Slashdot Mirror
McCain Supports Warrantless Domestic Surveillance
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "While there have been shifting reports about McCain's view on warrantless wiretapping, nothing could be clearer than the latest comment by McCain adviser Doug Holtz-Eakin, who said, 'We do not know what lies ahead in our nation's fight against radical Islamic extremists, but John McCain will do everything he can to protect Americans from such threats, including asking the telecoms for appropriate assistance to collect intelligence against foreign threats to the United States as authorized by Article II of the Constitution.' Article II, of course, is what Bush has argued gives the President virtually unlimited power during war, and McCain has already voted in favor of Telecom Immunity, though he sometimes mentions, to those asking for accountability, wanting to hold hearings about what the telecoms did."
This is very conclusory. McCain says he is going to be consistent with the Constitution, so that means he supports warrantless surveillance? That's quite the logical leap. This statement is completely unclear. He may easily interpret Article II differently than Bush (and there are many indications that he does) and this statement shows nothing different from that.
Good old Slashdot political smearing.
If you want to read it from his site, there's a pdf that explains: Revise the PATRIOT Act: Barack Obama believes that we must provide law enforcement the tools it needs to investigate, disrupt, and capture terrorists, but he also believes we need real oversight to avoid jeopardizing the rights and ideals of all Americans. There is no reason we cannot fight terrorism while maintaining our civil liberties. Unfortunately, the current administration has abused the powers given to it by the USA PATRIOT Act. A March 2007 Justice Department audit found the FBI improperly and, in some cases, illegally used the PATRIOT Act to secretly obtain personal information about American citizens. As president, Barack Obama would revisit the PATRIOT Act to ensure that there is real and robust oversight of tools like National Security Letters, sneak-and-peek searches, and the use of the material witness provision.
Strengthen Warrantless Wiretap Approval Process: Barack Obama opposed the Bush Administrationâ(TM)s initial policy on warrantless wiretaps because it crossed the line between protecting our national security and eroding the civil liberties of American citizens. As president, Obama would update the Foreign Intelligence Paid for by Obama for America Surveillance Act to provide greater oversight and accountability to the congressional Intelligence Committees to prevent future threats to the rule of law. And another that goes on to say: Eliminate Warrantless Wiretaps. Barack Obama opposed the Bush Administrationâ(TM)s initial policy on warrantless wiretaps because it crossed the line between protecting our national security and eroding the civil liberties of American citizens. As president, Obama would update the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to provide greater oversight and accountability to the congressional intelligence committees to prevent future threats to the rule of law. I'd say (even from a few of his voting records) that he is against it for the most part. Or at the very least, revising it severely.
Doesn't really matter in a two party system though, does it? Take what you can get over the crap I read about in this article from McCain's campaign.
My work here is dung.
They were the best boogie-man ever. The Islamists may, eventually, someday, get nukes. The USSR had enough nukes to sterilize the planet. And a huge conventional army. And chemical and biological weapons galore. As far as keeping the populace pissing itself in fear and doing whatever the authorities tell them to, Islamists just don't hold a candle to our dear former enemies, the Soviets. Well, I suppose they'll have to do until the authorities can cook up something scarier.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
So, by remaining continuously at war, the President has unlimited power?
Brilliant!
What defines a war? Does it have to be against another country? Can it be...
a war on terror?
a war on drugs?
a war on cancer?
a war on poverty?
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
warrantless is meaningless if you have judges in your pocket to give you warrents no?
I'm often positively impressed when politicians change their minds, assuming they did it because they learned more about the issue. I'm not impressed with McCain's descent into the bowels of extreme right wing Bushism because he's done it to appease extremist voters to his own benefit.
"I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
If bribing a judge is an extra impediment, I welcome it.
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
The subversion of the Constitution and what civil rights we have is happening at an astounding rate and is facilitated by both major parties. I would not blame 'the Republicans' for something that is being methodically enacted with the intent and consent of both parties. It is hard for a person to see the whole when their eyes are closed; please let go of your partisan bias and look at the whole. The whole is simple: The Federal Government is expanding and promoting more power for itself, as facilitated by the politicians who are members of that Government. It is in THEIR best interest to continue to diminish your individual rights so that they can grow. If this 'war' is not apparent yet, you need only to do a brief history review of the lineage of the US Federal Government, noting key points where it has expanded or enacted Federal controls over US Citizens or the States of the Union. Remember, the United States was formed under a concept similar to the EU, a UNION of STATES, with the intent of the States to find self-governance, with little UNION(Federal) interference. ***What we have now is very little states rights and NO transparency, the Federal Government IS the law now, they ARE the rule. Do you see that now? It wasn't always so, and the beginnings of our country show us the America we were supposed to be living in.
Guess what, Russia still has enough nukes to sterilize the planet, chemical, biological and more recently space weapons and a huge conventional army. And it doesn't do what the US tells it to do anymore. A little bit of a propaganda campaign on TV and the populace will be just about as rabid about it as it was back then.
Responding to my own post.
Yes, I can imagine plenty of situations where a president might commit an act that, while technically illegal, prevents more harm than it causes. By the same token, I cannot imagine any such situation that could not be horribly abused.
Warrantless wiretaps could catch criminals, but it is precisely the penchant for abusing authority that we, as human beings, have that led to laws requiring a court order for warrants. Bush has abused that authority, and in doing so has broken the law.
Warrantless wiretaps may be useful for preventing crimes and terrorism ... but only in the hands of a saint. Bush is no saint, and neither is McCain.
If you haven't been down-modded lately, you aren't trying.
Sacred cows make the best hamburger.
Dear Senator McCain,
Please obtain a new copy of the Constitution, and continue reading it all the way through Amendment XXVII.
Thank you,
The American People
The only reason for warrantless is so you can hide what you're doing from the other branches of government.
Unix is user friendly, it's just selective about who its friends are.
The real value of FISA warrants is more reactive than proactive. FISA judges show pretty broad discretion in what they will approve, but they do so with the understanding that the warrant creates a paper trail of justification and accountability. Without that paper trail, it's almost impossible to conduct a real investigation and hold people responsible for any abuses.
Personally, I consider the original FISA requirements to be reasonable in the context of an intelligence collection mission (not traditional law enforcement). However, what Bush did to FISA is an abuse of Executive power specifically because it removes not only the weaker proactive checks, but also the stronger retroactive balances of an investigative trail.
and I'll say it again:
The extent to which those who watch over us are unwilling to be watched by us is the precise extent to which we are not a free and just society.
This has nothing to do with war, or terrorism. It is simply a matter of accountability. The people have a right to know what our elected officials do in the name of ensuring our safety, regardless of whether they actually live up to that goal or not. That we are not able to do so is the true barometer of our freedom, despite whatever a centuries-old piece of paper might proclaim.
That's really one of the most disturbing things about Bush's view of presidential power. Why don't they do things according to the law, especially when Congress has made it so easy? They seem to pick and choose which laws apply to them.
It's not surprising that McCain will follow suit. McCain lost my respect when he started flip-flopping like a fish out of water. Now it seems every day brings another reason not to trust him.
How about if we don't turn the whole nation upside down over terrorism in the first place? Isn't that the goal of terrorists, to get you to pee your pants? I'd rather not have a government full of power hungry drones watching my every move. I'll take the extremely unlikely risk that some poor slob on the other side of the earth will come after me. Judging from my drive to work every day I'd say my fellow drivers pose a far greater risk to my life than terrorists.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
DISCLAIMER: this is purely speculation, although I consider it in character for the current US administration.
You are not pissing them off by existing.
You are pissing them off by killing and torturing them.
Who knows what might happen when he gets in office, though.
That's a stupid objection that could be applied anywhere to anyone. Why bother with what the candidates say or have done at all, in that case? "Vote Hitler! I know he *said* he'd kill all the Jews, but who knows what might happen when he gets in office?"
The Taliban may be the the ONLY target we can justify over there, and a) we quit going after them, and b) we gave them all their money and weapons in the 70s (I think the 70s?)
If we got invaded by some nation bent on wiping out "radical christianity," you don't think a bunch of heavily armed down-home rednecks with a hand-bound copy of the Anarchist's Cookbook wouldn't be equipping their children so they could get that much closer to the invaders? Insurgents, indeed.
Please stop stalking me, bro.
Citations, please?
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
Mod parent up. Shagg is right on the money, although I would throw in the extra possibility of "or if you want to hide what you're doing from the populace."
While it is very, very unlikely that the FISA court would leak a request for a wiretap, if the request were groundless/abusive enough, I suppose it is a possibility.
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
The only thing that can really throw the federal bench out of whack is if you had a president and justice department who was pressuring federal judges and prosecutors to bring (or not bring) cases based upon a political agenda. Somehow, the system had been pretty good about that until Bush and the Gonzalez Justice Department came along. Even Ashcroft, who I disagree with totally, was an honest justice who put the Constitution before political gain. But not 'Berto Gonzalez, who is probably the most crooked Attorney General since the late 1800s. The funny thing is that these guys got elected pushing the notion that the judiciary was crooked and "activist" and then turned around and made it crooked and activist.
Even though the reign of these little shits is coming to an end, it's going to take a committed leader to chase the rats out of all the little nooks and crannies of our judicial system. It can be done, however. Now that the Dem nomination is settled, I think we'll see some of the prosecutors in Congress (Leahy, Conyers) start to dig into the meat of the criminal activity of the last eight years, and I think the filthy way they prosecuted the Alabama governor will be the starting place. It's going to be an interesting five months.
I hope Senator McCain really pushes the warrantless eavesdropping thing hard. It's the kind of thing that goes against most Americans' deeply held beliefs and it will show just what McCain is made of. "War on Terror" my pink hairy ass.
You are welcome on my lawn.
No, conservatives stand for small government; Republicans stand for getting Republicans elected.
At no point in my 36 years have Republicans been any more conservative than Democrats.
There's no fricking practical need in the world to throw that "Islamic" adjective on there.
You mean other than that most of the terrorists they refer to actually happen to be Muslim?
It sounds great because there's some implied racism associated with Muslims and Islam but it really rubs me the wrong way.
There's no "implied racism" there: it's a fact that a large fraction of the people who have been perpetrating terrorism against the US have been Muslim.
You know what has always pissed me off about McCain and his cohorts (and many others too) when talking about terrorism? Calling it "Islamic terrorism"
They're calling it "Islamic terrorism" because, say, Catholic terrorism, Buddhist terrorism, or atheist terrorism simply aren't problems for the US right now.
Second, it's sad that you don't believe in the same Republic that the founding fathers did. First of all, the Europe you see today was largely constructed by the US; if it had been up to the French, British, and Russians, they would have repeated the mistakes of WWI and we'd have had WWIII by now. Funded, not constructed. The US did do a good job of stabilizing the world in the wake of that disaster, but it was through diplomacy and economic incentive, not inane foreign policy and secret police.
I'm proud of most of our post-war work, if not some of the terrorism we committed during the war. It was our inability to control the machine that we created that has led to our current situation, just as Dwight Eisenhower predicted. Furthermore, you really have no clue about the attitudes or motivations behind European politics. Because? Well, I can tell that you are an uneducated lout. I'll be sure to look that word up on my new guide to education: Wikipedia.
Wikipedia! Providing accurate histories of both sides of Western thought since 2001!
Terrorists/extremists of any ilk are so convinced of their moral "superiority" that they feel compelled to rearrange the world to suit them and their beliefs
Puts a whole different spin on invading and occupying a country that poses no articulable strategic or tactical threat on the basis of "spreading democracy"...
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
That is what the 72 hour after the fact warrant request is for. If the authorities must act right now they can, but that doesn't excuse them from judicial oversight. Nothing should ever exclude law enforcement from judicial oversight, ever. Not gag orders, not the need for expediency, not national security letters, not "sorry it's classified". Law enforcement without oversight and transparency is Fascism.
We are all just people.
That's right! They hate our freedom to invade, steal from them, install puppet governemts, tear up the puppet governments and install new ones, blame them for terrorism while remaining really friendly with countries that actuall y produce the terrorists - in fact giving them VIP rights to fly when no one else in the US is allowed to.
Yep, they hate it that anyone has that kind of freedom.
I don't therefore I'm not.