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Attorney General Says Wiretap Lawsuit Must Be Thrown Out
Mr Pink Eyes writes with news about comments from US Attorney General Eric Holder, who said a San Francisco lawsuit over warrantless wiretapping should be thrown out, since going forward would compromise "ongoing intelligence activities." From the AP report:
"In making the argument, the Obama administration agreed with the Bush administration's position on the case but insists it came to the decision differently. A civil liberties group criticized the move Friday as a retreat from promises President Barack Obama made as a candidate. Holder's effort to stop the lawsuit marks the first time the administration has tried to invoke the state secrets privilege under a new policy it launched last month designed to make such a legal argument more difficult. ... Holder said US District Judge Vaughn Walker, who is handling the case, was given a classified description of why the case must be dismissed so that the court can 'conduct its own independent assessment of our claim.'"
says wiretab lawsuit
Indeed. Looks like all the apologists who said his vote for the FISA amendments was just political expediency but that he'd work against wireless wiretapping once in office have a little egg on their faces.
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
Let me get this straight - the case is against warrant-less wiretapping, and since the case would expose on-going warrant-less wiretapping investigations, it should be thrown out? That's about the worst circular argument I've ever heard.
Why don't they just say it - they're going to do what they want, and it doesn't matter what anyone outside the "secret" circle thinks.
same as the old boss
...we no longer have a democracy.
I'm probably not even going to bother voting anymore. These days, I can only choose between Kodos and Kang. It doesn't matter which side you pick, both of them suck.
Sometimes, I don't even know why we the people even bother voting these days. Three cheers for exercising our rights and all, but expecting things to get better when all we have to pick from are scumbags is like trying to lose weight in a restaurant that has nothing on the menu but deep-fried food.
The quote "since going forward would compromise "ongoing intelligence activities." makes me think the Obama administration is still doing this.
I don't care if it is easier. We need to respect our constitution, even if it makes our security agencies do a little more work.
Power is so hard to give up. Once people have it, it corrupts them.
Sad day in American history.
* Carthago Delenda Est *
I know the previous administration had an effect on us, but it appears to me that the current administration is actually handling this the right way. It may not be transparent to *us*, but matters of national security aren't supposed to be.
They provided the judge with the specifics, and let him decide. If the Bush White House had done that, rather than declare themselves above the law, we wouldn't be so jaded about executive privilege today.
This isn't as bad as it seems, and it's actually a huge step in the right direction.
...same as the old boss. But this is not just a bit of education for Obama supporters, it is a valuable lesson for Bush II supporters as well. The extraordinary powers to further your agenda that you grant to your glorious leaders today are certain to be abused to further the agendas of their successors tomorrow.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
...at tyrant's head (General Attorney Eric). Pull trigger. "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation....."
Warrantless searches are illegal, and if the courts won't protect the Constitution against domestic enemies, then We the People will do it instead.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
There's a Republican in upstate New York who's probably going to lose because she's not "conservative" enough. She's pro-gun - good thing in my government conservative book because it's a Constitutional (Second Amendment) issue and the other things have no business being regulated by the Government. But the rabid anti-abortionists and bigoted anti-gay people don't mind having their civil rights and freedoms taken away (except the guns!) as long as the "fags" and those "baby killers" are controlled. Oh, and they're also the ones who think invading a country for oil is defending our country. What I mean is that politicians have to pander to those people to get elected and those people are ones who are controlling that side of the government.
Now, the other side..the people who actually think Socialism can work even though it has never before and big Government can solve our problems, have their own rabid beliefs.
There's no room for moderates or rational people in American Politics.
It's NOT me! It's the meds! I'm on 1000mg of Fukitol.
For all of the howling the Obamessiah's followers made during the campaign about how evil Bush's policies were, he's sure continuing a lot of them that he originally pledged to do away with. Of course, nobody would DARE admit that maybe, just maybe, Bush was right...
Disinfect the GNU General Public Virus!
I'm not surprised. Republicans and Democrats are just two halves of the same tyranny. They both desire power to control the people, and damn the constitution, and damn the requirements for searches.
Next time you walk into a voting booth, and elect a congresscritter, choose one that is neither R or D. We need a Congress that has no clear majority, due to the presence of third parties. Just imagine how much healthier our Republic would be if, instead of 60% democrats and 40% republicans, the ratio was 40% democrats, 30% republicans, 20% libertarians, and 10% socialists. No party could dominate.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
hope. Granted it is only on the Republican side. Where grass roots Conservatives told their party elders to take a hike.
Still, it is hard to claim much freedom of choice when there are only two parties who can always get on the ballot, two parties who have done much to prevent other parties from having a chance. Where they could not do it by law they did by influence over media outlets.
In Obama's defense, promises made on the trail tend to fall by the wayside because reality sucks. The naivete of the Administration, let alone their voters, was astonishing. I think they both bought the hype. The problem of course is the world is harsh and all your "we love you love me" crap has no affect on the world stage.
Throw in a good dose of the Washington establishment (sorry - but his Chief of Staff was a dead give away the only change was the party who sat in the house) and how did anyone here honestly expect things to change? Then again I seem to recall a large number here who buy into Michael Moore's crap so no matter education or intelligence level snake oil sells.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
"In making the argument, the Obama administration agreed with the Bush administration's position on the case but insists it came to the decision differently." Talk about some weak-foo.
We said that was horrible and despicable, but we've since decided that it is ok, but we came to the decision differently than those previous horrible/despicable people who did it, so it is ok when we do it.
For those who may be unaware:
hypocrisy (h-pkr-s)
n. pl. hypocrisies
1. The practice of professing beliefs, feelings, or virtues that one does not hold or possess; falseness.
2. An act or instance of such falseness.
Either it is ok and you were wrong about Bush, or it is NOT ok and you are a lying hypocrit. Choose 1 please.
wire tapes ensure we keep world peace. they prevent the bad guys from plotting to do bad things over the phone. We know we are tapping the right people because we say so. How dare you give opponents of such peace keeping policies.
Now drink this Cool Aid
Obama - "Change we can forget about."
Obama administration agreed with the Bush administration's position on the case but insists it came to the decision differently
Meet the new Boss. Same as the old Boss.
I suspect that's probably what happened.
I suspect that Obama gives, and has always given, safety from terrorists more weight than freedom from wiretapping. He just wasn't convinced that the wiretapping was really delivering the safety.
So now he is.
But he's still wrong. Not about the safety. He's a smart guy, he now has all the information possible, and I suspect he's pretty close to right about the safety... at least in the short term, and at least within the bounds of the things he, as a member of the American political class, values and allows himself to value.
What he's wrong about is whether it's acceptable to spy on people without a warrant to get that safety.
The American political class, including Obama, has a very timid sense of morality. But I don't think his sense of morality has changed since he took office.
Umm... This week by beating innocent civilains I have caught 5 MAJOR terroist plans. Just trust me on this one. How can you possibly take an unverifiable statement made by a party that serves that party's interest at face value?
He's a smart guy, he now has all the information possible
No he doesn't: he simply wouldn't have the time to process it. The information he now has is whatever the various TLAs (CIA, FBI, NSA, etc) are giving him about their activities. These agencies have been known to lie to Congress, and I wouldn't be terribly surprised to find out they were lying to the president as well. Heck, in the CIA's case there was a recent spat in which the director found out about a longstanding program for the first time and immediately shut it down, which might have motivated the agents who were doing things they shouldn't have been to hide their programs from their own agency director.
I am officially gone from
This is change. You see, he's being evil in the same way as Bush, but for a different reason, which makes it okay. Bush was supported wiretaps because it served the interest of President Bush. Obama, on the other hand, supports them now because they serve the interests of President Obama. As you can see, this is an entirely different matter and so it's disingenuous to regard them as the same thing.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
"And, please stop calling every fiscal policy you don't like a "Ponzi scheme."
I wasn't referring to fiscal policy, I was referring to the housing bubble. It WAS a ponzi scheme, the only other useful term would be pyramid scheme. The people originating all those half million dollars mortgages to hairdressers and gardeners knew they would eventually implode, so did all the mortgage auditors and the bond rating agencies, so did most of the Wall Street banksters who securitized them and sold them off to pension funds and assorted other investors as AAA bonds. There is absolutely NO WAY subprime mortgages to people with either no proof of income, or insufficient income, could ever warrant AAA bond ratings.
All the way through the system people were just cashing in on the front end of the pyramid scheme and were indifferent that a crash was inevitable when all the ARM interest rates ballooned and those gardeners and hairdressers would inevitably default. The whole system was designed to allow people to grab money where none existed, and to screw people at the end of the scheme(mainly bond investors who thought they had bought ultra safe AAA bonds).
The original Internet bubble was just as much a pyramid scheme(there I didn't call it a Ponsi scheme). In case you haven't noticed the U.S. economy is so dysfunctional now the only way it keeps going is through one pyramid scheme after another, borrowing money from the rest of the world, or just printing it. That will probably continue until the rest of the world gets a clue and removes the U.S. dollar as the sole global reserve currency. Charles DeGaulle in the 1960's railed that allowing the U.S. dollar to be the global reserve currency allowed the U.S. to print money, borrow money and generally steal the rest of the world blind. Once the world switches to a different reserve currency, and the world has finally figured out the scam the U.S. was running the last two years, the U.S. wont be able to borrow a plugged nickel, the dollar will implode and the party will be over. Every other country that can't pay its bills ends in the arms of the IMF because they can't just borrow and print like the U.S.. Well not every country, Zimbabwe also tried to print its way out of its economic problems....
@de_machina