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Judge Orders White House To Produce Wiretap Memos
sv_libertarian sends this excerpt from the Associated Press:
"A judge has ordered the Justice Department to produce White House memos that provide the legal basis for the Bush administration's post-Sept. 11 warrantless wiretapping program. US District Judge Henry Kennedy Jr. signed an order (PDF) Friday requiring the department to produce the memos by the White House legal counsel's office by Nov. 17. He said he will review the memos in private to determine if any information can be released publicly without violating attorney-client privilege or jeopardizing national security. Kennedy issued his order in response to lawsuits by civil liberties groups in 2005 after news reports disclosed the wiretapping."
3....2.....1.....
Assuming an Obama win on Tuesday and a serious shift towards Democrats (what polls largely suggest), are we finally going to see some serious investigations and accountability for this current administration?
I know the wheels of justice are often rather slow. But I do hope the courts eventually get around to reeling back in the egregious power-grabs of the current executive. I also hope the next executive doesn't attempt to maintain such.
I thought it was fairly well established that the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping predates 9/11. The NSA was meeting with Qwest executives in February 2001, trying to pressure them into allowing it. They said no, other carriers buckled.
But Democracy has to be defended. When Italians do not respect democracy, and only cynically use the cover of our democratic rights to produce their nefarious ices and spirit them into our bedrooms and base-ball parks, then I say, we are at war. And whoever is not on my side is on the side of the Italians. So all you naysayers and humbuggers can just go and live in Italy, and see if the Italians let you have any "free democracy" that you are always bitching about here.
Posted [...] on 2008-11-02
Kennedy issued his order in response to lawsuits by civil liberties groups in 2005 after news reports disclosed the wiretapping.
It has taken three to four years, roughly a whole term, to get a judge to dig up this bit of the current administration's {,mis,ab}use of power.
What will the consequences for the Bush et al. be, if their practices are found to be unconstitutional? Is there a real incentive to uphold the constitution if it takes so long to dig up the dirt?
FISA - The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act - of 1978 provided the president a method to tap communications without a warrant in a "Ticking Time Bomb" situation. FISA allows investigators begin surveillance without proper documents as long as the activities are reported to a judge for review within 72 hours. In any Time-Bomb scenario, 72 hours should be ample time for the investigators to gather the needed information to prove that their hasty wire-tap was legitimate. The judge will sign the warrant and everybody is happy.
In any other case, the judge will surveillance must be shut down and the records sealed immediately. This law has been so effective that out of the hundreds of FISA taps exactly ZERO have been denied.
This is why the Bush administrations new warrantless wiretapping is so distressing. The system wasn't broken! It worked very well. This is simply yet another attempt by the administration to do an end run around due-process. Bush and Cheney have done more to erode the constitution than any other duo in this country's history.
Lets all hope that our next president will restore some order to the land and respect the laws that provide his power. If we allow our executive to choose which laws he will follow, we're on a short trip to the disaster that won't be unlike Russia's "Democracy".
This one's tricky. You have to use imaginary numbers, like eleventeen... --Hobbes
The court order mandates an in camera (in chambers) review of the memos, and only those that have not been granted summary judgment. Meaning that there is still a chance that the most putrid examples of abuse of civil rights are screened out for "national security" reasons. The OUTCOME of this review will be far more interesting (and indicative of the amount of justice that will be serves) than the order for its release.
... or these crooks get away scott-free in the long run.
Oh, right. Never mind.
We Republicans will be happy to answer your trumped up charges with IEDs.
Awesome, I can't wait for far-right Republicans to become domestic terrorists, get rounded up and shipped to Gitmo. It just seems appropriate somehow.
Attacking the legal government... setting off IEDs... That would make the Republicans... TERRORISTS!!!
I like how a self-professed Republican's response to (hopefully) losing a democratic election is to call it a coup and threaten setting off IEDs. I mean, that is really high-quality irony.
How did Bush put it? "If you're not with us, you're with the Ter.. err.. us."
"Won't get fooled again!"
This is why the Bush administrations new warrantless wiretapping is so distressing. The system wasn't broken! It worked very well. This is simply yet another attempt by the administration to do an end run around due-process. Bush and Cheney have done more to erode the constitution than any other duo in this country's history.
Except for democrats shredding the commerce clause to enact their agenda... I mean, there's nothing in the constitution that gives the federal government the right to regulate the environment, for starters. And of course, I didn't see Bush tossing muslim americans in camps the way Roosevelt did both the Japanese. For that matter, when did Bush ever try and pack the Supreme Court with extra judges the way Roosevelt did...
This is my sig.
Swearing in won't take place till early January, just ahead of the presidential inauguration on January 20. Don't expect any action on Nov 5 :)
Sig Registration Form 34c_766(a) submitted to Ministry of Signature Management. Approval pending.
The Stasi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi), East Germany's secret police, ended up collecting so much information on its citizens that it was impossible to process and analyze it all. "Some calculations have concluded that in East Germany there was one informer to every seven citizens."
Sure, the NSA has all kinds of wizz-bang gadgets to sort and process their stuff, but I wonder if the same thing is happening with them?
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
I wouldn't expect to see any right wing insurgent activity
Of course you wouldn't.
Oh and by the way, re: your original post, the liberals didn't do jack shit to your glorious leader's war. Bush "stayed the course" and refused to "outsource the position of commander in chief", he has personally earned every last bit of glory coming to him for it, no matter how much that fact makes you rage.
IN the book Friday, Friday would give the Government all the information they wanted, except it would be wrong just to fuck them up. Pay too much tax. Transcribe a number wrong. Mark the sex wrong on a form. Etc....
In a Democratic America, you'll only be allowed to argue about the effectiveness of the administration Democrat plans but not question the ideas. It will be just like Soviet Times.
Or just like the last eight years, only in the other direction.
Your side would cave in like it does to every other insurgency on the planet. You caved to the likes of the Weather Underground and the Nation of Islam in the 1960s, you tried to cave into the Bader Meinhoff in the 1970s, you caved to the IRA and the PLO under Clinton, and begged to cave into Al Sadr and Al Qaeda in Iraq...
So given the groups you identify with, you have the audacity to call wanting the government to be subject to the same laws as the people "treason"?
What a dirty, cowardly little nazi piece of shit you are.
I think I speak for all ACs when I say, "Sir, you are retarded."
So given the groups you identify with, you have the audacity to call wanting the government to be subject to the same laws as the people "treason"?
Oh fuck that argument, especially when the Weather Underground gave our President his career start.
What a dirty, cowardly little nazi piece of shit you are.
How can you call us Nazis when Bush accepted every contrary media as part of free speech, and your guys first move is to try and squelch the other side? Let's face it, Obama's "common purpose" is a lot more national socialistic than "ownership society".
How do you even live with yourself, and say the lies you say?
This is my sig.
Some people always believe that anything bad is the result of a conspiracy by the groups they are not part of (and which they claim have the exact opposite stance on everything)...
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
You know what would happen, don't you? Your side would cave in like it does to every other insurgency on the planet.
MY side? I'm a moderate conservative. Your "side" makes me look bad.
How can you call us Nazis when Bush accepted every contrary media as part of free speech, and your guys first move is to try and squelch the other side?
In the first place, "your guys" doesn't apply. There are plenty of actual arguments to be made against Obama, including his vote for the telecom immunity act which was an act of treason. Of course, your guy voted for that too, so you're stuck with silly asinine arguments since McCain and the Republican party are far far worse than the Democrats.
I'm essentially a Classical Liberal which means I believe in small government, fiscal responsibility, freedom and all of that. You know, like the constitution lays out. So while I dislike the Democrats and their excesses, looking at just the 2 major parties, absolutely objectively, the Republicans are far worse in every area. Big government? Absolutely. Republicans win this hands down. Reagan beat FDR's record for *growth* of the government and Bush recently beat Reagan's record. Fiscal irresponsibility? Republicans again. They know no restraint and spend like mad at interest on crazy pork bullshit like Moose Fucker's bridge to nowhere. Anti-Liberty? Right, death camps, universal surveillance, kicking down doors of people's homes and dragging patriotic citizens off to jail like at the Republican convention.
How do you even live with yourself, and say the lies you say?
This is completely laughable. You are so far out on the loony fascist fringe that you assume anybody with legitimate complaints about your Fuhrer must be an Obama supporter, when disgust with the Republicans is all over the political spectrum and includes everybody *except* right wing extremists. You know, like the Nazis. That's where you fall on the political spectrum and the system that you are arguing in support of.
Arguing against your disgusting position doesn't constitute communism or even anything remotely near the left. It's called sanity. That's all it takes to see you for the big government police state fascist asshat you are.
c) Disempower the country. Any means of accumulating private wealth, and thus power, will be eroded. You'll see increased capital gains.
So, you'd prefer capital losses?
Think before you type.
Your little tirade was quite spectacular, but the fact of the matter is that you ducked the question at hand. Once again, Obama and co are going to shut off free speech for their political opponents.
You argument that Republicans are "far worse" than Democrats has no basis in fact. Your charges about death camps really show where you are. If there was a Republican death camp, for sure, two things are for sure, a) it would be all over the news because the media is liberal, and b) Bush would be a hell of a lot more popular among his own party than he is now.
You are so far out on the loony fascist fringe that you assume anybody with legitimate complaints about your Fuhrer must be an Obama supporter,
Most of your complaints aren't legitimate, that's the point. They are talking points of your opposition.
Yeah, and seriously, you think Bush is a bit of a excessive guy, so you go and support a Stalinist. I mean, Bush throws in one or two guys into Gitmo, which sucks, but, the left has already far exceeded that level of constitional violations already when they tossed the japs into internment camps.
You can call me crazy, but when this Obama buddy of yours goes and does the Fairness Doctrine, brags to private donors about all the coal miners he's thrown out of work, mandated bilingual content for everything, thrown 50,000 people into prison for copyright infringement so his masters will be appeased, raised capital gains taxes and killed investment in the USA, THEN, silences his political opposition, you tell me how great your buddy is.
Puhlease. One year from now, Democrats will be rationalizing everything they did, and it will all be ten times as much as what Bush did.... Democrats -don't care if the free market or private sector exists-, don't you get it?
This is my sig.
Impeachments come from Congress, not from the President, so the date of the swearing in is irrelevant, except that, per the GP's point, if they're going to happen they need to happen BEFORE Jan 20. However, you're right that nothing will happen on Nov 5th.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Both of the political polar extremes disgust me. I'm not voting for Obama, but it's not because of any of the garbage being spewed by either side, or that he's black. I wouldn't vote for Obama if he were running as a conservative Republican, Libertarian, Green Party, or any other party. He just doesn't have enough of a political/legislative/executive track record to be POTUS IMO no matter what he promises.
It would be like a major corporation taking some guy off the assembly line after a year on the job and making him CEO. It doesn't matter what kind of promises he makes, or how well and fast he worked making widgets. He's simply not demonstrated the competence and judgment to be CEO.
Cheers!
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
You can call me crazy, but when this Obama buddy of yours
I'll leave you to your loony echo chamber rants. You obviously aren't talking to me.
You assume they've been keeping records of the interesting parts.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
In merely looking at the communications, he himself is violating the attorney-client privilege. The reason the law exists in the first place it to protect that privilege and no judge should be allowed to determine whether or not it is warranted.
There's lots of speculation about telecomm lobbyists and whatnot, but I don't really think the degree of lockstep on this issue can be explained simply by AT&T dollars. Moreover, if they just wanted to shield AT&T, they could've allowed investigations to go through, but capped damages for anything that AT&T could show the government had ordered them to do to a very nominal figure, or even agreed to have the government cover the damages.
They pretty clearly though, in both parties, didn't want this investigation happening at all. My guess is that that's because, if it were fully investigated with subpoena power and whatnot, we'd find out that both a number of administration members broke the law, but also that a number of Congress members from both parties either broke the law or knew about law-breaking.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Congress will be lame too. Ya know. But either way, drop this impeachment shit, it ain't gonna happen. Bush is gonna retire rich and fat somewhere and there is nothing anyone can do about it.
Considering where "Bush Country" is, I don't think you drooling hillbillies would want another Civil War. You will lose even worse than the last time, and for similar reasons. Although, seeing Atlanta burn to the ground for a second time does have a certain aesthetic appeal to it.
Similar to the upcoming US election results
we've already seen what happens when you subpoena evidence like that. "accidents happen".
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
For all our sakes, please take up smoking again, your insane rants rants are getting worse.
Your irrational fear is palpable in your post, it would be amusing if it wasnt sad. Now switch off your computer and go back to watching FOX news, and let the adults talk in peace.
I predict it will play out something like similar demands have in the past:
GWB: Fuck you.
Federal judge: Yes sir. Sorry to have bothered you.
Qwest lost pentagon contracts for refusing to illegal wiretap when it was asked to in February 2001 . The 9/11 attacks are a strawman argument for the executive branch grabbing as much power as they can.
As to impeachment, Pelosi has said impeachment is off the table for quite awhile. Kucinich has tried to start impeachment hearings but they got killed in subcommittees. The two parties may bicker at some level but they wouldn't actually want to oh, follow the law or anything when it comes to trampling personal liberties.
America was stabbed in the back by the left wing, as usual.
Wow, NAZI much? Holy shit, you've Godwinned this thread so hard it's not even funny.
You seem to be forgetting that the alternative is Palin. That would be like taking the bum passed out in the back alley and making him CEO.
No, the alternate is McCain. If something happens to him, it is then Palin. Either way, with McCain, your not going to have 4 years of Palin as you would with Obama.
That doesn't even start to mention that Palin has at least took the training courses, she is the executive of Alaska right now.
He mean capitol gains tax. I read it that way and didn't realize what you were talking about until I went back and look.
Going with our current analogy, I'd rather have four years of the guy off the assembly line than three years of the bum from the back alley.
If we want to get serious about the analogies, Obama is the guy who was a member of the board of directors of the company for about three years who has a magna cum laude degree from Harvard "business school" and who taught "business administration" at the university of Chicago for 12 years. Palin is the guy who was formerly the CEO of another company that made similar products but that had 1/500 as many employees.
Umm, I'm pretty sure YHBT. Just saying.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
Democrats deliberately derailed the war effort and the economy in order to get elected and you are looking for more spoils of your coup?
Coup??? That would be the Newt Gingrich "Contract on America" coup, right? Well, that sure turned out well
If you want a civil war, why don't we just get on with it already. We Republicans will be happy to answer your trumped up charges with IEDs.
Oh, excellent -- the Republicand are already rehearsing their baby-will-cry tantrum -- "By God, if we go down, we'll take the country with us. Waaaahhhhh." Talk about treason.
That should be pretty successful, shouldn't it, just like when Newt and his fellow numbnuts declared they'd bring the government to a screeching halt. Another wildly successful gambit by the Grumpy Old Party.
Buncha fucking losers.
As I recall those who went along were paid well for their participation. So I question the use of the term "buckling" which suggests force was applied as opposed to selling their soul for 30 pieces of silver plus overtime which is what really happened.
It is a coup. Democrats and their left wing allies did everything they could to derail the economy and the war. America was stabbed in the back by the left wing, as usual. And the thing is, once they get into power, you are going to see them do everything they can to extend their lead, undemocratically by:
Yeah, well -- it'll take a lot of activity to roll back the massive waste of money and the civil rights abuses of the past eight years.
Jesus Christ, you can be sure we don't even know the half of the ways we've been cornholed by the Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, Mueller, Tenet cabal and their bastard successors in this administration.
Another prophetic captcha: scrutiny
Moose Fucker's bridge to nowhere
Aww, c'mon -- that's a little harsh, isn't it? Really, she voted for it and she took the money, right? But then she blew the money on something entirely different, huh? I mean, that's about as honest as you get with a Republican -- agreed?
Of course he wouldn't outsource the position of Commander In Chief. That would mean he'd have to give up the job, and he wasn't gonna do that without a fight. He wasn't impeached because the opposition didn't have the votes, and if they did come up with them somehow, the Party would have just screamed "This is the Democrats' revenge for Clinton! They're with the terrorists!" or some such nonsense to cloud the issue to where nothing could be done, just like they did to Clinton.
FWIW, Clinton should have been impeached (and he was) for perjury. Who cares what blowjobs he got in the Oval Office? The precident was set that the President is somehow above the law, and we've been living with the repercussions of that for the last 8 years. It's not going to disappear overnight regardless of which meatpuppet 'wins' the election. Clinton was out of line for lying under oath in a court of law, something that me & thee, John Q Citizen, would have done jail time for. Bush was out of line for the wiretapping, the lying to start the Iraq War, and a whole bunch of other things. They're both politicians, therefore they're both suspect. Neither Obama nor McCain is a saint, either. THEY'RE both politicians, too. So are Palin and Biden. See the mess we're in now?
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
GWB lawyer: see signing statement #289
GWB: Fuck you
Federal judge: Yes sir. Sorry to have bothered you.
There, fixed that for you.
Ah, yes, the 'Free Speech Zones', far away from the cameras. Yes, let's get protesters away from the action so we can spin 'no opposition' to anything a politician says.
From what I read in the Constitution, the 'Free Speech Zone' is defined as any place inside the borders of the United States, or its possessions or embassies (embassies are considered as being part of the national soil of the country who runs them). The point of protesting something is to be seen, to remind a politician like they used to do with a Roman they were honoring by a parade. They had a slave in the chariot with him constantly saying "This too is fleeting. This too will pass." Tended to help keep the Roman grounded. We need something to keep our politicians grounded. 'Free Speech Zones' ain't it.
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
Member of the BoD of what company. Obama was never a board of directors member of any company unless your talking about charities with 15 employees. His senate experience is not executive experience which Palin has. Obama has never presided directly over an organization with more then 15 employees. NEVER-
You seem to be full of shit. It's no wonder why your posting AC. It seems that you know you making false statements (even if your just repeating them) and don't want them associated with your name.
You haven't read any of tjstork's posting history, have you?
Everybody knows all the anti smoking propaganda is a socialist plot. This gentleman is therefore not a republican, he is just another snot nosed whiney socialist in disguise, trying to undermine the rule of law.
It is a coup.
The coup occurred in 2000, and was a multi-faceted effort. There was, for example, Katherine Harris, Jeb Bush's co-campaign chair and Florida's corrupt secretary of state, who oversaw the illegal purging of tens of thousands of legitimate Black voters. There was the manufactured mob of republican congressional aids flown in from DC to scream and pound on the doors of the canvassing boards, yelling "stop the fraud" in response to efforts to count the ballots accurately. And finally, there was the U.S. Supreme Court itself, with its "states rights" advocate judges, who overturned a Florida state Supreme Court ruling regarding Florida state election law, with special bonus points going to Justice Clarence Thomas, who considered the matter thoughtfully and fairly before casting the vote that would allow his wife to continue her work for the Bush transition team.
Well, what the counsel said was "Give the documents to the Feds", but what the floor staff heard was "Rip the documents to shreds".
Clearly, it was all a case of bad cellular.
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
GP was using a business/government analogy, which should have been blatantly obvious if you had bothered to read the whole post. "Member of the Board of Directors" = Senator, "Teaching business administration" = teaching constitutional law
You nick is certainly appropriate this time.
Similar to the upcoming US election results
He just doesn't have enough of a political/legislative/executive track record to be POTUS
Oh, great. And if anything happens to McCain, who do you expect to step in and shove their hand up Palin's ass and move her mouth in a presidential manner? Real responsible, Johnny-my-boy -- that's everyone's idea of "Country First".
Let me repeat -- McCain has no real executive experience. Riding a disabled jet into the ground and spending five years in near-solitary confers no executive experience. Nor, for that matter, any realistic, formal foreign affairs experience, either.
Personally I'd rather have a lawyer with knowledge of and respect for the Constitution in the WH. At least he'll have a VP with deep knowledge of foreign affairs close by, not some dizzy bitch who thinks living in a state with vistas of Russia and Canada constitutes foreign affairs credentials.
You argument that Republicans are "far worse" than Democrats has no basis in fact. Your charges about death camps really show where you are. If there was a Republican death camp, for sure, two things are for sure, a) it would be all over the news because the media is liberal,...
Horseshit -- it's not all over the news because this fascist Republican cabal in the White House rules by secret executive order which invariably tries to cut out any semblance of court supervision. Like the CIA unaccounted-for flights to countries less squeamish about torture and the warrantless wiretapping, where the emphasis was turned to "plugging the leaks" (remember Nixon?) rather than addressing the buttfucking they were giving the Constitution.
Well sorry -- the cockbiter is so successful at running a secret government that the rank and file of the Republican party isn't in on the excesses of their Fuhrer, either.
Lol.. You can't make the logical conclusion that Obama's experience qualify him to be on the BoD of a company over Palin's experience in an analogy or not. The truth still holds true that in all his experience, he has never presided over more then 15 or so people until his campaigning. And even then, the exact number is in doubt until this current campaign. If anything in an analogy, he would be the department shift supervisor of Palin's management staff at some business. At least in Palin's experience, she has actually told a congress what to do and they listened to her enough to get it done.
Bush accepted every contrary media as part of free speech
You mean "Free Speech Zone" Bush, who makes sure anyone wanting to exercise a Constitutional right of protest gets herded into a "free speech" ghetto two miles away?
Fuck that shit -- with only the most circumscribed exceptions, every motherfucking square inch of America is a free speech zone.
Read the Constitution, you bloody fucks -- "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech". How goddamned clear can we make it for you asshole simpletons?
Fuck the lying bastard warmonger commander-in-thief.