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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
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.
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.
Depending on what the person looks like, I think they should have the right to bare a lot more than their arms. ;-)
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
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."
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
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
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.
You are aware are you not that the risk of an American being killed by a terrorist is just about the lowest of all the things likely to kill one right ? Cars kill the most, ciggarettes and burger king are pretty high on the list, PLANE CRASHES are higher than terrorists ... heck SUICIDE is a higher risk.
You American's kill more of each other every year than the terrorists can pull of combined ! You kill yourselves more often than they have managed to do !
If I were you, I would stop worrying about a few people whom you think is fighting a religious war (they are not, suicide missions occur in all wars and all religions, you yourselves send your spies out on missions with arsenic pills in their pockets, the Japanese fought you with suicide pilots - and they were of two religions, neither of which promised any reward for it - the 'muslim extremisms' thing is a great big lie which THEY love to tell as much as your leaders love to repeat it) and worry a little more about why it seems that you cannot stop blowing peoples brains out (note: I said nothing about owning guns, I'm in FAVOUR of gun-ownership, for a reasonable value of 'gun' at least - I am talking about what you DO with them, I'm sure if we banned guns you would just end up killing each other with knives so it's probably a different problem altogether).
Short version: Terrorist won't do anything to you. Other American's are about 500 times more likely to kill you... or maybe that is WHY you are happy to defend the government listening on your neighbours' phone calls without so much as a judicial review ? It's just easier to pretend you fear terrorists than admit you fear the guy next door ? Especially if he has a darker skin than yours ?
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
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.
The "conversations originating overseas" were illegal to monitor too! If they're going to break the fucking law to do that, then nothing stops them from doing exactly the same to Grandma and little Jimmy.
You're essentially saying, "they broke the law, but that's okay because they wouldn't break the law" which is just fucking stupid.
No, it shouldn't! Statistically, I'm as likely to be struck by lightning as I am to be killed by a terrorist. And I'm vastly more likely to die in a car wreck, or by slipping in the shower, or doing any number of other things that everybody does every day without particularly worrying about it. So no, this hysterical, cowardly obsession with the terrorist boogeymen should not be in everybody's fucking interest!
I'm more scared of the Bush administration than I am of the terrorists. By a wide margin.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
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Win a signed Stephen Carpenter ESP Guitar from the Deftones: http://def-tag.com/?r=0008781
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.
"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