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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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.

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: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.

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

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.

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.

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

[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]

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

[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]

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]

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

[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: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?)

[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: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: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 -- 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

[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: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