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US Government Monitoring Associated Press Phone Records
Picass0 writes with distressing news from the AP wire, about the AP: "The Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press in what the news cooperative's top executive called a 'massive and unprecedented intrusion' into how news organizations gather the news."
They obtained call records from a number of desk phones, and the personal phones of many news editors. The DOJ has not commented, but it may be related to the possibility that the CIA director leaked information on a foiled terror plot in Yemen last year.
No one could be worse than Bush!
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
Laws are for plebeians, not patricians.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
It is time to fire the Attorney General. If he knew of this then he is a criminal. And if he didn't then he is an idiot. Neither are acceptable.
As long as we all agree that "Good" is framed by ideology not behavior.
We're protecting everyone's freedom - by looking very closely at how everyone exercises it and categorising every result.
This is, because we all agree, that America was founded on the principle of Safety Assured - and we are guaranteed any freedom that promotes this.
Do not support terrorism and discuss the validity of these arguments. Your freedom is not a license to be unorthodox in civil or economic matters.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Yeah some real change from the John Ashcroft days...
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Because we need to have two classes of people: journalists and ordinary plebians. As if the mainstream media needs anything more to pump up their already stratospheric egos.
I'm just surprised the AP didn't turn over their records voluntarily. It's not like they investigate the current government - hell, the AP is simpatico with their political beliefs, so what advantage is to be gained by being antagonistic?
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
How is there no mention of if there was or was not a warrant for this in the summary? More over, how the hell does the TFA not even use the word once?
There is a big difference between private parties breaking the law, and the Federal Government breaking the law
I would mod this 'Funny', but there are so many people who actually believe nonsense like this that I can't be sure.
someone leaked classified info to the press which is a crime
DoJ is investigating
what's the problem?
Someone stole a car in your neighborhood.
The police wiretapped the phones of everyone in town, and record the license plates of all cars at every destination.
what's the problem?
If you don't get it yet, this is how they ran East Germany and Romania. "Laws" are not inherently moral dictates. Hitler had laws that made matters of public interest "classified", too.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Seriously, the press is all over things like wiretapping, political intrigues, what kind of corn was in the president's bowel movement today (was it GMO corn!?), etc, and seems to think that this kind of 'microscope up the ass' intrusiveness is not only 'news!' But also "the public has a right to KNOW!"
But, when somebody turns around and investigates one of THEM, "oh loaurd Jeezuz it's a fiar!".
What's good for the goose, is good for the gander AP. When you shamelessly cram the microscope up asses, don't act insensed or surprised when you get the microscope colonoscopy too. Simply because your shiny little badge says "news", does not make you immune to the law, and you are *not* people of priveledge.
Don't get me wrong, sunshine is good, and breaking stories about govt wrongdoing is healthy and good. Just don't foster an image of sweeping disregard for privacy, and due process while doing so, unless you want the same treatment for yourselves.
Enjoy your DoJ probing. You enjoyed probing others, so its surely right up your alley, AP.
We have specific problems right now with presidential overreach by Obama and Bush, and the solution is political change and discussion. Cynicism like yours is part of the problem, not part of a solution. The solution is to kick out politicians responsible for this.
If the leak was ok'd by Obama then it is not against the law. Maybe the WH wanted the American people to think they were doing something about terrorism.
Oh yeah. You have a "work within the system" and "hope and change" response. Because that works out, so very well.
See this: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3745845&cid=43715361
The system is corrupted beyond the imaginings of Eisenhower - with his famous warning.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
someone leaked classified info to the press which is a crime
DoJ is investigating
what's the problem?
Maybe we should also be asking what compelled the director of one of the most powerful intelligence organizations in the country to feel he had to tell his fellow citizens something that was so important, he was willing to risk his career and his freedom to do.
And if we judge his actions to be on the side of justice, fairness, and the principles of democracy which we say are the foundation of our laws... then perhaps we should examine more closely how a man who did right by his people is being declared a criminal by his government.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
DoJ is not allowed to go on fishing expeditions, which is what this was.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
As a doctor I am allowed to do many things that you are not allowed to do. Does that make me into another "class" of citizen? A journalist who studied journalism should certainly have both the rights AND responsibilities that go with his earned degree.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
are there enough poiliticans left after you kick out the bad ones to run the country? which party would you propose should the president be from next election? They are equally bad.
NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER GIVE UP! "No limitations, no boundaries, there is no reason for them."
Actually, there are shorter cycles as well, kind of like harmonics.
Interesting comment you made there about harmonics.
Harmonics can be deadly: Tacoma Narrows Bridge Collapse "Gallopin' Gertie"
So, at the moment the Obama administration has the following scandals brewing:
Justice Department: Gov't obtains wide AP phone records in probe
IRS: The IRS’s Tea-Party Targeting
State Department and Office of President: The Benghazi Deception
There are a few other things brewing in the background as well.
It might be a hot summer for the Obama administration regardless of the weather.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Yes, and you're a member of a professional org that regulate the practice of medicine. Do you want a similar org under gov't regulation dealing with what's allowed speach?
As a doctor I am allowed to do many things that you are not allowed to do. Does that make me into another "class" of citizen? A journalist who studied journalism should certainly have both the rights AND responsibilities that go with his earned degree.
Perhaps, but a doctor's slip of the hand can kill. A journalist's slip of the tongue will only irritate. As well, one can argue about the appropriateness of demanding to see your papers before being afforded protection for public speech in a self-described democracy...
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Awww, the press is upset that someone checked over their phone records. At least they obtained a warrant. The FBI appears to think that no such thing is needed when it's a common citizen that they want records for. How come the press is upset when it happens to them but seems to ignore the FBI doing it to others?
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
they weren't fishing, they were hunting.
rewriting history since 2109
Look at you. Above the fray, criticizing both Obama and Bush. Bush never did anything like this. You can't take your vote for Obama back, so when confronted with an undeniable scandal you make sure to always mention the predecessor in the same breath. You took sides when you voted. It's your bed. Sleep in it. Own it.
"The pen is mightier than the sword."
Reflect long and hard on the many meanings and implications of this statement, and how it relates to the power that the press wields.
(Don't forget about how words galvanized very recent and dramatic events, like the arab spring, and the power that freely exchanged words had there, and how people indeed did die from it.)
The glib assertion that the press is a poor defenceless puppy that at most can only make you irritable when it piddles on the carpet is very much in the wrong. It's called the 4th estate for a reason, and people galvanized by it, are called the 5th column for similar reasons.
It is because the press holds such power that they too need to be accountable in some fashion, for their actions.
Silly goose. Leakers and whistleblowers are only respected when a Republican regime is in power.
The over-reach is equally enabled by Congress with their great ideas like FISA, the Patriot Act and so on.
It's a disgusting situation.
The solution is to dissolve *all* of the executive branch orgs created via the executive order process, then plug the executive order hole.
Then, retract all of the legislation that has enabled these overreaches of authority over the past 50 years.
But that won't happen. Tyrants *never* tie their own hands.
Two of those three "scandals" are things that the majority of people don't care about.
None of the Democrat's supporters, and a good chunk of more moderate Republicans, don't care about weather the President called the Benghazi attack a terrorist attack or not, and for the most part, only his most die-hard opponents are still talking about it. I'm not a supporter of Democrats, and I don't care about it.
The IRS targeting Tea Party organizations might raise more hairs on the Republican side of the isle, however targeting groups that are explicitly proponents of an anti-taxation agenda (especially when nobody was unfairly cracked down on) isn't offensive enough to anyone except Tea Partiers. Again I'm not a supporter of Democrats, but the IRS imposing extra scrutiny to a group of people whose entire existence is an opposition to the IRS doesn't seem like much of a stretch to me.
This AP phone records thing has my interest, however.
"But you have to pass the bill so you can, uh, find out what's in it...." - Nancy Pelosi, March 9th, 2010 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hV-05TLiiLU
Look forward to big brother telling me when I can piss and shit.
The president cannot ok someone to break the law
What did people expect when Obama took Mayor Daley's goon and thug squad to DC?
I think you're mistaken on this, at least where it will end up.
The AP issue could easily flip the media to a much more adversarial stand against the Obama administration than they have taken to date. Rather than adversarial, they have actively covered for the administration - ignoring stories that they would have beat President Bush with all year long, minimizing others, asking friendly questions. If reporters come to understand that the administration came after them on a fishing expedition, which is what this was, they will not be happy.
The IRS scandal is one that many Americans will be concerned about. Most Americans understand that the IRS coming after people on a political basis is a very bad thing even if it is about a group that may not be their cup of tea, so to speak. This sort of thing hasn't been in the open like this since the Nixon administration. You may recall that didn't end well for President Nixon, and more than one commentator has referred to President Obamba as Nixonian at best.
But that is what makes the Tea Party aspect of this politically deadly is that there are many Americans that support many aspects of the Tea Party agenda even if they are not members.
Tea Party Supporters: Who They Are and What They Believe
You apparently also misunderstand the Tea Party - they oppose higher taxes and increasing spending, not the IRS or the collection of taxes. There is no legitimate reason for what the IRS did there. The IRS has admitted that it was wrong, completely inappropriate. (I admit a certain fascination in the fact that for some reason there are more than a few on Slashdot that try to defend what the IRS itself has condemned as being completely wrong. Why? It is absolute nonsense. I assume many, if not most are not Americans.)
As to Benghazi, we will see. There are important developments coming out. The Obama administration just held a private background briefing for key press members. Why? Americans were killed. The Ambassador was killed - a very rare event. The administration ignored their security needs before the attack, and then abandoned them during the attack when there were resources available to intervene and save them, and then lied multiple times at multiple levels after the fact. There is an old saying in politics that it isn't the crime but rather the cover up that does you in. There are people scurrying to cover their butt all over Washington on this, and it probably won't turn out well for the Administration.
You are entitled to your interests. I don't think most Americans will agree with you in the near future.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Where you stop kicking? Things were pretty clear last presidential election, and still one of the 2 candidates that were assuring that everything will still be in the same way or worse were elected. If having the chance nothing was done, even when plenty of evidence of the trend, why you think it will be done next time?
The only possibility is that the Lesters choose someone that will actually fix things for all, not following their goals. And even if by some miracle it happens, all those heavy investors and all their high paid consultants get fooled and choose the wrong guy, still remains the rest of the goverment.
You can keep playing lotto and hope that next time you will hit the big prize. But odds are high that things will never be fixed, the system is just too rigged.
Doctors are licensed and have at least minimally enforced professional standards. Journalists are not licensed, and professional standards of late seem to be more honoured in the breach than in the observance.
Journalists have the same 1st Amendment rights that other Americans have. They can publish most anything without prior restraint, but there can be consequences after the fact.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
You missed too big to jail, and everything is rigged. Nothing happened to the people responsible (more than becoming even richer). And it will keep happening.
Perhaps, but a doctor's slip of the hand can kill. A journalist's slip of the tongue will only irritate.
Oh, really?
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
An interesting video.
And Nixon resigned because a few people broke into the Democrat headquarters, right? And Clinton was only impeached because he lied about a bj, right?
The coverup is worse than the crime. That's what the Democrats said during the Nixon administration.
Bullshit. JFK would be a right winger today. Go look at his speeches on taxes on youtube. The Democrat party has lurched full socialist, hence the abandonment of liberalism and the embrace of authoritarianism.
Washington warned us that partisanism will be the downfall of American Politics. We haven't learned from the first Farewell Address, why would we have learned from a later one? At least Washington stood by his principles during his term. Eisenhower sold out, starting the Vietnam war before ducking out and blaming the military industrial complex. And we didn't listen to him either.
Learn to love Alaska
Every US president has sought to expand presidential powers for at least the last 50 years. Overreach is not new.
This is not a good thing, but it is fact. Don't just blame the current and last administration. Blame them all, regardless of party.
Why did they bother?
They already record every phone call, every email, every tweet, every text in America. All they had to do was roll back through their own logs.
Maybe we should also be asking what compelled the director of one of the most powerful intelligence organizations in the country to feel he had to tell his fellow citizens something that was so important, he was willing to risk his career and his freedom to do.
Apparently nothing, but a good attempt at smearing someone. From TFA:
Maybe we should also be asking him if he's stopped beating his wife?
As for the "seized" phone records that the AP "wants back", should we point out that they are just copies of the information and that the AP didn't actually have any physical object taken from them. It's just a copy of information.
And perhaps we should point out that an investigation is just an investigation and not harassment and they didn't lose any rights. After all, all they may have to do is pay taxes ... oh, sorry, that's the IRS investigating tax-exempt political organizations and threatening them with back taxes and penalties, but not actually harassing them or limiting their rights in any way (according to some ./ers.) How is looking at tax, I mean phone, records in any way hurting anyone?
Should we not compare the allegedly illegal antics of one branch of the executive with another? If it's ok for one, why not the other?
You may have something with torture, because that's the only executive action you listed. Show me the legal definition and I'll consider it.
See also: With Liberty and Justice for Some by Glenn Greenwald. I'm still reading it. It's depressing.
I remember watergate very well...was 14 years old.
That summer, you couldn't flip a channel (we only had four tv channels then) without wall to wall 24/7 coverage of the watergate hearings.
NOTHING was on but that it seemed. The newspapers, tv, radio stations were all slamming the cover ups, lies, burglary of the watergate
issue. Not one person died as a result.
Juxtapose that with today, Benghazi, 4 people died, there are lies & cover ups all over the place,
Watergate was a burglary, which was a felony. The President of the United States knew about it, and tried to cover it up, which is a crime. It's either being an accessory after the fact, or obstruction of justice, or whatever the District of Columbia laws call it.
Benghazi did not involve a felony. That's a significant difference.
There are some people that suspect that the IRS revelations are being made public to distract from Benghazi. I don't think that really holds up. I think it is most likely a matter of coincidence since all of these scandals have different time frames as to when they occurred. At least two of them have something in common in that the government agency involved has tried to delay and push things off as long as possible. Unfortunately it has resulted in all of them coming out at about the same time. The question is, does this mean that they build off each other to get to the publics attention, or do they compete for attention and smother each other? Hard to say. Having this much come out at once does make it harder for the administration to control the news cycle I think. The fact that one of them, the AP issue, is likely to turn some parts of the press against them doesn't help the administration. It will be an interesting summer.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
One important difference: the things you list are wrongdoing by private companies. The scandals I listed are wrongdoing by Federal agencies or departments themselves.
But you are right, there does need to be more oversight of that sort of thing.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Never give up, never surrender!
maybe we should try some hybrid of parliament and out executive branch...some system that forces more political parties, but doesn't end up in the government "collapsing" when the Prime Minster gets a speeding ticket...
Journalistic shield laws are a terrible idea. Journalists should have no right that every American citizen doesn't have.
What we need is just the right to free speech, and the right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure. That's all.
A 2013 Democrat is a 1990's FAR right wing Republican. We have no true democratic party.
Oft repeated, but not true. In fact, it's getting a bit tired, now. Go look at party platforms from then and now.
As a doctor I am allowed to do many things that you are not allowed to do
I'm actually against that, too. Shocking, I know.
It's checking who they called when, not the content of the calls. It's the difference between reading a log file to determine login times and using a keylogger to record everything typed. Sorry, that's not a car analogy. It's the difference between checking your car's computer's blackbox for acceleration info and installing GPS and hidden cameras in your car. Both are bad. One is worse.
The "Too Big To Jail" story is the greatest threat to democracy and world stability. If we come crashing down, it will be banks not terrorists. Honestly, I consider banks to be more hostile to me than terrorists. Truly -- I mean that. Terrorists bomb you when you spend a decade in their country installing puppets. Banks do it to their own neighbors for the thrill of success. That's much more hostile, IMHO.
Long time slashdot reader. This is the most insightful comment I have ever seen.
Where you stop kicking? Things were pretty clear last presidential election, and still one of the 2 candidates that were assuring that everything will still be in the same way or worse were elected. If having the chance nothing was done, even when plenty of evidence of the trend, why you think it will be done next time?
Once you get to the general election, it is already too late. Start in the primaries by rallying behind a candidate that runs on a platform of freedom and civil rights. Do it on both sides of the aisle. Don't care about other stuff too much. If she's a democrat and supports copyright extension ad infinitum, so be it. If she's a republican and wants to slash Medicare, so be it. Do the same in races for congress, on the state level, etc. Even if your candidate doesn't end up winnng the general election, you'll raise visibility for your issue, which will change things for the better in the long run.
OS Reviews: Free and Open Source Software
The root cause isn't the president, the root cause is Congress; the president is little more than a janitor for the nation. His job is to implement what the people tell him to do, subject to constitutional constraints and judicial oversight. It's Congress's job to limit and direct presidential power, but they haven't been doing their job. It should be a lot easier to make change happen in Congress, because we can do that one district and one representative at a time.
The problem isn't with the president; we rarely get good presidents, and they are mostly interchangeable.
The problem is with Congress having abdicated much of its responsibility to the president, and with voters having unrealistic expectations of the president. The president can't fix the economy, he can't protect us from terrorism, and he can't make sure everybody gets a pony.
As for Lessig, his obsession with money in politics is the wrong focus. The problem isn't that rich people somehow remote control mindless voters, the problem is that voters are getting what they are asking for, they simply are asking for the wrong things and don't understand the consequences.
Where have you been? Of course, Bush did something like this, from lying about WMDs in Iraq to torture, funneling money to religious organizations, and numerous violations of due process and invasions of privacy.
Yes, I did vote for Obama the first time around, both because he promised to end the abuses of the Bush era, and because the alternative was a doddering fool. The second time around, I voted for neither, because it turned out Obama had been lying through his teeth, and both had come right out saying that they didn't give a damn about the Constitution or limits on executive power. I don't apologize for my votes, they were correct given the information we all had.
And, no, I didn't "take sides" with my vote, no matter how much blind and dumb partisans like you want to turn a rational choice into some kind of childish us-vs-them game.
Oh yeah. You have a "work within the system" and "hope and change" response. Because that works out, so very well.
It's been working for hundreds of years, with degrees of success changing over time, in both the US and UK, and way better than the sort of socialist (or is that communist?) revolution you would prefer*. Why don't you try that in your native Canada first, so we can watch the results before it gets tried in the US?
A big part of the problem is that the news media isn't doing its job. They put their thumb on the scales in favor of Obama, and they still haven't really taken it off. Now, they are reaping their reward - multiple scandals breaking out at once, including the AP incident. It is a simple fact that about 90% of journalists in the US media contribute to Democrats, and probably vote the same. And that should be OK, as long as they report accurately and fairly even on policies they personally desire. But they aren't doing that. They are letting their personal political preferences interfere with their professional obligation. As a result, they cover for the Obama administration, ask friendly questions, continually post stories about "unexpected" outcomes that are bad when they can't otherwise be minimized. It is hard to make good choices for a country when the people and leaders aren't getting good, accurate, information, and that isn't happening. Well, their support of the Obama administration has become a bit strained recently, and it might very well turn shortly. When it does, it won't be pretty for the administration.
It may be already starting.
Obama knee-deep in Nixon-esque scandal (Note: As of posting, this is a front page story on the Boston Herald.)
Republicans could not even have scripted this one. The agency most hated by voters, the Internal Revenue Service, admits to going on a Nixonian witch hunt against Tea Party and conservative groups during the re-election campaign.
This is a story even the most partisan Massachusetts liberal cannot defend. It’s so bad that even Ed Markey is calling for heads to roll.
Now we learn that the Justice Department has secretly obtained the phone records of Associated Press reporters and editors in what appears to be an investigation of an AP story that disclosed details of a CIA operation that stopped a terrorist attack.
Going after the Tea Party is one thing, but the media? What an outrage. Who knows, the press may get so mad they won’t laugh at Obama’s jokes during the next White House Correspondents’ Dinner. . .more
*No, this isn't a troll. The man is very left of centre.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Relax, citizens. Stasi has only your best interests at heart.
Congress can do that. And the way to make that happen is to put people in Congress with the balls to stand up to the president.
NY Times Editor Margaret Sullivan quoting Robert Heinlein.
http://publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/09/transparency-secrecy-and-retaliation-emerge-as-major-issues-in-benghazi-coverage/
``The failures of government transparency, too,
cross party lines. Rooted in political expediency,
those failures of transparency know no color,
neither red nor blue. And they need to be pointed
out and resisted. As author Robert A. Heinlein
wrote, ``Secrecy is the beginning of tyranny.' ''
(my thanks to Danny Burstein for bringing this to my attention or usent:rec.arts.sf.written.)
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
Warrantless surveillance of U.S. citizens, torture, indefinite detention, war crimes, arbitrary assassinations, gun smuggling to drug cartels, facilitating financial fraud, etc. etc.
And who gets punished for these crimes? The whistle-blowers who reveal the criminal activity to the American people.
Government is a giant extortion racket with the same moral principles as organized crime.
What about the case of ATF smuggling guns to Mexican drug cartels? One of which was used to murder a U.S. border patrol agent. You can damned well bet that if one of us little people sold a gun to a member of the Mexican drug cartel and that gun was used to murder a U.S. agent, we'd be charged with a felony.
Where are the criminal charges against the ATF and Justic Dept. officials?
The IRS scandal is one that many Americans will be concerned about. Most Americans understand that the IRS coming after people on a political basis is a very bad thing even if it is about a group that may not be their cup of tea, so to speak.
I haven't been following it closely, but has any evidence actually emerged that it was politically motivated?
It is pretty typical for it to take many years to get an IRS certification for an organization. It also appears for it to be typical for related organizations to get lumped together to see how things go with a common policy defined to govern all of them. I know that there are tons of FOSS organizations that are waiting in limbo for determinations, perhaps for the same reason.
It shouldn't take years for the IRS to determine if an org is legit, but that seems to be a matter of general inability to get things done. I'd need to see some specific evidence to confirm that the Tea Party was targeted any more than a collection of all the Bieber fan clubs.
Reporters are, on the whole, pretty unintelligent and shallow people who write the stories they are told, in the way they are told, by their editors, and who without such direct instruction quickly lapse back into gossip, lattes, and twitter feeds. I doubt most journalists have even heard of this story.
May the Maths Be with you!
This is commonly referred to as a pen register - it's the data associated with the call: was it inbound or outbound, how long did it last, what phone numbers were involved, what time / date did it occur.
This information is available with a subpoena signed by a judge, given probable cause. Why do I have a feeling that no judge or subpoena was involved in this one?
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Part of the problem here is that there probably weren't any subpoenas, which is why this is tantamount to an illegal wiretap. No, they didn't actually tap calls (or, at least, that hasn't been reported yet), but obtaining phone records still requires a subpoena.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
You neglect to mention that the WH had a filmmaker targeted and picked up (still not charged and still under detention). I think we care about that and the lame excuse of refusing to acknowledge the terrorists involved that enabled that sideshow is not a trivial detail.
The Tea Party is not anti taxes, just anti TOO HIGH taxes, so your entire third paragraph tanks.
I note that the only thing you find worthy of interest is the WH pulling records of reporters (liberal and Dems).
"Again I'm not a supporter of Democrats..."
Your commentary says otherwise.
The IRS has a responsibility to target these political groups. If they want tax-exempt status, they cannot be primarily organized for political purposes. The point of this review process is to spot the obviously political ones.
What they did WRONG, was highlighting only conservative names as flags for increased scrutiny, because the vast majority of the applications for inappropriate tax-exempt status are conservative. /If the name of your group states a political goal, while your group is claiming to be non-political, it is not crazy to take a look/.
What they should have done, is balance out their watchlist with words that suggest a group may be from the extreme left, like "Communist", or "Socialist"...not exactly popular groups in the past 60-70 years, but even if the vast majority are right-leaning applicants, they have an obligation to be politically neutral.
Also, nobody cares about Benghazi but Republicans. Do you know how many Americans have died on foreign soil in the past 10 years? It's not that dead Americans don't matter, it's that there are so many dead that the public has become jaded. Unless they have friends and family over there, they've stopped paying attention. Ask the average Joe what went wrong in Benghazi and they wouldn't even know because all they heard was just one more attack in a long series of attacks that are still happening everyday. Not a good "scandal" to hang your political machine's hat on.
The Justice dept. intrusion has legs in my opinion. This is a broad extension of gov't power that should piss off voters in both parties, and looks much more like actual wrongdoing right from the get-go. Very interested in seeing where this one goes.
And people wonder why I hold ACs in such low regard.
Good thing you're AC, else when those things do not happen (and they won't), you'd be derided to the end of your days here.
FYI, the executive branch cannot do those things. True, it could attempt, but it does not have that authority and they would be thrown out ASAP if for no other reason than to avoid immediate and armed revolt. This is why we have gun rights in this country.
This is a broad extension of gov't power that should piss off voters in both parties, and looks much more like actual wrongdoing right from the get-go.
The problem is that THIS IS NOW LEGAL under the Patriot Act. The only punishment for this kind of intrusion is political, not criminal. The talk shows are saying this is an over-reach - but in fact, this is nothing close to what a National Security Letter can gather without any court approval.
We should be pivoting from an attack on the President for allowing this to an attack on NSLs and the like that make this kind of gathering legal and standard practice.
One important difference: the things you list are wrongdoing by private companies. The scandals I listed are wrongdoing by Federal agencies or departments themselves.
Where do the folks like the Treasury Secretary come from? The industries they regulate. Government is where the rich go to rig the game. Once it's rigged, they go back into the private sector game they just rigged and profit. So a lot of the wrongdoing as actually done by the same cabal - they just move between public and private sectors as needed to maintain the illusion that the game isn't rigged.
These are also available to the DoJ with a signed letter. No judge or court review required. It's called a "National Security Letter". This is what we should be fighting - laws that allow tools like this to exist with NO PUBLIC OVERSIGHT. FISA is bad enough in that it created a secret court to review warrant requests, but at least they're pretending to have a second party look things over. NSLs remove the FISA court entirely, resulting in a desk jockey saying "I need this" and getting it with no questions asked. The nastiest thing about NSLs is that there's a complete gag order on all discussion of the letter - only the requesting agency and the company know it is even done, and the company is not allowed to disclose the existence of the letter at all, and under no circumstances is allowed to tell the target.
Not true. All they need is a National Security Letter. It's entirely legal (if not politically sound).
They fessed up to it, Id say thats enough proof.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Perhaps, but a doctor's slip of the hand can kill. A journalist's slip of the tongue will only irritate. As well, one can argue about the appropriateness of demanding to see your papers before being afforded protection for public speech in a self-described democracy...
A slip of a journalist's tongue can get you thrown in the gulag in many places in the world...
"I say we take off, nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
"It is a simple fact that about 90% of journalists in the US media contribute to Democrats..."
It could be that if you are informed and on top of things politically, as journalists are, you are all too aware of the odious cynicism of Republican ideology. Hence, you support the less evil party.
If you post it, they will read.
Who advocated any kind of revolution?
I am skilled at identifying the problem. Prescribing a solution is a different matter. The validity of an analysis is NOT dependent on pairing it with a viable alternative. That's a frequently invoked challenge, by defenders of status quo - no matter how abhorrent.
My interim solution proposal is to let it all fall apart, over the next, several unsustainable decades.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
That depends on how you define legal. I consider such a thing blatantly unconstitutional, and therefore not even potentially legal. (I will grant that many judges disagree with me.)
I am not a lawyer, but I can read basic english. "Secure in their persons and possessions against unreasonable search and seizure...(etc.) seems to me to cover the situation.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Government is corrupt and self serving. Film at 11.
I'm in agreement. As far as I know torture still has not been legally defined by congress. If waterboarding is torture, then SERE training is against the law.
The government is allowed to do things that we're not allowed to do. Government agents working undercover are allowed to sell drugs, for example, if that's necessary to keep their cover. In this case they allowed gun dealers to sell guns to straw purchasers. That's no more illegal than allowing a government agent to sell drugs in order to make a case. If you look at the statutes and the cases, there are exceptions for government agents to do things in the course of their job that would be illegal if they weren't done in the course of their job.
The Mexican drug cartels are as dangerous as they are because they're getting illegally smuggled guns from the U.S. The Mexican government is justifiably complaining. It would help a lot of we could stop that traffic.
The first step in stopping gun crimes would be to track guns to see how they get from the U.S. to Mexico, to see who is breaking the law and how we could stop them.
Unfortunately, because of NRA lobbying, we can't track guns effectively, which makes it impossible to enforce the law to a significant degree. This operation was an attempt to find out where the guns were going, so that we could enforce the law.
The operation went wrong. I don't know if it went wrong because it was a stupid idea in the first place, or because even well-planned operations sometimes go wrong.
But there was nothing illegal about what the government did, because there are investigative exceptions to the law. And they were intending to enforce the law.
In Watergate, the burglars weren't government agents, and weren't acting under authorization of the law. They weren't trying to stop crimes. They were trying to help one party win the election by burglarizing the office of the other party. That's a big difference.
I think Obama made a lot of mistakes and supported a lot of bad policies. But this isn't one of them. The Republicans are using it for partisan attacks. They don't hold up. The Republicans are willing to do things that are bad for the country but good for their partisan advantage.
And the Bush Administration didn't do anything to stop the flow of illegal guns to Mexican cartels.
"Your commentary says otherwise."
Those who oppose Republican agendas are not automatically Democrats. Try thinking outside the box sometime..
I didn't neglect to mention anyone. Nakoula Basseley is only still in jail because he was only free on parole to begin with, and with a stipulation that he was to have no access to the internet for some time, which he obviously broke. Sending in the swat team to pick him up wasn't necessary, but he's still in jail for legitimate reasons. And no, nobody who doesn't already want to find dirt on Democrats gives two shits weather Obama said it was terrorists or a reaction to some video the next day. The Republicans will put on a side show no matter what, and "enabling" them to do it is a pretty lame excuse to be upset with Obama.
Let's see.. A surge of seemingly politically named organizations, affiliated with a group who thinks a lot of the taxes they already owe shouldn't be owed, are applying for a tax exempt status used by some less scrupulous politicians to filter money for election campaigns, and they get scrutinized. Yeah. I'm trying to get pissed, I really am, but I can't.
All in all, it's all a big yawn fest.
Sorry, Nakoula Basseley isn't still there for accessing the internet, it's for making false statements, using a false identity, and a couple other things.
The first American soldier death in Vietnam was under Eisenhower. When the French left and Eisenhower stepped in and blocked the democratic elections because it was feared the communists would win a fair election, the civil war started. Caused by Eisenhower, who was the president who sent the first American to his death in Vietnam.
You can argue about who went full retard first, but "started" was when we didn't pull out with the French, and instead started the civil war. At least we didn't do what we did in Russia and give support to the White Army, then when the Whites and Reds actually started fighting, pulled out so the Whites would die and the Reds would hate us for 100 years. Yes, the US started the cold war, and started the vietnamese civil war as well.
Learn to love Alaska
They fessed up to it, Id say thats enough proof.
They fessed up to what? Handling Tea Party applications differently, or doing it for political reasons? It is the latter I'm concerned with - they handle various groups of organizations differently all the time so it isn't really news that the Tea Party is among them. Doing it for political rather than legal reasons is a different matter.
Obama was totally not going to be like Bush. At all. He had it azll written down in his day-planner, swear. But them he was sowrn in and handed the super secret book of bad things that would happen to us if he allowed freedoms to go on unabated. One of those things was a terrorist attack. So we don't get media shield laws or any of that and in exchange there's been ZERO terror attacks on the soil of the US. Let me repeat that. ZERO.
I used to be
Let's be honest about this. Nixon was behind the Watergate break-in, which was a crime. So he ultimately deserved what he got. If he hadn't done that he would have been considered a decent President.
Clinton made the mistake of playing the role of a lawyer and decided to play word games which resulted in him lying (in they eyes of most people) under oath. That's really the thing that he did which was truly wrong. The rest was just typical bad judgement by Clinton and political theater by the press and Congress.
With President Obama there's no sign that he was involved in making the decision to investigate Tea Party non-profit applications. He has the bad luck to be in charge when it happened, This seems to have been caused by the ruling of the Supreme Court that allowed more money to be given by corporations for the purposes of furthering their own beliefs (in this case by pushing policies that they supported.) (Corporations are people too.) The only coverup seems to have been at the local level as they didn't bother to pass the information up the chain of command once they put a stop to the practice of putting conservative groups at the head of their list of non-profits to investigate.