Slashdot Mirror
White House Wins Ruling On E-mail Records
An anonymous reader writes "The White House Office of Administration is not required to turn over records about a trove of possibly missing e-mails, a federal judge ruled Monday. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly found the agency does not have 'substantial independent authority,' so it is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act."
Openness is overrated in democratic societies, anyhow. I'm sure they wouldn't be keeping this all a secret if it weren't in the best interests of the people.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go send my credit card numbers to these nice former Nigerian heads of state.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
IANAL, but I'm still surprised to hear that the FOIA only applies to government offices which have "substantial independent authority."
From everything I've heard, it applies to all government agencies. Does this mean if a government office can make itself appear harmless enough, it doesn't have to cooperate?
"Sorry, I'm only the FBI director's SECRETARY. I don't have substantial independent authority."
They didn't want anyone to see all of those e-mails for v1agr4 that somebody has been saving...
Really, it would have been either party, and any person in office that would have fought this.
They are politicians, what do you expect?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
This ruling brought to you by the same judge who overturned most of Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's decision in United States v. Microsoft! Completely boneheaded as usual.
My blog
Is this another bone-headed IT mistake?
It must be Monday. I really suck at Mondays.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Isn't Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly the same bonehead that overturned the Microsoft ruling?
And, can we expect this ruling to be appealed?
Best regards.
..Has this Administration NOT had 'Substantial Independent Authority'?? Haven't Bush & Co. been arguing that they have since the beginning?
Not that the White house has ever given a damn what any judge has said anyway. If any backups of those emails had been made, they would have disappeared long ago.
This administration sickens me when I think about it, so I'll stop.
I'm surprised that they even admitted there were missing e-mails!
I like to place meaningful quotes in my sig, so people will know that I know what meaningful quotes are.
1.) Conduct all illegal activities through email
2.) When I get sued, pay off court clerk to assign case to Judge Kollar-Kotelly.
3.) ???
4.) Profit!
Note that, unlike popular current trends, judges are not there to decide what the law _should_ be and rule on that but only to enforce the applicability of current laws to the specifics of the case at hand. Might think about that before you decry the ruling. Bottom line: if you don't like this, stop whining and playing the martyr and go vote for someone that will do what you want. Otherwise, see Catharsis(4)(a).
Time to get some mandatory email journaling voted in, folks.
Seriously, what if the roles were reversed? The Feds are looking for some HIPAA-related email, and you can't produce it. What would they say??
"You should have had a system in place that you could rely on..."
Goose, meet Gander.
http://www.wired.com/news/images/full/judgecolleenkollar-kotelly.jpg
The treasonist whore is whoring out our rights to the highest bidder with the most power.
I hope the twatwad gets hit by a car on the way out of the courthouse.
And yet she stands next to the united states flag which means nothing to her. Perhaps she uses it to wipe her ass after shitting on our constitution?
Excuse my ignorance -- does this mean they can file a FOIA request against some other aspect of the White House, then, who _does_ have substantial independent authority, and for whom the Office of Administration was acting?
Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, who just created this official, binding policy that the government is above the law, is a fascist judge. She might be familiar to Slashdotters as the judge who the incoming Bush "Justice" Department got to run the Microsoft monopoly verdict's appeal and toothless "remedy phase.
You might not know that Kollar-Kotelly ruled in the execution trial of Saddam Hussein that "the United States has no right to interfere with the judicial processes of another nation's courts", when such interference might mean Hussein might live to tell more of what he knows about US interference in Iraq, or rather its lengthy cooperation with his murderous regime.
And you might not realize that Kollar-Kotelly is the presiding judge of the Bush-packed FISA Court, that has rubberstamped Bush's regime's tens of thousands of "exceptional" wiretap requests that violate the 4th Amendment (which artificial loophole is the entire purpose of that court). Which is why today's Congressional Republicans are doing everything they can to put telco amnesty for violating FISA under the FISA Court's jurisdiction, instead of a regular court that actually obeys the Constitution.
Kollar-Kotelly is the go-to judge for Unitary Executive fantasy privileges, whenever they can squeak some out. After all, she kicked off her legal career as a lawyer for Nixon's "Justice" Department.
Play ball!
--
make install -not war
In case you are missing the context here, the emails in question are interesting for a whole slew of reasons. The probably contain evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors (most likely by Cheney, but who knows) and pretty much have to contain evidence of perjury (with the morass of statements that have been made under oath, someone is surely lying, we just don't know who). And them there's the Hacth act violations, the Abrimoff issues, the election tampering, and on and on.
These are the missing 18 minutes gone gonzo,
--MarkusQ
Nothing says "f*ck you" to the terrorists like a strong white house! Huzzah for freedumb!
Are you serious? No, you can't be, either that or you've missed the entire point of the supreme court. Judges are there specifically to decide how a law should be enforced or even if it should be enforced at all.
And so the information stays in a lockbox forever, information which should be public knowledge and which could incriminate the heads of the administration, which would then affect the judicial branch and make the legislative branch look really, really good.
A really good quote appeared in the footer of the page just now: "Presidency: The greased pig in the field game of American politics. -- Ambrose Bierce"
Colin Dean Go a year without DRM
if you can't get the transparency from your democratic government that you deserve, petition the chinese government to air their copies of our government's email
i'm sure they have a copy of the inboxes in question sitting around somewhere
thank god for shoddy us government computer security and snooping totalitarian regimes: securing the transparency in our democracy that we deserve!
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
If voting could actually change anything, then it would be illegal. You think shuffling around Congress and the White House will change the entrenched corruption, pay-to-play atmosphere and pro-corporate agenda of the US government (or any government)?
Voting is little more than a democracy placebo. Every few years you are given a "choice" between corporate candidate A and corporate candidate B, both of whom support the exact same agenda--only phrased differently and with a few minor variations. Enter the compliant corporate media to highlight and magnify those differences and shut out any genuine challengers to the status quo.
Meanwhile, everyone is so busy arguing over which of the terrible candidates is less terrible, that the task of building a genuine progressive, grassroots movement for change (against the war, for worker's rights, health care, etc...) is indefinitely shelved. The only way to win progress is through struggle. As abolitionist Frederick Douglass once said, "Power concedes nothing without a demand." So instead of actually struggling for change we're herded into the political system controlled by the same people who benefit from the status quo and resist our every demand for progress. All of our demands are dropped or watered down to suit the electoral needs of your chosen candidate--and after the election they are forgotten completely.
The major parties aren't worth wasting more than 1 minute or 1 dime on. The real task is to create a movement powerful enough to win our demands regardless of which corporate tool sits in the White House. As famous historian Howard Zinn put it, "the really critical thing isn't who is sitting in the White House, but who is sitting in--in the streets, in the cafeterias, in the halls of government, in the factories. Who is protesting, who is occupying offices and demonstrating--those are the things that determine what happens."
Boo! Hiss! *cough cough BLOWJOB!!! cough cough*
Why don't they do a restore from a backup tape? They can also recover with recovery software these days. DA state and government works!
Yeah, in a perfect world, this is true. But in the real world, which judges sit where is such a hotly contested game precisely because personal bias and political allegiance does in fact make a significant difference and everybody with a brain knows it. --Even you, otherwise you wouldn't be recommending people vote for people who, "will do what you want".
In other words, either write in a manner which doesn't self-contradict while at the same time condemning thinking people as 'whiners', or please just stop typing, because right now you sound both evil and wrong.
-FL
No, I think you missed the point of his post. Judges aren't there to make law. They are there to interpret the law, as written, and weigh the merits of the case at hand as to what precedents apply based on current facts.
The Supreme Court also is supposed to do this, its just that at that level they are almost exclusively supposed to put the law in the context of the Constitution. Then the thing is, if they are strict constructionist or not, as to what "side" they're likely to come down upon.
Thing is, When Washington was appointing judges, its not like they had to reach very hard to find out what the guys who wrote the Constitution meant -- they were alive and kicking and hanging out down the block. The system was created before political parties when it was just assumed that people would know what they were supposed to do.
Of course, things are different now. People who see themselves as "Democrats" or "Republicans," "Liberals" or "Conservatives," instead of just as "Americans" are in the position to appoint judges who will agree with their specific neo-tribalist sensibilities, slants and biases.
However, I would venture to say that no matter what form of government was constituted, the end result would have been the same because the pattern is obvious since the time of Rome, if not before.
Oh well, only a few months left
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Well, they (judges and justices, all-inclusive) are there to both interpret the law and to determine if the law is constitutional.
This is why people roll their eyes when wackjobs start harping about "activist judges". That's what judges are there for, to temper the will of the people (or their representatives), and the power of the executive branch, via applying the filter of the Constitution to their actions.
It shouldn't be "White House Wins" -- it should be "Citizens Lose".
Unfortunately, as with so many cases that appeal to the Supreme Court, a final judgement could take years by which time there will be a new President and the records (if any still exist) will be long gone.
Not with this White House.
Actually, I don't think there is that much pure Bashing happening around these parts. --I equate 'Bashing' with the desire punish by proxy for purely emotional reasons devoid of rationality or factual data. You can see evidence of this on those blog sites which are hopelessly obsessed and enraged far beyond any measure of reason by such things as, 'welfare moms milking the system'.
When discussing Bush, however, it's hard when pointing out basic reality to sound like one is doing anything BUT bashing. This is due to the reality being so very grim and the damning facts so plentiful. Welfare Moms and similar concerns generally don't have much impact on anything, whereas Bush policies have resulted in $120 per barrel oil, a crashed dollar, a quagmired immoral war, the hideously mis-managed Katrina disaster, to name just a few items. So the complaints may sound like 'Bush Bashing' but really, I would say that it is rational and necessary discussion, especially in the lead-up to the next election. Calling legitimate complaints about things which affect everybody in the country 'Bush Bashing' and condemning it as such smacks of Republican pouting and pissiness.
Sorry. I refuse to allow people make me feel guilty for having legitimate complaints. Abusive parents do the same thing to their kids.
-FL
isn't she the jurist who freed billygates (aka fuddles) after he'd been captured during the height of his gottiesque softwar gangster years. she should ought to know all about email now?
mandatory email journaling voted in
They have, it's called the Presidential Records Act.
This ruling just says that the general public is not allowed to use the FOIA in order to find out whether the administration is complying with the law or not.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
> They are there to interpret the law, as written, and weigh the merits of the case at hand as to what precedents apply based on current facts.
The fun thing about the law... and all the caselaw that goes with it, is that there's so much of it.
You could argue it either way.
So underlying legal philosophies do come into play. That's why it matters who
gets apointed to the bench. They can push the law in one direction or another.
They may choose to only push inches at a time but they can still push.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Seriously, what if the roles were reversed? The Feds are looking for some HIPAA-related email, and you can't produce it. What would they say??
"You should have had a system in place that you could rely on..."
Well, sure. Because there are actually regulations in place that call for that. It's the law. In the case of people who have been hired by an executive administration to provide research, advice, and political guidance... they aren't subject to that same standard, for a reason. They're not an agency. We're not talking about official communication between, say, the C-in-C and the military people under his command, or between that office and the TSA, or the Dept Of The Interior, or the State Department related to issues overseas. That stuff is all archived, and subject to FOIA. And that's the whole point. You hire an executive to bring their own judgement and the thinking of the people he or she chooses to help in complex judgement calls to the issues in front of them. They then ACT on their judgement, and leave quite a FOIA-able paper trail behind them.
If every conversation that President Obama wants to have with his pastor of the week - in person or by e-mail - as he thinks through an upcoming condition-free meeting with Hugo Chavez is information that you get have by FOIA, then how likely is it that he's going to use such channels for frank communication while arriving at the opinions he was hired to act upon?
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
BE DISHONEST! it pays. its the quickest way to succeed in the New America(tm).
please don't believe in 'good guys win, bad guys lose'. clearly, bad guys WIN BIG. they cover their tracks, they lie and cheat and steal and kill and start wars to further their personal needs.
we all take our examples from our highest leaders. if something is game for our leaders, it should be good enough for us, too.
so kids, don't bother being honest and ethical. it does not pay nearly as well as being dishonest.
I believe we should be as honest and ethical as our exemplary leaders. they set the tone and the pace for what our society is becoming. so take your cue, kids; its not worth it to be honest and decent. lie, cheat, steal and do whatever you want because ITS WHAT OUR LEADERS DO.
"do not as I say but as I do"
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
I've said it before and I'll say it again.
The People have lost. Not enough people care about what happens as long as they have American Idol and Survivor, and credit cards.
Those who do care are less than 1 percent, and are also branded as nutjobs.
We have already lost, and can change nothing. Voting is a sham; the people we elect will do what they want anyways at the cost of screwing over the little people, and if we don't vote the way they like, they'll just mess with the votes of electronic voting.
And don't even think about an armed revolution; the army is much more powerful and much more well armed than 50% of the US combined and wouldn't bat an eye at "putting down" such a thing.
The reason we whine is because we're left with no other choices. It's the result of our loss.
Do not mod posts by this account up. "freenix" is one of twitter's army of eleven accounts, which he uses to manipulate the Slashdot moderation system.
I thought it was the Presidential Records Act which established the President's procedures for making these records available and archiving them? Doesn't look like FOIA is invocable yet.
Long live King George II.
I await King George III so the people may repeat history. Again.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
I'm outraged; googled the Judge and called her office in Washington DC.
Isn't this the SAME JUDGE that oversaw the breakup of Microsoft after Pennfield-Jackson screwed things up? She decided the current agreement with the Justice Department (which the Justice Department claims in unenforcible and now regrets doing) was good enough for a convicted monopolist.
Somehow we're supposed to trust this woman with proper interpretation of the law?
Hopefully this will get overturned on appeal...
The terrorists have won.
As any comedian will tell you, the letter K is a funny letter. The sound, itself somehow adds to the comedic value of any words in a joke. Since this judge has not one, but THREE K sounds in her name, I have no choice but to insist this is a joke. There's no other explanation.
Please tell me you're not an American. If you are, you're a fucking idiot. I suggest you read this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Us_government
If the actions of President Bush has taught us anything over the past 8 years, it's that voting most certainly is NOT pointless. Sure we voted for the wrong guy, but his administration's gross mismanagement of this country showed very clearly that the two parties are not by any means identical, and that your vote for a president can have a very real impact on the policies that are put into place.
At this point, I can only wish that we had an ineffective president who did not accomplish anything in the white house for the last 8 years. We would be a lot better off right now.
>Much more to blame are environmentalists and other terrorists.
You misspelled "futures market traders", which, if you have a 401(k), you probably are yourself.
Neither supply, demand, nor the ratio of the two correlate to the price. Every other factor
can be derived from quite transparent market trading data.
So where did the environmentalists ("and other terrorists") come in? Did the hippies simply BUY all the oil?
Do you have any idea how ridiculous you sound?
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Assuming what you say is true, you assume that this system of idiocy can exist indefinitely. Sooner or later, if our system of government continues along its greedy and self-centered track, it WILL die out as power hungry politicions are replaced by their incompetent or complacent young.
A 1984 system can never last, corrupt ideals and the party line can only exist for so long until those ideals give way to self-centered 'everyone else be damned, i want it all' greed which causes the bad apples to rot to the point where the entire system collapses.
We may not see drastic change for the better in our lifetimes, but it will eventually happen.
However, I doubt humankind will ever find its utopia. As long as you have a human element, any system of government will be prone to manipulation, corruption, and bureaucracy. I'm thankful that, all things considered, I'm quite comfortable living in the United States at this point in time.
The government covering for the government. Didn't see that one comin'.
I knew from about the youngest age that the bottom line is "don't get caught". If I recall correctly, this is why sociologist think this is the main reason we invented "allmighty gods with after death judgement and punishment". So that the majority would follow the line, instead of having the majority of people misusing the societal resource as long as they don't get caught.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Are you telling me that after they read all my emails, that even congress can not get their emails?
tick tick tick
When you hear the ding, the revolution has started
tick tick tick
Andy Out!
By geeks, thugs and vermin.
It's quite an excursion, but - it's okay.
Publicise this despicable action and watch bunning struggle to find a job mopping floors in his local elementary school.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
If you're just voting, you get to decide who gets to write the check. If you fight your ticket, or a bad law, you make the law that much more expensive to fight. If a full 1% of the people who get tickets actually fought them, tooth and nail, it's gonna get pretty damn expensive to enforce the law.
Now when you play with the executive branch, you get to see a lot more of what is going on. Congress passes a law and delegates authority to say, the Secretary of the Treasury. The secretary determines how to enforce the law and proposes a regulation. The regulation then is reviewed by *us*, and we send our comments in. The secretary must take our comments into consideration when promulgating a regulation.
Guess who sends in those comments and hangs out at the hearings for the regulations? Us? Nope. We're too busy working our tail off for that big house in PV. Corporations with their paid shills are there, giving testimony and making suggestions about how everyone would benefit if the regulation were written their way.
Unfortunately, the name of the game is to know the rules and use them. If they don't suit you, buy new rules.
Oh, and don't forget that if you don't know how an agency operates, you can get their organization and staffing manuals and their procedure manuals - if they are subject to FOIA.
What would our country be like with a large army of people making FOIA requests?
Every kid should know this stuff before they leave high school!!!
There. I'm done.
The executive... haha.. has.. hahaha.. no.. hahahahaha.. *tries to catch some breaths*.. independent authority?
.. uncontrollable.. laughter.
must.. try.. to.. breathe.. through
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
"hate speech" bill supported by Obama
Please inform the world about this "hate speech" bill supported by Obama.
The very assertion is laughably in error. Obama does support Hate crimes legislation, which enhances sentences for persons convicted of violent felonies, or being an accessory to the commission violent felonies, when the victim(s) were singled out as being a member of specifically listed groups. There are valid questions, and proper arguments which can be made, regarding the legality and utility of hate crimes legislation, but 1st Amendment speech protection is certainly not one of them. There has never, ever been a 1st Amendment protection for speech which directly incited felonious acts.
The only reason some have decided to attack hate crimes legislation using this argument, is because the newest legislation would add to the list of protected groups, anyone attacked violently because of sexual orientation, or gender identity.
So why don't you just go ahead and spit out your anti-faggotry agenda Mr. AC, instead of hiding behind a 1st Amendment rock? You are free to spew, as long as you do not advocate killing fags in a manner that convinces others to act on your words.
Chicken-shit pissant peeper in the public potties...
Rush Limbaugh is a perfect real world example of an oxycontinmoron
The White House uses it's substantial independent authority to declare that it does not have enough substantial independent authority to be subject to FOIA?! Brilliant!
...how likely is it that he's going to use such channels for frank communication while arriving at the opinions he was hired to act upon? He really should have considered that before running for President, for you see, holding the Highest Office in the Land is not at all with out cost.I'm all for privacy, I really am, but in this case the individual's need is greatly outweighed by the greater good.
I am enraged.
I cannot stand to sit one more minute under this regime. Revolution, I say! Yes, it has come to this. We have been stripped willingly of our power to decide our future. And yes, I accept the possibility of being sent to a secret prison camp for what I think and what I say. It is treason for an administration that is all about loyalty. Keep silent, obey your master. Good dog, have a bone. Or some oil you may prefer.
That the current executive is immoral is common knowledge. But to see the legislative go down the drain enrages me. This was our last bastion of truth, of hope, of morality. And now, I see people debating the interpretation of laws written by others, the twisting of laws, instead of debating what is fundamentally moral and what the laws should be. Where is our power to vote on laws? How long before simple online referendums are implemented, with free public secure booths? Most americans may be of lesser intelligence than an average slashdotter, but they still have a right to govern themselves and vote on basic laws. Where is the outrage when the president is elected not by the people but by a select few high electors, who spit in the face of the public and their will? Are we but sheep, to be trampled, to be let where they will, and to talk between ourselves in hushed voices but in the end without actions significant?
How can we sit, basking in the glow of our LCDs, while they laugh at us and our complacence, and reap the benefits of raping both US citizens and the world? If we do not stop Bush (and his army of profiteers and loyals) by force before the end of his rule, what kind of example are we setting for posterity? There is precious little time left. What is to to stop the Bush monarchy to implement a controlled minion as next president, as Putin did with Medvedev?
How can politicians promise policies that differ completely once they are in office, as we stand by powerless? Where is accountability? We need to reclaim our power to decide our fate ourselves. This we will accomplish by voting directly on laws and destroying all these politicians, all these middlemen so cunning that they have us believing they are actually useful.
And what now?
To the streets, I say! Let their greedy heads fall, and let us reclaim our right to live free and govern ourselves, and no longer live in fear of our own government!
Do a search on U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly. She's the same one who overturned the Microsoft anti-trust ruling and let them get away scott free.
Where's all the people who are always screaming "I'm keeping my guns so the government can't take my country from me"? These people who claim that the mass murder by guns of so many Americans is acceptable "collateral damage", the price we pay for defending ourselves from government tyranny?
They're frauds. The US government has violated the Constitution every day, in every way for 2,706 days. Yet instead of taking to the streets to protect themselves from the tyranny, these gun fetishists are among the strongest protectors of Bush's reign of terror.
Yes, any decent country would have filled the streets by now, carrying pitchforks and torches, to rip these tyrants from their privileged thrones. But the tyrants have the gun freaks and the army and the cops.
That's why we have impeachment, but that too has failed us - because we elected an entire generation of greedy traitors, the worst of whom know no partisan boundaries. All we have left is elections and activism. It's not enough to stop the tyranny right now, but it could reverse its direction in November. And if we keep up the pressure it could fix a lot in the years after. America changed pretty quickly from a sustainably damaging world dominator into a catastrophic one hastening its own destruction first. It can at least as quickly change back.
But only if we keep up the pressure. Unfortunately, just like the gun freaks on the other side, people screaming for revolution aren't really serious or committed, either. How many will vote in November, the least they can do to get change? How many will find decent representatives to campaign for to get into those elections? How many will keep in touch with representatives to force them to acknowledge, and then accept, and then lead on policies that protect our freedoms?
Revolution is easy - to talk about. Even easier than buying a gun. But we've got to use those tools, not just stockpile them as fetish objects, and yell about them when we get mad. Take your talk to the streets, and knock on doors to register more voters. Register only the ones who agree with you. That will actually make a difference. And you'll see: it will also make you feel better than ranting about revolution on Slashdot. I don't know if it feels as good as unloading a clip into someone, but it will have a lot more effect on politics than talking about guns will, either.
--
make install -not war
Aren't there more important and pressing issues to tend to and to complain about then the White Houses Ability to backup emails and other messages? I can name 4 things that seem more important then this.
1) Flooding in the Midwest
2) Gas Prices
3) Unemployment Rising due to Number 2.
4) Preparing for the upcoming Hurricane Season.
There are several more important issues that this Democratic Country needs to tend with then THis complete Bullshit.
Prove the causality of "Bush policies have resulted in $120 per barrel oil." Much more to blame are environmentalists and other terrorists. Your "basic reality" is an opinion.
I view it as a weakening of the US dollar, which results in higher prices. You can thank the weakening dollar on Bush's disasterous economic policy's.
Operation Iraqi Freedom is moral, when the alternative is Saddam Hussein. Saddam Hussein post-sanctions, a horrible reality that President George W. Bush prevented.
Operation Iraqi Freedom was all about WMD in the beginning. The administration spun it to be about bringing democracy and all that crap after it started becoming obvious that their claims of WMD were fabrications. Nice to see that you bought into the administration's propoganda completely.
Even the 9/11 Report points out the ever-increasing connections between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda
Citation needed.
And "quagmire" is also an opinionated characterization. The foreign enemy cannot dislodge us. We have a commanding presence in the Middle East.
I just saw a news report where the Taliban (remember them?) had just captured several villages in Afganistan. Thanks to Bush and his grossly incompetent administration, we're still having to deal with shit like that when we should have wiped out the Taliban years ago. Yeah, so long as we kep throwing money at it, we will have a "commanding presence" in the middle east, but we aren't making progress towards any goals, in the meantime we're flushing money and lives down the drain.
So again, your opinion is revealed as media-driven and free of thought.
Says someone who by all appearances gets all their information from the Fox News channel?
I'm sure your little fantasyland up your asshole has lots more opinions, but by any other name they still smell as shit.
Meanwhile, everything is still rosy over in 30-percenter land, huh?
I'm all for privacy, I really am, but in this case the individual's need is greatly outweighed by the greater good
You're missing the point. The greater good is served by allowing elected executives to have some privacy as they deliberate over what will become very public policies and actions. Could you go four years while dealing with unimagineably stressful decision making on every conceivable sort of topic, and never once want to have a private conversation with a close friend while hashing things out? Really?
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Actually, yes, I sure could, but only because I'm fairly open about my thoughts. I don't mind being observed, and I don't mind 'showing my method' because in a lot of ways that is more important than the decision I arrive at.
Now that likely doesn't expand to just anyone, but personally I do not find this all that unreasonable for the President.
But you're forgetting the need for people from other parties, idealogies, and even nations to be able to quietly chime in behind the scenes without rocking their own boats. Should Nancy Pelosi really be unable to have a frank, unrecorded, private bit of face time with her political opponent (but none the less, co-worker) in the executive branch? Should a newly elected president not be able to quietly discuss with his immediate predecessor the nature of earlier private conversations that C-in-C may have had with a foreign head of state? If Obama (for example) is elected, and three years later is in the mood to try for another term, should he be allowed to take off his "president" hat, and have private "candidate" conversations with people counseling him on political matters? Would you deny him the ability to use e-mail for that purpose? If so, why?
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
To answer your question, you're going to have to define 'private' for me. If you are referring to 'never recorded in any way' then my answer would be 'no, this should not happen.'
Why not?
Because how do you KNOW that what was being discussed should not be on the record? Sure, the people involved claim it was a deep religious debate, but what if it was in fact a discussion of how to out Valerie Plame without getting caught? The President is not entitled to the benefit of the doubt as a feature of the job. Just as I am not likewise entitled to email my wife about private matters without it being recorded on the way out.
Now if you mean 'recorded, but only released under court order', THEN we're on common ground.
We've seen this over and over again. So why is this any different?
The President is not entitled to the benefit of the doubt as a feature of the job
Sure he (or she) is. And if it turns out that the president's actions are contrary to law, then you've got good reason to do something about it, or at least simply not re-elect him on his next go around. The whole point of an election season is that it's a chance to decide who you trust to make decisions. In your scenario, where private consultation prior to public acts are impossible, then you're not hiring an executive, you're hiring someone who's good at chairing public meetings. What's the point of having someone who can execute their judgement if you don't trust their judgement? Part of their judgement involves picking the right people to talk to, on occasion, to gain some insight into something that's beyond your experience or foresight. And not all of those people are going to be in the mood to be under scrutiny of political operatives who are paid to take potshots at whoever's in office that year.
Would it be interesting to be privvy to all of Bill Clinton's private ruminations and communications following the attack on the USS Cole and our embassies in Africa? Sure. But regardless of how he came by his thinking, it's his actions (or lack of them) that really matter on the subject. The president is still a citizen. He's a civilian holding an important office, but he's still a citizen just like you and me. The person in that office is entitled to talk with his peers and acquaintences without making those people worry that every word they say (or type) will wind up out of context in some senate political theater.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
"Trust, but verify"
"Trust, but verify"
So, who does the verifying? Your political opponents, who want to see you defeated in an upcoming election? The editors of a hostile newspaper? Yeah, you'll get lots of thoughtful input from confidants, people with special knowledge on key topics, and quiet cooperation from your rivals what with all of that going on. No problem there.
Where do you draw the line? Should every one of Bill Clinton's convesations with friends while out on a sailboat off of Martha's Vineyard while on vacation be part of that public record? How do you plan on verifying that stuff?
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
This is all trivial, and is well worth doing. We're in an age of instantaneous global communication, discussing the activities of one of the most powerful people in the world, and somehow the sky is still falling?
We can disagree, you know. There really isn't anything wrong with that. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but claiming hardship in this case just isn't really relevant.
Who's talking hardship? I'm talking about the person who is, indeed, one of the most powerful people in the world, having - as part of their job and as part of their role as a citizen of the United States - the ability, indeed the right, to talk privately. We don't get to see a print-out of what the Supreme Court justices say to each other over coffee or in an e-mail between them. We don't get to see what Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi swap in an e-mail while deciding how that want to position themselves on some political subject. It's not a bit different.
To pretend that a president must surrender the same rights that he's been sworn in to protect is just silly.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Right can be, and frequently are, voluntarily surrendered. They still exist, but often times the constraints on one's duties prohibit those rights being exercised.
;)
Of course you know this, so nevermind.
I give up.
I should avoid feeding the troll.
Read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_review
Just because you've read the constitution, doesn't mean you understand how US government actually works.
Debate and commentary from May, 2007. The mark-up is mine, as is the commentary on the entry page, but the rest of the files in the sub-site are verbatim XHTML mark-ups of The Congressional Daily Record, parsed from Government Printing Office served ASCII source files, and the links to the sources are given on each page.
I don't like hate crime laws, because they cross over a double jeopardy line in my mind. There is something wrong with being punished twice for the same criminal act, which is what hate crimes legislation does, but this has nothing to do with constitutionally protected speech, as many members of the House Republican Conservative Committee were alleging. The crime for being an accessory to an act of violence, for conspiratorial speech which was a part of a felony's commission, or speech which directly incited criminal behavior has never been protected speech. It does not matter that some assholes believe their religion teaches them to hate fags, or if a preacherman said it. It is still a crime, and this law does not change that. It only changes the sentence meted out if the victim of a violent felony was targeted, because they were a member in a listed group.
The argument made about special protected classes is lame too, when considering sentence guidelines promulgated by the DOJ. With violent crimes in which the victim was specifically targeted because of being a law enforcement officer, there is already a 6 step sentence enhancement. With victims targeted because of excessive vulnerability (aged, children, mentally or physically disabled, etc.), it is a 2 step sentence enhancement. For this specific hate crimes legislation, a 3 step sentence enhancement is proposed. It's covered in the entry page at the above link.
Rush Limbaugh is a perfect real world example of an oxycontinmoron
If they don't have anything to hide...
What was alleged was that Obama supported a "hate speech" bill". Do not conflate these two concepts, or prove yourself to be incapable of understanding why they are entirely different concepts.
At the same time, aske yourself, why these god-fearing Conservative Republicans have suddenly gotten ale riled up about differing sentencing standards, when they had no problem with sentence enhancements for a crime tacked-on, when the protected groups were ones they desired to protect. As I mentioned earlier, intentionally targeting a person because they are a law enforcement officer is recommended in the DOJ's sentence guidelines as a 6-step enhancement. Torching SUV's and ski resort construction sites is arson, for which the law has well-defined code and sentences for. It is not terrorism. How about burning churches? Should the perpetrators of acts of arson targeting churches receive longer sentences than a person who torched his own business to hide financial improprieties from the authorities?
The simple facts are that there exists a myriad of U.S. legal code that increases sentencing based only upon the perpetrator's targeting choices. What the true underlying issue here is that these politicians are opposed to protections extended to persons because of gender identity or sexual preferences, but they are just too damn dishonest to say so.
And let's face it, what is there to really fear about transvestites anyway? If you cannot outrun some guy wearing spike heels and a long tight cocktail gown, you really ought to go down to the gym and work out a bit.
Rush Limbaugh is a perfect real world example of an oxycontinmoron
More like "Apples, meet Oranges".
The president is my employee; he's your employee too, if you're a US citizen. The entire Executive branch works for us, not the other way around. Thus we have a very strong interest in keeping track of what they are doing. Safeguards are of course necessary for security matters and so forth, but as a rule, everything my employee does on company time and company equipment should be open to inspection by me, you and all citizens.
Your medical record, OTOH, are something *I* have no right to, because we have NO relationship.
--- Attorneys Assisting Citizen-Soldiers & Families -
Oops - actually, upon re-reading, I see I mis-understood your point entirely. I completely agree with mandatory journaling of all government email.... and the default should be "open to public" with protection only rarely ... and even then, available when there is suspicion of foul play.
--- Attorneys Assisting Citizen-Soldiers & Families -
....the records (if any still exist) will be long gone. Hmmm--- Attorneys Assisting Citizen-Soldiers & Families -
Maybe just maybe the military, at least the grunts on the ground not the brass, would join us in armed revolution after all 2 million armed citizens was enough to keep japan from invading the U.S. during WWII and enough to keep Russia from invading us during the cold war.
It is documented that the Japanese Admiral who planned the attack on Pearl Harbor was quoted as saying " I went to college in New York during the late 20's early 30's I know how many people owned weapons there would have been a rifle behind every blade of grass my military could not have suffered that amount of casualties and won." I am reciting this from memory though so it might be a bit off however it is pretty close. It is also pretty close to what the ex-KGB said after the cold war.
The point is maybe just maybe if it came down to it the American people could pull another revolution, this time from it's own government.
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