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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.'"
There is no political ideology or form of government that is not, on the face of it, well served by surveillance. Consequently, everyone will do it if they can. Anyone who sees surveillance as evil but a group of politicians as good should note this, because you will be sorely disappointed when your good people do evil. This applies in Europe as much as in the US.
I'd love to see examples of a significant withdrawal of surveillance anywhere in history that did not result from a revolution.
Power is so hard to give up.
Of course they won't give it up: power itself is the end goal, not a means to an end as the career politician endlessly preaches. Once they achieve it, that job is done. The next concern is the next acquisition of power, not how to lose the previous one.
If you look hard enough, you'll discover that governments only expand in power and revenue throughout their lifetimes, never reduce. There's a reason why no government in history has ever significantly, permanently, and willingly reduced their level of power or revenue: because power and revenue are the ends, not the means, and the people in the business of government work for themseleves, not you and me.
Would any (real) lawyers on Slashdot care to comment on how the Federal Rules of Procedure regard ex parte communications between the respondent and the judge, held secret from the plaintiff?
Then vote Constitution Party instead. They don't support warrantless searches of any kind.
Also there's more offices than just the president. A third party will probably never win the top office, but I beat we could win enough seats in Congress so that neither the Rs or Ds would have a majority. The duopoly will have been broken.
I hear you on the need to break up the collusion betweens the R's and D's against the wishes and interests of the people.
Since I never investigated the Constitution Party, I took a look at the their Website. Here's Doug Stewart's story of how he became a member from the front page of the aforementioned site:
George W. Bush had just been re-elected to a second term, but his remark, "the Constitution is nothing but a G.. D... piece of paper", really turned me off, but I had not voted for a Democrat since I was compelled into the Kingdom of God on the evening of 8/19/85.
Being a VA native and devotee of Southern history and heritage, though I went along for the ride after my conversion, I had always had a problem with "the Party of Lincoln". Bush's desire to expand the U.S. Empire abroad showed me what one of the big problems was. I began doing some research.
Seeing the reprobate Democratic platform, especially where abortion and homosexuality were concerned, I knew I needed to select a third party. The Libertarian Party was eliminated because they'll believe anything. More research showed me that the Constitution Party was tailor-made for me. I've now been a member for nearly five years, and am more politically active here than I ever was with the Republican Party.
From this "testimony" (published right there on the home page of the party), it sounds like the Constitution Party is the resurrection of the Confederacy.
The one thing that had kept me a Republican for so long (too long) was the fact that they were the "Party of Lincoln," which is precisely what turned off Stewart. If it's tailor made for Mr. Stewart -- a christian fundamentalist, unreconstructed Confederate -- it's exactly wrong for me. I'm still looking, believe me.
I am not a crackpot.
So be against Majoritarianism/Winner Takes All voting. The problem would be that the district system would have to go, because officials couldn't/wouldn't be elected locally any more (unless you, say, quadruple the number of representatives). But that would probably also cut down on those ridiculous amounts of money needed for elections, and, furthermore, decrease the possibility that votes are bought through "campaign contributions," or legalized bribery, because individual representatives would be less directly connected to special interests. In all, I would call it an enormous win, but YMMV.
Three umpires were asked about their jobs. One said "There are balls and there are strikes, and I call them as they are." The second said "There are balls and there are strikes, and I call them as I see them." The third said "There are balls and there are strikes, but they ain't nothing 'till I call them". There are plenty of court cases decided on opinion, like the ending of discrimination in DC schools. This is a case we should all be happy with, but it wasn't decided on any word of the Constitution, just an argument that the Constitution should bind the federal government more then the states.
Inventions have long since reached their limit, and I see no hope for further development.-- Frontinus, 1st cent. AD
Remember what happened when people decided to vote for a third candidate in Fla 2000? Right, the votes were lost. A two party system is a direct consequence of winner takes all voting. And the ruling parties have a huge incentive to gerrymander districts in such a way that any third party is neutralized; or they can just raise the voting bar to, say, 5% of national votes, to ensure no "fringe" parties are elected into parliament. (see Russia, Germany for examples.) There are so many ways to keep out newcomers. Lastly (and I'm not trying to be insulting here), but local interests are generally pretty stupid, and only encourage porkbarrel spending and logrolling practices to buy voters with. Practices like that are what kept the rust belt in business and innovation-free.
Anyway, you probably didn't want to hear that. The point, however, is that "your being heard" is a joke and a fiction. Sure, you'll be heard, if "you" consist of 30-50% of the voters in your district. But that'll never happen on every piece of legislation that impacts "you", most of which you don't even hear about. And in those cases your shiny toy representative just votes for the guys who paid for his TV indoctrination campaign.
First we wasted money on war; now we're wasting it on other shit. We need fiscal restraint.
While I don't agree that war in Afghanistan or Iraq were a waste, we have certainly wasted a crapload of money in both wars because we namby-pamby around and get distracted. They should have been over and done with in a few years and cost a fraction of what they have cost and will continue to cost.
My biggest beef since Bush's first term has been how much he spent on useless crap (asshole had the gall to cut taxes and raise spending, it's cut-cut, raise-cut, or raise-raise, unless you've been severly over-taxing it's never cut-raise). Now Obama seems to be on the war path to completely destroy our economy. There is a reason we have been the dominant financial power in the world for decades, and it's because our government didn't waste as much money as all the other first world countries, which allowed us to be more productive than everybody else. Now that is changing as Bush hit us hard with debt, and now Obama is trying to out-spend Bush in his very first year in office. It's insanity.
Why the hell can't presidents get their heads around the idea of "spend less than you take in"? It's not that hard, any responsible adult can do it. I suppose when you never have to live in the real world you don't have to learn these things.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
Okay, I know this post probably won't get modded up too high, given Slashdot libertarian groupthink, but: the Constitution doesn't say warrantless wiretapping is illegal. Let's take a look at the text of the Fourth Amendment:
This only says that searches must be "reasonable". It does not say "no search whatsoever can occur without a warrant". It mentions warrants, but doesn't say when exactly they're required. So, it's as legitimate an opinion as any to say that the government should have to get warrants for all domestic wiretapping, sure. But the Constitution doesn't say that.
Court precedent (based partly on the Constitution) might say that warrantless wiretapping is illegal, of course. Or it might not. There's no decision on the matter that hasn't been overruled, so it's an open question. I imagine, however, that most of the people calling warrantless wiretapping illegal and, e.g., advocating (+4 Insightful) assassination of the attorney general, are not lawyers and aren't really qualified to have an opinion on what the legal precedent implies.
So, might I request that we all make it clear what our personal opinions are, but don't claim support of the Constitution if it doesn't actually say anything clear on the issue?
MediaWiki developer, Total War Center sysadmin
"The bulk of the spending increases have been in defense, an area where traditional socialists oppose massive spending and where libertarians support it."
I think you missed the point. I'm not saying our government is "Socialist" in the left leaning, pro worker nanny state form. I'm saying the U.S. is Socialist in the right wing, state capitalism sense(a.k.a. Fascism). I know using that word causes immediate invocation of Godwin, and half the readers thinks its wacko the instant they see the word, but it really is the only term that really applies to the U.S. political/economic system now. It can easily be applied to Russia, China and the U.K. too.
Massive military spending it a hallmark of Fascism, it defines it, it is a mandatory part. The fact that the U.S. has, and spends so much on, such a massive, aggressive military, engaging in aggressive wars (and the invasion of Iraq was classic unprovoked aggression based on fabrication) just helps prove my case. Even better the U.S. also has a gigantic web of intelligence agencies who are increasingly spending more time spying in America than anywhere else furthers my argument. The infamous East German police state had to have an army of people to eavesdrop on a small fraction of its people. Thanks to computers and telecommunications the U.S. can now spy on nearly everyone all the time.
@de_machina
Umm, just FYI, as a Canadian who is perfectly happy living in a nation that most Americans would consider virtually communist, I have to disagree rather strongly with this. And I'm sure your average European would agree with me.
Well that's the thing, most Americans can't and don't distinguish between communism and socialism, which is why when he said socialism has never worked before, I'm certain in his head he was thinking of the USSR and Eastern Europe during the Cold War.
I think it was during the 50s McCarthyism when Socialism somehow got equated to Communism. So while Western Europe et. al. were implementing rational socialist policies while still resisting the Soviets, we had to reject all of these things as somehow being equal to what our enemy was doing... even though they aren't...
The funny thing is that since both McCarthyism and the Cold War are long gone, you'd sound pretty silly accusing someone of being a communist. First because almost nobody really is, and second because it's considered a non-threat in this day and age, like accusing someone of being a British sympathizer it has no weight. Socialism still retains it's swear-word status, and since it's still alive and well in the world, it still retains its weight as a threat and thus insult -- at least if you don't distinguish between it and communism.
The enemies of Democracy are
I understand your desire to be a responsible citizen in the world and to avoid unnecessary bloodshed. I can understand the arguments against going into Iraq (no WMD's, lies, lies, lies, etc). BUT, to say that we should not have done anything about Afghanistan is pure pacifism.
There are times when nothing except for force will change things for a people. Think back to the Revolutionary War. We wouldn't have stood a chance against Britain if it weren't for France's intervention. Britain and France would not have stood a chance against Germany in either world wars without our intervention.
Pacifists, like you, assume the people are inherently good, and left to their own devices they will act as such. I wish that were the case, but people are assholes. Everyone once in a while you have to punch an asshole in the face to get him to leave you alone.