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Retroactive Telco Immunity Opponents Buying TV Ad
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Whether they're mad at the Republicans for creating the mess, the Democrats for caving in, or both, many are still pissed off over the grant of retroactive immunity for spying on American citizens for no reason. And now some of them are trying to do something about it — they're buying an advertisement on cable TV. While it's not entirely clear what good, if any, this will do given that it's too late, at least it's cheap to participate — they're looking for $6 donations. The ideas is that, if more grass-roots groups do this kind of thing, their 'representatives' won't be able to afford to blow them off as easily."
A TV ad?
Blarney: mad.
One does just fine
With simple sign.
Burma Shave
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
if I wouldn't end up on a spamlist for every new tree-hugging wackjob cause that comes down the pike.
Because being against telco immunity means your a tree-hugger? WTF?
The link is to a Wired blog. The direct link is http://getfisaright.net/promote. And they're not asking for donations of $6, they're asking people to pay to run the ad - which might be $6, or could be a lot more, depending on the market and time of day. I think it would be a lot more efficient if they set up a fund to accept donations and ran the campaign from there.
Apparently they know how to get FISA right, but not how to get their advertising campaign right.
Loose things are easy to lose. You're getting your hair cut. They're going there to see their aunt.
These liberals are just using this as an excuse to keep the loophole in the law so that they can accuse the Government of spying (yet another conspiracy theory!) and get rich! That's why all of the liberal leaning states are the wealthiest in the country - they sue innocent corporations! That's why the Trial Lawyers support the Liberal Democrats! They're trying to destroy our Republic, Capitalism, and the American way!
Then, they have the stupidity to try to ban our guns! They use the "Civil Liberties" as a screen but when it comes to the freedom to bare arms, do they fight for that? Nooooooo! We should put the Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights! Then those Liberals will fight for it!
Sincerely,
Average American who is educated by TV and Radio.
Frankly it's hard to call this news in any sense, when it can just as easily be summarised as 'Another bad home-made political advert added to a pay-to-play-on-TV youtube.'
These are important issues folks, but let's not wet our pants every time someone mentions wiretapping.
Well, you will end up on "Affiliates with wabcjok treehuggers, not patriotic, possible terrorist" list that government has anyway. Plus you will be on "funds anti-patriotic organizations" list. That's one hell of skeleton in your closet even if that ad does not get broadcasted (Will some TV station have balls to accept this deal? Most likely it will get stopped on executive level).
People tried something like this with Samizdat in Communist times: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charter_77 It didn't end well for most of them.
-- Technology for the sake of technology is as pathetic as eschewing technology because it's technology.
I AM against telco immunity. I'm against domestic wiretapping. I'm against an administration that blatantly disregards the Constitution and regards everything they do as legal, simply because they are doing it. However, hard experience has taught me that contributing to ANY cause gets me on mailing lists for "similar" causes - whether I want to be or not.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
I've been donating regularly to this cause (ActBlue) and have not had this experience, at least with this PAC. I think it would be a supreme irony for a pro-privacy group to abuse their members in such a manner. Not that it wouldn't happen these days, I'm just saying it hasn't been my experience.
When the axe came to the forest, the trees said, "Look out - the handle was once one of us."
Never has a nick matched a post so well.
I couldn't find the HTML tags for humor and satire.
and then throw them out again.
Never vote for an incumbant again, at least
for another 3 election cycles.
I don't care, throw them out. You think you
have a 'good guy' in congress? You're wrong.
Throw them out.
All of them. /that/ is the fix for so called special interest lobbies. Take away their power.
That is the only fix.
Better that the government never get anything
else done.
I AM against telco immunity. I'm against domestic wiretapping. I'm against an administration that blatantly disregards the Constitution and regards everything they do as legal, simply because they are doing it. However, hard experience has taught me that contributing to ANY cause gets me on mailing lists for "similar" causes - whether I want to be or not.
I no longer give to charity for an extension of those same reasons. Charities are now run like businesses, with salaried fund raisers, and wage slaver collectors on the streets. They pay to make money, and they make more money this way. Since making money is their primary cause, they see it as a good thing.
In the same way, although they are aware that they bother, irritate, or even outrage former givers by sending out reminder after reminder about all the giving opportunities available to previous donaters, they know that they will receive more money, overall, by doing this.
Unfortunately, some gut part of me reacts objectionably to this, and I cannot in good conscience send money their way.
"Whether they're mad at the Republicans for creating the mess, the Democrats for caving in...
The 110th Congress Composition: 282 Democrats - 274 Republicans - 2 Independents. So please tell me how Republicans created this mess?
I'm not sure where you got your list from, but I noticed it leaves off Webb (D-VA), and further searching reveals it doesn't seem to match up with the Senate's own records at all.
Slightly disreputable, albeit gregarious
Not the right list. The one you want is here.
What part of "pay by credit card" didn't you get?
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
I'm done with party politics. The leadership of both political parties have shown that they are willing to trade the legal principals of our founding fathers for short-term political gain. The parties have acted to retain their own power and authority at the expense of our Bill of Rights. This is simply unacceptable.
But the solution cannot be found in insular political organization. That is, organized liberals cannot fix this. Nor can organized conservatives. The only solution here is for the population of liberals and conservatives to realize they have a greater sense of purpose by opposing the GOP/DNC lock on national politics. Political enemies must become friends in order to oust the real enemy of freedom. And they have a lock on all the power the state can muster.
I sadly believe that our republic has already fallen, and the "great experiment" is now over.
is the price of getting put on a mailing list too high to pay for a bit more freedom ?
Read radical news here
"many are still pissed off over the grant of retroactive immunity for spying on American citizens for no reason." 1. I don't think they are spying "for no reason" 2. They are intercepting calls made to/from a foreign country. If you want sympathy for the cause, make sure you describe the issue accurately.
immunity for spying on American citizens for no reason.
It is neither "spying on American citizens" nor "for no reason." It's pathetic that you've got to make it sound like something more sinister than it is in order to try and scare people to your side of the fence on the issue. If Microsoft had written that article summary, people would be screaming "FUD!"
The truth of the matter is conversations originating overseas from known or suspected terrorist organizations to their contacts in the U.S. may be monitored. Your chats with Grandma about what to get little Jimmy for his birthday are of no interest to anyone and cannot be legally intercepted without a warrant. Trying to find out what next big operation terrorists are planning against us ought to be everybody's interest, and perhaps it would be if most Democrat weren't afflicted with Bush Derangement Syndrome.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
I think it would be a supreme irony for a pro-privacy group to abuse their members in such a manner.
Not "ironic", just hypocritical.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Well I'm probably in the minority here. I have hugged a tree. I like trees. They don't complain, they look pretty, and they provide me with oxygen. And unlike with "higher" primates you can't get AIDS or any other social disease from hugging a tree. Trees rock, primates are mainly assholes.
Ah yes, because all those career Democrat politicians are spending their lives working for a government that they are secretly trying to destroy via an economic collapse. Sounds reasonable to me! Seriously, drop the conspiracy theories and realize that everybody thinks they're doing the Right Thing. The problem is that, like practically anybody who has nothing else to do but talk about politics all day, they're idiots and have no idea what they're doing. But there's no vast left-wing conspiracy to take down the American economy.
Wacko-wack... I looked up "primate" in WordWeb after I posted:
Any placental mammal of the order Primates; has good eyesight and flexible hands and feet
I don't have good eyesight nor flexible hands and feet so it seems that I am not a primate. Thank goodness for that!
It's not about punishing TelCos. It's about the Discovery Phase of such a trial. In the discovery phase we'd find out about who they tapped and what they listened to. That's important because knowing this admin, it's perfectly reasonable to suspect it possible that they might be lying when they said "we only tapped the phones of folks who spoke to overseas terror suspects."
Maybe. Just MAYBE, they listened to a few more people who weren't speaking to terror suspects. Maybe they even listened to purely domestic calls. Honestly the actions of this admin sound a heck of a lot like what Nixon was forced to resign over.
With the immunity in this bill, any lawsuit against TelCos is thrown out even beofre the discovery phase.
Thank you for that! Here's the list of both Democrats AND Republicans who voted for or against it, from the link you provided. I don't know where the GP got off just listing Democrats, both mainstream parties are firmly pro-corporation and anti-people.
It looks like my Senators (bolded) cancelled each other out. The Republican candidate for President didn't even bother to show up for the vote.
Akaka (D-HI), Nay Alexander (R-TN), Yea Allard (R-CO), Yea Barrasso (R-WY), Yea Baucus (D-MT), Yea Bayh (D-IN), Yea Bennett (R-UT), Yea Biden (D-DE), Nay Bingaman (D-NM), Nay Bond (R-MO), Yea Boxer (D-CA), Nay Brown (D-OH), Nay Brownback (R-KS), Yea Bunning (R-KY), Yea Burr (R-NC), Yea Byrd (D-WV), Nay Cantwell (D-WA), Nay Cardin (D-MD), Nay Carper (D-DE), Yea Casey (D-PA), Yea Chambliss (R-GA), Yea Clinton (D-NY), Nay Coburn (R-OK), Yea Cochran (R-MS), Yea Coleman (R-MN), Yea Collins (R-ME), Yea Conrad (D-ND), Yea Corker (R-TN), Yea Cornyn (R-TX), Yea Craig (R-ID), Yea Crapo (R-ID), Yea DeMint (R-SC), Yea Dodd (D-CT), Nay Dole (R-NC), Yea Domenici (R-NM), Yea Dorgan (D-ND), Nay Durbin (D-IL), Nay Ensign (R-NV), Yea Enzi (R-WY), Yea Feingold (D-WI), Nay Feinstein (D-CA), Yea Graham (R-SC), Yea Grassley (R-IA), Yea Gregg (R-NH), Yea Hagel (R-NE), Yea Harkin (D-IA), Nay Hatch (R-UT), Yea Hutchison (R-TX), Yea Inhofe (R-OK), Yea Inouye (D-HI), Yea Isakson (R-GA), Yea
Johnson (D-SD), Yea Kennedy (D-MA), Not Voting Kerry (D-MA), Nay Klobuchar (D-MN), Nay
Kohl (D-WI), Yea Kyl (R-AZ), Yea Landrieu (D-LA), Yea Lautenberg (D-NJ), Nay Leahy (D-VT), Nay Levin (D-MI), Nay Lieberman (ID-CT), Yea Lincoln (D-AR), Yea Lugar (R-IN), Yea
Martinez (R-FL), Yea McCain (R-AZ), Not Voting McCaskill (D-MO), Yea McConnell (R-KY), Yea Menendez (D-NJ), Nay Mikulski (D-MD), Yea Murkowski (R-AK), Yea Murray (D-WA), Nay
Nelson (D-FL), Yea Nelson (D-NE), Yea Obama (D-IL), Yea Pryor (D-AR), Yea Reed (D-RI), Nay Reid (D-NV), Nay Roberts (R-KS), Yea Rockefeller (D-WV), Yea Salazar (D-CO), Yea Sanders (I-VT), Nay Schumer (D-NY), Nay Sessions (R-AL), Not Voting Shelby (R-AL), Yea Smith (R-OR), Yea Snowe (R-ME), Yea Specter (R-PA), Yea Stabenow (D-MI), Nay Stevens (R-AK), Yea
Sununu (R-NH), Yea Tester (D-MT), Nay Thune (R-SD), Yea Vitter (R-LA), Yea Voinovich (R-OH), Yea Warner (R-VA), Yea Webb (D-VA), Yea Whitehouse (D-RI), Yea Wicker (R-MS), Yea Wyden (D-OR), Nay
Your comment has too few characters per line (currently 18.4) so you must make your coherent comment incoherent.
Sorry guys, slashdot won't allow lists.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
I'm with you on this one. I especially like the knotty pines.
You know, Custer had a plan.
many are still pissed off over the grant of retroactive immunity for spying on American citizens for no good reason
Their was a reason for the spying. You may think it was good, most Slashdot members appear to believe that it was not a good reason, but a reason was given (after the fact). That reason being, they were spying on international calls believed to be involved in terrorism.
I'm not defending the ISP's or the Government, but the original post is misleading IMO.
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
Consul corporate security clones There Cohiba digicash infowar USDOJ CDMA sniper Qaddafi supercomputer are INSCOM Aldergrove Legion of Doom BRLO other Rand Corporation ASIO cracking Downing options Street high security Abbas lock picking namely Albright Europol Consul Rumsfeld NATO bluebird false George W. Bush nitrate analyzer South Africa mindwar Armani Skipjack CISU positives world domination LABLINK Kh-11 or secure try Defcon!@#d%d&*(";dd;,[NO CARRIER
Win a signed Stephen Carpenter ESP Guitar from the Deftones: http://def-tag.com/?r=0008781
Ok, I'll bite.
the legislative issue on wiretapping was only whether or not a bunch of greedy lawyers want another set of deep pockets to go plundering
When Evil-X left me and my two teenaged daughters for another man (have you any idea what that did to the kids?) I was damned glad to have one of the "greedy lawyers" you hate so much. Likewise when I was forced into bankrupcy because the bitch had run my finances into the ground, I was damned glad I had a "greedy lawyer".
When I got a detached retina this year I was damned glad I had a "greedy surgeon", who charged a lot more than the lawyers. You, sir, have a jealousy problem. And no, IANAL. I do databases at work for a whole lot less maney than the doctors and lawyers I have been GLAD to pay.
Left wing leaders don't care about the spying. They just want another set of excuses to try and destroy the American economy
Odd, when the Republicans were in power everybody I knew was hurting financially, but then again I don't know many rich people.
even more than all their environmental regulation already has
I'm 56. When I was a kid, few had air conditionaing in their cars. But even when it was ninety five degrees farenheight you rolled the windows up driving through Sauget where Monsanto had their plant. Anybody who curses Nixon for signing the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act is either a polluter or an idiot, or too young to remember what it was like before environmental regulation.
Now I guess I need to go to the Biters Anonymous meetings again, because IHBT.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
God I hate these arguements about the definition of ironic... Irony is defined by a situation in which the intention (or the expected results) of an action and the action's result are different. So, as applied to the above statement:
Situation: Pro-privacy group receives thousands of e-mails.
The intention: Pro-privacy group works for the privacy of the users of these e-mail addresses
Apparent result: E-mails are sold to a commercial entity, having the pro-privacy group give up the privacy of its members.
This is the definition of irony. In fact, most hypocritical actions are, in fact, ironic.
From your "CHANGE MY ASS" comment, I take it you're not planning to vote for Barack Obama for President this November. If you are eligible to vote in the United States, do you prefer John McCain or Bob Barr?
In general going against the Immunity is saying I hate big companies because they have more money then I do.
Bullshit. It's saying that you support upholding of the law. No one gets to break the law just because someone says it's ok.
Having them fined or jailed will do nothing positive.
No more or less positive than punishing anyone else who breaks the law. They broke the law, so let them be punished.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
Much ado is made about the violation of the 4th amendment embodied in the passage of the FISA bill. While I find that to be more than sufficient to find the passage of that bill to be a violation of the oath to defend The Constitution, I believe the violation of the 1st is more troubling.
The 1st Amendment documents fact that our right to petition the government for redress of grievances cannot be infringed. Bringing a civil suit is exactly what it is talking about. The judicial is the branch of government that has the authority to grant redress. It is the sole prerogative of the judicial to decide whether a law has been infringed. Congress can change the laws going forward, but once a petition for redress reaches the court, it is out of the hands of the legislative.
While I completely agree that the infringement of the 4th in the name of the war on terror is wrong, it is not a clear attempt to usurp the sovereign power of the American people to control the powers of government. The violation of the 1st amendment's right to petition for redress is the most egregious portion of the FISA bill.
As an aside; one can also see the attempted shift in the balance of power with the newly merged PRO-IP/PIRATE acts. The way it has worked (in all cases, as far as I know), is that government cases against the people were criminal, and required proof beyond a reasonable doubt. People's cases against the government or agents of government are civil, requiring preponderance of evidence. Some are holding hope for the possibility of criminal action, but even so, with the FISA bill, we lost the right to preponderance of evidence. With PRO-IP/PIRATE, the government is taking preponderance in place of beyond reasonable doubt. It is extremely telling and disturbing to me that the government is simultaneously saying that the people cannot be trusted with preponderance, and that the government need not be limited to beyond reasonable doubt.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
What has happened to US, reminds me of a quote from Benjamin Franklin:
Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
i agree the bailing out of the banks and all the crap they are pull
The problem is one of moral hazard and responsibilities of both political parties. Republicans are supposed to be the bulwark against the excesses of Washington and they've honestly been terrible.
The expansion of the budget deficit under Bush, and I am a Republican, has been utterly foolish and wasteful. The bottom line is, Democrats are the ones that are supposed to be the ones that want to tax and spend and, even if sometimes it is needed, they are the ones that should do that.
But, the real problem is that, if you've got the Feds bailing out a bunch of banks - and the sweetheart deal for Bear Sterns so that rich people could keep some of their stock, was utterly wrong. If the Fed can come up with 200 billion to bail out rich people, its basic fairness that advocates for the left wing and the poor might ask , geez, maybe they should be able to get some money to bail them out too. So, we need to have some leadership in Washington that is capable of saying no, and Bush just isn't doing the job.
I almost welcome an Obama Presidency so that those Republicans in the Congress that had the courage to vote against this bailout will be the Republicans we rebuild our party around, and in doing so, I should hope we focus on the positive messages of free enterprise, individual thrift and responsibility, or at least an acceptance of one's own failures, and less on ridiculous and wrong headed crap like picking on gays and supposed national security.
This is my sig.
Ah yes, because all those career Democrat politicians are spending their lives working for a government..... But there's no vast left-wing conspiracy to take down the American economy.
Nationalize everything, and therefor, the government has a lot more power. I don't see what the Dems are doing as maliciously minded. I perfectly concede that they genuinely believe that everything would be better if they ran everything. It's just that, humans have tried socialism over and over again and it simply hasn't worked. You need to have private property and businesses for the economy to work. Everyone knows this. Even Cuba is now gradually increasing private property rights for individual farmers in a bid to increase its own production.
Of all great ironies, though, is that, if we step forward 100 years, Reagan and Clinton will be seen as more alike than apart, and similarly, Bush and Obama will both represent a more activist and centralized government.
This is my sig.
"I no longer give to charity for an extension of those same reasons. Charities are now run like businesses, with salaried fund raisers, and wage slaver collectors on the streets. They pay to make money, and they make more money this way. Since making money is their primary cause, they see it as a good thing."
I understand where you're coming from, since I give a good bit to charities myself... however, don't write all charities off because of the smarmy, professional fund raisers that some employ. A good way to gauge good charities is with Charity Navigator, which rates charities on a variety of topics, including fundraising and expenses. If a charity is spending too much on fundraising and administration, it's all laid out for you to see. Most also have their mailing list and privacy policies available there. Before I give to any cause now, I check Charity Navigator first.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Oblig. xkcd.com/398/
Before commenting on the Bible, please read it first
Is it really misplaced though?
If the administration had gone to your local mafia syndicate and asked them to rough you up to get some information out of you, is the administration the only one to blame? I know its a tad hyperbolic, but what about those wonderful nuremberg trials? We held people accountable for their own actions, orders be damned. So why are we supposed to give these (corporations as people) people a pass?
BOTH the administration AND the telcos broke the law, and BOTH should be held accountable, whether or not they are is a different story.
My Sig Sucks
In a weird art imitates life senerio, this summer's hollywood movie Batman has him doing cell phone evesdroping on the entire city to catch the Joker.