White House Wants Phone Records Without Oversight

An anonymous reader writes "The Obama administration's Justice Department has asserted that the FBI can obtain telephone records of international calls made from the US without any formal legal process or court oversight, according to a document obtained by McClatchy."

Comments

LOL, you got GWB again!

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL, all of your presidents and their administrations are the same.

Re:LOL, you got GWB again!

[NatasRevol]

Those of us who aren't so partisan realized this a long time ago.

Each side has a few variations, but getting more power & money is the focus of both the Dems and the Reps.

Re:LOL, you got GWB again!

[Sarten-X]

Those of us who aren't so anti-government realized this even earlier.

Each side tries to do what they think is best for America, whether that's promoting human rights, economic security, or international stability. Each administration tries to make decisions based on what they believe to be right. For advice in that regard, they turn to expert advisors (usually chosen for their general views, rather than opinions on specific issues) and the public. Of course, when only a tiny fraction of the public actually cares enough to state their opinion, the administration's ability to make an informed decision is severely crippled.

When was the last time you complained to your representatives about defense spending? Or the education budget? Or the overreaching power of the FBI? This is your government. Participate in it.

Re:LOL, you got GWB again!

[bzipitidoo]

Some years ago I complained to my Representative about H1B visas.

He actually wrote back! But he twisted my complaint. Bragged how he was doing all he could to stop the evil Latinos from illegally swarming across our southern border. The government was building a fence! Great-- they were going to waste more of our money finding out that fences don't work well enough to be worth the trouble. Certainly I don't want totally uncontrolled borders, but that wasn't what I was complaining about.

"Suppose you were an idiot... And suppose you were a member of Congress... But I repeat myself." Mark Twain

Re:LOL, you got GWB again!

[houghi]

When was the last time you complained to your representatives about defense spending?

Yesterday.

Kind regards,
The people of Egypt.

Re:LOL, you got GWB again!

[hedwards]

The thing is that the voters reward that kind of behavior. If he wasn't doing it and something did happen, do you really think he'd get any credit for adhering to the constitution? Which is really unfortunate, at this point one really has to hand it to him, while it's not easy to avoid this, it is his problem at this point.

But by the same token, no President would be able to get away with it if there weren't a significant number of voters that are scared by their own shadows and willing to throw everybody else under the bus to get a modicum of safety.

The lefties were right, yet again!

[Anonymous Coward]

They told me if I voted for McCain the president would want "illegal" wiretapping privileges! And they were right!

Re:meet the new boss

[conspirator57]

the same era's supreme court also upheld slavery and later provided us with Dredd Scott. So tradition is no defense against a facial violation of the Constitution. If we want unwarranted searches in certain conditions, we ought to do this thing called "amend" the constitution to allow it and enact laws in accordance with those amendments. that is what we call the "rule of law". We certainly shouldn't want to drift further away from being a nation of laws. Look at Zimbabwe for an example of our eventual destiny should we continue down the cult of personality road.

Moreover, while the old precedent was bad, it is notably made worse by other, more recent encroachments that the supreme court is trying desperately not to hear because they clearly like having a king-like president but don't want to admit it.

We used to, as a society, value the idea of improving our country and its governance to more closely resemble our ideals. Sure there were setbacks, but Americans in 1990 were notably more free than in 1950. 1950s Americans were notably freer than 1900s Americans. 1900s Americans were notably freer than 1850s ones. I think it's pretty obvious that 2010s Americans are notably less free than we were in 1990. I want us to return to the positive trend. I don't want a president encouraging dictators (*cough* Egypt *cough*) because they're our toadies and are more predictable and require less work and upkeep. I want freedom and self determination for all.

Re:meet the new boss

[houghi]

But I think we must also realize there are legitimate real-world problems that they have to contend with - for example, terrorism threats

Yeah, it worked. You are afraid. Step one of becoming a model citizen is done.
Being afraid is good. Sorry that we had to focus from communism to drugs to terrorism. Uh, I mean, we have always been at war with terrorism.

Re:*sigh*

[dkleinsc]

Can we now dispense with the myth of the 2-party system? There is one party -- the party of you're going to get fucked and you're going to like it.

That's actually not true at all. The problem is that the 2 parties in Congress aren't Democrats and Republicans. They're the Bribed Party, and People's Party. The Bribed Party is focused on getting their next round of campaign contributions and paying off the industries that get them into office. The People's Party, on the other hand, actually tries to figure out good policy.

The challenge of this sort of system is that since no reasonable ordinary citizen would vote for the Bribed Party, the Bribed candidates spend a ton of money trying to convince you that they're actually part of the People's Party. And because both the Democratic and Republican Parties are heavily controlled by the Bribed Party, the role of primaries is almost always to try to ensure that members of the People's Party don't make it to a general election or gain national prominence. So by the time you get to a general election, the reason the two purported major parties are fielding identical-sounding candidates is because they're actually both part of the Bribed Party. (As proof of what the goal of the primaries really is: People's Party candidate Ned Lamont beats Bribed Party candidate Joe Lieberman in a primary, and the Democratic Party leadership enthusiastically supports Joe Lieberman.)

The good news is that occasionally a People's Party candidate slips through, and some have established themselves quite well in Washington. A couple of examples of those guys are Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul, who led the effort to vote against the Patriot Act renewal just last week. There by all appearances are at least 148 members of the People's Party in the House, and they definitely deserve support even if they're hopelessly outnumbered and even more hopelessly outfunded.