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White House Wins On Spying, Telecom Immunity
EllisDees sends in a Washington Post report that Senate Republicans have outmaneuvered Democrats, who withdrew a more stringent version of legislation to control the government's domestic surveillance program. The legislation that will go forward includes a grant of legal immunity to telecommunications companies that have assisted the program.
I did.
You have to be vocal. "./" the congressional in boxes!!
Think Deeply.
I recommend watching Frontline: Cheney's Law, which aired on Tuesday (the 16th). It's an eye-opening look at the broad expansion of powers that has taken place under Cheney's guidance. This issue of Frontline discusses the wiretap program as well as torture. What surprised me most is that it makes John Ashcroft look like the voice of reason during his years in the administration.
"not laws which de-criminalize what was criminal at the time"
According to FISA, they have 72 hours after tapping a thing, to get a warrant. The phone companies, for FISA to work, must allow the NSA to tap the lines 72 hours in advance of a warrant. The phone companies, have done nothing wrong. The NSA, in this instance, has done nothing wrong. It is only after 72 hours of tapping something that the NSA could have possibly done something wrong. The NSA cannot be expected to also provide the phone company with a warrant that says 'gee, we tapped this line on this date for this guy and these two numbers, but don't tell no one else'.
The phone companies can not compel the NSA to provide the warrant after the 72 hours and even if they did, it wouldn't change the fact that they can't travel back in time 72 hours to not provide them with the information. In short, the phone companies should not be prosecuted because some bureaucratic cya attitude by some namby-pamby pencil pushers get cold feet when their daddy-complex superior had to get his colon scoped and didn't sign the extension for the 72 hours their boss was in the hospital.
Fixed my Ubuntu display finally. It was the video card. Linux rocks.
Well if that's the case I hope we can shut down the Dept. of Health and Human Services along with the Social Security administration, both of which fall far outside the scope of what the framers intended, and combined account for over $1.3 Trillion of the $2.8 Trillion 2007 federal budget.
There were 133,092,565 tax returns filed last year, which means if we shut down HHS and SSA each and every taxpayer could be refunded $9,768.00. Think you can fund your own health care insurance and retirement with $10k per year? Absolutely.
in favor of encrypted, Anonymous P2P.
Those of you wanting real tinfoil hats, should download Waste, I2P, and install them in a hidden truecrypt volume.
But protesting against this abuse and voting for a privacy-supporting candidate is mandatory.
Could the argument be made that the threat of terrorism (especially nuclear terrorism) compares to the threat Lincoln faced? What do you think about that argument?
In that case: If the telcos did nothing wrong, they don't need a law extempting them from prosecution when they won't be found guilty, don't they?
There are more than a few scary comparisons to pre-WWII Germany.
What's even more scary is that no one's even yelling "Godwin" anymore. More and more people are treating this as a valid comparison.
Last post!
Pretty much sums up my opinions also. Our current government and the less than desirable choices available to replace the current leadership leaves me feeling pretty gloomy on the long term outlook of america's stability.
There is really no one thing that I can say is the "Start of the problem" or any one thing corrected that will make any impact on the current situation. Right now the american government is like a condemned house which we should knock down to the foundation and rebuild it fresh new and stable.
Unfortunately, it probably takes a lot longer then 72 hours for any intelligence gathered to reach a person who can actually use the intelligence. 72
That is just how long they have to declare the search to a court. They don't EVER have to tell the subject of the investigation about the wiretap. This is about oversight - not about publicity. The FISA court records remain completely sealed, and the court itself is about as protected as the CIA from evesdropping.
There is no reason that somebody can't bother to tell a secret court about a secret wiretap 3 days after it is placed. The government can act instantly and worry about the paperwork later. And they have PLENTY of people to handle the paperwork...
Legislation granting legal immunity also does not mean that you are legally immune.
Governments can pass whatever laws they like, but if those laws are later found to be unconstitutional, then they are rendered void, and so are immunities granted under them. Admittedly there is no chance of that happening in this case, but still... that's the theory. Pity about the practice.
May the Maths Be with you!
Because the Democratic Party is made up of a bunch of spineless, undisciplined pansies who run in fear at the slightest threat of a showdown, even when in a position that should give THEM the power?
Given their history of trashing rights and the social safety net throughout the 90's, yes, they are spineless. "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", "The End of Welfare as We Know It", bankruptcy "reform", student loan "reform", etc.
But they are also triangulating for 2008. They are allowing the current status quo of trashing the Constitution and Executive/Judicial corruption to continue in the hopes of winning big next November.
Imagine for a bit what would happen if they DID actually stand up to the Republicans. If they refused to fund the war, the Republicans in the Senate would let the rest of the government shut down and promptly go on the news to blame the Democrats. Really, the Republicans don't care if Social Security checks stop going out, or if the EPA has to shut down, or if IRS employees are forced to find other employment for lack of paychecks. If Democrats actually tried to impeach, what is the real likelihood that the country would go under Martial Law? Not since WWII has the country been this close to that.
I'm beginning to understand why the Dems are so powerless. The truth is that the real choice right now for America is a little more bullying for one more year followed by some cleanup legislation resulting in only a few hundred more civilian lives ruined, or the real loss of our entire republic with millions of lives affected and the risk of violence via a totalitarian Republican state ala 1984.
As spineless as the Democrats have been, they are nowhere near the level of outright fascism as the Republicans have been. The Dems want only to make some money and fame and retire in luxury, and they will compromise their constituents a little to get it; the Republicans OTOH are willing to burn the entire nation to the ground if they don't get what they see as owed to them.
I didn't think that the Congress could legislate away our 4th amendment rights.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
Oh great! Now to terrorize Americans al Qaida can just cold-call random numbers in the US from a tapped foreign number to have random families hauled off to Guantánamo for association with a terrorist group. Checking the Caller-ID won't save you either.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more
perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility,
provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and
secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do
ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of
America.
So, what exactly does "the general Welfare" mean?
From:
FEDERALIST No. 23
The Necessity of a Government as Energetic as the One Proposed to the Preservation of the Union
Defective as the present Confederation has been proved to be, this principle appears to have been fully recognized by the framers of it; though they have not made proper or adequate provision for its exercise. Congress have an unlimited discretion to make requisitions of men and money; to govern the army and navy; to direct their operations. As their requisitions are made constitutionally binding upon the States, who are in fact under the most solemn obligations to furnish the supplies required of them, the intention evidently was that the United States should command whatever resources were by them judged requisite to the ``common defense and general welfare.'' It was presumed that a sense of their true interests, and a regard to the dictates of good faith, would be found sufficient pledges for the punctual performance of the duty of the members to the federal head.
FEDERALIST No. 41
General View of the Powers Conferred by The Constitution
A system of government, meant for duration, ought to contemplate these revolutions, and be able to accommodate itself to them. Some, who have not denied the necessity of the power of taxation, have grounded a very fierce attack against the Constitution, on the language in which it is defined. It has been urged and echoed, that the power ``to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts, and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States,'' amounts to an unlimited commission to exercise every power which may be alleged to be necessary for the common defense or general welfare. No stronger proof could be given of the distress under which these writers labor for objections, than their stooping to such a misconstruction. Had no other enumeration or definition of the powers of the Congress been found in the Constitution, than the general expressions just cited, the authors of the objection might have had some color for it; though it would have been difficult to find a reason for so awkward a form of describing an authority to legislate in all possible cases. A power to destroy the freedom of the press, the trial by jury, or even to regulate the course of descents, or the forms of conveyances, must be very singularly expressed by the terms ``to raise money for the general welfare. ''But what color can the objection have, when a specification of the objects alluded to by these general terms immediately follows, and is not even separated by a longer pause than a semicolon? If the different parts of the same instrument ought to be so expounded, as to give meaning to every part which will bear it, shall one part of the same sentence be excluded altogether from a share in the meaning; and shall the more doubtful and indefinite terms be retained in their full extent, and the clear and precise expressions be denied any signification whatsoever? For what purpose could the enumeration of particular powers be inserted, if these and all others were meant to be included in the preceding general power? Nothing is more natural nor common than first to use a general phrase, and then to explain and qualify it by a recital of particulars. But the idea of an enumeration of particulars which neither explain nor qualify the general meaning, and can have no other effect than to confound and mislead, is an absurdity, which, as we are reduced to the dilemma of charging either on the authors of the objection or o
Don't leave your mind so open that your brain falls out. Don't close it so much that you cut off the blood.
Two words:
Democratic. Primary.
Yes, now, vote for every Democrat you see to get rid of the Republicans. But during the primary vote out all the spineless asshat Democrats who continued to enable this Administration.
That includes you, Hillary, the worse 'triangulator' of the bunch, the one who spent all the time 'comprimizing' with the Republicans back in 92 to get a shitty insurance-company-run health care, and then acted surprised when the Republicans refused to vote for it anyway. The one I'm going to have a lot of trouble voting for if she wins the primary, and if someone sane like Bob Dole was running against her, probably wouldn't.
Luckily for her, the Republican are fielding a bunch of Bush v2.0, so the choice is rather easy. (First person to mention Ron Paul get bitchslapped. He's just sane in the single most important way, the way tat all other Republicans are insane, but he's completely insane in other ways.)
In 10 years, I want to see the entire Democratic party replaced. Every single one of these 'triangulators' who didn't stop this war, every one of them who provided cover to Bush, every single damn one of them. I'm putting up with them now to remove this criminal administration, and they are gone as soon as possible.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?