were* this the only problem, I would say the appropriate solution - given your apparent views - would be to join both the ACLU and the NRA.

In some cases, I think that the ACLU taking too extreme a position is valuable. For instance, in the several cases regarding posting of the Ten Commandments, the fact that they brought cases on both sides of reasonable let the Supreme Court speak *much* clearer on the matter, as to what is and isn't acceptable.

I think overall the ACLU is valuable, and the best thing to do is to *be* a member, and when they do stupid things, write an angry letter and lower your donation.

Re:I wish I could join the ACLU

[jcr]

where is the line?

The line is basically at the point where your arms become ordinance; in other words, too big to serve as a personal defense against armed individuals. I'm fine with you owning a .50 cal browning, but I have an issue with mortars and heavy artillery.

-jcr

Re:I wish I could join the ACLU

[bob8766]

Personally I believe the second amendment is what allows the citizens to overthrow the government should it become a tyranny, but the ACLU's position is along the same line as the Supreme Court's, and it is certainly a reasonable position.

Re:I wish I could join the ACLU

[/dev/trash]

We are not the EU. We're still a sovereign nation and we'll handle our internal shit ourselves.

Re:I wish I could join the ACLU

[Man On Pink Corner]

I'm fine with you owning a .50 cal browning, but I have an issue with mortars and heavy artillery.

Yeah, me, too. The government has proven itself incapable of handling those types of weapons responsibly, and should therefore be banned from possessing them.

Re:I wish I could join the ACLU

[General Wesc]

Yes, the ACLU isn't defending the Second Amendment the way I'd like it defended. Neither is the International Red Cross or the EFF. None of them are fighting against it, though. I'm perfectly happy to support a group that fights for nine of the first ten amendments so long as they don't fight against the other one. I'm not going to forgo defending most of my rights to spite a group for failing to deal with one of them. That would just be childish. Take a portion of what you'd give the ACLU and give it to the NRA. A portion. Not all.

Re:I wish I could join the ACLU

[belmolis]

Funny, that's what China always says when people complain about its violations of human rights and occupation of Tibet.

Re:I wish I could join the ACLU

[mrchaotica]

Maybe I'm ignorant, but I don't recall the ACLU acting against the 2nd Amendment, nor do I recall the NRA acting against the other Amendments (unspecified "socially-conservative positions" notwithstanding). Therefore, I don't see the problem with supporting both.

Re:I wish I could join the ACLU

[RightSaidFred99]

There is no persuasion to their position, actually, if you understand English and the concept of a parenthetical phrase.

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed" .

The only part of that sentence that means anything is the bold part, the rest is parenthetical. It's really very simple.

Let's practice. "Because I like the way you spend all your money on porn, I am going to give you $1,000,000."

Now, do you have to spend the $1,000,000 on porn? No, you don't. The first portion of the sentence is parenthetical.

Re:I wish I could join the ACLU

[MillionthMonkey]

We are not the EU. We're still a sovereign nation and we'll handle our internal shit ourselves.

You know, that explains a lot. I never realized the GOP considered itself a sovereign nation that lives inside this one, but it makes perfect sense now.

After they lose the election and get driven from power, they're going to open a chain of casinos.

Re:I wish I could join the ACLU

[Phanatic1a]

The line was already drawn by US v. Miller, in which the USSC ruled that weapons of no utility to a militia aren't protected.

That would pretty clearly rule out nukes. It would pretty clearly rule in man-portable small arms.

Re:I wish I could join the ACLU

[BalanceOfJudgement]

They're right. For any sort of citizen militia to be effective at present, they'd need much more than what we can have legally. They don't address hunting or protection issues though.

The only hole in that argument that I can think of is that it requires believing the US military would USE those sorts of weapons against American citizens on American soil. Since the US military has in the past flat out REFUSED to be deployed on US soil, I have a hard time believing they'd use those sorts of weapons, restricting the discussion to personal weapons anyway.

Given the events of the past 5 years or so though, this argument seems far less convincing... all the Fed need do is accuse a whole state of being 'terrorists' or whatever and a part of me can believe they'd allow that to justify almost any atrocity against Americans..

Re:I wish I could join the ACLU

[ScrewMaster]

They're wrong. The Second Amendment is about defending ourselves from our own government, they're dead-on about that. I disagree that it is solely about States being the only entities in need of protection from an errant central government. The reality is, we individual citizens might just as well find ourselves in conflict with our State governments. What makes them so especially trustworthy, compared to the Federal Government? That's a fiction in itself. The Founders wanted us, the Citizens of these United States, to be something more than sheep.

We like to think our governments (any of them) will never need replacing, and that we'll never need violent defense from them, but history is against us on that score. This article outlines how a proper defensive posture made by a well-armed civilian population can deter violence and save lives. That's something else that was very clearly understood by the people who fought the War for Independence, and eventually created our system of government.

This dangerous idea that individual citizens (who, are a collective in their own right, regardless of any State's desire to formally organize them into some Militia) have no legitimate use for deadly force is disingenuous at best. That's not even counting the value of firearms when it comes to defending ourselves from each other! No, the Second Amendment is in need of no polish or other adjustments. It serves the purpose for which it was intended very well, and truly our need of it is greater now than at any point in our history. Our government is rapidly extending its powers without much regard for the checks and balances the Founders put in place for us, and at some point, it may go too far. If we allow ourselves to be made defenseless by believing that it can't happen here, we may well come to regret our complacency.

Very little of the Founding Father's wisdom is as anachronistic as people think (we believe we are somehow fundamentally superior to our forebears but we're not) and if you look at many of the failings of our culture and legal system today, it is usually because we decided to ignore that wisdom.

Re:I wish I could join the ACLU

[maxume]

One way to stomach it is just to assume that someone else who really hates the stuff you like is also a member, with each of your dollars going exclusively to the cause that you support.

Re:I wish I could join the ACLU

[Anonymous Coward]

The line is basically at the point where your arms become ordinance; in other words, too big to serve as a personal defense against armed individuals.

Why? The second amendment has nothing whatsoever to do with protecting the security of individuals and everything to do with protecting the security of the states.

Look, it's very simple: if you want constitutional protection for your right to personally defend yourself with guns against armed individuals, rather than to quell a rebellion or invasion as part of a militia, then follow the correct process and convince your representatives to pass it as an amendment. Don't just stick your head in the sand and pretend the second amendment says something it clearly doesn't say. If somebody can do that to extend your rights, they can do it to take them away. Orwellian newspeak has no place in law and it is far more dangerous to condone it than it is to give away your guns. Better to be armed with thoughts alone than the terrible combination of guns and idiocy.

Re:I wish I could join the ACLU

[penix1]

You just gotta love the spin...

Let's look at what the 2nd amendment does say...

"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."

http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constituti on.billofrights.html#amendmentii

Militias are a thing of the past. The closest thing we have today is the National Guard and they aren't allowed to take their weapons home now are they? The whole idea behind the 2nd Amendment is to protect the State in case of invasion or other insurrection. It has nothing what-so-ever to do with protecting home, property, or any other personal use.

Re:I wish I could join the ACLU

[QuietObserver]

Very well made comment. The founders wrote the constitution and the Bill of Rights to limit the power of the United States government in the favor of the citizens. Their intention was to prevent the U.S. from becoming totalitarian by preventing those holding a national office (i.e. President, Senator, Judge, etc.) from taking action against a citizen for their own purposes. The ninth and tenth amendments, probably the most widely ignored of the entire Constitution, further establish those protections by assuring the protection of the people and forbidding the national government from taking control of anything that the Constitution does not explicitly mention, which is what it appears the ACLU seeks to do with the second amendment.

One other point; it is very unfortunate that many people do not understand the English language as well as you do. My understanding is good, but even I have had a difficult time understanding the structure of the amendment. Thank you for clearing that up for me.

Re:I wish I could join the ACLU

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Your assumption that a "well regulated militia" means an armed force under the control of the current government rather than an armed force dedicated to maintaining a free state is a poor one.

Re:I wish I could join the ACLU

[Doc Ruby]

How's that working out for you? This story is about The Man wiretapping you without a warrant. How's that weapon working?

Is it working as good for you as it is for the Bloods and the Crips? As good as for the Branch Davidians in Waco?

But then, you think anyone should have a nuke who can afford it. Bin Laden can afford it, but you can't.

Thank you for demonstrating the kind of dementia that says the Second Amendment guarantees any weapon, no matter how powerful, to you. Rather than just ensuring that the US would use militias, rather than a standing army, that supplied themselves with weapons, rather than the government supporting a huge arsenal and a huge arms industry. Which wrong path you gun fetishists have kept driving us down for generations. And bringing along with it all the shooting deaths here in the US, and all the military adventurism worldwide that now includes Iraq.

Congratulations, you've gotten the Constitution and common sense so wrong that you've broken the country and helped kill millions of people.

Re:I wish I could join the ACLU

[Doc Ruby]

Bush's military used those weapons on Americans in New Orleans after Katrina.

The National Guard is now trained in Iraq to use them on civilians in cities. Those Guard will soon be restationed back in the USA. As economic collapses and more Katrina-scale disasters repeatedly "threaten public safety".

Re:I wish I could join the ACLU

[ThreeSpace]

By "well regulated" they mean well trained and competent.

Re:I wish I could join the ACLU

[Belial6]

The guy might not have said it well, but he is absolutely correct when he said that the second amendment is not about protecting yourself from criminals, and it is also not about hunting. Do you really believe that in 1790, they were sitting around arguing whether you needed a guarantee that you could hunt or not? That would be like needing a constitutional amendment guaranteeing that you could go to the grocery store. Do you really believe that they were debating whether or not you needed an amendment saying you could use the strongest weapon you could get your hands on to stop that group of ruffians from brutally raping your wife and daughter? Do you think it was brought up that, "Hey, if someone breaks into your house, you can just make the two hour ride to the nearest town to get the sheriff to ride another two hours back to stop the raping". No, these kinds of arguments would be absurd.

The US did just come off of a revolution, where the government had been seen as extremely abusive. Other governments in the world had previously taken the action of disarming the citizens so that the government could abuse them. Do you really believe that the argument would have been presented of "Look, the war was horrible, but can you imagine what would have happened if we didn't have guns? We need to make sure that the government knows they can only go so far before the people rise up and replace them".

As for the "it's a guarantee that the government can have arms." argument... What government in all the history of the world has ever felt the need to guarantee itself in writing, the right to bare arms? It is an absurd argument.

I have heard the retort to this before. It goes something like "It's a guarantee for the STATES to have their own military. Not the individual". Of course that argument requires that the person making it, not understand the Constitution at all. It is very clear in the constitution that anything that is not explicitly granted in the Constitution is the domain of the states. There is no need to guarantee the states the right to have their own military because if it the right to regulate state military isn't in the Constitution, then the Constitution already says it is a state right.

Of course, if we WERE to take the view that the second amendment was designed to make sure the states had military to fight off the federal government, then we would need to see the Civil War as a great loss, and should be demanding that our national guards start blockading the AT&T buildings to keep the federal government from performing warrantless wiretaps.

Re:I wish I could join the ACLU

[wwahammy]

The amendment is not created in a vacuum. No other amendment in the Bill of Rights includes a phrase explaining the reason for the amendment. Wouldn't it be logical to assume that, gee, maybe these words written in the supreme law of the country mean something? This isn't the Declaration of Independence where people were trying to convince others of something, this is a legal document.

Try this: "Pornography, being necessary for the sexual health of the nation, the right of the people keep and hold DVD players, shall not be infringed." When you consider that no other right includes a reason for its existance, I think a fair argument can be made that the right to have a DVD player exists mainly for pornography and having one for other reasons could be restricted to some extent.

I do think that the amendment provides some protection to gun owners but I don't think it's as all encompassing. I think gun laws as they are now are close to where they should be and that guns should be relatively unrestricted. That said, I think the way the amendment is written is less than clear and anyone who feels that you can ignore half the amendment is lying to themselves for their own gain.

Re:I wish I could join the ACLU

[celle]

"Second Amendment a 'Collective' right"

The second amendment fiasco sounds like a government protectionism. A decision decided in a time of near war, everyone knew it was coming, and part of a power grab of the time by a government becoming increasingly more powerful. Why put it in the constitution at all if not to guarantee self-protection to people who came from a country that only off and on allowed such protection and learned better. Self-defense and food were reasons then. Just because the definition is absurd by todays standards doesn't make it less true or needed. Using the accepted definition just defeats the purpose and need of a standing federal army. Besides after the articles a confederation debacle, the last thing the founding fathers would want to do is give the states their own armies. And it's unlike the rest of the eight amendments which largely prohibit improper government behavior against the public. The 2nd as written is that the public itself is an armed independent army to counter greater federal controls/potential abuses. You can't have a free state without a free public, that means free from its own government too, when necessary. It doesn't say the right of militias to keep and bear arms it says "the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed".
You can't have a free public without a public capable of defending itself against their government. 'Freedom demands eternal vigilance' isn't any less true for the public vs. government as it is between countries. History has already proven it on numerous occasions, but we rarely ever notice unless its convenient and usually it's too late.
In the 2nd amendment article, the reference to cars is irrelevant as cars aren't mentioned in the constitution, guns are. Besides what part of "shall not be infringed" can't you understand. The rest just defines what is needed to have a free country.
If you want an example unions would be better. When unions could strike and fight they made a difference. Most of you didn't even have to think about safety and good pay in the workplace any longer because of them. At least, not until about a few years ago. Now it's basically illegal to strike and unions are largely irrelevant and the middle class is being wiped out of existence along with safety and decent pay for work. Just keep an eye on your mail if you still don't get it, those of you who are still getting their mail. If you don't have a big stick, screaming is often meaningless to those who are intentionally deaf. What was it, "I speak softly, but I carry a big stick!"
To a public that is basically apathetic to irrelevancy, those words are needed more than ever. In this world, real power is firepower, don't ever forget it. Why do you think every country is trying to disarm its populace for?
Besides how absurd is the public being powerful enough to fight the government? Bin laden proved it. People are arrested off and on with very lethal weapons of extreme destructive power with few advanced resources. That doesn't make them terrorists, just as Reagan put it in reference to the contras, they're "freedom fighters". Besides all gun control laws really do is make sure the criminals only have weapons and if they can't buy them they'll make them. It's easy enough with current technology and general knowledge. Pick your weapon type, ex:a simple biological accident is all it takes, even a legal lab can slip up and sometimes they do, ex:England, foot and mouth. The anthrax mail incident. Obviously, we the people can take out armies, if not governments with our own homemade arms, raised in vote or shooting to kill. So what's the current definition of the 2nd amendment supposed to allow the government to stop again? Why don't we just follow what it says instead of making up our own meanings? Lady justice would have to be blind on this one. The second amendment as written is a little dated, remember the biggest weapon at the time was a gunpowder based cannon, but in these times it is still as relevant if not more than it was back then,

Re:I wish I could join the ACLU

[geminidomino]

Wait, wasn't the whole 'logic' (and I use that word VERY loosely) behind the 'Assault Weapons Ban' the fact that so-called 'assault weapons' (which, if I remember correctly, is scare-speak for full auto) are ONLY of use to military purposes?

Re:I wish I could join the ACLU

[belmolis]

I'll explain it to you. The OP complained that the International Tribune was crazy without explaining why. /dev/trash offered as a reason for objecting to the International Tribune the fact that the US is a sovereign country and that nobody has any business looking into how the US handles its own affairs. My comment about China points out the dubious validity of hiding behind sovereignty. You can agree or disagree, but each post is straightforwardly connected to its predecessor.

Re:I wish I could join the ACLU

[geminidomino]

They're right. For any sort of citizen militia to be effective at present, they'd need much more than what we can have legally. They don't address hunting or protection issues though.

The only hole in that argument that I can think of is that it requires believing the US military would USE those sorts of weapons against American citizens on American soil. Since the US military has in the past flat out REFUSED to be deployed on US soil, I have a hard time believing they'd use those sorts of weapons, restricting the discussion to personal weapons anyway.

Given the events of the past 5 years or so though, this argument seems far less convincing... all the Fed need do is accuse a whole state of being 'terrorists' or whatever and a part of me can believe they'd allow that to justify almost any atrocity against Americans.. As you say... 5 years ago I would have had a lot more faith in the military. Nowadays, I view them, as a whole, a lot more like I view cops: brainwashed, by design or by circumstance, into viewing anyone not in the uniform as 'one of *them*'.

Re:I wish I could join the ACLU

[SL Baur]

Since the US military has in the past flat out REFUSED to be deployed on US soil, Because it's forbidden by law! The Decider has weakened that law in recent days, but it still doesn't make it right or something the military would automatically follow him into.

Re:I wish I could join the ACLU

[Doc Ruby]

The Constitution has all kinds of unprecedented guarantees in it. The Second Amendment, like the rest of the Bill of Rights, is a reiteration of explicit protections from intrusion that are merely implicit in the rest of the Constitution. Which starts with people creating a government with no powers, then enumerating them.

But the Second Amendment is unique among the others in including an (awkwardly worded) justification for its guarantee. It was flawed from the start. But it does explicitly scope the basis for an uninfringed right to bear arms to supplying a militia, which was distinct from a national army. And since a well-supplied militia is not necessary to the free state in which we live, unless you also think we should disband the standing army and stop buying it weapons, the basis of the noninfringement is gone. While the basis for restricting the weapons is well established. And is the law all over the country.

The Constitution has been revised plenty of times since the Bill of Rights. Some revisions don't just spell out rights, but have removed some government restrictions and powers. The Second Amendment has survived intact, though experience has shown it to be fundamentally flawed, because its supporters have too much power. They have the guns, for starters, and base their rhetoric on fear. Far from everyone has the right to as many guns as they can afford. We need a better protection of our limited natural entitlement gun ownership that recognizes that it's more of a privilege, like a driver's license, than any kind of natural exercise of the human powers with which we are created.

Re:I wish I could join the ACLU

[Iron Condor]

Intelligent and well educated citizens ought to be able to possess weapons up to (and beyond) tactical nuclear weapons.

I.e. Americans need not apply. Surely you will agree that people who continuously elect those governments you consider so incapable of handling weapons can not be considered "intelligent and well educated", right?

Re:I wish I could join the ACLU

[bob8766]

The entire US Bill of Rights, as stated in the preamble, is about limiting the power of government over poeple. If you look at the other nine amendments in the bill you see the context into which the second amendment fits.

Re:I wish I could join the ACLU

[NMerriam]

Also, and something that's not been adequately explained to me, but where is the line? M-16s OK? What about RPGs? AA Missiles? Nukes? There's either a line that most people can get behind, and shut your griping, or it's all in or all out. Make up your minds.

Though to be fair, every amendment is vague like that, and deliberately so. Sure, we have freedom of speech, but the courts (and most people) accept that there are limitations to that. There's rarely a specific line you can point to and say "that's exactly where the boundary is", the most obvious example being in pornography where centuries of case law have produced nothing more precise than the laughable vague "community standards" that was barely digested by the lower courts before the internet came along and completely redefined what a community is as well as what publication and distribution mean.

So just because we can't state which caliber or rate of fire is the specific line not to be crossed, it can be taken for granted that personal tactical nukes will never be legal even if the courts decide to interpret the second amendment as a very broad individual right.

The lack of a hard-line rule is no impediment to reasonably interpreting the second amendment as an individual right any more than the ability to print documents without a "press" is an impediment to interpreting the first amendment as applying to new technologies.

Re:I wish I could join the ACLU

[NMerriam]

The ACLU markets itself as a defender of civil liberties, but then explicitly comes out in favor of arms-control policies that are ideally suited to a police state.

The ACLU has never, to my knowledge, come out in favor of any legislation restricting the ownership of guns. They basically are neutral on a legislative level, but actively pro-individual-liberty on all other amendments. I agree it's a strange position, but even they acknowledge that the NRA has tons of money and resources to through at the gun debate so their resources aren't really needed to argue for the second amendment anyways.

Re:I wish I could join the ACLU

[Doc Ruby]

That is entirely the point.

Although the Constitution also states in Article II.8 that Congress has the power to create, fund and specify the rules of operation/behavior for armies and navies.

Though a strict constitutionalist would say that those rules should respect the construction of the rest of the Constitution, and write those rules to constitute those armed forces only during wartime. That only after Congress has declared war can the United States deploy those military forces. Just like in the Revolution, the US should support with state militias the "Continental Army", and disband it immediately at war's end, when Congress ratifies the peace. FWIW, the president's job as Commander in Chief is solely to execute the rules and policies written by Congress.

We are a long way away from that setup. And we suffer from the very problems that the founders discussed any country with our current setup - like England - would have.

Re:I wish I could join the ACLU

[Doc Ruby]

"Regulated" did indeed mean "supplied", as supplies of military materiel came from the king "regulus". The meaning of "regular" in "standard without exception" is also from the same: "as according to the king".

I think the 2nd Amendment is full of puns that tweak the king's discarded power. They used a word that said the power of the army to secure the free state would come not from the divine right of kings, but from people bringing their own guns.

Re:I wish I could join the ACLU

[Doc Ruby]

And you don't understand what power Bush now has with his unrestricted domestic spying operations.

Moderation -1
    100% Offtopic

Secret TrollMods don't even know the topic is Bush's unlimited power of unrestricted domestic spying operations, and what we have to do to stop him and his successors.

Re:I wish I could join the ACLU

[db32]

Strictly speaking, there is no limit and for good reason. There is this horribly flawed idea that the 2nd Ammendment has ANYTHING to do with defending yourself against your fellow citizens, or even outside states. The 2nd Ammendment is there to ensure that the people can always defend themselves from the government. It was put there because it is part of the handbook on government oppression to take the peoples weapons away to enforce oppression, it has happened over and over and over. Thomas Jefferson said "The beauty of the 2nd ammendment is that you don't need it until the government tries to take it away".

Re:I wish I could join the ACLU

[Hubbell]

The line is, if anywhere, MAYBE at NBC weapons and those that can cause mass destruction. Other than that, everything goes. The 2nd amendment was written at a time when the US navy was formed by PRIVATE fleets owned by PRIVATE citizen's. The 2nd amendment is there to ensure that we have atleast a chance of overthrowing our government if the time comes that it must be done.

Re:I wish I could join the ACLU

[Doc Ruby]

We have the natural right to go places. So everyone must have the natural right to drive any vehicle anywhere without government restraint, right?

Except that vehicles are dangerous. So we limit their use to enable the maximum freedom to use them, while minimizing their threat to other people's rights to life, safety and property.

Guns are even more dangerous. Even more rarely needed to protect our rights to safety. But you don't want them requiring at least the same licensing restrictions that cars require?

Natural persons have rights that are fairly well balanced when we have mutual expectations and don't accumulate more power to exploit them in one person more than another. Technology, like cars, telephones, guns, even computers - anything that exaggerates some human capacities without scaling up all of them, including our capacity to limit ourselves, needs special consideration as a privilege, even when it is rightfully used. Cars are a good example, because failing to regulate them has undeniable consequences. Guns are the same, but centuries of people ignoring their problems has made it much harder to see them clearly.

Re:I wish I could join the ACLU

[Hubbell]

The police exist to enforce laws, not protect the citizenry. The case law is already there, was found in Miller v Washington (probably wrong, can't be assed to look it up this early and link you) that police officers are not required by any means to ensure the safety of anyone, only to enforce the laws and makes arrests after the fact. That is their only requirement. They are NOT required by law or rule or any such thing to protect your rights or person.

Re:I wish I could join the ACLU

[Doc Ruby]

We don't currently rule the country by the 2nd Amendment. The government necessarily infringes the "right" to bear arms in many ways, to preserve order and safety. And the militia, as such, is not necessary to the security of our free state, though I believe we'd be better off with just the National Guard as the basis for raising an army in times of declared war.

We should revise the 2nd Amendment. But the interests in unlimited guns are so strong, as demonstrated by the many crazy gun permissions and vast numbers of guns used against the security of our free state, that a new Amendment at this time would upset the wobbly balance in favor of too many irresponsible gun owners. The NRA is a lot more powerful than people like me these days.

The Americans who founded our country were not entirely like us. Many of them were actually loyalists, many more on the fence, even more just wanted their own country and less "foreign" taxes and intervention, regardless of a democratic republic. But the ones who counted were more like me. Some, like Ben Franklin, were so much more like me that they created a new kind of person, distinctly American, which is why I can be the kind of person I am.

So I won't be leaving my country. Even when people threaten me with guns. And especially not when people pretend that the current state of the Constitution, the law and politics are some pure ideal that has existed since some original Garden of Eden in a brand new America. Because people like that are not living in the real America, and have less claim to it than I do.

But I would replace the 2nd Amendment with one that says "The Congress shall have the power to regulate manufacture, ownership, exchange, possession and use of weapons; and the states shall have the power to further regulate them, except as prohibited by the Congress". Then the people could use our legislation to ensure they're properly controlled with a minimum national standard, and more specific restraints appropriate to local factors like population density, immediate threats, infrastructure for safety/training, and crises where floods of guns worsen the threat:benefit balance. For example, New Jersey could prevent weapons that don't cause a problem in Montana's conditions from entering places like Newark, unless the weapons transmit the fingerprints and GPS/timecode to the police every time they're fired. NY could require weapons in Manhattan's financial districts to contain "lojacks" that police can disable with a radio signal. Nevada could make huge expanses of desert into gun ranges where anything goes, short of radioactive or geological-caliber energy.

And I would require all Americans who ever receive any government funding, including public education or healthcare as a child or any tax deductions, to fulfill a national service requriement. Something like 1-2 years spent in either the military or other organized volunteer organization (military default, exceptions granted to fill demand by other orgs like EMT/fire etc). Everyone, regardless of which service, would receive weapons training. Without passing weapons proficiency exams, they could not get a weapon license.

Weapons are not the problem. People, as always, are the problem. But they become a problem when they have weapons they can't handle responsibly. By default, people cannot handle weapons responsibly, no matter how much an inactive militia might benefit, however much an overwhelmed militia might benefit the security of our free state if it replaced our standing army. So our regulations of weapons, really of people's use of weapons, must reflect what we now know in our modern society. That the state must ensure that we are safe from people with weapons much more often that those people can offer security to our state.

Re:I wish I could join the ACLU

[lawpoop]

The line is basically at the point where your arms become ordinance; in other words, too big to serve as a personal defense against armed individuals. I'm fine with you owning a .50 cal browning, but I have an issue with mortars and heavy artillery. Is this your personal idea, or can you justify it based on the wording of the second amendment?

Re:I wish I could join the ACLU

[ptbarnett]

"Regulated" did indeed mean "supplied", as supplies of military materiel came from the king "regulus". The meaning of "regular" in "standard without exception" is also from the same: "as according to the king".

"Regulated" meant "properly disciplined" in the era that the Bill of Rights was written. And "disciplined", in the context of a militia, effectively meant "capable". In an unabridged Oxford English dictionary, you'll find examples of this usage dating back to the late 1600's and early 1700's, and also a notation that it is now considered archaic.

Doc, I hope you'll see this -- but I'm not sure anyone else will. Even though this tangent has generated a lot of discussion from a significant number of different people, someone apparently doesn't like the direction it is taking. I guess that challenging the Slashdot group-think is now considered "offtopic".

Re:I wish I could join the ACLU

[jcr]

don't suggest that it is somehow the line when it is really just your line.

It isn't just my line. Courts have to decide between conflicting rights all the time, and the dividing line here is the one between defend oneself and recklessly endangering one's neighbors.

-jcr

Re:I wish I could join the ACLU

[Doc Ruby]

Gun control is indeed tangential to Bush's illegal domestic spying. But I don't mind talking about it.

Another interesting, and on-topic, archaic word from the Constitution is "misdemeanors". Demeanor used to mean "leadership" as well as "publicly presented appearance". While "looking bad in public" is still a serious crime in government ("appearance of improper conduct" laws govern most ethics rules), the original sense of "misleadership" was much more weighty when the founders signed the Constitution.

Bush can be impeached for his well-documented crimes of misleadership, if not for his mountain of evidence of "appearance of improper conduct".

Re:I wish I could join the ACLU

[tom_evil]

...then start a "collective" and buy guns. seems like a no-brainer to me.

Re:I wish I could join the ACLU

[irtza]

Well, Can I get one simple clarification... They state that a militia is necessary for an orderly state - something most people understand. The question is, do we have a right to bear arm to participate in this militia or do we have it to protect ourselves from it? The first doesn't make sense in the historical setting, so then if we go with the second, wouldn't one need to truly have our rights not beimpinged? Will a hand gun truly keep an oppressive state at bey?

Re:I wish I could join the ACLU

[ptbarnett]

Another interesting, and on-topic, archaic word from the Constitution is "misdemeanors". Demeanor used to mean "leadership" as well as "publicly presented appearance". While "looking bad in public" is still a serious crime in government ("appearance of improper conduct" laws govern most ethics rules), the original sense of "misleadership" was much more weighty when the founders signed the Constitution.

I knew that the meaning of "misdemeanor" has shifted, but the reality is that politics and precedent has effectively rendered it a moot point.

Andrew Johnson avoided being removed from office by one vote. The impeachment was certainly political: Johnson was a Southern Democrat who was promoted to the office after Lincoln was assassinated, and he wasn't pursuing Reconstruction the way that Republicans wanted (he vetoed several civil rights bills and opposed the 14th Amendment). But, although the law in question was partially repealed later and eventually found unconstitutional altogether, there doesn't seem to be much question that he did violate it.

Clinton's impeachment was also political. Although the circumstances were dubious, again there isn't much question that he did indeed commit one or more serious crimes (perjury, obstruction of justice) -- he was ultimately fined for contempt of court and suspended from the Arkansas bar. But, all the Republicans succeeded in doing was to raise the bar even higher, making it more difficult to remove future Presidents from office.

Nixon was the only President that probably would have been removed from office after being impeached. But, he resigned after being told by senior Senate Republicans they would vote to convict him, and Nixon realized that he couldn't depend on partisan politics to save him.

As a result, impeachment and removal from office -- at least for a President -- is no longer about findings of fact and objective interpretation of the law. Actually, it probably never has been, with the possible exception of Nixon: the Republicans had enough votes in the Senate to keep Nixon in office, but they chose not to do so.

Re:I wish I could join the ACLU

[navyjeff]

I agree. Just posting to undo a mis-mod.

Re:I wish I could join the ACLU

[/dev/trash]

Uhhhhh. New Orleans and Mississippi were not invaded by the US when Katrina hit. Sheesh, you people.

Re:I wish I could join the ACLU

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

It isn't just my line. Courts Citation?

Re:I wish I could join the ACLU

[The One and Only]

Doc, I hope you'll see this -- but I'm not sure anyone else will. Even though this tangent has generated a lot of discussion from a significant number of different people, someone apparently doesn't like the direction it is taking. I guess that challenging the Slashdot group-think is now considered "offtopic".

Indeed, and it's gone above and beyond the point of just "some moderator"--the whole discussion was downmodded, although not buried to -1. I haven't seen something like that for a long time, but when it used to happen back in the day it was usually due to editor intervention. Quite odd, though--tangential discussions are pretty much the norm around here and are tolerated unless they arise as total non-sequiturs.

Incidentally, in another post I noted that "well-regulated" was also attested as meaning something like "in good working order". So if you had a well-regulated watch, for instance, it kept time accurately. Although I do like Doc Ruby's explanation as well, because it amuses me to think of the Founders deliberately poking fun at the King even in the Bill of Rights.

Re:I wish I could join the ACLU

[/dev/trash]

International implies more than just the US. If it's not international then I have no faith in a group that can't name itself correctly.

Re:I wish I could join the ACLU

[/dev/trash]

Hey! Wake up. The GOP did lose both Houses of Congress. Look how much has changed too!

(hint nothing)

Re:I wish I could join the ACLU

[ptbarnett]

Indeed, and it's gone above and beyond the point of just "some moderator"--the whole discussion was downmodded, although not buried to -1. I haven't seen something like that for a long time, but when it used to happen back in the day it was usually due to editor intervention. Quite odd, though--tangential discussions are pretty much the norm around here and are tolerated unless they arise as total non-sequiturs.

Looking at it, I see what you mean. It's not like one guy with 5 mod points -- there are many more than that. Maybe a Slashdot editor got his panties in a bunch?

[....]I noted that "well-regulated" was also attested as meaning something like "in good working order". So if you had a well-regulated watch, for instance, it kept time accurately. Although I do like Doc Ruby's explanation as well, because it amuses me to think of the Founders deliberately poking fun at the King even in the Bill of Rights.

It is indeed an amusing idea, but I think it's unlikely. The Bill of Rights wasn't invented out of thin air -- the initial set was cobbled together from state constitutions by James Madison. In the case of the Second Amendment, there were actually some conflicts among the state constitutions, and the "collective vs. individual right" issue was among them. In the end, the concept of the "collective" right lost (it actually came to a vote in the Senate). This seems may seem like an arcane issue to us, but at the time it was very important: the Constitution and accompanying Bill of Rights had to be ratified by all of the states, and it was a very delicate balancing act to satisfy all the competing factions.

I posted a URL to an interesting article that studied this process, but I won't post it again because I'll probably just get mod-bombed again. But, if you browse at -1, you'll find it. And if you know of any similar articles that study the other significant provisions of the Bill of Rights (like the 1st, 4th, and 5th -- and maybe the 9th and 10th), I'd be interested. There was a lot of controversy at the time over whether the Bill of Rights was actually necessary, and it appears (to me) that the arguments put forth by both side turned out to be right.

Re:I wish I could join the ACLU

[Viking Coder]

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

Ever?

Like, people in prison? Convicted felons? Insane people? Severely mentally retarded? People on no-fly lists? Suspected terrorists?

If you're going to stop some of those people, how are you going to regulate to ensure that they don't get arms? Perhaps some kind of national registry? Perhaps some kind of waiting period?

Any kind of arm?

Like, bombs? Nukes? Chemical weapons? Rocket launchers? Grenades?

At any age?

Like, 6?

At any time?

Like, walking in to a Presidential debate?

The moment you agree there should be some restrictions to the right, you have begun engaging in a debate of the extent of those limitations, and how they should be implemented.

Re:I wish I could join the ACLU

[Doc Ruby]

Of course impeachment is "political": it's proposed in Articles in the House, and tried in the Senate. Only the presence of the Chief Justice "presiding" over the Senate trial offers anything not "political", though even that presiding is by Senate rules, not the Judicial Branch rules for trials.

But "political" doesn't just mean "partisan". It means "people system". Have you ever served on a jury? It's as social as it is logical or just. Because politics and justice are just the rules by which their substance, human interactions, are conducted. Impeachment conviction does not prove legal guilt of a crime. It proves only that the convicted officer cannot hold that office. Which is a purely political consideration: even a horrendously unpopular, though innocent, ham sandwich cannot hold an office that the majorities of both Congressional chambers, in a public process acceptable to them, holds unfit to stay.

Remember that the government is defined by the Congress. The Executive's role is to merely faithfully execute Congress' stated will, with the greater expediency of a single person rather than the majority of 535 people which stated that will. Congress is in fact not the "coequal" branch many people claim when defending it. Congress is in fact the superior branch, demonstrable in many ways, perhaps most undeniably in Congressional power to override vetoes and pass laws without Executive consent, as well as the required Congressional consent to install the highest Executive officials, and even Congress' power to impeach. The Executive has no powers to match or balance those.

Congress is facing an Executive literally out of control. Whose officers routinely execute anti-Constitutional conspiracies, repeatedly violate essential laws, and ignore even Congressional subpoenas when they're not directly (and obviously) lying to Congress about these essential matters. All of which crimes are destroying essential liberties like privacy and equal treatment under law, as well as robbing the Treasury and killing people in places like New Orleans and Iraq.

The problem is not that Congress doesn't have the power. The problem is indeed politics: the partisan politics that lets Democrats sacrifice America longer so American voters make more sure that the Senate, especially, has a greater Democratic majority. The risk of backfiring is pure partisan politics. This is the politics that you're talking about. The politics that constitutes impeachment is straightforward and appropriate. As appropriate as the politics that installs these representatives by elections. And of course that is the legit politics that is also in crisis in this country over the knife's edge of partisan politics.

If Democrats do not impeach Bush/Cheney, there is never going to be a time to do it, except perhaps if a Congressional opposition majority is large enough not to be tempted into delay just to wait for a reward in the next election instead. But that scenario also makes it that much more likely that a strong and popular enough Congressional opposition majority would impeach an Executive for purely partisan politics. Impeaching on proper grounds, as we have currently, is therefore essential to saving our balanced democracy from the partisan politics that has consumed it and poisoned impeachment as a remedy.

The other way out is for the partisan competition to fail to impeach, which further alienates the electorate from the Parties. Which is already the trend: there are now significantly more independents unaffiliated with either major Party than there are Republicans. At this rate, independents could outnumber even Democrats by this November. If that alienation accelerates as a result of Democrats' "pressure cooker" campaign, Democrats will start to drop faster than they have, though the pressure cooker will force down Republicans, too. Next November could see independ

Re:I wish I could join the ACLU

[BalanceOfJudgement]

Hehehe. Some pathetic waste of flesh decided that they don't like me and modded every post of mine in this thread 'Offtopic.' Looks like I struck a nerve.

Nice :)

Re:I wish I could join the ACLU

[RightSaidFred99]

As written, that's what it means. However, being in prison you explicitly lose certain rights so that doesn't fly. You also give up certain rights when you're under 18.

But if they wanted to make it more specific, they would have gone through the trouble to pass a new ammendment updating the language and explicitly delineating the types of weapons and specific exceptions.

In general, common sense prevails. Don't let nuts, children, convicts have them. Don't allow weapons of mass destruction. Sometimes common sense doesn't prevail, e.g. limits on magazine capacity, fully automatic weapons (ooh, but they're so scary! Nevermind they're generally less effective than semi-auto in most people's hands).

What is absolutely retarded is the claim that they would put some kind of a "right to have a militia" in the constitution. Anyone who makes this argument isn't fooling anyone except people who just don't want other people having guns, Constitution be damned.

Re:I wish I could join the ACLU

[ScrewMaster]

You're welcome. It does raise some interesting points, does it not?

Re:I wish I could join the ACLU

[wwahammy]

I used the metaphor of pornography because the parent used it before. And since I don't know what "cutting switches" means I'll ignore that but it sounds bad. I based my metaphor on the language of the amendment. I also don't see what the point of claiming my argument is the argument of a six year old considering the same argument has been made in front of and concurred with by the United States Supreme Court and at least two state Supreme Courts, as well as being the interpretation of every US Appeals Court prior to 2001 and every one except 2 since and the US Justice Department until 2001. In fact those people interpreted it more restrictively than I did as I believe the amendment provides some sort of protection to individuals from being prosecuted for possessing a weapon for personal use whereas they believe it provides a collective right which only allows individuals to own guns for the sole purpose of being part of the state militia; militias that incidentally no longer exist. So unless you're saying my more expansive understanding is the argument of a six year old I'd recommend you take it up with each of those people which have far more legal expertise than my own.

Re:I wish I could join the ACLU

[wwahammy]

My understanding is that the right to bear arms to participate in the militia does make sense historically. I looked into this issue after I posted originally and according to Wikipedia in England people (wealthy landowners) were required to own a firearm to participate in the militia for the protection of the monarch. In early America, one of the fears of the anti-Federalists was that a strong federal government with a standing army would have the force necessary to take away rights from the states and the people. A way to prevent that would be through state militias who could repel the federal army which is an important reason for the second amendment. They didn't think people needed protection from the militias as the people were the militias, they thought the people needed protection from the army.

As to whether a hand gun keep an oppressive state at bay, you have to remember that the difference between a weapon that a person could own and the army's weapons weren't near the difference they are today. The army of the time had muskets and horses which people could own and cannons which people could not. The armies of the world today have precision guided missiles, tanks, nuclear weapons, etc., etc. Even now though I think you could argue that people still have more than enough power to resist an oppressive state when you consider the success and longevity of numerous guerrilla movements throughout the world today (Iraq being the most noticeable).

As an aside, the ACLU points out that almost no one believes there should be no restriction on the personal use of arms because that would entail people having the right to have just about any weapon include bombs, machine guns, nuclear weapons, chemical weapons, intercontinental ballistic missiles, bazookas and any other type of arms you can think of. The main debate is not really over whether we restrict, it's how much we restrict.

Re:I wish I could join the ACLU

[einhverfr]

I don't even think that the NRA agrees with this broad an interpretation of the 2nd Amendment.

In general the Constitution is interpreted such that it is assumed to have no unnecessary words. IANAL though, so I might have the actual practice slightly off.

The general right to bear arms is somewhat more complex than is generally considered, *and* the most questionable laws (federal assault weapons ban) don't appear to have any court rulings surrounding them. But AFAICS (based on my reading of what I could find on Findlaw):

1) The right of the people to have a well-regulated militia is not separate from the right to bear arms.

2) A well-regulated militia would be an all-volunteer force consisting mostly of civilians.

3) Only weapons consistant with a well-regulated militia would be acceptable for the right to bear arms. the second amendment wouldn't grant a right to bear one-man-portable nuclear demolition munitions even though these could be carried by one person, for example.

4) The 2nd Amendment does not preclude specific classes of people (such as convicted felons) from being denied these rights provided that such prohibitions do not interfere with the ability to field a well-regulated militia.

5) The States are not precluded from enacting stricter laws.

Is there a part you think that is wrong with this assessment?

Re:I wish I could join the ACLU

[einhverfr]

My understanding from Findlaw is that:

1) The second amendment does not protect any specific individual's right to bear arms separately from the right of the people to have a well-regulated militia. Therefore convicted felons can be denied the right to own weapons.

2) The second amendment would be limited to milita-type weapons (probably assault rifles, rpgs, etc. Probably not nuclear demolition munitions, etc regardless of the portability of these weapons)

3) Militias are *not* government military entities but rather military entities comprised mostly of civilians and only including military personel on occasion.

4) The States can enact further restrictions.

Do I have something wrong?

Re:I wish I could join the ACLU

[Arcane_Rhino]

Well said.

Even leftists are starting to recognize that the Second Amendment is a right of the People that they cannot simply wish or take away. Having thus recognized this fact, they have now begun to advocate repealing the Second Amendment. While I disagree with doing so, and will fight against such, at least the dialog is now underway in an appropriate fashion.

Re:I wish I could join the ACLU

[Arcane_Rhino]

The mods are smoking gun-control crack today. You are about as ON topic as it gets.

Re:Bush

[ScrewMaster]

Right Bush ... wrong voice.

More Info Needed

[E 99]

Is there a link somewhere to the actual order? Or anything else more objective than a press release from the ACLU? As it is, the significance of this is nearly indeterminable.

Re:More Info Needed

[belmolis]

The article links to a portion of the ACLU site containing additional information, including the actual order. But since you obviously can't read, it won't do you any good, will it?

Re:More Info Needed

[adiemus]

http://www.aclu.org/pdfs/safefree/fisc_order_08162 007.pdf

Losers!

[einhverfr]

Freakin commies in bed with the terrorists. What do they think this country is? A Republic governed by a Constitution? If they want the rule of law they can all go to Canada.

Re:Losers!

[WallaceAndGromit]

Yeah, leave our imperial theocracy alone.

Re:Losers!

[bar-agent]

You know, it's just a rumor that he said that. The source of the report, Capitol Hill Blue, has a poor reputation for accuracy:

http://priuschat.com/index.php?showtopic=22180

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/12/9/143434/049

http://www.mccmedia.com/pipermail/brin-l/Week-of-M on-20060109/034824.html

Re:Losers!

[einhverfr]

Agreed. However, one of the more interesting but similar reports I heard was from Sen. Byrd's speech against the AUMF against Saddam where he said that the Bush Administration had published a memo saying "The constitution has served us well." Byrd then went on to ask if the President was talking about his health, noting the lower case c.

Re:Interesting ...

[bmo]

"so a secret court takes steps towards transparency."

No, a secret court has had enough of being called irrelevant. EVERY president since Carter (Carter created it) has actually gone to get warrants from the court and the court has generally granted them. This administration, however, has wilfully ignored them _and_ said out in public that the FISA court system is an obstacle.

Anyone who has been paying attention to this _knows_ that the FISA judges are pissed off.

I am not one bit surprised that they sided with the ACLU.

--
BMO

I am extremely confused.

[Anonymous Coward]

"The ACLU filed the request with the FISC following Congress' recent passage of the so-called "Protect America Act," a law that vastly expands the Bush administration's authority to conduct warrantless wiretapping of Americans' international phone calls and e-mails."

I thought the whole hullabaloo was about *domestic* surveillance. Monitoring of internal US communications. This is how the story break a few years ago. But every time someone accidently brings that up, everyone else only talks about cross-border surveillance.

AANAL, but it is my understanding that if you cross the border you are going to possibly get a probe inserted in your anus that will come out of your mouth-- and that is perfectly legal.

But if the cops tried that on you while you were walking down the street, that had better have a rock-solid warrant.

Was the origianl issue not *domestic* warrantless wiretaps? (QUITE illegal-- but everyone conveniently forgets about it and starts talking about this non-issue international stuff).

Re:I am extremely confused.

[DavidTC]

The administration likes to claim it's only applying to international traffic, so that's how some people refer to it.

However a) the NSA has repeatedly admitted it doesn't have the technology to just intercept international calls, b) there is no oversight, and c) the Bush administration just rammed a bill through Congress letting them tap people without a warrant as long as the target is not in the US.

For those who don't know what that means, 'targets' of a tap do not, in fact, have to be at either ends of the actual tap. If they are targetting someone who might call you via unknown means, they can tap all your incoming phone calls, even when that person is not, in fact, calling. Aka, if you know a non-citizen, they can tap all your calls if they want, even domestic ones.

And there's actually quite a lot of evidence to suggest they are, in actuality, tapping whoever the fuck they want to at any time at they want to. The top of the Justice department doesn't threaten to resign because you're tapping foreigners.

Re:I am extremely confused.

[slughead]

the Bush administration just rammed a [bad] bill through Congress

Even when the democrats control congress, Bush still has to be responsible for everything. Amazing. How did he do it, I wonder? I know he has a slightly less dismal approval rating (lowest since Hoover), but does that really amount to political capital?

I don't like him either, but it seems like we're being counterproductive to ignore the fact that both the major parties are responsible. Once you lose your fear of the worst of two evil candidates getting into power, they'll either start paying attention, or they'll lose. Personally, I have never voted for a republican or a democrat. I may make an exception for Ron Paul.

Re:I am extremely confused.

[jjohnson]

The Democrats in Congress are hamstrung by their bare majority in the Senate. Nancy Pelosi has passed all the bills in the House that she said she would--she's actually been surprisingly effective. But Reid can't get anything passed in the Senate because the Republicans are filibustering everything, so the matching bill doesn't show up in committee. The investigative committees are currently the only place where Democrats have real power.

The Republicans in Congress have one goal--prevent the Democrats from looking effective to hurt them going into the 2008 elections. Unfortunately, they're doing a good job of it. The Democrats need 60 seats in 2008 to have a filibuster-proof majority (meaning that they can win a vote on cloture). Here's hoping they get it so that somebody can get something done, at least.

Re:I am extremely confused.

[Ang31us]

The fact is that our government does not need to tap our phones. The telecommunications companies that we pay for phone service record every single conversation that goes over their lines, makes a copy, and hands it over to the government without a warrant. They have the content of every single phone call before any request even reaches the court. I finally joined the ACLU a couple of weeks ago, after President Bush decided he could hold me indefinitely without charge if he suspected that I thought about to supporting terrorists.

Re:I am extremely confused.

[DavidTC]

There were only a few Democrats who helped.

Those Democrats? Yeah, they're getting kicked out next election.

Just because some Bush-water-carriers snuck in, or, mostly, just retained their offices last election because no one challenged them, don't go around blaming the huge majority of Democrats who voted against this crap.

If you think Democrats aren't seriously about that, ask Mr. Not-A-Democrat Lieberman. Yeah, the Republicans managed to get him elected anyway, but I think the point was made that you cannot suck up to Bush and remain a Democrat.

And he's just the start. Vote like a fucking Democrat or you're out the next election, period. They'd rather have a damn Republican or 'Independent' in the seat than a stab-in-the-back Democrat who's going to working against them.

The Democratic Party was Republican-lite for almost a decade. When they decided they couldn't or wouldn't do anything about Bush, the actual Democratic voters said 'Fuck the existing party' and started randomly electing anyone who seemed moderately intelligent and willing to stand up for people. Even running them against Democrats.

You really should look at the 2006 election before claiming there is only one party in this country. There are two: The Big Business/Republican/Democratic party is one, and the Democratic netroots, which is very very quickly eating the existing Democratic party from the inside, is the other.

What's the punishment?

[RyanFenton]

What's the punishment if they don't comply? Who would be the target of the punishment? Who would enforce this punishment?

I ask these questions, because I can't think of an incident in this past term in office where the Bush administration complied with any request that wasn't directly self-serving. Without a meaningful cost that could actually be enacted, I don't see this administration answering to anyone about anything that they wouldn't like to do already.

Ryan Fenton

Re:What's the punishment?

[sumdumass]

The US marshals are under the executive, they would have had to defy a direct order if the president refused to leave with them.

What will happen is the president's team will appeal the decision to a higher court claiming national security and other things. The courts would probably side with the president seeing how they didn't on other requests for the stuff. However, I am wondering how the UCLA got a hearing from a secrete court who only job it to review and approve or deny certain warrants. It seems highly objective and agenda driven if it is true. It also strengthens the president's case about the secrete court not being secrete and people under surveillance were finding out about it.

Colleen Kollar-Kotelly

[trentfoley]

The judge that signed this order is the same judge that presided over the Microsoft anti-trust trial after Thomas Penfield Jackson was removed from the case. She has apparently now become presiding judge over FISC. She certainly gets around.

Re:Colleen Kollar-Kotelly

[NMerriam]

She certainly gets around.

I think it's a sign of spending too much time on the internet when you assume any link labeled "she certainly gets around" will go to a naked picture of someone.

Re:Colleen Kollar-Kotelly

[RealGrouchy]

I wouldn't really draw much attention to this if I were you.

I mean, if she were wrongfully removed from her post, who would oversee her appeal?

- RG>

Not new, unfortunately...

[tgd]

This sort of behavior has been the standard operating procedure for our government for seventy years, unfortunately.

I was recently reading a couple of books on the history of the atomic weapons program in the US, particularly around the spy cases brought against a bunch of people involved.

A shocking number of known Soviet spies were unable to be tried because of the massive amount of illegal wiretapping that had been done against US citizens during that time. It wasn't until decades later that FOIA releases started to show just how many cases were quietly dropped to avoid it becoming public about the illegal surveillance and wiretapping.

The biggest difference now is via legal "loopholes" like Guantanamo Bay, and secret courts, people can be imprisoned without a trial or with a secret trial where the government can actually use the illegal wiretaps as evidence.

In my opinion, they're going after the wrong thing here. What do they hope to do? Stop the wiretaps? It'll *never* happen. What needs to be targeted is the illegal courts that allow them to make use of the illegal wiretaps.

Burying the lede.

[lheal]

Why all the hyperventilating? From the end of TFA:

The ACLU's request to the FISC acknowledges that the FISC's docket includes a significant amount of material that is properly classified. The ACLU argues, however, that the release of court orders and opinions would not raise any security concern to the extent that these records address purely legal issues about the scope of the government's wiretap authority, and points out that the FISC has released such orders and opinions before. The ACLU is seeking release of all information in those judicial orders and legal papers the court determines, after independent review, to be unclassified or improperly classified. So release the court orders and such. It's the ACLU's job to be paranoid, but I'm glad they see the value in keeping some things classified. All of these charges that the Bush Administration is trampling over the Constitution and spying on everyone is only helpful to partisans.

Re:Burying the lede.

[Tsiangkun]

The Presidency is a position more easily critiqued than attained.
Too bad it isn't difficult to attain because of requirements other than family name and status.

Re:Burying the lede.

[lheal]

The Presidency is a position more easily critiqued than attained.

Too bad it isn't difficult to attain because of requirements other than
family name and status. So you would rather it were difficult to attain because of requirements other than family name and status?

I think you meant "Too bad it's only difficult to attain for those without family name and status." Right?

Re:Burying the lede.

[Tsiangkun]

Yes, I would rather it be difficult to attain because of requirements other than family name and status.

I can't tell if you are giving me the correct English for what I meant, or if I said something
different and you are clarifying for me.

Re:Burying the lede.

[lheal]

Actually, your English and logic was correct. The premise that one needs a famous family name and status to get elected is incorrect, though, and I think is generalized from too small a sample.

Re:Burying the lede.

[deimtee]

"Too bad it isn't difficult to attain because of requirements other than family name and status."
What you said was in fact technically correct english, and a worthy sentiment.

"Too bad it's only difficult to attain for those without family name and status."
What he said does not mean quite the same, and is in fact a simpler and more derogatory statement about who can become president.

So what? FISA is effectively GONE!

[Newer Guy]

Two weekends ago Bush kept Congress in session all weekend until the effectively eliminated the FISA court. Now all that has to happen is that once a quarter, Alberto "Lies like a rug" Gonzales has to NOTIFY Congress how many people they've spied on without a warrant.

Re:So what? FISA is effectively GONE!

[sumdumass]

there is a pretty solid legal construct that says congress cannot imped the president on duties the constitution demands of him. Being commander in chief in time of war/conflict, battlefield inteligence is a crucial role in conducting the duties of commander in chief. The FISA law did so and therefore couldn't be construed to restrict the president in his actions against the war on terror.

This is why you are hearing people say stuff like the war on terror is a bumper sticker and a campaign slogan. It is is a true war, then anyone who is a suspected terrorist or connected to one could be fair game under this construct. And it (battlefield inteligence) would be consistent with the constitution as well as most recognized human rights.

If there is any truth to this, the president will win. I have long ago theorized that this was the sole reason that the lawyers in DC were given the documents when they did. If it can goto trial before the president gets impeached or leaves office, his actions would end up being justified by a court ruling and he couldn't be gone after.

Re:So what? FISA is effectively GONE!

[Copid]

This is why you are hearing people say stuff like the war on terror is a bumper sticker and a campaign slogan. It is is a true war, then anyone who is a suspected terrorist or connected to one could be fair game under this construct. And it (battlefield inteligence) would be consistent with the constitution as well as most recognized human rights.

So I guess the question is, Are we at war as long as someone, somewhere, wants to kill Americans and may attempt to do so? Are we so easily duped into a perpetual state of war and war powers that we would consent to that situation?

Re:So what? FISA is effectively GONE!

[sumdumass]

I wouldn't call it duped or claim that it was something easily done. After all, it has an act of congress declaring the enemies we have now behind it. As far as I know, this hasn't been used outside that.

And if congress didn't back it, they could always undo what they did. My guess is that they see it as advantageous as much as proper. So yea, IF congress and a number of other government agencies didn't support the same Ideas of enemies and war, I could see your point. Until they stop supporting the idea behind them being enemies, your statement doesn't come into play "yet".

I say yet because it could be possible you are right in the future. It would be improper to make the claim today though.

Re:Interesting ...

[BalanceOfJudgement]

Why do you hate freem so much?

Who the heck is freem?

Unless you mean Freem...

Re:Irony?????

[Spy der Mann]

I didn't know about the FISA court until I read this news. As far as I'm concerned, they kept the secret pretty well.

How true.

[WindBourne]

It is amazing what a wonderful job we did in invading and occupying Iraq. Or are those ppl in an organized army with comparable equipment? The truth is, that Rifles and handguns DO help. We need to retain them.

With all that said, I have been an ACLU supporter over the years. Sometimes a member and other times not, but always a supporter. The real problem is that they really do not have a choice on the cases they take. They take those that are attacking our civil liberties even when it is disgusting (such as defending kiddie porn that was found via an illegal search or wiretap).

slashkos

[Doc Ruby]

This story is tagged "slashkos". As if a story about the FISA Court objecting to unwarranted (pun intended :P) invasions of Americans' privacy is somehow a "liberal" issue.

I remember when "Conservatives" used to be the most sensitive Americans to government invasion of personal lives. When "Conservatives" used to swear to lay down their very lives to prevent "big government" from gaining unbalanced power over people.

That was a long time ago. Those "Conservatives" are dead, or sold out to the lust for power and the money it brings.

Today's "Conservatives" will sell any liberty for any illusion of "security". And even a geek blog like Slashdot can notice. "Slashkos" indeed.

Re:slashkos

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah, dude, freakin' libs took our guns and waged a successful PR campaign against independent militia organizations. Hence, we just bend over like everyone else, because no matter what the politician's want they'll get it eventually.

Just come quietly... You'll thank us later.

Re:slashkos

[Doc Ruby]

You still have your guns. Liberals haven't taken any from you.

But you also still obviously have your paranoia and schizophrenic disconnection from reality.

I wish someone would take your guns before you hurt someone.

Re:slashkos

[Doc Ruby]

Anonymous fascist Coward, the FISA Court is stopping the NSA from wiretapping you. Telecom abuse. Which is most certainly Slashdot material.

But since you're so insane that you think the FISA Court is engaged in "mindless anti-administration bashing", who cares what you think? Karl Rove, is that you, now that you've "retired" and have time to pollute Slashdot instead of trolling on DKos?

Re:slashkos

[Doc Ruby]

How is pointing out that privacy invasion isn't a uniquely liberal issue acknowledging that Democrats are anti-privacy and fewer liberties? Unless of course you're the kind of rightwinger who sees everything that way, no matter what the facts are.

BTW, by far the biggest jumps in government size since WWII have been by Eisenhower, then Nixon, then Reagan, then Bush. Each of them multiplied the size of the government, rather than the fractional increments during Democratic administrations. But why would facts matter when you've got Republican slogans to repeat instead?

Re:slashkos

[Man On Pink Corner]

Today's "Conservatives" will sell any liberty for any illusion of "security".

Of course, arguing passionately for gun-control legislation doesn't fall into the category of selling liberty out for an illusion of security. Nooooo... that would be way too conservative of you.

Really, when it comes right down to it, you're just another part of the problem, aren't you?

Re:slashkos

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember when "Conservatives" used to be the most sensitive Americans to government invasion of personal lives.

"Conservatives" are still out there and still sensitive to government intrusion into our personal lives.

The current administration consists of "Neoconservatives"; a.k.a. "Big Government Conservatives", an oxymoron like "Military Intelligence" or "Microsoft Works".

Just one more thing to hold Bush II accountable for.

Re:slashkos

[Man On Pink Corner]

Hundreds of millions of Americans owning guns hasn't made us more secure. It's made us less secure.

Gee, I don't believe that the post was about security. I believe it was about freedom.

May your chains set lightly upon you, yadda, yadda, yadda.

Re:slashkos

[sumdumass]

there hasn't been one person except bush bashers claiming that the wiretapping was going on outside international calls with suspected terrorist.

They were only wire tapping him if he was doing such a thing. This is exactly like they said, How does a secrete court who's job it to approve or disapprove wire taps under certain conditions get to a hearing about this? It doesn't unless there is something going on.

So before you go ranting about how honorable this is, look at what is driving it. It is bush bashing 101.

Re:slashkos

[Elf-friend]

Today's Republicans are merely reverting to the Federalism of their forebears. It was the Democrats who championed states' rights, small government, individual liberties, and true "Conservatism," before the "New Deal" and the "Great Society" drove most of the "Old Right" out of that party. After years of disorganization, they rallied around Reagan, who proclaimed a new vision of the Republican party - one more in line with the displaced "States' Rights Democrats" than with the traditional stances of the GOP. Now, however, the old Republicanism (under the guise of being something new) has regained the upper hand within the party, while the Democrats have yet to return to their own former, pre-FDR ideals. This turn of events has left the true conservatives out in the cold yet again.

Mind you, this explanation is overly simplistic. Ultimately, all of this nation's politicians have been taking us for a ride since the beginning. Anyone who thinks there was a time when the motives of politicians were pure and noble is deluded.

Re:slashkos

[grassy_knoll]

It seems the differences between liberal and conservative are something like:

Liberal: No private ownership of firearms. Abortions on demand. Gay marriage legalized.
Conservative: Less or no restrictions on private ownership of firearms. Abortions strictly regulated or banned. Gay marriage illegal.

As both movements are comprised of politicians, I don't see the Democrats ( if they win the next election ) giving up any of the executive authority Bush has acquired. Politicians seek power like teenagers seek whiskey and car keys.

And, at least in the current political atmosphere in DC, there seems to be no difference on economic issues ( outside of no chance in hell candidates like Kucinich ).

Kinda sad, all told.

Re:slashkos

[grassy_knoll]

I don't usually respond to AC posts, but very true.

Re:slashkos

[jjohnson]

I predict that a Democratic president will very publicly repudiate the powers the Bush Administration has claimed--it's the only PR defense against the Republicans crying "hypocrisy" . I doubt it'll make much difference in the actual operations of the executive (what, the NSA and CIA weren't tapping American's phone lines without a warrant before 9/11?), but what the Bush Administration did was try to legalize those powers, and that's what they're getting hammered for.

Re:slashkos

[jjohnson]

Not one person? What about those Washington lawyers who were accidentally delivered a phone log of themselves being tapped? You know, the ones in the ACLU suit?

Re:slashkos

[grassy_knoll]

I hope you're right... but I kinda doubt it.

The PR defense against the Republicans crying hypocrisy would be to use the current Republican talking points in favor of the expansion of the executive and quote the Republicans directly.

I just dont see a politician, either Dem or Repub, willingly giving up power.

Re:slashkos

[jjohnson]

I suspect that when President Clinton looks at the PR value of passing a bill saying 'shut down Guantanamo, restore FISA, purge the Justice Department and no political operatives in the West Wing', adds to it the diplomatic value, and weighs it against the quality of intelligence gained by torture, it'll be a no-brainer. I'm sure the executive will still do what it's always done, it just won't try to do it the macho pseudo-legitimacy the Bush Administration tried to do it with.

One of the genius aspects of democracies is that switching administrations gives the country the ability to do a 180 when it needs to. The value of the U.S. doing a 180 (or appearing to) after the Bush Administration is pretty damn high.

Re:slashkos

[grassy_knoll]

Well, purging the justice dept. wouldn't require a bill. Firing all the US Attorneys is rather standard when a new President takes office ( See: Bill Clinton ).

As to everything else, you're ok with "the executive will still do what it's always done" so long as "it just won't try to do it the macho pseudo-legitimacy the Bush Administration tried to do it with."?

I read that as: "I don't care what Bush does, I just don't like how he does it". In other words, if Bush was a Democrat, you'd be happy with everything he did?

Re:slashkos

[sumdumass]

Lol.. You know, the ones who were working for suspected terrorist funding organizations. The ones who where making calls to over seas. Yea those ones, the same ones you are talking about. They even claim to have suspected they were being monitored because of who and what they were doing.

Re:slashkos

[jjohnson]

By purging the Justice Department, I was thinking of all the Kyle Sampsons and Monica Goodlings still in place. Part of Rove's strategy for a permanent majority was to stack the civil service with loyal Republicans started young.

No, I'm not okay with any of it, but I recognize that the difference between the executive doing it and not doing it has little to do with which party is in power, and less to do with the laws. Governments always do things they shouldn't, for good reasons or bad. What's especially scary about Bush is the institutionalization of torture and warrantless wiretapping and indefinite-detention-by-executive-order. When black ops are black, governments fear disclosure and publicity, and that has a suppressive effect that limits what and how much they can do.

Under Bush, the scope of torture and surveillance and arbitrary executive power was massively expanded, and had they succeeded in legitimizing those things, they would have been expanded further still. I think that a Democratic president will reject those things for pragmatic political reasons; but I hope a Democratic president will reject those things because it'll have the effect of beating back the tide of bloodthirstiness and 'do anything to win' in the war on terror.

Re:slashkos

[jjohnson]

So you admit that American citizens were being tapped? Lawyers, no less, who have a legally privileged relationship with the person on the other end of the phone.

It seems like a good time to remind you that the NSA admitted that it can't distinguish, in its tapping mechanism, between domestic and international calls. So effectively, the NSA was listening to all of a law firm's phone traffic, no matter who they were talking to.

And all that says to you is "Bah! More Bush-bashing!"?

Re:slashkos

[sumdumass]

The entire point behind the problem is that americans were in the conversations. They don't need a warrant to listen to non americans. As for admitting, I don't remember denying this fact. That was the point of the conversations.

I'm also very glad you brought up the "he NSA admitted that it can't distinguish, in its tapping mechanism, between domestic and international calls. So effectively, the NSA was listening to all of a law firm's phone traffic, no matter who they were talking to."

I have seen that at a few bloggs but have never seen it in a reputable newspaper. As far as I know it is just rumor created by the same people against it. Could you point me to some greater details and preferably from a trustworthy source? Unfortunately, until I read it from somewhere beside impeach bush blogs, I'm not sure I can take that as fact.

And all that says to you is "Bah! More Bush-bashing!"?

Yea, Or at least until you can point to a reputable source for the NSA cant do something that should have been available for 35 years now.

Re:slashkos

[gilroy]

It doesn't really matter what's driving this. What matters is, there is a law that has been on the books and functioning for nearly 30 years. It makes it a felony to conduct wiretapping of Americans except under the aegis of a court order. The President has publicly admitted that he has approved warrantless wiretaps of a sort that, prima facie, violate the conditions of the law -- and, indeed, the administration has never disagreed with that prima facie reading. (They claim the law is invalid or outdated, but they never claim that what the NSA wiretaps were within FISA itself.)

In other words, the President has admitted to repeatedly committing a felony under the statutes of the United States. Period.

There are things that make this worse -- such as the fact that the President did this during a time when he repeatedly and publicly claimed that FISA gave him all the tools he needed, or the fact that FISA has been continually amended and updated (both obviating the "The law is outdated" defense). But it really is as simple as, the President of the United States willfully and repeatedly committed acknowledged felonies.

Calling this "Bush bashing" is like saying that drunk drivers are arrested as part of a campaign to shut down breweries.

Re:slashkos

[NMerriam]

As to everything else, you're ok with "the executive will still do what it's always done" so long as "it just won't try to do it the macho pseudo-legitimacy the Bush Administration tried to do it with."?

I read that as: "I don't care what Bush does, I just don't like how he does it". In other words, if Bush was a Democrat, you'd be happy with everything he did?

I think the more appropriate way to interpret it is that most adults understand that any intelligence agency or military commander will sometimes be required to break the rules for the sake of getting something done that needs to be done to save lives RIGHT NOW, but we don't need to make it an acceptable POLICY for anyone in authority to just break the rules whenever they like simply because they find them inconvenient.

It's like the whole absurd "debate" about torture that took place publicly in this country. Neocons constantly brought up extreme situations like "What if we know this guy is the only person who can stop a nuclear bomb from going off in NYC in 20 minutes, but our interrogators can't do anything more than ask pretty please?". Hey, if that happens, give me a call, I'll happily torture the information out of the guy and risk being prosecuted for saving NYC. These situations are so unusual, so extraordinary, that I can't imagine very many people who have given their lives over to public service would be so hung up on the rules they'd let millions die if they knew for sure they could prevent it. If such a situation legitimately comes up, the President has the ability to pardon any such interrogator and give him a medal. The only thing you accomplish by rewriting the laws to make such treatment officially acceptable in such "extreme" circumstances is that more and more situations will be considered "extreme" because it's easier to call someone an Enemy Combatant than it is to investigate. All of a sudden everyone is "certain" that their particular prisoner has critical information they could get at if they could just ignore a few parts of the Constitution.

Re:slashkos

[NMerriam]

there hasn't been one person except bush bashers claiming that the wiretapping was going on outside international calls with suspected terrorist.

President Bush (as well as Gonzales) publicly acknowledged that the taps are listening in on Americans. I'm pretty sure they aren't Bush-Bashers.

Of course, the whole program is classified, as well as the "other programs" that have been acknowledged to exist (again, by Gonzales) but not discussed at all, so we simply have to take their word for it that it's only being used in certain ways. And considering they've already admitted this one program is being used to listen in on Americans, I'm almost afraid to find out what the still-secret stuff is being used for.

Re:slashkos

[NMerriam]

If someone views themselves as a politician then, yes, I agree. However, I would like to think, and until I research enough, I would like to think that most of the Founding Fathers were pure and noble. At least magnitudes more so than any politician in the last 100 years.

While I don't think many people are "pure and noble", you're right that the essential difference is the people today who view themselves as professional politicians. To them it's about winning or losing, fulfilling a lifelong dream of being elected to some office.

Every one of the Founding Fathers basically got involved in politics because they had no choice, and got out as soon as possible afterwards. Benjamin Franklin, for all his achievements, wanted his gravestone to say that he was a printer. Because to him, being a printer was important, honest work. Washington couldn't wait to finally get back to being a farmer. Everything else was a necessary evil.

Re:slashkos

[Doc Ruby]

You are a retard. You are measuring whether something has happened by whether it's reported in the corporate mass media.

Now you're telling me that the FISA Court is running "blatant administration bashing". Because it favors the ACLU, which protects your rights.

You don't deserve the liberty we're fighting for you to keep. But we have to drag you along with the rest of us, because liberty is universal. Even retards like you have inalienable rights, though you are aggressively giving them away.

Now shut up and let the Americans save your cowardly slave ass.

Re:slashkos

[Nimey]

Johnson's Great Society programs?

Re:slashkos

[Doc Ruby]

I'm not a "Liberal" or a "Conservative", I'm a person who understands how people can live together.

I support limited firearms ownership, at least as limited as drivers licenses.

"Abortion on demand" is a propaganda term. I support abortions at a woman's discretion, under advice and care of doctors who counsel the risks, costs and benefits. I notice that people who say "abortion on demand" ignore the risks and costs of illegal abortions, and don't adopt many children they claim to care so much about.

Of course I support gay marriage. If your church rejects it, that's their business. But there's absolutely no reason that people shouldn't have the right to marry whichever consenting, unmarried adult they choose.

The difference between DC Republicans and Democrats is as stark as that between Bush and Gore, who others also said were no different. Iraq, Greenhouse pollution, Social Security lockbox - an endless list of critical differences. That are still different.

These issues are not political slogans. They're other real people's lives, which so many people treat like a videogame, blasting them away in the distance on their screens. That is truly sad, for all concerned.

Re:slashkos

[Doc Ruby]

Not even close to the jumps by every Republican. While Johnson did increase (as roughly measured by debt) the budget size by 60%, Eisenhower doubled it, the smallest Republican increase. Though Truman did also double the debt, but from a very small base, and including postwar reconstruction costs like the Marshall Plan and military resupply/retooling (and the Manhattan Project), which didn't really increase the size of government. Democrats more often reduced the debt than increased it, which at least shows a slower rate of government growth than Republicans. While Republicans usually multiplied the size of the debt, showing how fast (and untenably) they increased the size of the government.

There is absolutely no evidence for Republicans' defining claim that Democrats favor bigger government, and that Republicans oppose it. In fact, the evidence is to the exact opposite. Unless you're talking about the "reality" in Republican rhetoric, which proves only that bigger rhetorical lies produce bigger, less supportable Republican government.

Re:slashkos

[sumdumass]

Listening in on "Americans talking to the enemy" and "listening in on Americans" are two different things for most of us. Well, I guess that should be for those of us who aren't so anti-bush that we see anyone who hates bush as an ally.

I don't really care about the secrecy of the program. It all comes down to reasonable and probably cause as the constitution protects us. If they are talking with the enemy, then I (like most Americans who aren't against bush) believe there is both reasonable and probable cause to wiretap them.

When the story about this first broke, the points were clear, it was terrorist or suspected terrorist and Americans may or may not have been on the phone but they were listening anyways. This gave Bush a jump in poll number because people thought that was good and proper.

Then the Anti bush crowd came out of a focus group or something and changed it to just Americans and we need to impeach them. It is little more then sensationalism in an attempt to destroy Bush. He has done plenty of things to be mad at him. So lets not invent something vaguely resembling the actual program in order to trash him.

Re:slashkos

[Elf-friend]

I would like to think that most of the Founding Fathers were pure and noble. At least magnitudes more so than any politician in the last 100 years.

Perhaps, but I'm not convinced. I think there is good reason to suspect that their own economic interests were the major factor in their actions, not altruistic principles.

What about the Whigs?

The Whigs were born in the early 1830s. The original parties were the Federalists (led by Hamilton) and the Republicans (later called the Democratic Republicans - the ancestors of todays Democratic Party, led by Jefferson). Washington belonged to neither party. The Federalists had only one President (John Adams), and were defunct by the middle of the 1820s, leaving only one party. The first challenge to Democratic-Republican dominance was the Anti-Masonic party, which did very well in northern New England, but never gained national prominence. Next came the Whigs, who did well during the 1840s, but had collapsed by the middle of the 1850s. The Republican Party was born in the 1850s out of the ashes of the Whigs. Had it not been for the War Between the States, I doubt that the Republican Party would have held together any longer than it's predecessors: all of these parties had substantial amounts of internal disunity on major issues. The War, and Reconstruction, preserved the party long enough to develop a stable base.

Many, but by no means all of the Founding Fathers were either Deist or Unitarian. Jefferson was one, to be sure, as was Adams, but the language in the Declaration is also partly the result of trying to use language that would appeal to the largest number of delegates. "Creator" appealed to the lowest common denominator, since it was a term which the Deists would prefer, but which the Christians present had no qualms with. However, whether the the Revolution was based on principles which can be reconciled with historical Christian principles is another question - one which I think Christians in America (of whom I am one) need to face.

Re:slashkos

[sumdumass]

Calling this "Bush bashing" is like saying that drunk drivers are arrested as part of a campaign to shut down breweries.

No, it would be more like your mad at bars being in your neighborhood so you make things up about the drunk driver and attempt to convict them outside the legal limits to show the bars are a nuisance and should be closed down.

The point is that the entire terms surounding this is out of perspective. People are saying he was taping "Americans" when the reality was "Americans talking to the enemy". Some people even claims that the FISA laws cannot interfere with the roles of commander in chief and collecting battlefield inteligence is a key position to effecting that role. So, in that particular position, the FISA laws couldn't apply because it would be unconstitutional to enforce them.

As the parent said "he is listening in on you" is completely false unless you are talking to the enemy of America. And that is different then what is being represented by the anti bush crowds. It is Bush bashing and you cannot deny it without telling a lie concerning the circumstances..

Re:slashkos

[Stradivarius]

"Abortion on demand" is a propaganda term.

Of course it is. So is "woman's right to choose", as if the choice being made were of no more consequence than what to have for dinner tonight. Political discussions tend to use politically loaded terms, especially since framing the debate gives an edge on how people will view it. Liberals and conservatives alike do this all the time, and usually even the most biased terms capture some element of what really matters to each side.

I notice that people who say "abortion on demand" ignore the risks and costs of illegal abortions, and don't adopt many children they claim to care so much about

If one has a moral belief that abortion is the murder of a defenseless child, then the "risks and costs" to the murderer are probably not of great concern. Regardless of whether or not one agrees with this belief, it is at the very least a principled and logically consistent position to take.

I also think it's a little unfair to suggest that people don't care about the unborn if they haven't adopted children. One person or family can only do so much on their own. That's why we support government and other social institutions through tax dollars and charitable contributions. You can care about domestic violence without running a safehouse. You can care about hunger without running your own soup kitchen. We fund institutions to address these problems, which hopefully have more expertise and economies of scale than individuals could manage themselves.

The difference between DC Republicans and Democrats is as stark as that between Bush and Gore, who others also said were no different. Iraq, Greenhouse pollution, Social Security lockbox - an endless list of critical differences. That are still different.

I agree there are differences. But I would argue that on the issue of Social Security, Democrats have essentially taken the same position as Republicans, which is to do nothing about the problem, and to continue to spend funds intended for Social Security on other government programs. Gore may have talked up the lockbox idea during his campaign, but the rest of his party has done nothing more than the Republicans have to actually implement it.

I happen to believe that the reason people talk about there being "no difference" between the parties is that both parties have long since ceased to be problem solvers. They're more concerned with playing political games and getting their respective "bases" riled up than in finding compromises that most Americans could live with. A lot of these hot-button issues have a majority of Americans holding a middle-ground view. We could settle a lot of these issues tomorrow if politicians decided it was in their best interests to do so.

Re:slashkos

[Doc Ruby]

I also think it's a little unfair to suggest that people don't care about the unborn if they haven't adopted children. One person or family can only do so much on their own.

That's a copout. If your morality tells you that abortion is murder, how come you don't donate even a weekend a year helping operate an adoption system, or babysitting for a foster family? How come you're not all up in arms about the hundreds of thousands of "unborn people" discarded as blastocyst medical waste every year all across the country by fertility clinics? And how come you agree with funding "abstinence" programs that result in more teen pregnancies than the sex/contraception education they replace?

It's all a quite convenient for you to demand that women who cannot afford, whether financially or socially, to bear and raise a child should destroy their life, and the life of that child. Based on your unproveable assertion that the new embryo is a person who can be murdered, and not a medically problematic appendage like a amputatable leg.

It's also convenient for you to find that Democrats have not protected Social Security or other Gore policies, when Republicans have not only held the power monopoly trifecta since Gore's election, but have abused it to extremes, like offering the "nuclear option" to destroy minority protections. Even as Democratic resistance in Congress is the only reason Social Security is still intact, right as the rest of the Republican economy collapses under the counterproductive debt that created the illusion of even minimal growth.

Politicians do what they do because we let them get away with it. Because it works to keep them in power, with the power we give them. If you really want to talk about principles and logical consistency, you should reexamine your own even in just the propaganda you've repeated here, rather than the reality that we both know is at work.

Re:slashkos

[grassy_knoll]

I'm not a "Liberal" or a "Conservative", I'm a person who understands how people can live together.

Just to clarify: There seem to be some groups of people who can not live together peacefully. Israelies and Palestinians leap to mind, as do $RELIGIOUS_CONSERVATIVE and $SECULAR_HUMANIST groups.

How, exactly, do people with wildly differing viewpoints live together peacefully?

I've just never been able to reconcile the "we're all humans, so lets all get along" idea with the reality that different groups seek to wipe each other out, either through violence or through social policy which ( to the affected population ) undermines their belief system.

Re:slashkos

[Stradivarius]

First of all, who says that people who oppose abortion don't donate a weekend a year volunteering with adoption or motherhood support groups? And in fact many anti-abortion folks do advocate adoption as an alternative to abortion.

Secondly, adoption only helps those children who were fortunate enough not to be aborted. Thus if your goal is to stop abortions, helping existing kids find adoptive families, while noble and worthy, does nothing to further that goal. Most people aren't getting abortions because they're worried the kid won't be adopted. Especially given the demand for babies to adopt in this country (the waiting time to get an American baby is so long that many couples end up going abroad to adopt).

Many of the hardcore anti-abortion types really are "up in arms" about embryos discarded by medical clinics, or used for medical research. Hence the controversy over embryonic stem cells.

I can't speak for those supporting "abstinence-only" education, as I fail to see how keeping kids ignorant helps them make wise choices, and since every scientific study seems to show such "education" is completely ineffective at its stated goal. But not everyone opposed to abortion agrees with hiding contraceptive information from teens.

It's all a quite convenient for you to demand that women who cannot afford, whether financially or socially, to bear and raise a child should destroy their life, and the life of that child Anti-abortion advocates aren't saying the woman should raise the child, with the associated costs. They're saying she should let it live to be adopted. Especially since except in cases of rape, it was her (and her partner's) decision to take that risk of creating a child in the first place.

Based on your unproveable assertion that the new embryo is a person who can be murdered, and not a medically problematic appendage like a amputatable leg. I assume that you would be willing to concede that a baby that was just born is indeed a person, rather than a problematic appendage. So what about the day before it's born - is it a person then? Physically it's virtually identical, the only difference is where it's located. If you go back in time one day at a time, at what point does it stop being a person?

I'm a little uncomfortable with the idea of a ball of cells smaller than I can see being considered a full person. But I also struggle with the question I just asked you. The religious conservatives who answer "it doesn't stop being a person" at least have a solid answer.

It's also convenient for you to find that Democrats have not protected Social Security or other Gore policies, when Republicans have not only held the power monopoly trifecta since Gore's election, but have abused it to extremes, like offering the "nuclear option" to destroy minority protections. Even as Democratic resistance in Congress is the only reason Social Security is still intact, right as the rest of the Republican economy collapses under the counterproductive debt that created the illusion of even minimal growth. Prior to the "Republican revolution" the Democrats had control of Congress for decades. During that whole time they spent Social Security money on other things. The Republicans have been doing the same. Now that the Democrats are in control again, I doubt we'll see them suddenly start deciding to start actually taking the "lockbox" approach. If they did, then they'd either have to raise taxes, cut other government programs, or increase the deficit, none of which is politically popular.

Re:slashkos

[NMerriam]

It all comes down to reasonable and probably cause as the constitution protects us. If they are talking with the enemy, then I (like most Americans who aren't against bush) believe there is both reasonable and probable cause to wiretap them.

I'm not sure you understand the Constitution if you think "they are talking with the enemy" is some sort of magic phrase that obviates the needs for warrants to eavesdrop on Americans. If there's probable cause, then you can go to the FISA court (retroactively even!) and maintain all the secrecy necessary while also following legal due process. It doesn't matter if the American is the target of the wiretap or not, if an American is on the line, you need a warrant. Period.

I'm sorry if you see that as anti-Bush, it's a standard that was stated quite clearly by the Supreme Court of the United States and followed by all the intelligence agencies decades before either Bush was serving in the White House, and it is a standard that Bush and Gonzales have both publicly stated they were ignoring simply because, well, they find it inconvenient to follow the law. "Listening in on Americans" is not any different from "listening in on Americans talking to the enemy" to the courts, particularly when there's no requirement to show probable cause that the person on the other end is actually an enemy.

But hey, don't let the facts get in the way of your desire to simply call anyone who loves the Constitution a terrorist Bush-basher.

Re:slashkos

[Doc Ruby]

When the people who profit from the conflict but aren't exposed to its risk cannot control the rest of the people in conflict, the conflict usually ends. The Israeli/Palestinian conflict is no different. But the people who benefit are too protected to be stopped at all easily.

Belief systems adapt to the environment in which they're forced to live. So long as their environment is dominated by those profiting people, they will remain under its control, and at each others' throats. It's one reason why the biggest problem in Israel/Palestine is meddling by foreigners who don't actually have to live there amidst the violence. The same model holds true for practically every other place in conflict. Cooperation is more profitable than competition. But when those forcing cooperation set those who cooperate with them against others cooperating with their competitors, the conflict is the subject of the respective cooperation. It's locked in until one of the controllers changes.

Re:slashkos

[Doc Ruby]

First of all, who says that people who oppose abortion don't donate a weekend a year volunteering with adoption or motherhood support groups? And in fact many anti-abortion folks do advocate adoption as an alternative to abortion.

I do. The number of people who do anything material to help find better lives for unwanted children is vanishingly small compared to those just shooting off their mouths. And no, there is no "up in arms" over the discarded blastocysts at fertility clinics. It's only an issue at all because it's used as a counterargument by pro-choice people. To which their antiabortion opponents casually (though of course angrily) say "yeah, that's bad too", but never do anything about it. Faith doesn't have to be logically consistent for it to be valid. That's why it's irrelevant to the law.

I say that an embryo isn't a fetus until its nervous system is developed more than a puppy's. The current 6-month cutoff covers that, with substantial margin to cover individual variation. But that's totally irrelevant to the antiabortion movement. Who say that their faith tells them that life begins at conception. A strangely genetic argument, and one that ignores the many spontaneous abortions of embryos that even implant in the uterus, but fail. Well, my faith says that god creates a soul on the first date, and any couple who fail to conceive and give it a body are murderers. Why is their faith any more important to government than mine?

When the Democrats controlled Congress, they did indeed reinvest the Social Security fund in government spending. But they didn't try to privatize it and risk it all in the stock market that's been shedding $TRILLIONS in just the last few months alone. Republicans are trying to do that, while deregulating corporate accounting and opening the floodgates to unsupportable new consumer and government debt. The two Parties' policies on Social Security couldn't be more different: Republicans actively campaign to eliminate the most popular, biggest government program that is one of our few that compares to the rest of the industrialized world. And which lets our government resist the onslaughts of corporate attacks on consumers. Republicans want it gone so they can "starve the beast", weaken the government itself so they can "drown it in a bathtub". In favor of corporate anarchy. So you should just concede this major point: you're trying to shift the goalposts to a strawman about whether Democrats borrow from Social Security, when we're talking about how Republicans privatize and target it for elimination. Extremely different, in a huge and essential program that is probably the defining difference since its founding by Democrats.

Re:slashkos

[Stradivarius]

I'm not trying to move the goalposts. Merely to note that the Democrats, like Republicans, have done their fair share to make the Social Security problem worse than it needed to be.

While some Republicans do favor privatizing Social Security, others don't. After all, Social Security is arguably the most popular federal government program in existence.

Regardless, we need to do something about the fact that:

1) The program is structured idiotically, given that our population is inevitably getting older. The ratio of workers paying in to workers taking out keeps getting smaller and smaller, which is not sustainable.
2) The current system encourages politicians to rob Social Security to pay for whatever else they like, so the deficit doesn't seem as large as it really is. So instead we have a whole bunch of IOUs to ourselves sitting in the Social Security trust funds, instead of actual cash or investments.
3) By spending the money as soon as we take it in, we fail to use the power of compound interest to our advantage.

IMO, we need a system whereby each generation's Social Security taxes go towards paying for its own retirement. Maybe every year the government sets up a new account where the folks born in that year will have their Social Security taxes invested. That way the money from those taxes is in a "lockbox" that can't tempt Congress to spend it on other things, and the funds could be invested using a smart strategy to get decent returns rather than sitting around and losing ground to inflation (it could work like those lifecycle funds you can get in 401k plans, where the mix becomes more and more conservative as retirement gets closer). And then an aging population is no longer a big problem, because each generation has already paid for itself, rather than relying on a relatively smaller and smaller pool of young workers.

Re:slashkos

[sumdumass]

I can see your full of it. The constitution doesn't say that a warrant is needed for each and every search. It says that unreasonable searches and seizures can't happen. So is it reasonable or not to listen in on the american side of a conversation when gathering battlefield inteligence?

This isn't about picking joe smoe and listening to see if he ever talks to terrorist. This is about listening to terrorist or suspected terrorist and not hanging up when he talks to an american. That would be a reasonable thing to do. I don't care what you want to say, if a terrorist is talking to someone, it is a good idea to be listening to both sides. Warrant or not.

And no, You should be sorry that it is an anti bush thing not that I see it that way. The entire representation of this has been turned around to not remotely resemble what has been said. The government was listening to terrorist and when an American was on the line, they listened too. The reply I was initially responding to said "FISA Court is stopping the NSA from wiretapping you" This is false. just as you trying to suggest that the government is taping the Americans. They are tapping the terrorist or suspected terrorist and not hanging up on the Americans he talks to. And this isn't unreasonable by any sense of the word.

Instead, the GP was saying the government was listening in on you who have no connect with terrorist and you are making it look like they were tapping Americans and not suspected terrorist. You know, Get a grip on reality. No one except the bush bashers have made the claims that it was solely Americans being singled out. Even the democrats on the senate inteligence comities who knew all about this from day one haven't made the claims as you and the GP have. You would think if it was remotely true, they would have mentioned something about how bad it was by now. But no, they haven't. Instead, they stayed quiet and let people like you distort everything to work a frenzy up against Bush teh evil one. And if you refuse to look at it like it is, then you ar just bashing too.

Re:slashkos

[NMerriam]

I can see your full of it. The constitution doesn't say that a warrant is needed for each and every search. It says that unreasonable searches and seizures can't happen. So is it reasonable or not to listen in on the american side of a conversation when gathering battlefield inteligence?

I just stopped reading right there, because the Supreme Court over many decades and ideological shifts has already spoken on the matter. Eavesdropping on phone calls with Americans on the line requires a warrant from a court, period. You can foam at the mouth and call every Supreme Court Justice since the invention of the telegraph a terrorist, but you'll still be completely wrong.

Re:slashkos

[sumdumass]

Name me a case where the supreme court ruled that the constitution said you need a warrant to listen to a a call when an American is on the line but you are doing phone surveillance a foreign national outside the US.

If it is as many times as you say, I'm sure it won't be that hard. If you can't find it, then I suggest you quit making shit up.

Your betrayal of me calling court justices terrorist is quite funny. I made no such inclination yet you find it important to make it look like I did. Is that a sign that you grasping for reason? That your desperate to make me out to be the bad guy because you know I am right? Or are you just setting the stage up for when I ask for the cases your rambling about.

It is alright If you cannot find them, I don't think they exist so it won't be a failing on your part. You can even claim that other bush basher told you about them and you were just repeating it so you don't look like a liar. I won't call you one either.

I await your response with the anticipation of you being right so I don't have to chalk you up to another anti bush fanatic. I mean, Bush has done some bad things. We don't need to make shit up and turn it around to make it look worse then it is for the gratification of helping your own team. You could just as easily use the shit he does do that isn't any good for this. And you wouldn't be skirting a lie in th process.

Re:slashkos

[NMerriam]

Katz v United States was the seminal decision that has been referenced at least a billion times in the 50 years since. The SC ruled that the 4th Amendment protects citizens' telephone conversations since they have an expectation of privacy, and it has been examined about a thousand different ways from Sunday ever since with the same basic results (though non-citizens, resident aliens, etc can expect a lesser protection than American citizens eve though they are recognized as having most Constitutional rights while on US soil, but American citizens are protected regardless of their physical location due to their Constitutional protections being a birthright, not a fact of geography.)

Re:slashkos

[sumdumass]

That case fails to meet the criteria I mentioned. And unfortunately, you fail to understand the case and the points it makes.

First, It asserts the fourth amendment privileges extend to an American where ever they may be. This doesn't take away reasonable searches or probable cause which the fourth amendment talks about. It just says that the government needs to take that into account for a citizen. And the point is, that there can and would be times when listening to someone else without a warrant is a reasonable thing to do.

Imagine I was being watched for criminal actions I was suspected of doing. The government wire tapped my phones with a warrant. You call and discuss this criminal action that the government thinks I did. They don't need a separate warrant to listen to your side of the conversation even though you have an expectation of privacy. Well, it would be the same here. They are monitoring the conversations of terrorist and suspected terrorist as well as enemies of the state who are not citizens, and american becomes part of the conversations and now by your standards, all the sudden they need to get a warrant to hear 'Okmed IMaa Killin innocent people' talking to Johnny about getting bomb supplied to blow up the London subway or a shopping mall in Columbus Ohio. It is bullshit to suggest that it is unreasonable to listen to the other parts of a conversation with a foreign national bent on harming Americans when it becomes an American. It isn't unreasonable by any means to be listened in on when you are talking to a criminal, a terrorist or a suspected terrorist. And that is what the fourth amendment protects against.

Your instance to minimize the facts in order to connect this case somehow is pure Bush bashing or pure ignorance. You seem to be smart enough to rule ignorance out but then again, it could be your ignorance that makes you think the way you do.

Second, When in a time of conflict, the military doesn't need a warrant to collect battlefield inteligence in order to conduct the operations as th leaders of the battle/conflict/war etc. The constitution makes the president the commander in chief and Congress cannot limit that role. It would be stupid to suggest that the military needs to have a warrant to listen in on communications to the enemy if an American is on the other line giving secretes away or collaborating on actions against the US. I know you bush bashers don't like the military and think it would be just fine if everything they do fails. I even get the idea that you bush bashers would be perfectly fine with another attack on American soil with american citizens dieing so you could use it as an excuse to how bush is failing to protect us and get elected. It is illustrated quite clearly with all the attempts to distort the actions of the president in order to gain politically against him. In any other thing, I wouldn't care. In this area, I do.

And BTW, non-citizens and such aren't protected by the constitution by default. They rely on extensions passed by law to extend the protections to them. This is why they are "less covered". But in either case, the constitution only protects against unreasonable searches. I find it appalling that unreasonable is being ignored in order to trash the president and make a political gain on your side. I would think it would be perfectly reasonable to listen in on all communications with the enemy regardless of their nationality.

Fortunately, This will become a situation where the courts will rule in favor of the government. This is the sole reasons it is going to court. It will goto the supreme court and they will rule in favor of the government because the letter of the constitution says that you are only protected against unreasonable searches and it is reasonable for the government to listen to what you have to say when talking with a terrorist and enemy of the state. To suggest otherwise is plain foolishness.

If you think I am wrong, then think about this. The dumbest president on record was smart enough

Re:slashkos

[Doc Ruby]

Yes, you are insisting on moving the goalposts, and pretending that you're not.

You said the two parties aren't very different. I pointed out that among their differences are that Republicans tried to privatize and eliminate Social Security, while Democrats saved it. You are now trying to change the point to a completely different one, that Social Security has problems. That's a straw man. The kind of fallacious argument that Republicans are expert in, especially Bush, who very commonly fails to make some radical change, then reverses rhetoric to claim credit for the opponent's version that succeeded.

For bonus points, your actual plan is ignoring the unsupportable debt that has been propping up Bush's underperforming economy and mostly stagnant (with artifical stimulant) stock market. All of which is actually collapsing in a global wildfire right now, as global central banks flood markets with extra cheap credit in a panic to avert a total economic collapse. Even as China threatens to use its half $TRILLION in US debt holdings as a weapon against us. But none of that exists in your world, because it would make privatizing Social Security into private investments clearly suicide.

How perfectly Republican of you.

So I decline to debate any revision of Social Security with you. Because it's not an honest debate. You're not interested in working together to find ways to improve Social Security. You're waiting for me to stop defending Social Security from your attacks, so you can try to destroy it (and keep its money for your efforts).

That kind of ultra dishonest politics is why Republicans have blown the trust of America. Why Republican Party membership is plummeting into marginality: significantly less Republicans now than either Democrats or independents. Bush's approval comprised of about 75% of the Republican 31% and about 75% of the 1/3 of independents who are really Republicans but too ashamed or dishonest to admit it. Since you won't abandon that failed political rhetoric strategy, or the corporate anarchy agenda that it protects, you're not going to convince anyone to join you.

So I part with you now. I'll see you after the 2009 inauguration, when a Democratic Congress and White House have gained all the tyrannical powers Bush and his Republican Congress created. Which their corporate media trained Americans to ignore. So probably Hillary Clinton can treat her political enemies the way that Bush treated his, including the gulags in Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and the secret CIA torture camps flying around the world from medieval Muslim dictatorships to "New Europe" ex-soviet allies. OK, probably the CIA will remain covertly opposed to Democrats, part of some Republican plot to retake power in 2012, just like Bush Sr led the Republican Party from the Nixon near-impeachment to pick up with Reagan in 1980. Keep your fingers crossed. And kiss your country goodbye.

Re:slashkos

[CTachyon]

WTF is the legal difference between "Americans" and "Americans talking to the enemy"? They're still Americans, and the Constitution still applies. You can't just say "ooh, So-and-so hangs out with naughty people!" and expect that to fly in the face of the First Amendment right to Freedom of Association (nevermind the other 9).

All that goes doubly so when the Executive Branch claims the power to unilaterally declare which people are "enemies" this month — a category that's gotten progressively broader and broader since 9/11. In a matter of days, it expanded from al-Qaeda to the Taliban — no tears wept there — and then onward to Saddam Hussein, and then to every Iraqi who didn't view foreign soldiers in their homeland as liberators. If those same Iraqis had been Americans repelling a Soviet invasion 30 years ago, using the same guerrilla tactics and IEDs against Soviet troops, those same Republicans would be calling them heroes and patriots, and the Soviets would be scratching their heads wondering why we didn't appreciate their wonderful gifts of communism and more efficient government. (That's not to say that democracy isn't the better system in both cases — it is — but there's no sense in trying to craft a democratic country out of a culture that's hostile to the very idea, especially by invading them first.)

Re:slashkos

[sumdumass]

WTF is the legal difference between "Americans" and "Americans talking to the enemy"? They're still Americans, and the Constitution still applies. You can't just say "ooh, So-and-so hangs out with naughty people!" and expect that to fly in the face of the First Amendment right to Freedom of Association (nevermind the other 9).

If you don't understand that, you have no place making an argument about it or participating in the discussion. You see, the consitution doesn't say the cops cannot search you. It doesn't say they cannot listen to your conversations. What it does say is that certain elements must be present first that makes it not unreasonable for them to do so. Part of this is a probable cause which has been debated and changed from time to time by congress as well as the courts.

Let me ask you, if a cop wants to bug your appartment and listen to your phone calls, he needs a warrant, right? If they want to do the same to your friends they need a warrant right? Now what if one of your friends says in order to get out of as much trouble for dealing drugs that I could be in, I will let you listen to who calls me and bug my apartment, Now they don't need a warrant because they had a legal reason to be there. Now imagine in any of the situation where the cops would have to stop listening to anyone but the person they bugged because they didn't have a specific warrant for the other person. Sound absurd right? because there is a probable cause right? Because it isn't unreasonable when the cops are listening in on a criminal to hear what is being said to someone else. This all falls within the fourth amendment and the constitution.

The domestic wiretaps are no different. Except instead of listening because they are Russian or Chinese, they were listening because they were terrorist or suspected terrorist and people providing material aid and support for terrorist who wanted to hurt Americans and American interest. This passes the fourth amendment's reasonable requirement for a search by any means. The difference between listening to "Americans" and "Americans talking to the enemy" is where the reasonableness comes in. Because we know the constitution says you are protected from unreasonable searches, not all of them.

Now, if you seem to think that it is reasonable for someone to talk to a person bent on killing innocent people and causing harm to Americans, then we can debate the extent of your lunacy. For the most part, it isn't unreasonable to listen to people who could be offering aid and support as well as acting in concert with them.

All that goes doubly so when the Executive Branch claims the power to unilaterally declare which people are "enemies" this month -- a category that's gotten progressively broader and broader since 9/11. In a matter of days, it expanded from al-Qaeda to the Taliban -- no tears wept there -- and then onward to Saddam Hussein, and then to every Iraqi who didn't view foreign soldiers in their homeland as liberators. If those same Iraqis had been Americans repelling a Soviet invasion 30 years ago, using the same guerrilla tactics and IEDs against Soviet troops, those same Republicans would be calling them heroes and patriots, and the Soviets would be scratching their heads wondering why we didn't appreciate their wonderful gifts of communism and more efficient government. (That's not to say that democracy isn't the better system in both cases -- it is -- but there's no sense in trying to craft a democratic country out of a culture that's hostile to the very idea, especially by invading them first.)

You have already showed how small of an understanding you have in matters more important then this. However, I will still entertain you with some ideas on your wrongfulness. And BTW, just because you believe really really hard doesn't make it true just like it won't make the pixies of the bubble yum forest appear. SI i suggest the after reading this reply, you get a grip on reality an

Re:slashkos

[gilroy]

Blockqoth the poster:

As the parent said "he is listening in on you" is completely false unless you are talking to the enemy of America.

No, it's completely false unless he says you are talking to the enemy of America. The President steadfastly refuses any sort of overview, review, or check of his declarations (or those made in his name by subordinates). There's no test to see whether he's right when he says the person is talking to an enemy. It's the ultimate in "Trust me -- I'm from the government". Frankly, I'm astounded by how many nominal conservatives are willing to assign that sort of authority over to any one person.

There are many dangerous things in this program. Not the least is the idea that the President can make such determinations and not be subject to review by the other branches. He's already admitted he's willing -- indeed, proud! -- to break the law, so that removes Congress. Now he's also saying that he, not the courts, make the determination of innocence or guilt. What, exactly, distinguishes that from monarchy?

Re:Interesting ...

[jfern]

Nice try, but no cigar.

Yesterday, some of Bush's defenders pointed out on conservative websites that the Clinton administration had authorized a search of the home of Aldrich Ames, a suspected Soviet spy, without a warrant in 1993.

But legal specialists said the Ames case is irrelevant because it involved a physical search of Ames's home, and the 1978 law did not require warrants for physical searches. The year after the Ames search, 1994, the law was amended to require warrants for physical searches and wiretaps.

Link

What if they don't?

[man_ls]

While overwhelmingly positive, this ruling still has to actually be complied with.

Let's say, for the sake of argument, the Administration refuses to comply. Who goes to jail, and who takes them? Is it the President? The heads of the various organizations that didn't comply? Nobody, since the Judicial branch can't really enforce anything without the cooperation of agencies under other branches of government?

I'd like to know, even if it's an unrealistic situation that they'd flat out ignore that sort of an order.

Re:What if they don't?

[jjohnson]

This is the (predictable) problem with the ./ summary--it gets a few facts right, and misses the point entirely.

The Bush Administration has to respond--that's all. An argument that the ACLU has no goddamned right to see what they're requesting is a response. The judge might rule against the Bush Administration, but that just means years more of the Justice Department's stonewalling that they perfected during the Padilla and Moussaoui fiascos.

After Bush leaves (ever thought of that?)

[Danathar]

Being all up in arms about this stuff is fine. But I have SERIOUS concerns that people are SO foamed up at the mouth with Bush that when the next Democrat wins the presidency everybody will be so happy that nobody will pay attention like they are now.

I predict that with the exception of some high-profile non-productive executive orders the next prez (no matter which party) will keep most the powers that Bush has acquired via executive orders.

I may sound jaded, but let's not delude ourselves.

Re:After Bush leaves (ever thought of that?)

[stubear]

You don't sound jaded, I believe you're spot on. The Democrats are refusing to do anything about the current administration, beyond some token gestures designed to gain good will for their platforms in the upcoming election, because they know they have a shot at obtaining that same level of power put in place by the President Bush. If teh Democrats lose the election in '08, watch every one of they cry bloody murder and work to destroy the powers they failed to obtain.

Re:After Bush leaves (ever thought of that?)

[jjohnson]

I believe that the Republicans will spend every moment of the next Democratic presidency screeching about any use of executive privilege at all; I believe that the Republicans who know the details of the powers the Bush Administration have grabbed, will at every possible opportunity accuse the Democratic president of misusing those powers.

I think that the Democratic president will make a very public showing of repudiating and rescinding these powers because that's the only PR defense against Republican charges of using the same powers that they complained about when Bush was doing it. And I don't think it'll make much difference at all in how the executive has historically operated.

One of the things that makes so little sense about the Bush Administration is that everything it's done, and had done by executive agencies, probably could have been done without the bald assertion of the theory of the unitary executive. I mean, do you really believe that under Reagan and LBJ that nobody suffered "extraordinary rendition"? That the NSA and the CIA weren't tapping American phones without a warrant? (Look up the Church Commission.)

What's gotten Bush in so much trouble is trying to officially extend the powers of the presidency by setting precedents: telling Congress they have no right to actual oversight; using signing statements to expressly override the purpose of legislation; scorched earth legal tactics to avoid turning over documents or accepting judicial rulings.

When history writes the story of the Bush Administration, it won't be the story of Guantanamo and the FISA court. It'll be the story of how a group of Texas Republicans tried to turn the presidency in a kingship.

Re:After Bush leaves (ever thought of that?)

[jjohnson]

In fairness to Congressional Democrats, they may have titular control of Congress, and control of the committees (which grants broad investigative powers that they're using), they're hamstrung by their bare majority in the Senate. The House has passed all of Nancy Pelosi's bills that she promised, only to see them get filibustered in the Senate (meaning that the Senate equivalent bill that gets rationalized in committee with the House bill never gets passed). The Republicans in the Senate have one strategy: prevent the Democrats from looking effective in Congress, and the makeup of the Senate (with Bush's veto behind it) makes that all too easy.

If the Democrats had a veto-proof majority in the Senate (66 seats), they would surely send a bill to Bush tying funding for the Iraq war directly to a withdrawal date--they would love for the withdrawal and the subsequent bloodbath to happen while Bush is president so they can call it "Bush's war", and blame him solely for everything that went wrong. They would also look strong, standing up to a president and carrying out the people's (poll-driven) will. As it is, a Democratic president is going to have to wiggle out of Iraq, and will share some of the blame for how badly it goes and the subsequent mess.

If they had a filibuster proof majority (60 seats) they'd send even harsher bills to Bush, knowing they'd be vetoed, but making the Democrats look tough and effective and blaming Bush for rejecting the clear expression of the people's will via Congress.

Re:After Bush leaves (ever thought of that?)

[sumdumass]

They would need more then 60 seats. A time table would get vetoed and for once you would see Bush on th offensive and going after his attackers.

He would probably call a national press conference and reserve time on TV and say that congress is playing games with out soldiers lives, explain the he vetoed the bill because of unrealistic demands, say something about we are all going to die if Iraq fails and then name a few key democrats who are doing it.

The public would then flood the offices with phone calls and tell them to quit playing with the soldiers lives and they would stop it. In order to do how you say, they need to be able to break a veto.

Re:After Bush leaves (ever thought of that?)

[jjohnson]

I'm saying that if they couldn't break a veto but could beat a filibuster, they would go on the offensive. Bush can thump his chest all he wants on national TV, but the public has turned against him, and if the Democrats in Congress could point to a tough bill and say "the only thing standing between you and Johnny coming home is Bush's veto", they'd win the PR war, especially heading into the 2008 elections. It would look good to the moderates and independents who want to see something done that signals the Iraq war is coming to some sort of an end, and as a bonus to the Dems, save them from having to actually figure a way out of the mess.

Re:After Bush leaves (ever thought of that?)

[KrizDog]

It's much simpler but since none of us has been properly taught how our government works, this isn't quite as obvious as it should be.

Dems don't need a veto proof majority, they have control of the house and senate. They write the legislation. They don't have to send a bill granting Bush unconditional funding. Dems can block any bill they don't like too....

Bush can veto any bill he wants, but they don't have to give him unconditional funding either. This is how you force timetables upon an unwilling president. Either he signs the bills the Dems send him or he must use the remaining funds to bring our boys home. Chances are he will take the funds to buy a few more months to plunder.

Re:After Bush leaves (ever thought of that?)

[sumdumass]

I don't think it would work that way. The people who are most worried about johny being over there are the relatives of johnny and they appear to be supporting him. Don't confuse this with Vietnam where people were drafted and forced to goto war.

But when the American public finds out that our country sent soldiers to die because congress cannot get a proper funding bill to the president, the people playing political games with Johnny's life would have hell to pay. And as to the point of America turning against Bush. You can look and see that when Bush stands in front making claims in press releases, his numbers go up. This last bit where he vetoed a bill and congress had to give it back without all the junk actually gave an increase to his numbers. And something the I think you are also neglecting is that congresses approval ratings are actually lower then the presidents.

It would work as you think. If Bush put up a fight and counters some things instead of letting them go, he would be back on top in an instant.

Re:After Bush leaves (ever thought of that?)

[mmuskratt]

Bush wants to be President-for-life (ever thought of that?)

Here's the formula. It started during Nixon, but really gained steam in '94 with Republican control of Congress. Then they weakened Clinton with a bogus impeachment process. Fox News was created as the propaganda arm, and they strongarmed all the other news agencies like CNN to follow suit. By purchasing public radio and granting corporate control of the message, they grew the noise machine preceding the elections in 2000. Then they stole 2000, and had control of the 3 branches of government.

Everything since then has been weakening the powers of the Legislative Branch, and bolstering the Unitary Executive...the 2 SC appointments effectively put the court into their pockets, so anything they do will receive a favorable ruling. The next step was to weaken the military, and form a merc force (seen in New Orleans as a training exercise - the NG is in Iraq), while giving their corporate cronies all the money in tax breaks and no-bid contracts. Fascism at its finest. Bush has set up the rules to suspend elections, and everything they've done has had a purpose. What makes you think he intends to leave office? However unpopular he may sound, it is pretty clear that they don't think they will have to leave office if there is, say, another Pearl Harbor type event...and it was noted during the latest capitulation over FISA by the Democrats that these folks intend to either plan one, or let one happen.

Re:After Bush leaves (ever thought of that?)

[jjohnson]

The problem is the Republicans filibustering in the Senate. Without 60 votes there, the Democrats can't win a vote for cloture, which moves the bill from committee to the Senate for an up or down vote. To get a bill through the Senate they have to make a deal with Republicans, who won't allow a timetable bill to go through. They're not allowing much of anything to go through, either, because they want to prevent the Democrats from looking effective.

Re:After Bush leaves (ever thought of that?)

[Danathar]

And HOW does this apply to my comment? Sounds like a random comment

Re:After Bush leaves (ever thought of that?)

[jjohnson]

I replied to your comment directly in another post. My comment to which you're replying was in response to a poster who said that the Congressional Democrats have done nothing to end the war; I pointed out that they don't have the majority needed in Congress to force anything to happen to end the war, and Congressional Republicans are preventing them from doing so because they don't want the Dems to look effective, to prevent them from going into the 2008 elections saying "you wanted the war to end; we ended it."

Re:After Bush leaves (ever thought of that?)

[Copid]

It would work as you think. If Bush put up a fight and counters some things instead of letting them go, he would be back on top in an instant.

And he absolutely would. I wouldn't put any money on Congress in a game of "Who will indifferently watch more of other people's kids die" chicken if it was played against him. Not that I think that Congress is all that much more morally connected to the well-being of the troops--they're just more immediately connected to the outrage of their families.

Re:After Bush leaves (ever thought of that?)

[sumdumass]

I think I worded that wrong. Would should have been wouldn't. But I think you got the idea.

Most of the families of the troops aren't outraged. I'm sure you can find some who are. It isn't like there hasn't been an attempt to outrage them either. Most of the outrage comes from people who have issues with Bush anyways. Stunts like Kerry calling everyone who volunteers in the military imbeciles or idiots with no future kind of had a reverse effect. I know that wasn't what he said, but that is what was heard by a lot of the families who ended up rallying around the president.

Congress already has a lower approval rating the the president does. If there is a game of kill the protector in order to advance political advantages, congress would be the ones taking the hit because they are the ones changing the game midstream. Most Americans would probably see it like Vietnam where we lost a lot more people after congress started screwing with funding. And now that reports from even some liberal leaning sources are starting to say that the surge was/is having a positive effect on the places where it means the most, and rangling of the funding can easily be taken as an attempt to force the troops into a losing situation. It would be very easy for someone to make the statement that every time something starts going good over there, certain members of congress attempt to directly counter the efforts and take us several steps back. I think if it is done correctly, any attempt at playing politics with the funding of the troops can place the blame for th failings onto congress with somewhat of a believable sense of reality. Remember, we are talking about Joe Sixpack who is easily excitable, not people who have followed the course of events close enough to know better. The groundwork has already been laid with the cut and run slogans. Congress is in a dangerous spot. Contrary to popular belief, the last election wasn't a mandate in the war as much as it was about other things in the election.

Re:After Bush leaves (ever thought of that?)

[KrizDog]

And neither can the republicans....so why give in?

Re:Interesting ...

[bmo]

"actually, Clinton used warrentless wiretaps in the Ames case."

Under the rules, you can do the tap or search and go back later and get the warrant within a certain time frame. It's a few days, IIRC. It sounds backwards, but it's better than the alternative of the "bad old days" when there wasn't _any_ way to conduct secret wiretaps with any guidance, so the FBI just did them willy nilly, collecting evidence that would never see the light of day in a real courtroom, because it wouldn't be admissible. The FISA court is a way to have *some* oversight, even though most people view it as a rubber stamp, and actually let some evidence be used in open court.

While people gnashed and wailed at Clinton for the expansion of these rules, it's the Bush administration that treats even these loosened rules as an obstacle. I mean, c'mon, they can't come up with "probable cause" even *after* the search?

--
BMO

Re:FWIW

[fyngyrz]

No... but somewhere, a computer just set the flag for "irrational behavior" in your file to True. So if they need to come to get you for any reason, they'll probably come with guns drawn. Good job. You really showed them something, didn't you?

In other news...

[sgilti]

the FISA court has announced that it will be stepping down at the end of the month, for personal reasons. It claims to have been mulling over this decision for months.

More tan that.

[Irvu]

Actually this administration has said that the Judicial branch as a whole is an obstacle. They have sought to circumvent every level of the court system and complained about them publicly. Keep in mind that Federal Judges rotate through the FISA court on fixed terms there are no judges who are "just FISA". What this suggests is that many federal judges are pissed at being called at best irrelevant or at worst Anti-American. One would hope that Congress also discovers a spine at some point.

Re:More tan that.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, they're almost there. Next week they're going to hold a non-binding vote on whether or not a spine is a good thing.

Re:More tan that.

[Forbman]

It's finally dawned on me. After recently watching "Monty Python's Life Of Brian", the democratic congressional leadership is like the People's Front of Judea (or is the the Judean People's Front? Fuck you!!!). And the American public right now is like the crowd following Brian as he runs from the Romans. His shoe has fallen off. "He has given us a sign! we should all take off our shoes!" "The gourd! Follow the Gourd!" (the shoe is going to be Guiliani, and the gourd is Romney).

The democratic leadership spends their time dickering about all sorts of irrelevant bullshit, dancing around the fact that they don't like to make, as John McCain's book title says, The Hard Choices. It is made by a bunch of great compromisers, and not enough back-alley street fightin' assholes who won't take no for an answer.

Too bad. As glad as I was to see the results of the 2006 election cycle, I don't know if there is enough collective spine in them to actually DO anything of merit, except spin around, make lots of noise, and in the end just have the usual value-less statements in 2008 (for the House and Senate elections, not Prez), "we actually got a lot done". Just as empty and bogus as GWB's "political capital" soundbite, Karl Rove's cocky proclamations, etc.

As far as Democratic candidates go, there really are only two that seem to have some sort of spine: Barracks Obama and Mike Gravel. Edwards and Clinton are willing to say anything, more (clinton) or less (edwards) to get the nomination and election, because that is what they want. They want the position, they don't want to serve. Their goals are self-focused. Their ambition is transparant. Their hypocrisy is obvious to most outside them, but not to their supporters, and definitely NOT to themselves (Clinton forcing the Prez to shut down the Navy's training range in Puerto Rico, to satisfy a few PR voters in NYC, and then saying, "I support the troops!" just a short time later, as luck would have it).

They are just like some of the no-talent white trash who go on to "American Idol" auditions, happen to get taped getting ripped a new one by Simon Cowell, and are then pissed off as they leave. Except no one has yet to step up and actually BE simon cowell to them.

Re:And "liberals" do anything to "get" Bush

[The Master Control P]

Including labeling fanatical Islamic terrorists who would kill them in a moment's notice "freedom fighters".

Ah, the neverending ability of humans to rationalize evil as long as it's someone else suffering from it. I imagine you cheered Osama bin Laden on as he terrorized and killed Soviet troops during the 80s? It was okay, because they were the Others.

Re:And "liberals" do anything to "get" Bush

[Doc Ruby]

Let's see your facts instead of your unsupported rant. Just like an Anonymous Bush worshipper Coward to do (poorly) exactly what you criticize most.

If liberals would do "anything", they'd just impeach him on the mountain of evidence of his many crimes. Like the many FISA violations a Federal court already decided Bush violated again and again, and now the FISA Court itself is trying to stop with the action we're discussing in this story. Are you ready now to say that the FISA Court is "liberal" and just out to get Bush?

And how easily you pisspants Republican cowards morph from talking about how Bush illegally spies on Americans into your demented "support the troops: keep killing them". No one is rooting for Americans to lose. Some of us are pointing out that they have already lost, as is perfectly clear, because they were run into the ground by the Bush regime you worship. This isn't a fucking Cubs game, you obnoxious Anonymous bloodthirsty Coward. Your stupid insanity is killing American troops for nothing, and making us less safe every day.

Like thinking that pointing out a problem that has to be solved by stopping its perpetuation is somehow rooting for the problem. How do you manage to even brush your teeth with insanity like that ruling your brain? I bet you don't.

Quoting a Washington Republican Post writer predicting problems for Democrats is just the kind of stupid Republican faceplant that is keeping this war going, well after it's hopeless.

And claiming that liberals believe the US is the greatest evil in the world is more of the same denial projection you broken "Conservatives" can't help but spew. Since you've attacked all the freedom and rights protection that makes this country the best, while scrambling to find someone standing up for them to blame it on.

Your factfree post is a sniveling example of why you Conservatives must never be allowed to wield any power in America ever again. Your "Conservative Revolution" has thrown this country low. I bet you've got a similar insane rant insisting that we must torture anyone who gets near our roundup crews.

You're a Coward. Not just an Anonymous Coward, but a scared baby who will do anything so the big men who say "boo" will tell you you're "strong". Just get out of the way already and let the adults run the country. We might have a chance to save it so you can live in it a free man. Not the abject slave you and your Bush regime have worked so hard to lower us all to.

Re:americans are fucking sheep

[deniable]

Were you using the word fucking as an adjective or a verb? If it's a verb, and given that you are Adult Film Producer, have you produced any evidence of this? There are several South Pacific markets that want to know.

Patriot Act

[flyingfsck]

As far as I can figure, the actual issue is that the Administration holds that the Patriot Act overrules the older legislation and that they are not bound by the FISA process. I tend to agree, since that was the whole point of passing the Patriot Act. It basically suspends part of the constitution and places the USA in a partial state of emergency.

Re:Patriot Act

[NMerriam]

As far as I can figure, the actual issue is that the Administration holds that the Patriot Act overrules the older legislation and that they are not bound by the FISA process. I tend to agree, since that was the whole point of passing the Patriot Act. It basically suspends part of the constitution and places the USA in a partial state of emergency.

It has nothing to do with the Patriot Act, the administration has basically argued that because we're at war and he's the commander in chief of the military, he can essentially do whatever is necessary to do that job, including collect intelligence, and that the Congress simply has no constitutional authority to restrict him. The argument was not that Patriot superseded FISA, it's that Congress had no authority to pass FISA in the first place decades ago because the President simply can't be told what he's allowed or not allowed to do if he's acting as commander in chief.

Of course, the argument is complete bullshit and the administration knows it (much like the whole "the vice president is not a part of the executive branch") but it provides enough of a fig leaf that they can drag out any challenges to their claims for years in court and in the meantime do whatever they want. They agreed to voluntarily follow the FISA procedures after it became too much of a public argument, but they still don't accept that they are required to.

Re:And how many demagogues voted *for* that?

[sumdumass]

f it was so "unconstitutional" and "dangerous" and such an "affront to liberty" and a gigantic "invasion of privacy" a few months ago, what the fuck are they doing voting FOR a law that specifically authorizes those exact same acts?

Maybe a few months ago, they were campaigning and like other things, this was just something else to get votes for them. Actually, it would be more like making sure the opponent doesn't get votes.

Sounds about right to me. they think it is necessary but was willing to dog it when they could benefit from it.

NSA never had warrants to do what they do

[thule]

It has been pointed out multiple times that the *target* of the wiretaps are not US Persons. The *targets* are people outside the US. It has long been the job of the NSA/CIA to monitor foreign communications. There is nothing new here. The NSA wasn't involved in criminal law and law enforcement of people living in the US, so they never needed a warrant.

If you were to call a suspect that has his phone tapped under a warrant, *your* side of the conversation can be monitored. They do not need a warrant for both sides, just the side that they have cause to monitor. Furthermore, if you say something incriminating, the police could get a warrant to tap *your* phone.

The new thing that changed is that if the NSA captured a call to a person inside the US, the information could be used to get a warrant and further a criminal investigation. Previous to 9/11 this was a big no-no. When this started happening the FISA judges complained about it. They wanted groundwork before the FISA request. They felt that NSA leads are tainted. Here is an article that touches on this:

Secret Court's Judges Were Warned About NSA Spy Data

"The revelations infuriated U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly -- who, like her predecessor, Royce C. Lamberth, had expressed serious doubts about whether the warrantless monitoring of phone calls and e-mails ordered by Bush was legal. Both judges had insisted that no information obtained this way be used to gain warrants from their court, according to government sources, and both had been assured by administration officials it would never happen."

Re:NSA never had warrants to do what they do

[einhverfr]

Wow. THanks for the article. Quite chilling, but it also shows that there are responsible people in the current administration and in the FISA Court who are willing to help try to ensure that the rules are followed even if the Administration's commitment to the rules as a whole seems to be lacking.

Re:Interesting ...

[PMuse]

This administration, however, has wilfully ignored them _and_ said out in public that the FISA court system is an obstacle. Of course the FISA court system is an obstacle. So were the levies in New Orleans. The^H^H^H One of the many problems with this administration is that they don't understand the value of a obstacle.

For that matter, the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution were designed to be obstacles.

Re:Patriot Act -- USAPATRIOT

[Hal9000_sn3]

There is no such thing as a Patriot Act, there is a USAPATRIOT Act, calling it a Patriot Act makes it seem like it has something to do with patriotism, which it does not.

Re:partisanship accusations don't hold water

[lheal]

Thanks, AC. I'm sure you won't read this, but maybe someone else will.

I'm no fan of George Bush. I just don't think he's the demon everyone makes him out to be. He's just a guy trying to do a really hard job.

See, I don't think the President has 'trampled all over the Constitution'. If he has broken some rule or another, then the damage has been inadvertent, collateral and temporary, not part of a key piece of some grand dictatorial design.

Nice to hear, but possibly meaningless

[moxley]

It's nice to hear that even the FISA court is demanding that the Administration respect the law - but there are two problems I see that keep me from feeling like this is going to make any difference.

The first is that this administration just ignores laws and other governmental agencies/branches at will. They consider themselves above the law and act accordinly. They ignored congressional subpoenas, so I doubt that the FISA court is going to have any more luck - and that brings me to the second issue I have:

The second issue is that this could all be a show; that is how politics seems to work in the US. They very possibly could have worked this out in a back room somewhere and have to look impartial, but if there was true impartiality and true consideration of the law and respect for the constitution, for the country, for the people of the country, we'd never be where we are now.

Membership

[Kludge]

Join. Enough said.

http://action.aclu.org/site/PageServer?pagename=FJ _donationhome

Re:Membership

[tdent1138]

I would not join this Communist front group to save the world from "global warming". But by all means, /. seems like a good community for them to recruit from.

Is this Irony?

[thethibs]

Interesting that what's at issue here is enhanced powers given to the Bush administration by a Democratic Congress.

I'm astonished anyone can stop laughing long enough to discuss it at all.

ROFL

[petermgreen]

mod parent up

Re:Just *who* will supply that protection?

[Doc Ruby]

Yes, Anonymous illiterate Coward, the government. If you were to read the 2nd Amendment where it says its rationalization is because "a well regulated militia [is] necessary to the security of a free state". Just because your buddies shoot trees every weekend when you're not playing MMORPGs doesn't make you a militia.

You're not familiar with the rest of the Bill of Rights, either. Which includes freedom of assembly and the devolution of unenumerated rights to "the states" and to "the people", to name a few, none of which are "individual" rights.

In other words, you're talking gibberish, especially the part where you preposterously claim the 2nd Amendment "quite clearly" protects handguns, which practically didn't exist in the 1780s, and which absolutely are not distinguished in any way in the Amendment.

You can't even read the Constitution, or lie about it effectively, and you want unrestricted weapons? You shouldn't be let out of your mother's basement.

Re:Just *who* will supply that protection?

[colinrichardday]

Are you saying that the Constitution means "people" collectively rather than distributively?

Re:Patriot Act -- USAPATRIOT

[Hal9000_sn3]

The title usually abbreviated as USAPATRIOT, quoted from the bill itself is:

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE AND TABLE OF CONTENTS. (a) SHORT TITLE- This Act may be cited as the `Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA PATRIOT ACT) Act of 2001'.

Re:Gun laws are not now 'relatively unrestricted'

[wwahammy]

I live in Wisconsin, a state where deer hunting is a tradition that in many cases overrides Thanksgiving since they are at the same time. My uncle and cousins have over many Thanksgivings came into the house for lunch and went back out to their tree stands right after they finished and we're not the only family where that is a tradition. So yes, I do live in the United States.

I didn't say mostly unrestricted, I said RELATIVELY unrestricted. We have some of the loosest gun laws in the world. As the ACLU points out, if you believe in an unrestricted right of people to keep and bear arms you believe in a person's right to own machine guns, bazookas, missiles and any other type of arms you can think of. The issue is not whether to restrict possession of weapons, it's how much. I happen to think people, with few exceptions, have the right under the second amendment to possess non-automatic weapons which is basically the law in the United States.

And you are right that education and ethics is incredibly important. Unfortunately, we really can't require people to get education in firearms use or safety. Most states don't allow that and in my interpretation of the second amendment I don't think we can require it anyways (then again my interpretation doesn't matter that much but whatever).

Re:partisanship accusations don't hold water

[einhverfr]

Thanks, AC. I'm sure you won't read this, but maybe someone else will. Well, someone else did :-)

I'm no fan of George Bush. I just don't think he's the demon everyone makes him out to be. He's just a guy trying to do a really hard job. I would not classify Bush as a demon. He has done some good stuff, some bad stuff, and some horrible stuff. But so have most Presidents. My large fear relates to the structure of the government. We are a government of Laws. not a government of Men.

I have been known to point out that, since the only other two presidents named "George" were Washington and George H. W. Bush, it is not incorrect to refer to the current president as George III.

See, I don't think the President has 'trampled all over the Constitution'. If he has broken some rule or another, then the damage has been inadvertent, collateral and temporary, not part of a key piece of some grand dictatorial design. How does your second point support the first? I would certainly think that for the Executive to argue that Habeas Corpus doesn't apply if they merely allege terrorist links to American citizens arrested here at home, that is "trampling all over the Constitution" regardless of intent. This great writ is the keystone of our liberty-- erase it at the will of the Executive and we are no longer Free, and we are no longer a government of Laws but of Men. Is there any other definition of a dictatorship?

I am willing to grant that Bush himself does not appear to be intending to set up a dictatorship for himself. If he did, I think we would have seen more aggressive attacks on checks and balances within our government such that he might have had a chance to achieve absolute power within his eight years in office. Since the attacks themselves seem unable to accomplish this within the time he *can* remain in office, absolute power is obviously not his goal.

However, I think it would be foolish to think that the Bush Administration is not pushing us in the direction of dictatorship regardless of their intentions.

Re:Just *who* will supply that protection?

[Doc Ruby]

No, I'm saying that devolving rights to "the people", when not enumerated to the United States or to the states themselves, is not exclusively "individual rights". It treats the people either collectively or distributively, as appropriate. But not exclusively distributively as the post to which I replied claimed.

Re:The quote was from a Dem House Whip, dumbass

[Doc Ruby]

No, Anonymous Republican fascist Coward, Clyburn did not say what you are claiming he was quoted as saying. The WP reporter interpreted it in paraphrase to suit his own typically Washington Post Republican bias. And you are lying to say that Clyburn was quoted as saying that.

What Clyburn actually was quoted as saying:

"I think there would be enough support in that [rightwing Democrats] group to want to stay the course and if the Republicans were to stay united as they have been, then it would be a problem for us [to easily change course in Iraq]" Clyburn said. "We, by and large, would be wise to wait on the report."
[...]
Clyburn said that [a generally positive report] would be "a real big problem for us."

Which the WP reporters paraphrased as:

House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) said Mond, ay that a strongly positive report on progress on Iraq by Army Gen. David Petraeus likely would split Democrats in the House and impede his party's efforts to press for a timetable to end the war.
[...]
Without their [rightwing Democrats'] support, he said, Democratic leaders would find it virtually impossible to pass legislation setting a timetable for withdrawal.

Balz and Cillizza are two Republican boosters writing for the Republican corporate media Washington Post. The simple fact is that Democrats have a small (but larger than their majority margin) fifth column faction, the "Blue Dog Democrats", who vote with Republicans, and who wait for any pro-Bush propaganda Bush manufactures as excuse to vote with Republicans. Balz and Cillizza have turned that propaganda problem for the Whip, who marshals Democratic votes on bills, into a material problem for Democrats, implying that Democrats would find winning to be a problem. When the problem is that Bush, not Petraeus, is writing the report to lie about progress when it's still a worsening catastrophe.

And of course you pick up that propaganda victory and run with it, Anonymous Republican Coward. Because you are a coward. You let Bush scare you into invading, when we needed to capture Osama (where is he, anyway, tough guy?) and destroy the Taliban, who your DC boys are letting retake Afghanistan and threaten the (nuclear) Pakistan that harbors them.

I'd point out that Vietnam's fate, after we stopped propping up its fake government to massacre its people, was to next successfully defend itself from the China (now among our greatest "allies" with Pakistan) we pretended was going to engulf the world in Communism. Next Vietnam shut down the Cambodian genocide we created with our covert war there. And since then, Vietnam has finally lived in decades of peace after centuries of the colonialism your favorite US buddies (including specifically Cheney, Rumsfeld and their cronies) fought so hard (though not in person, of course, but in air-conditioned remote control offices) to keep for themselves. But lost, and lost horribly, at such terrible, irreparable cost to America. Instead of just accepting Ho Chih Minh's post-WWII plea for a Marshall Plan for SE Asia, which would have given the US the same leverage there against China that we had in Europe against Russia. But the Vietnam War was too profitable for US corporations and Cold War fearmongering to Republican cowards like you to pass up. Exactly like those same Republican mass murderers are doing with Iraq right now. I'd point it out, but what's the point? You Republican cowards can't hear the truth about the blood on your hands and the piss in your pants. You need to kill more people to distract yourselves from your record of failure.

You sick bitches have got everything about Iraq wrong, just like you alzheimers fucktards got Vietnam so horribly wrong last time around. You should never be let anywhere near decisionmaking power. O

Re:Patriot Act -- USAPATRIOT

[loqi]

calling it a Patriot Act makes it seem like it has something to do with patriotism

But it does. When a bunch of senators are doped up on "patriotism" following a national tragedy, 99 out of 100 of them are easily manipulated into passing legislation even more corrupt than usual.

Re:Clyburn's - and Dems - goal is to legislate def

[Doc Ruby]

So we should have stayed in Vietnam and lost even worse there too, right, Anonymous loser Coward?

The "good news" propagandized in that WP article is a lie that the White House has already written, regardless of who signs it. But that doesn't penetrate to your shit-scared brain, because all you want to hear is Republican lies, rather than the brutal reality of the butchery you re responsible for, you and the Republicans you worship.

You Republicans have already lost in Iraq. You've taken the greatest army ever assembled, and wasted it on an impossible task: forcing Iraq to work, after destroying it, and ignoring everything wrong with it. Everything that everyone outside the Republican Party told you would make it impossible. But you failed, and destroyed Iraq, and have destroyed much of America, too. And somehow that's the fault of the people who tried to stop you.

You have no standing to say anything worth hearing about war. You act like it's a videogame. How come you are not fighting in Iraq? Because it's "somebody else's problem", right?

I've been to the Mideast. I've spent time in Egypt, Israel and Turkey. I was headed to Iran before you assholes blew up the world. I was headed to India before you assholes let Osama attack us. I've been to dozens of foreign countries, even lived for years abroad. So shut up. Really. SHUT UP. Your endless running your coward mouth, repeating the nonsense your Republicans pump you on your talkradio and cable "news" shows are all just TV bullshit, not reality.

You want to impress me, go fight in Iraq. Of course you won't - you're a coward. So just shut up while we clean up after the mess you baby elephants have left wherever you've grabbed the power. And watch as we protect you from the hornets nest you insisted on kicking the last 6 years.

Coward.

Re:"Shut up" is the best you can do?

[Doc Ruby]

Since you're totally wrong about Vietnam, and have been totally wrong about Iraq, "shut up" is all you get.

You're a bloodthirsty Anonymous Coward with only a perverted sense of history. Next you'll be telling me that Dixie really won the "War of Northern Aggression".

You're increasingly irrelevant as Americans no longer care about your lies, and your idiotic president's time controlling Iraq is finally drawing to a close.

So "shut up" is all you rate. You should feel lucky anyone bothers to notice your yapping at all.

Give that man a cigar!

[gilroy]

Finally, someone who sees the actual important point (even though they don't seem to realize it):

It doesn't say they cannot listen to your conversations. What it does say is that certain elements must be present first that makes it not unreasonable for them to do so. Part of this is a probable cause which has been debated and changed from time to time by congress as well as the courts. [emphasis added]

Indeed, Congress and the courts did lay down pretty clear and well-crafted guidelines as to when wiretapping, etc., would be "reasonable" (even against US citizens). It's 50 U.S.C. 1801-1811, 1821-29, 1841-46, and 1861-62, better known as -- wait for it! -- the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act or FISA. Despite recent accusations, this law has been functional and well-settled for nearly 30 years, updated occasionally as new technologies have demanded. The President has openly admitted to authorizing warrantless wiretaps in direct and obvious violation of FISA, which is (by the way) a felony under that statute. Asked specifically if he needed new tools to fight the Bad Guys, he assured Congress and the American people that he in fact had all the tools he needed -- assurances made at the exact same time he was willfully disregarding a settled statute.

The only relevant fact is that the President of the United States, by his own (proud!) admission, has repeatedly committed explicit felonies under well-established law -- that he has arrogated to himself a monarchical power not granted him by the Congress, by the Constitution, or by the people.

Re:Give that man a cigar!

[sumdumass]

Yes I do get it. However There is an out to the idea that this law can be applied in this particular circumstance. This doesn't even mention that nothing in the constitution limits congress to the sole dictator of what is or isn't reasonable. But I won't touch on that much because the important part is the understanding that you have shown above what others have.

Now the out I was mentioning is the idea that the separation of powers means that one branch of the government cannot undermine the other by taking away or restricting duties and obligations the constitution imposed on the other branches others. The courts could not say that congress cannot pass any laws and congress couldn't pass a law saying the president would be guilty of a felony if he didn't sign every bill presented to him into law. similarly congress and then president both couldn't pass a law saying no court will find this law unconstitutional. Now, keeping this in mind, there is a role the president plays according to the constitution which is commander in chief. One of the basic constructs and key fundamental necessities of commander in chief would be collecting battlefield inteligence in order to execute the position informed and effectively. Congress could not stop the president from collecting this battlefield inteligence which would include the people talking/in conversation to the enemy including Americans too. And the constitutional question would be, in a time of war, is it unreasonable to search Americans in concert with the enemy and directly in their presence? That is the essence of what is going on, they are listening to the enemy or suspected enemy and not hanging up when an American gets on the line.

Whether I believe this or not isn't a point for debate. This is a sound principle that if in doubt needs to be tested by the courts. This is how the checks and balances work and I believe this was the entire purpose of releasing the documents that spurred this case on. However, I do question a judge who is not only intricately tied to both the FISA courts and the president's bypassing it, failing to recuse herself and place jurisdiction with another court because of conflicts in interest. Her job security and power in the FISA panel, A secrete court that isn't operating in secrecy for some reason and which should not be accessible by regular public citizens, shows a bias in the process we are discussing.

It wasn't my intent to claim the president in innocent of wrong doing. I presented that case because the conversation has progressed to this point. My original point still stands in that the OP I originally responded to was crafting the facts in order to bash the president in ways he didn't deserve. The GP that refused to admit their lack of understanding of the constitution was doing the same by demanding that you needed a warrant in every case which is false. Just like the settled FISA laws and the cases surounding them, the separations of powers and the inability of congress to restrict other branches in their constitutionally mandates roles have been long settled. The real question here is can congress regulate what the military or what commander in chief can do in time of conflict concerning the very essential tools of commanding the conflict in the interest of the united states.

Congress does have some powers in regulating the military so the question would be do the powers go this far. If the answer is yes, then the president did violate the law and subjected himself to a felony offense. If the answer is no to this particular question, then it is obvious that in this particular situation, the FISA laws couldn't be applied because they would violate the separation of powers. And just like the surveillance was limited to certain citizens in certain roles taking certain actions, the separation of powers would only work in negating the FISA laws in certain situations with certain actions. One of which action requires congress to state we are in a time of war or conflict which it has done sufficiently enough to satisfy the courts already.

Re:Give that man a cigar!

[gilroy]

I appreciate your thoughtful response, which also rises far above the rhetoric being thrown around in this case. That being said, I still think you are wrong. When an implied auxiliary power of the President (his ability to collect battlefield intelligence, pursuant to his Commander-in-Chief role) runs afoul of an explicit statute (FISA), the President's power is at its lowest ebb -- as has been verified by the Supreme Court on numerous occasions, most famously in Truman's seizure of the steel plants. Meanwhile, this Administration continues to argue that any review of the policy, in Congress or the courts, would damage the national security of the United States and therefore our only option is to trust that the President's decisions are uniformly reasonable and correct.

In other words, it's somewhat strange to argue that the Administration is defending Constitutional integrity when it explicitly rejects checks-and-balances while also undermining separation (by ignoring Congress and by arrogating judicial powers to itself).

Oh, they'll comply all right

[kalirion]

FISA: We require you to respond to the ACLU request.

White House: Very well, our response is "Fuck off, traitors."

FISA: The requirement has been technically fulfilled, the best kind of fulfillment.

Re:To quote Nelson Muntz: HA HA

[Doc Ruby]

You people screwed up Iraq, and Vietnam, too. Now you're worshipping a cartoon bully. Who cares what you say?

Sick bitches or the sickest bitches? Who cares.

Goodbye. I only wish I could add "good riddance", but you people are herpes. At least we're not letting you be AIDS.