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EFF Wins Release of Secret Court Opinion: NSA Surveillance Unconstitutional
mspohr writes "For over a year, EFF has been fighting the government in federal court to force the public release of an 86-page opinion of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC). Issued in October 2011, the secret court's opinion found that surveillance conducted by the NSA under the FISA Amendments Act was unconstitutional and violated 'the spirit of' federal law."
Shut it down......Shut it all down NOW!!!
You at the other side of the pond have generated a farce beyond fantasy. Create secret court, abuse powers, secret court says "non", ignore, expand and repeat.
As a tech I'd say your system has found a resonance point where the loop-gain is so much greater than one that it might cause the earth's rotation to change....
The documents showed that the problems were relatively small when compared with the vast scale of N.S.A. surveillance conducted from the United States on noncitizens abroad. The ruling estimated that the agency intercepts more than 250 million communications that way each year. And the N.S.A. fixed the problems to the courtâ(TM)s satisfaction, the documents showed.
Interesting...
Free Martian Whores!
So they got a court opinion that said it was unconstitutional, yet they just ignored it. Someone must be accountable for that! Aren't all US federal officers sworn to uphold the constitution of the United States of America - all the way up to the president? At the very least, someone should be tried for contempt of court. No matter the justification and possible reasons for the NSA program, they can't just ignore the highest law of the land. Or can they? It is a very slippery slope.
Meus subcriptio est nocens Latin quoniam bardus populus reputo is sanus callidus
Comment removed based on user account deletion
But the documents also revealed further problems. In particular, Judge Bates portrayed the issue, which the N.S.A. had brought to the secret surveillance courtâ(TM)s attention after discovering that it had been happening for several years, as part of a broader pattern of misleading the oversight court about its domestic spying activities.
âoeThe Court is troubled that the governmentâ(TM)s revelations regarding N.S.A.â(TM)s acquisition of Internet transactions mark the third instance in less than three years in which the government has disclosed a substantial misrepresentation regarding the scope of a major collection program,â he wrote.
There need to be penalties. Someone should be brought up on charges.
Free Martian Whores!
They'll be put on Double Secret Probation.
How about we impeach brain dead idiots like yourself? I'm not a fan of Obama at this point, but this isn't all on him. Your boyscout Bush, and both major political parties have deep rooted ties to all of this shit.
So now what?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
How exactly does it get out of the FISA court into the Supreme Court and would Roberts have to recuse himself because he appointed most of the FISA judges?
Time for more popcorn.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
The same way he "hasn't" been all along. When the lies are coming from the highest levels of the government, they can brand anybody they want as anything they like. One can only hope that the EFF is large and influential enough to cope with any fallout from this.
Looks like it might be time to donate again. There's something ridiculous about the need to buy decent government by donating to a charitable organization, but hey, they're doing better than most, and most of "us" (Slashdot readers) can probably afford it. Normally I'd suggest the option of doing it by way of the Humble Bundle, but currently they don't include that option...
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
Who's going to impeach him? Congress and the Senate are complicit in this, and they're the ones who have to impeach. Remember, they don't give two shits about the constitution or they'd never had passed the Bono Act or the PATRIOT Act.
Lets impeach congress next election. I want my country back.
Free Martian Whores!
Fact: Obama was more responsible for Katrina response than Bush:
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/poll-louisiana-gopers-unsure-if-katrina-response-was
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.
This is legitimate prejudice for starting a revolution.
Your government and leading class has to learn how democracy gets done.
Everyone shall have this very definition of democracy hardwired in their brains for the centuries to come.
The evil doers will have to admit it painfully for best results, fear has to change sides.
The world is watching you USA.
Translation: I can't refute the truth, time for a misdirection, But Bush!!!
Give it a rest already. Obama has been PRESIDENT for 5 years now, with party control of the Senate for all of that to boot. It could all end in a SINGLE day with a SINGLE executive order, it is ALL done via the executive branch.
People just like blaming Obama for apparatus that was setup under Bush's watch. That been he Repub's MO since they lost the election before the last.
Before you all get whipped in to a frenzy: Consider that Obama (Or rather his entire administration) gets his information from the NSA. That's their job. That's how the system works. Do you think that the NSA is going to supply him information that makes them look like out of control corrupt goons? Are they going to say "Hi Mr.President. We wiped our ass with the Constitution 548 times last month" No. They're going to portray their operation in a positive light, and insist that they are legally doing everything necessary to keep America safe.
Recent information says, though, that the situation is bad. Their secret courts make them immune to oversight. We all know this is bad, but realistically it's very political problem that's going to to take a long time to fix. You all should know how long it will take to dig out an entrenched government institution, let alone one with near unlimited power and a secret budget.
Whenever these stories come out, I am uncomfortably reminded of conservative constitution-worship. "As the nation teeters at the edge of fiscal chaos, observers are reaching the conclusion that the American system of government is broken. But almost no one blames the culprit: our insistence on obedience to the Constitution, with all its archaic, idiosyncratic and downright evil provisions."
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
There appears to be no accountability is the US Government any more.
Laws are only for the “little people” Taxes are only for the “little people”. Profits are only for the “real people”
Private profit, public bailouts. Money is free speech.
The question is, “What can we do?” Gerrymandering has made even our votes almost useless.
Any ideas?
and since when does a court rule on the "spirit" of the law.
what a lame ass story.
Here's a petition asking for exactly that!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Nobody has ruled on if he is a whisleblower or not. The executive branch does not have the authority to determine that. Snowden undeniably released classified information. That makes it the Executive Branch's job to change him with releasing classified information, which they have done. The next step in the process is for Snowden to present his case to the Judicial Branch that the protections reserved for whistleblowers apply to him. We will see if that ever happens.
People just like blaming Obama for apparatus that was setup under Bush's watch.
Well, if Obama ever wants to change that impression, he can start by firing people involved in unconstitutional activities.
Don't worry, they didn't actually violate a law. It was the 'spirit' of the law that was violated.
Move along people, nothing to see here.
Let me try to predict your reply:
Wah Wah Bush is a war criminal don't bully Obama you stupid republican piece of shit!
Don't give me that fucking garbage, shove your partisan bullshit right up your ass.
...probably because it would conflict with the interests of EA (see the Bundle's current front page).
Speaking of EA...WTF, Humble?
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
It gets better when you realize when Obama said he wanted to create more oversight and then put the entire oversight under the NSA's leadership.
What most people don't realize is Obama is as much a republican as Reagan, Nixon, and both Bushes. His policies are in direct line with theirs.
What we need are term limits for congress critters so they can't become as corrupted, and for Congress to start revoking executive powers back out of the executive branch.
We didn't need the cabinets before World War II Why don't we eliminate them?
The last scary thought I shall leave with. What if J Edgar Hoover had the NSA's ability to spy on people?
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
If you want Congress to impeach Obama over this, you should sign this.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
only one person has signed it lol
No, this is on him. Hes in the 2nd term of precidency. Its on him. He might not have started it, but he has the power to stop it, and instead chose to keep it going. Just like our occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan, just like GITMO, just like the promised end of DEA raids on legal dispensaries. Spying got worse, still in Iraq and Afghanistan, GITMO still is open, DEA raids have gotten worse. The blame is justifiably on him.
"WIRED first reported on such an eavesdropping installation in 2007 when a former AT&T technician provided documents outlining eavesdropping technology used by AT&T. Both the government and AT&T have declined to confirm the documents’ authenticity."
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/08/nsa-tapping-internet/
He is the President of the country. Everything that the country does wrong, on purpose or by negligence is his fault. And that starts the day he took office. Even if he had only been president for a week, that is no excuse for allowing any branch of the government to break the law.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
I'm not a fan of Obama at this point, but this isn't all on him.
Yes it is all on him.
He could have ended this with one stroke of the pen. He's had 6 years. How many time does he have to get re-elected before he owns this mess?
How many times do you intend to repeat that soggy old mantra of it being Bush's fault?
He could have gone public, shut it all down with an executive order. Instead He lied. Then he lied about lying. Now he welcomes a "dialog" where in he will tell us polity and sympathetically to shut up, sit down, and watch tv like good little kids.
And useful idiots like you will lap it all up again just like you did the first time and the second time.
You lapped it up when he closed the embassies because of huge terror plots.
You just keep buying the same sack of horseshit over and over again.
You tell me: What will it take!???
When do you stop defending him?
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Agreed.
However, the problem I have with a lot of Obama critics is not that the content of their criticism is actually wrong, but rather feels disingenuous. Had Mitt won the presidency, I feel like a lot of these guys bitching about Obama would be standing right in line behind Mitt, who I believe would be doing basically the exact same thing as Obama*, charging that anyone who dared criticize that "great patriot Mitt Romney" was a terrorist-sympathizing traitor who should be rounded up and executed. I don't see Mitt having a fundamentally different stance on NSA wiretapping, the Patriot Act, or drone strikes (and I bet Benghazi would still have happened under his watch, too).
For those of you (us) who have managed to remain consistent with our criticisms of both parties, bravo.
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
People just like blaming Obama for apparatus that was setup under Bush's watch.
Oh, come on, this is not his first month in the Oval Office. People blame Obama for expanding on the apparatus established under Bush (and he did so quite actively).
When does he become responsible, anyway? After he leaves the office at the end of 8 years? It must be DURING his tenure as a president, and that's more than half over.
Do you think that the NSA is going to supply him information that makes them look like out of control corrupt goons?
No, but it'd be nice if he responded once the information comes to light. Ignoring incriminating revelations is same as supporting them.
Nixon wasn't so bad. At least he had enough respect for the law and the citizens to break in at night. The NSA does it in broad daylight, and whenever confronted, they just give another explanation of why it is okay.
So the question is around the notion of "spirit" vs "letter"
The only thing related to privacy and the constitution is the 4th amendment. Now we can talk about all of the exceptions to this that the Supreme Court has allowed but the only interesting one is the notion of "in plain view"
Can this be taken to mean that if it use HTTP vs HTTPS it is in plain view and anyone can have a field day.
Can this be taken that if if route my traffic across any network that people can see it is in plain view and they can do with it what they want?
At the end of the day the current state of my country makes me sad but but another thing that has always made me sad is the limited privacy protections put forward by the constitution and bill or rights. The to have them even more limited by the courts is just one blow after another.
at the end of the day the lawyers are going to have fun
It's freshly-created - what were you expecting?
Also, while I won't share who I voted for (immaterial, and really, what's the point of a secret ballot if you tell everyone who you voted for?), I will say that when Obama was elected, I went along with it. People said "oh, he's going to bring Chicago rough-and-tumble bullying politics into the Presidency!" and I was thinking "Good!" Maybe Chicago style politics would have gotten us out of Iraq and Afghanistan sooner. Maybe Chicago-style politics would have closed Guantanomo, or repealed the Patriot Act. I'd love to see some of these career politicians dragged out by their proverbial short-and-curlies in front of everyone and dressed down for their selling-out-of-america. But no, we got just another Washington style politician, bought and paid for by moneyed interests.
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
Nixon wasn't so bad. At least he had enough respect for the law and the citizens to break in at night.
And enough sense of shame to resign. The more recent politicians are quite literally shameless.
Surprise, surprise. Obummer lies.
Racist!
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
People just like blaming Obama for apparatus that was setup under Bush's watch.
How about blaming him for criticizing that apparatus during his campaign, promising to dismantle it, and then embracing and expanding it all after he was elected.
Getting really tired of the It's Okay When My Side Does It crowd.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
Honestly, because the law gives explicit exemption to whistleblower protections when the topic is national security.
If the Supreme Court ruled that some Government activity was unconstitutional, and the Government (including executive and legislative branches) just shrugged and continued said activity, what then? Or what if Congress voted to impeach the President, but he ignored this action, what then? Who enforces on the enforcers? Would this be the tipping point to civil war?
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
It's not called impeachment when you're removing the entire ruling body. That's more of a revolution.
I'd wait until the military starts grumbling about it, or is deployed against us on our own soil (which will cause major strife within the lower ranks, at least). Right now, a revolution would be seen as undemocratic, too violent for what they've done. Which means they get to launch a military crackdown that the public will see as at least kind of justified.
Let's give the peaceful solutions some more time, or at least give the ruling body enough rope to hang themselves with. Because once the military is on our side, not theirs, the revolution won't be stopped by anything short of a nuclear attack of us, on ourselves. And I don't think they're willing to do that, because who wants to be emperor of the ash pile?
So, they found out that the system they set up didn't work like it should. But instead of covering it up, they took the data to the FISA court, who agreed (vociferously) that they screwed up and they couldn't just forget about it - they had to expunge the data and change how they collected the data in the first place (you know, the stuff they do as part of national defense). And they did.
Holy shit, this is about as close to a non-story as you can get. But hey, go crazy. I'm buying stock in tin foil.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
So something that he only oversaw for 1 year vs the other president who extended it for 5 more years.
To quote one of my favorite movie characters, "The shit is about to hit the fan and I want to be here to see it." (Dr. Lazarus in "Outland" in case you're curious.)
The publication of this court ruling is going to make it much easier for a federal judge and subsequent appellate judges to slam the NSA down hard. I'm not certain about the law on this but it might also make it possible to send certain NSA officials to prison. My prediction: Heads at the NSA are about to roll and I will not be surprised if one of them is Gen. Alexander. Because he is a serving general and this shit happened on active duty, he could be courtmartialed, be stripped of rank, and lose his pension, a just punishment I believe for such a grave violation of the people's civil rights.
Unfortunately, the heads will not be literally be rolling on the floor, and perhaps that's a good thing. It's nice to contemplate, however. It would have made one hell of a great game of pool on a diabolical billiard table. General Alexander's head would be the cue ball. Some people more evil than myself might possess the belief that a certain other person's head should be the 8-ball but I'm not one of them. But it's hilarious to visualize!
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
The last scary thought I shall leave with. What if J Edgar Hoover had the NSA's ability to spy on people?
I'm not sure why you're assuming that Robert Mueller is any better. Maybe because he's better at secrecy and intimidation? Think about this for a minute: After Hoover's death, when all the stuff he did came out, Congress passed a law limiting the term of any FBI director to 10 years. Yet, recently, the law was ignored and Mueller's term extended Why? Well the excuse was that it was required for "continuity", but, is that really credible coming from a Democratically-controlled Senate debating the illegal extension of term for a Bush appointee. How?
During one of the recent hearings on spying, Holder was asked if the NSA was also tapping into private phone calls and emails of members of Congress. He basically refused to answer the question, offering to "address that in a different forum." In secret, in other words. And one NSA whistle blower mentioned how the program even targeted a certain senate candidate from Illinois (yep, that one).
So we may now be in an even worse position, with a J. Edgar Hoover type leading the FBI, and with much better technology and a greatly expanded police and surveillance state.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
Welp, looks like I'm done ever supporting Humble again.
People just like blaming Obama for apparatus that was setup under Bush's watch. That been he Repub's MO since they lost the election before the last.
If you are President, especially for 5 years heading towards 8, and it is still going on during your administration under leadership you appointed, you own it. That includes even programs that started before you came into power.
If you disagree with that, maybe you can tell us when it will be appropriate to hold President Obama responsible for events occurring during his administration? Will that be the day after he leaves office?
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
We're never getting off this planet, are we?
Fuck.
Donate to the EFF right now. Do not wait. Donate this very minute.
only one person has signed it lol
There are now 7. Maybe they'll take it down, or maybe they'll use it as a Secret Services' "List of people to visit".
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
In this case, its the type of pie you have to eat to buy it.
You're point is that Obama isn't the only one on the list of "five worst presidents in US history"?
Bush sucked in his second term. For example, he ran a huge budget deficit, over-spending by billions. Obama then over-spent by trillions. That makes Obama somehow okay, because he only sucks twice as bad as some other guy? (By most objective measures, Bush is in the worst 25%, his second term is in the worst 15%, and Obama's "bad" numbers are double Bush's. Obama's debt is roughly equal to ALL OTHER PRESIDENTS COMBINED.
So yeah, politicians suck. By the numbers, the current president does as much suckage as the sum total of every other president's suckage combined.
You've just arrived on the internet, and you've never heard of Predator, or Echelon, of any other data gathering programs and softwares.
Well, since you are so new here, your ignorance can be forgiven. Prism is just the latest version of data mining programs. And, Prism isn't the only program. A number of articles have suggested that Prism is just one of the many facets of NSA spying.
It is GOVERNMENT that is at fault here. It isn't one administration - it is GOVERNMENT. Our government is so damned big, even congress has little idea what any part of government is doing. Only after Snowden forced Prism into the spotlight did members of congress begin to demand answers. Normally, the intelligence network is "monitored" by a select committee of congress critters, who generally don't report much of anything back to the main body of congress.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Modded troll but sadly there's some truth to that. Whenever the topic comes up all but one of the Romney voters I know bring up the "if you have nothing to hide" line. It's been ingrained into them by TV media and conservative websites. Very tough to get past the simplicity of a sound bite like that.
goddamn... how can we have a ruling that basically evaluates activity as unconstitutional and not only does word of that not get out but also nothing is done about said unconstitutional activity???!?! and we have to get the EFF to fight tooth and nail just to GET THAT DECISION OUT? like, "you're guilty of murder.... have a nice day. see ya around. don't worry, we won't tell anyone." system has rotted out. we're fucking doomed.
You are mistaken. For example, I very publicly called out my Congressman for failing to support the amendment to end this shit. That's a Republican congressman whom I voted for. Then, I made sure that for two weeks his Facebook page featured me blasting his excuses for not doing something about this.
On this very page, I've called Bush, who I voted for based on his success as governor, "one of the worst presidents in history".
There are two ways you can support your "team". You can either support them in becoming the best, doing the best, or you can mindlessly pretend whatever they do is best. If my football team has a crappy quarterback, I say it. I say "let's figure out what we need in a replacement QB". Pretending that your QB is awesome as he fumbles every snap doesn't get you anywhere. All it does is make youlook stupid and your team continue to lose. The Democrats made a bad draft pick. The sooner they admit that the sooner they can improve.
If they's IN, vote their skanky asses OUT.
In the meantime, the EFF's success in court goes a long way to undermine the claims of Snowden and his supporters that breaking the law was the only way to make this information public.
That wasn't a sense of shame, that was a sense of better-make-a-deal-to-avoid-prosecution.
This space intentionally left blank
As a disillusioned Obama voter, I agree he deserves criticism but not for all of the debt problems. It's more nuanced than you make it out to be:
Bush snuck through a $1T Medicare Part D giveaway bill in the middle of the night to buy senior votes. Initial and ongoing costs went straight onto the public debt ledger. There's no realistic way to take it back.
Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, $3T, same as above, continuing costs stacked right onto the public debt for many years to come.
Destroyed economy because of deregulation and lack of oversight on his watch, many $Trillion, and the cost of required $700B stimulus and bailout bills were stacked onto the public debt. The Fed's balance sheet was turned upside down to avoid depression, who knows how much that cost the economy in real dollars because of lost jobs and confidence.
My point is that it's disingenuous to put all debt onto Obama's watch. Bush doubled the debt from $5T to $10T directly on his watch but the effects caused a lot of that Obama debt to be racked up. There isn't a clear way to separate it.
Now, complain about how it's criminal that Obama let the bankers go scot free, and how much debt we'll need to incur from future bailouts...you'll get no argument from me.
mod funny
-73, de n1ywb
www.n1ywb.com
What most people don't realize is Obama is as much a republican as Reagan, Nixon, and both Bushes. His policies are in direct line with theirs.
About the only policies of President Obama that are in something like a "direct line" from the previous administration are the general form of some of the anti-terrorism policies. That is a result of a general political consensus among the President and Congress that allowing terrorists to kill large numbers of American citizens is a bad thing. Many on Slashdot question that political consensus for some reason, usually related to traffic accidents. I expect they would also question the wisdom of declaring war against Japan in 1941 since 13 times more Americans died in traffic accidents than were killed at Pearl Harbor, and polio was still a scourge. Hmmm
We didn't need the cabinets before World War II Why don't we eliminate them?
Presidents certainly did have cabinets before WW2. Here is President Wilson's cabinet, for example.
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 are mistaken.
So it's not true that "Had Mitt won the presidency, ... a lot of these guys bitching about Obama would be standing right in line behind Mitt,"? One counter-example does not a disproof make; even lot of counter-examples would only be sufficient if it meant that the people complaining about the surveillance who were and would be OK with it under a Republican president a minority. They may well be (I certainly hope they are!), but I've not seen anything yet to indicate that they are.
And, yes, people who complained about what Bush did and would have complained about it under Mitt but who defend it under Obama are, indeed, just as hypocritical.
Because there are two completely separate issues, in both fact and law, which have nothing to do with each other.
1. Snowden had a clearance, and violated it. He signed contracts, and broke them. The facts are clear on this side.
2. Snowden was disclosing illegal acts, which would *seem* to come under whistleblower protection . . . if maybe he were disclosing a company dumping toxic waste . . . but if the legal system itself is doing something, how can it be illegal? (My answer is "of course it can", but I don't work in the legal system.)
Read the New Yorker article on civil forfeiture and see how police departments all over the country are stealing people's property. Oh, sorry, I mean "remanding as evidence". We should all be more vigilant about ALL levels of government. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/08/12/130812fa_fact_stillman
At best they'll say something along the lines of "Sorry we violated your constitutional rights. Our bad." No one will go to jail. No one will be fired. No one will even be spoken to sharply or slapped on the wrist. Actually I'd be surprised if they even acknowledge it.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Forget moneyed interests. Money is just a version of power.
And get it through your head that regardless of form, the powerlees are not going to use power to take power from the powerful.
It doesn't have to be moneyed interests. It could be the CIA using George HW Bush to overthrow Carter's October surprise in an act of high treason, in revenge for shaking up the CIA. It could be the Russian mafia masters using their spies to compromise NSA leaders, and use them to compromise politicans, and seize contol. It could be the masterminds behind the Nazi regime trying again through means of an occult Yale club.
It could be anything, including moneyed interests. But that's less important than the fact of where are we today?
And where we are today is a very bad place to be. The economy deliberately overthrown; the King Of Terror having us in two wars, The rule of law vanished, reporters suddenly dying in weird ways, and those who talk about doing something wanting to take us into an even worse place. Because you can't just commit a few attrocities and seize power and restore goodnes and call it a day.
There is no way back from here. I don't know what through is, or where it goes, but through is the only way.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
People just like blaming Obama for apparatus that was setup under Bush's watch.
No. People like blaming Obama for not doing anything about the apparatus that was setup under Bush's watch, and for not doing what he said he would do. We blamed Bush when he was in office, now he isn't. So we blame the person who is in charge, who isn't doing anything to fix the situation.
From the very beginning of this fiasco, as soon as the publicity hit the fan, the NSA should have been out front saying: "Of course we listen to signal intelligence, that's what the NSA was founded for back in the 1950s, and we're doing our best to implement the will of Congress as expressed in multiple laws. We're going to make sure that we never again miss signs of plots against the safety of American citizens."
Then, when the backlash started, they could have apologized for taking those laws so literally and doing their job too well.
Instead, because of their core mission and training, the first reaction was to lie. And the more that comes out, the more obvious and blatant the lies are.
File this one under "No...DUHHHHH"
Like he could have closed Guantanamo with one stroke of a pen? Or done lots of other things, with the filibuster rules having become trivial, and the leaders of Congress seemingly dedicated to doing nothing? Oh, wait, that's the VICTORY CONDITION for some of them - instead of actually achieving smaller government, they'll leave the size alone and just make sure it does nothing! An ugly win, but a win!
That sack was left for us by the administration that started wars on two fronts without paying for it, and changed the missions multiple times, and stopped the maybe-useful part of it to pursue a completely different and unrelated direction.
Why do you think there's such a push for drones and bots?
Getting really tired of the It's Okay When My Side Does It crowd.
This, this is the issue folks, if you're participating in bi-partenship, you are an enable.
For those with uncalibrated sarcasm meters, insert "air quotes" around the word "Fact" in the parent post.
Obama's debt is roughly equal to all other President's combined?
Since when in 11 roughly equal to 6?
Or how about Mr. Reagan who's debt was TWICE all of his predecessor's combined?
And then there is the inconvenient fact that Mr. Bush's tax cut, two wars, and devastation of the econimy is the primary reason the debt under Obama has ballooned so much.
So the GOP is gonna save us? Haven't heard, but one or two bitching about any of this, it'll just be more of the same, but at least you'll feel like you were a winner..
Obummer? Obama Sin Laden you mean, right?
But at least back then there was a threat of prosecution.
Maybe when people stop attacking one party when they both do the same things. Until then thank-you for maintaining the status-quo.
just like the promised end of DEA raids on legal dispensaries.
I've really never figured out why he changed on this one. It would have been so easy to just stop raids.....but he didn't.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Clinton was prosecuted/impeached (more than happened to Nixon), but that was for telling the truth to a poorly-worded question.
Learn to love Alaska
The thing that makes Obama different than Bush is that Obama promised stuff like protection for whistleblowers and attacked the NSA's wiretapping.
Candidate Obama said that The Bush administration puts forward a false choice between the liberties we cherish and the security we provide.
That is quite different than what President Obama is saying now.
This is very much like George Bush Sr.'s "Read my lips: no new taxes" line.
Nowhere did Candidate Bush nor President Bush vow to end illegal wiretapping. But Obama did.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
I'm afraid that I'm old enough to remember campaigning against Nixon, and wearing "I voted for McGovern" buttons as Nixon's behavior became more criminal and more power mad.. His resignation wasn't due to "sense of shame". His resignation prevented impeachment, and the immediate pardon after his resignation prevented criminal prosecution after his resignation.
The situation is not very comparable: enough personally criminal behavior, rather than unconstitutional policy, was exposed to leave Richard Nixon open to personal prosecution as soon as he lost his sovereign immunity. The NSA's behavior has been much more difficult to expose as individuals doing criminal acts.
He might not have started it, but he has the power to stop it
That's quite an assumption. Why, because the Constitution says so? We're dealing with very bad people who don't care about the Constitution or the Rule of Law.
Oh, right, Kennedy had the power to re-establish the silver standard.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I meant for actual crimes, as opposed to trumped up political scandals about absolute nonsense.
They actually increased under his presidency.
Please learn the definition of impeach in this context. Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton were impeached. Neither were removed from office.
I'm afraid that the President does have this kind of power. The behavior of the NSA is a matter of policy. The President and his officers present the budgets for the NSA to Congress, and set the policies that are not a matter of already existing law. NSA practices like the monitoring of domestic, civilian communications with the excuse that it had a "50% or better chance of involving foreign communications" is a matter of policy, not law. And the policy for Guantanamo Bay prisoners to lack legal representation, for the names to be kept secret, and to review the cases of only those whom allied governments discover and raise concerns about, are all in the President's hands.
I'm afraid that Mr. Obama tries to seek consensus, full agreement from all concerned, in cases like these where a clear moral stance would show leadership and earn far more respect for his most important goals, such as health care plans or economic recovery work. It's left America without the much promised "change"" of his first campaign.
Parent post speaks the truth.
Fact: Obama has come out swinging in support of the surveillance programs. He should be held responsible for it.
Also fact: Politicians from both parties, GOP and Dems created and voted in the laws that allowed the surveillance programs. They supported the surveillance programs and continue to support it. They should also be held accountable for it.
My point is that Obama is just a figurehead. Don't focus all your anger on him and lose sight of the fact that there is a whole bunch of politicians of all stripes behind him cheering him on. Im sure they would love it if you scapegoat Obama and let them walk free.
About the only policies of President Obama that are in something like a "direct line" from the previous administration are the general form of some of the anti-terrorism policies.
Then you're not paying attention. In general, he agrees with the war on drugs (even if he occasionally spouts some nonsense about injustices). Those "anti-terrorism policies" you mentioned are actually numerous, and he agrees with just about every single one. Like most Republicans and Democrats (and you, for buying into the notion that we should sacrifice our rights for security), he loves big, corrupt government and despises the constitution. Everything that truly matters is the almost exactly the same.
Now, you could spam links in reply to my comment about how some people died in terrorist attacks, but that is simply not going to work because freedom is more important than your security theater (or even real security); there is no civil rights theater, either, so don't bother responding with that constitution-hating nonsense, if you even planned to.
Of course that's true. My post (GP) didn't come out right.
Exactly. People that blame D or R are just continuing the fiction that there is any significant difference.
I fully expect massive defunding of the US military soon. Something has to give, financially, and the military itself is planning to be next.
But Democracy works well when people are angry enough for a revolution. No need for violence, if people care enough to through everyone out, even for the other party, the institutional culture will go with it. The Senate is harder since it's spread out over 6 years, deliberately to not be the party of the people, but I think it would only take one shocking election to change behavior.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
It sounds like you didn't actually read the post you replied to.
The federal government was responsible for the failure of the levies. Louisiana and New Orleans government officials were responsible for the people of their city and state.
The head of FEMA, Mayor Nagan and the Governor Blanco should have been jailed for malfeasance.
Yeah, why?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
When was the last time a president followed through on his campaign promises?
Point 1. You do realise of course, contracts which are illegal or provide for illegal activities are void in most jurisdictions and cannot be enforced. For example, if A contracts with B to kill someone for money, A cannot sue B to force him to carry out the murder, nor can B sue A to pay up once the murder is committed. So saying 'Snowden had a contract and he broke it' means nothing.
Point 2. Your argument is specious. People who work in the courts, the Justice department, the AG's chambers etc can and often do make mistakes. Sometimes, they carry out acts which are against the law i.e. illegal which is why so many cases go before the Supreme Court on appeal. Some laws even when passed may violate for example the Constitution which is the supreme law of the land and are struck down by the courts.
My point is, saying "if the legal system itself is doing something, how can it be illegal" does not make any sense.
It depressing how right you are.
Shame you did it anonymously.
It is impossible to separate completely. One thing is clear though. To "blame it all on Bush", you have to claim that so many mistakes were made in Bush's final six months that Obama, in five years, can't improve anything. They then have to explain how those policies could be THAT bad when they worked fine for seven years.
The numbers were okay (not awesome) for 80% of Bush's presidency and started to fall in his final year. Therefore his policies clearly weren't that bad, not in the measurable ways at least. Obama said that if things weren't a lot better by the end of 2010, American's should think twice about re-electing him. He was right.
You can't win if you don't play the game so you gotta pick sides. Some pick red others blue. I pick purple. I get paid by both anyway.
You can be sure that the outcome would always be different if the other guy was in charge.
Bush was upfront about his support for these programs. Obama specifically ran against them, but defends them publically now.
In any case, today Obama's the boss - it's his ship to steer, and we should blame him for the course he sets, even if previous leaders are bad too. Gah, if there's one thing I hate at work, it's people who say "yes, this sucks, and we could fix it easily, but we're used to the pain so just deal with it".
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
We need something like groklaw to collect all this stuff in one place...
Groklaw would have been my first choice... but it's gone.
All questions should be prefaced with a logical explanations of the words, is, the, has, if, why, and shall.
Couldn't agree more. Its the governments job to supply the world with narcotics even if we have to trade military grade weapons for it. The Taliban had nearly destroyed the valuable Opium trade. Fortunately our forces were able to restore the flow of Heroin to our great cities.
In 232 years, the US racked up $10 trillion in debt. (balance as of September 2008).
In his first four years, Obama put us another $6 trillion in the hole. By the time he leaves office, his debt is expected to be $9T-$10T, roughly equal to ALL other presidents COMBINED. That's not okay. It wasn't okay when Bush overspent by $xxx billion, and it's damn sure not okay for Obama to bury us by trillions.
Its a long standing policy in the US that as long as you have self esteem it doesn't matter if you are an ineffectual loser. Its been that way as far back as I can remember during my stay in the 12 year youth indoctrination centers. Look at me, I'm living proof that its ok to be a loser!
I love this country. It is so easy to pass your mistakes onto someone else. In fact the whole nation does to the same person!
That's not the "result of ageneral political consensus among the President and Congress that allowing terrorists to kill large numbers of American citizens is a bad thing."
It was a huge power grab and has done nothing to improve American safety.
It *has* significantly eroded our constitution.
And yes, some of us question the gross increase in executive power and public surveillance in return for an undemonstrated and unrealized threat.
If any significant plot had been prevented we could have a public debate on the merits, but no such plot has ever been brought to the table. We're supposed to just trust them, and with the current administration and prior adminstrations' track records!
They can go fuck themselves.
Thank you thank you thank you!!!!
ELECTRONIC FRONTIER FOUNDATION, Plaintiff.
versus
NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, Defendant.
[Redacted] [redacted] of the [redacted]. [Redacted] [redacted] and [100 pages of completely blacked out text].
We rule, therefore that [redacted] [redacted] [redacted].
Ooh, moderator points! Five more idjits go to Minus One Hell!
Delendae sunt RIAA, MPAA et Windoze
Yes, it is all on him. Bush is gone forever. He'll be languishing in obscurity painting mediocre pictures for the rest of his life.
If languishing is enjoying the billions that he and his cronies stole and shipped to Dubai, then I'd love to languish too. Especially in that hotel in the middle of the desert with the flooded lobby where you have to take a gondola to the front desk.
The only thing worse than a Democrat is a Republican.
I think that at the end of the day the point is that it's becoming increasingly obvious that both Bush and Obama (not to mention many others) have been answering to somebody else rather than acting entirely on their own initiative. And once you realize that the guy in office is a puppet, trying to place the blame on him just plays into the hands of the puppet masters. They'll be glad to give you a completely fresh new puppet the next time around, and I'm sure HE won't keep doing the exact same thing under a new guise. Hope and Change anybody?
Should we impeach him over his support for this? Sure, why not, always good to have a good public roasting from time to time, keeps the yokels entertained. While we're at it lets throw most of Congress on the fire too, they're the ones who actually passed the bills that created and funded this $#@!. And hey, how about all them there millionaires too - not quite sure what they have to do with anything, but it's just unseemly how they flash their money around. Whooh, that was a mighty pretty fire. Very cathartic. Now, did anybody happen to spot the puppeteers fleeing the fire? Nobody? Ah well, they probably didn't make it and I'm pretty wore out now anyway. What say we have a few beers and decide who should run things now? I hear Puppet R is a hell of a guy, and you can barely see the strings...
Not that we shouldn't go after the politicians betraying us, but if we don't have at least some plan to catch the puppet masters we most certainly won't. And if you do have a plan, for Deity's sake don't talk about it online or anywhere near a phone.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
I completely agree.
I would have voted Obama based on his campaign... now I'm incredibly disappointed. In fact, I almost believe he's been forced to change... almost...
Was he always disingenuous?
You can never lose an argument with words like that!
From the same link you posted:-
No, Justice Ginsburg simply stated that there were more modern sources of legislation you can use as a sample when you want to draft a constitution today. Note the context. Her comment was not directed at the values embodied in the US Constitution. She most certainly did not say the US Constitution was bad.
The Constitution was adopted on September 17, 1787, using the language of that time. Are you saying that constitutions drafted today should use the same language?
Your innuendo is misleading and deceptive.
I don't think Romney would have worried too much about his promises. His personality strikes me as very much like Clinton. Then again, Romney gave away 30% of his income, which is very UNLIKE Clinton and suggests he may be a man of character.
Bush II said what he meant even when it was stupid, though. I don't remember his campaign promises well enough to say whether he stood by them. Bush I was boring enough that I don't remember much of him.
You utterly fail to understand how the government works.
People like you are the problem with elections, you need to go retake high school civics.
The president DOES NOT RUN THE COUNTRY. HE IS THE LEADER OF THE MILITARY, FULL STOP.
Congress runs the country. Congress makes the law. Congress decides if the President has money to do anything. Congress can stop the president cold.
Your ignorance is why America is where its at, people like you go vote for the president and known nothing about your representatives and senators.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
That sack was left for us by the administration that started wars on two fronts without paying for it, and changed the missions multiple times, and stopped the maybe-useful part of it to pursue a completely different and unrelated direction.
Ah! I see. All is good then.
I pick black.
Anarchy, bitches!
No, it was for lying in response to a question that shouldn't have been asked, but was anyway.
The whole impeachment thing was retarded, but let's not pretend that Bill wasn't lying, he was, it was just that he didn't want to be outed as sleeping around. Who can blame him? Kennedy didn't have to answer questions like that and we all knew he was banging Marilyn Monroe and probably a bunch of other women too. Turns out, no one really cared all that much unless they had political points to make.
Heck, Hillary didn't even care enough, although I suspect they've been doing the open marriage thing for decades at this point. Her response was probably, "Damn it Bill, I told you to keep it in your pants with the interns! You seriously better support me for President when it comes time, I'm not putting up with this crap for nothing."
As for the NSA, I think that Obama just thinks he needs the intel. Say what you like about terrorists, for a President, that can be some sleepless nights right there. As long as we aren't dismembered in a blast ourselves, we can sit back and not be affected by it.
The President is always involved in every attack like this, and he gets to wonder if there was anything he could do to stop it. Bush had to listen to the second guessing when he didn't discover 9/11. I just think that after that, they'd prefer to be thought of as fascists by some of the population than actually have those deaths on their hands. I can't blame them for that.
For stupid definitions of "is" yes. And for the stupid definitions Clinton was ordered to answer under, he gave the only truthful answer. But the conservative media trimmed the full question down to make people assume the "normal" definition, then he was impeached for answering a stupid question truthfully.
Well, he was impeached for Contempt of Conservative, they just managed to find a different excuse to make it look legal.
Learn to love Alaska
A President isn't all powerful.. but now that this has blown up in public he may be able to do something about it. Before this he would've been called a traitor to the country and impeached ( or worse.. had an accident care of friends of the NSA ) before he even got the ball rolling.
It's a very complicated world.. he was focusing on fixing healthcare etc... do you think he had enough political points left to spend to take on the intelligence community?
Now he can... in his second term yet, and I sincerely hope he hits the rest button on the NSA and bulldozes the place.. as well as doing something about the corporate databases.
one has all the bad sides of the other, plus they have 'religion'.
that's about the size of things, these days. choose the bad guys or the other bad guys who think they are 'in with god'.
there's no left or even middle of the road, anymore. we have bad and bad. (sigh)
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Bengazi was the pretty much inevitable result of contracting mercenaries to do the work that Marines did (guarding embassies and consulates) until ~2006. Marine guards come under attack and you end up with a fleet of helicopters full of pissed-off rednecks descending on the area. Mercenary guards come under attack and once their supervisor is woken up he has to decide whether he can call in other staff to do overtime.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
You know, the Taliban gets such a bad rap. I mean, yeah, they shut off the heroin, but they were working hard on exporting terrorists. It's a crying shame our troops put all of that good work to waste. Well, at least we have the heroin back.
There's plenty of evidence that many in that party were merely going after the Christian vote, and don't actually believe much of their rhetoric.
We need to stick together - we have much more in common with each other than with those fucking lizards.
Probably not even then. They don't even hold Ronnie Raygun responsible for some of the truly horrible things that happened during his reign, and he's been out of office for a quarter of a century.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
He's the head of the Federal bureaucracy. Of course he can stop it. It's called an Executive Order. He signs it, and it's done. Congress isn't running the NSA, the Executive Branch is.
Sure, the NSA spooks might not want to shut it down, and they might even resist it, but in the end, Obama would at least have *taken some action* to shut this program down. Instead, he's supporting it.
There is no law that requires PRISM or any of the other NSA programs. There's just spending bills that authorize cash for them. The silver or gold standards, or the lack thereof is a law on the books. NSA programs are not.
If that order was signed and Edward Snowden came out and showed it was going on *after* the order shutting it down, then you'd have some real criminal acts to blow your whistle on.
Of course, there will be repercussions if Obama stops it, but even a first year political science student would know that. It's not like he's defenseless against his own administration.
How was GP "factually incorrect"? It was his *opinion* that "a lot of" (not "all", not even "majority/most") Obama critics would be defending these actions had Romney won instead.
You counter with a single example: yourself. It's commendable that you did what you've done, and as GP said, "bravo" for being consistent. It in no way invalidates what GP wrote.
GP here. Yeah I guess you didn't see my reply. The first little bit of my post doesn't belong in this sub-thread.
What he said is NOT factually incorrect. It's true, people pretend their guy can do no wrong.
GP here. A few minutes before you posted , I posted that "factually incorrect" didn't belong in that part post. He is correct, some people do act like their guy can do no wrong.
Come to think of it, I used to be more like that myself.
If any significant plot had been prevented we could have a public debate on the merits
Whether any plot has been prevented is completely irrelevant. We don't trade our freedoms for security even if that security is real.
I just want to make sure I have the right series of events here, from the public perspective:
1. A previous elected official and congress enact some overreaching laws in response to a terrorist attack
2. A politician who makes a bunch of promises against these programs is elected the new President
3. The now-elected politician strengthens and enforces those programs rather than shuttering them
4. There is some kind of a court decision but it is sealed/secret. FOIA requests are made by EFF.
5. A whistle blower comes forward and exposes the illegal activities to the public because his bosses and the elected official have continued said operations. Since his bosses are the Executive Branch and responsible for enforcing the law, he has nobody to report his findings to other than the public.
6. The elected official and members of congress declare said whistle blower a traitor for exposing their methods.
7. It is revealed that the court had previously, as in years ago, ruled that the activities reported on by the whistle blower are illegal. Meaning the whistle blower is not just reporting the activities, but he is reporting that the President of the United States, the heads of major departments, the Attorney General, and a bunch of other People In Power have been knowingly breaking the law to empower the government. Not only, in fact, are they doing something that the court already ruled is illegal, but they sealed the court's decision so that the public would not know about it.
Did I miss anything?
Oh yeah,
8. Snowden is probably still fucked.
"And when I'm swept in to office, I'll sell our children's organs to zoos for meat. And I'll go in to people's houses at night, and wreck up the place! Mwahahaha!"
-Richard M. Nixon('s head)
People just like blaming Obama for apparatus that was setup under Bush's watch. That been he Repub's MO since they lost the election before the last.
Obama voted for FISA just before he got elected as prez, and then extended the law in 2011 (it was going to sunset at the end of 2012).
Yep. It's *we*, at *both* sides of the pond. Complacency is our worst enemy, state surveillance and commercial greed for private data comes in as a second.
The various terror groups know Obama is full of hot air and does not follow up on attacks.
I'm sure that Osama bin Laden agrees, as do the targets of all those drone strikes.
The Syrian army crossed the red line again and nothing from Barry.
The 15-minute response you seem to be asking for with regard to Syria would be about the only action that might be considered even less civilised than gassing your own civilians. Is that really what you'd like to see?
This is not some film where you hear someone shout, "Do something!" then see 30 seconds of Barry sweating as he slowly but surely remembers and inputs the Abort code that stops the timer and keeps Dr Madguy's giant laser from lighting up and cooking Los Angeles.
I've got a brilliant idea: Let's impeach Obama and replace him with you.
This is a complex scenario with a great many players--Israel, Lebanon/Hezbollah, Turkey/NATO/EU, Iraq/Kurdistan, and Russia, amongst others--having an interest in the outcome of a civil war between the militarist fascists who've held power for decades and the militant religious whackos that seek to take their place. You've also got the UN and the norms of international law to consider. At home you've got legislators to keep happy, and there is a good chance that, no matter what your response is, at least some of them will take issue with it--and of these, some of them will be doing so merely to score points against you in the media, regardless of what might really be best for the US (or for the Syrians, for that matter).
What do you propose to do, Mr President? Go ahead--the whole world is watching and waiting.
Isn't this fun?
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Am I missing something? What has the Humble Bundle done that makes you want to never support them again? Is it just that the EFF is not one of the charities listed there?
Don't forget his collusion with bankers, insurance, and megacorps
Bush has been out of office for 5 years now. Obama owns this shit now. He may not be responsible for establishing the surveillance state (by some accounts that has been going on even before 9/11) but he's doing nothing to reign it in either.
And once you've impeached Obama you can send Bush and his goons to The Hague.
Free Manning, jail Obama.
The suicide bomber believes in their faith so strongly they are willing to die to achieve its goals.
This doesn't get the same respect from the same "terrorists" as think the illegal war against the crown (treason) when its others doing it rather than themselves.
The will to die for your cause is NOT the requirement for honourability. Committment carries no weight in the correctness of the cause, you need to look elsewhere for that.
If he hadn't sold his soul to those interests he never would have made it past the primaries.
I had the sad misfortune of reading your entire post, and I must say, the person that responded to you was fully justified. You're also perfectly right that the Romney would probably have done nearly identical things regarding the NSA scandal.
However, even talking about it in such a way really just distracts from the real problems. The real problem is the complete inabiltity for your damn populace to affect any change in your country's policies. The real problem is the fact that you have a defacto single-party "democracy". We shouldn't even care who get's voted in. Every.single.person should be worried about enacting change in the structure of government that allows such incongruencies to even occur in a supposedly democratic system. Instead, you're all so worried about assigning, explaining and arguing over partisan/presidentail blame that you're NOT looking at the problems at all. You're just not. If you did, you'd all be out on the streets protesting to have a country-wide vote/referendum on every single one of these important issues.
There is no need for a revolution as one of the earlier posters was talking about. Change can happen, but not if you work within the already rigged system. Get out and protest for a referendum. All of you. That includes you and the guy you responded to.
Why the fuck does your shit get modded up so much.
Hosted on WHITEHOUSE .gov of all places. Don't make me laugh.
How about we impeach brain dead idiots like yourself? I'm not a fan of Obama at this point, but this isn't all on him. Your boyscout Bush, and both major political parties have deep rooted ties to all of this shit.
Got to start somewhere.
Threat of impeachment / looking like an ass in history books in the future might be a motivating factor in getting someone to behave better.
I also agree with mcgrew that Congress and the Senate are complicit and need to be scrapped.
Unfortunately I don't see this happening due to the general complacency and ignorance of the American people at this point.
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
Agreed.
However, the problem I have with a lot of Obama critics is not that the content of their criticism is actually wrong, but rather feels disingenuous. Had Mitt won the presidency, I feel like a lot of these guys bitching about Obama would be standing right in line behind Mitt, who I believe would be doing basically the exact same thing as Obama*, charging that anyone who dared criticize that "great patriot Mitt Romney" was a terrorist-sympathizing traitor who should be rounded up and executed. I don't see Mitt having a fundamentally different stance on NSA wiretapping, the Patriot Act, or drone strikes (and I bet Benghazi would still have happened under his watch, too).
For those of you (us) who have managed to remain consistent with our criticisms of both parties, bravo.
I voted for Obama. I am not sure that I regret it, exactly, as I don't think there was a (realistic) better alternative.
That being said, I do not approve of Obama's actions and inactions since he's been in office. I am, to say the least, highly disappointed.
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
It gets better when you realize when Obama said he wanted to create more oversight and then put the entire oversight under the NSA's leadership.
What most people don't realize is Obama is as much a republican as Reagan, Nixon, and both Bushes. His policies are in direct line with theirs.
What we need are term limits for congress critters so they can't become as corrupted, and for Congress to start revoking executive powers back out of the executive branch.
We didn't need the cabinets before World War II Why don't we eliminate them?
The last scary thought I shall leave with. What if J Edgar Hoover had the NSA's ability to spy on people?
Let me get this straight. You're saying that corrupt executive branch persons should reduce / restrict their own power ?
Yeah, that's going to happen.
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
Revolution isn't the answer. The answer is to stop voting for candidates that are promising to destroy the government and fail to even pretend to have plans to improve the situation.
Here's news for you: administration has a lot of long-term employments. Those are mostly secure from whatever candidate or party is voted into "power".
You discover that your car runs propelled by tortured souls and you want to change that. Democracy tries to effect change by exchanging the driver.
But it's actually the engine that is the problem.
We should understand that the US nation has got a profound trauma in 2001 when its landmark symbolic buildings were barbarically destroyed.
This is the cause of all these draconian laws, acts, dragnet surveillance, etc.
Hannibal crossed Alps with a bunch of ragged militants. The senators of the Great Roman Empire were literally laughing when the news broke out in Rome.
Roman soldiers took wine, festive food with them as they thought that after checking out Hannibal's group they would have a picnic outdoors.
But Hannibal new cunning military tactics nearly destroyed the Roan Empire in the following 2nd Punic war.
My point is that if we want privacy and other freedoms we should learn to abstain from military conflicts, even from ones which seem to look easy and insignificant.
In general, there is always an economical interest behind a military conflict. But nowadays getting rich means, more often than not, getting isolated from normal healthy physical activity and consequently overweight. Being overweight outweighs any advantages.
Sounds like a typical manufactured "Fact" to me.
Did you read the summary? It says the executive branch has known this for 12 months. Last week the US president promised transparency: Namely, a NSA watch-dog reporting to ... (wait for it) ... the NSA. So that's two failures at 'transparency' policy.
But Democracy works well when people are angry enough for a revolution. No need for violence, if people care enough to through everyone out, even for the other party, the institutional culture will go with it.
In polls, people are overwhelmingly dissatisfied with the performance of Congress, but generally quite satisfied with the performance of their own Representative. They'll agree that it's imperative to throw the other bums out. If you can come up with a good way to expose this cognitive dissonance to voters and get them to realize that both they and their representative are part of the problem, then we will move closer to a long-term solution. But there's a new episode of American Idol on tonight, and I'd really like to see what happens on Breaking Bad.
Most of the US Founding Fathers despised the very idea of political parties, knowing what a corrupt morass they would become.
Once again, their insight has proved true. Then promptly ignored.
Amen! Slashdot must be punished for their shit text rendering.
Thanks for the info. I'm not sure that giving to universities etc. is self-interest, but thanks anyway.
We're never getting off this planet, are we?
Fuck.
Of course we aren't. That would require intelligent life. . . . And there's less and less of that every single day. In fact. . .
. . . nevermind, Idol's on. . . .
It's just like 2 flavors of the same toothpaste. Different boxes, different color schemes, but in the end, just squishy and abrasive. . .
Or he's been threatened from Day One by the three-letter guys that were already all-powerful. Look at all his decisions and the actions of his administration that are in total opposition to his campaign and that of his core supporters (weed, Wall Street, Gitmo, et al) and tell me I'm crazy.
"The President of the United States of America (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces."
"The executive is the part of government that has sole authority and responsibility for the daily administration of the state."
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Yes, very much so. Most of us in the reality based world made him out to be a world-class Chicago-style bullshitter after listening to him talk for 2-3 seconds. Unfortunately, a smooth talker is able to win a lot of votes, even if he says nothing of substance.
Do you have ESP?
It does account for inflation to 2008 because I used the value in 2008 dollars.
The comparison is actually slanted WAY in Obama's favor to say it's roughly equal because the numbers I gave show Obama's CURRENT deficits are about equal to all other deficits PLUS the accumulated interest. In other words, every million in overspending by Carter counts as two million because we're including the interest on the original million. If you simply add up other president's deficits, they sum is less than Obama's first term.
Most of them are just as guilty. We the people are F@#*&d!
The "Iron Mountain" document agenda http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=VAcNFQGKWPs
I'm afraid that the President does have this kind of power.
Wrong. He is the commander in chief of the military. The NSA is an element of the DoD. He could shut the domestic programs down with the stroke of a pen.
The question is: What is Obama the figurehead of? It's not just the military-industrial complex, it's morphed into a much larger corporate octopus comprising the half-dozen of so largest in banks, chemical companies, oil companies, etc. And it has near total control of the US government.
The root of all this evil is a string of SCOTUS decisions which over the years have established the legal fiction of "corporate personhood." Citizens United would never have even come up if corporations weren't already considered as "artificial persons" under the constitution.
The only solution I can see, realistically, is a constitutional amendment. Here are two organizations working toward that goal right now. Check 'em out, and lend a hand.
https://movetoamend.org/
http://www.wolf-pac.com/
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
I agree, and reading your post resulted in me signing up to EFF for $25 a month.
Definitely not true. Go read through the WSJ forums. Its populated by true believers of the far right. Its about 80/20 favoring strong distaste for these programs.
Obama the senator was always in favor of warrantless wiretapping, even voting to grant telcos immunity for their illegal cooperation with the government. He was NEVER on our side.
Some things he was disingenuous about. Single payer health care for one. Respecting state laws on marijuana is another. Being the "most transparent administration in history" is yet another. But he was always forthright about his lack of respect for the 4th amendment.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
It is rather rare for people remain consistent with their principals. I feel that you are correct, especially given how often I was called a bleeding heart liberal when bush was in power but now am called a raving right wing looney. My only though of what if it were President Romney now is that maybe there would be more outrage in the general media with them actively going after the administration but one could hope. Romney was someone who was easily hate-able as he seemed like a rather pompous prick with a 2x4 stuck up his ass.
Time to offend someone
I miss the days when a executive branch controversy was if an intern was smoking some presidential pole or not.
Time to offend someone
I think it's because marijuana legalization is emerging as a modern states rights issue and he needs to show that all power lies with the federal government. Even if the states legalize something, the federal agents can come in and make things hard for that state's citizens.
There's probably also a budgetary consideration. Marijuana makes up a huge percentage of what the DEA concerns itself with. Legalizing it cuts into the need for agents and supplies, and shrinks a very profitable federal policing agency.
Overall, I doubt it has much to do with marijuana itself.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
Now he can... in his second term yet...
He's a year into his second term and he's still vigorously defending it. He's using his untouchable second term to tighten the screws on the citizens, not defy Congress or his party.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
Obama specifically ran against them, but defends them publically now.
Dead fucking wrong.
Obama came out in favor of FISA courts prior to his first election to President.
That, specifically, is why I did not vote for him the first time. As he was a constitutional law professor, he knew for a fact that that was unconstitutional and his publicly stated support was a firm declaration that he planned on violating his oath of office before he was even elected.
The U.S. military will never be deployed against the U.S. citizenry. That would cause serious civil unrest problems immediately, and they know it. Also, they don't need to. They've been selling surplus military equipment to the police for years, who are licensed to operate on U.S. soil. The police are already here, and they're not grumbling about it - if anything, they tend to see ordinary citizens like the enemy already.
You need to stop seeing everything as a partisan attack. Criticism of Obama is not an attack on one party. Your insistence on making everything partisan is the status quo.
Reading comprehension failure. That sentence says does. The word "not" appears nowhere in it.
I'd have modded you up if I had points.
Just so you know.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
To be fair, you're implying Congress is all one person. A majority voted the PATRIOT Act in, but remember that there were those who voted against it, too. Give credit where it's due.
after hearing about the staged 'I know not to use a bubble-sort' comment while doing a Q&A at google (I think this was at the campus in Washington, the person in question moved down to the bay after his contract with them ended, and had no interest in working for them again/full time.)
Obama always seemed too slick for his own good, and as the past 5 years have proven, just like the last president, it's likely because somebody else is calling the shots.
At some level it is irrelevant. In the real world doing the right thing does not protect you from the consequences of your actions. History is full of cases of people doing the right thing and being persecuted for it. Sometimes by evil immoral people and sometimes by those who themselves have the highest motives. Tough shit. Character means doing the right thing even when it is inconvenient or will result in negative consequences. You lose the moral high ground when you "do the right thing" but then do anything and everything to avoid the consequences of your actions. Snowden sitting in a jail in Virginia for blowing the whistle: Hero. Showden sitting in Russia after releasing info to a British newspaper so he can duck arrest: traitor.
People just like blaming Obama for apparatus that was setup under Bush's watch.
No, people just like blaming the president for things which cannot be stopped by the president, whether or not the president even wants to stop them. If you've got 100 people in a room, ruling the entire world, and one of them starts making problems what do you think the other 99 people would do? Apparently none of you ever read Lord of the Flies in school...
The NSA has deleted all reference to FISA in its massive databases and now argues that FISA doesn't exist and never did.
Sure, which means we're far, far away from revolution. My point was only that if people ever reach the point where they would take up arms, they won't have to.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
People just like blaming Obama for apparatus that was setup under Bush's watch.
... and was continued under Obama. See how that works now? Idiot?!?
The whole "red team" vs "blue team" thing is just an illusion to keep the sheep distracted.
Unix is user friendly, it's just selective about who its friends are.
He's a politician, what did you expect?
Unix is user friendly, it's just selective about who its friends are.
My point is that Obama is just a figurehead. Don't focus all your anger on him and lose sight of the fact that there is a whole bunch of politicians of all stripes behind him cheering him on. Im sure they would love it if you scapegoat Obama and let them walk free.
I tend to suspect the ones behind Obama are far more problematic than Obama. Obama's term as President can only last for 8 years. People can in theory be the head of a government agency for life (unlikely, but very few offices have a limited term). For the NSA I suspect most of the problem is the layers of management/bureaucracy inside the NSA, each layer downplays how severe the illegal acts are so by the time they report to the President everything is fine and dandy. This doesn't excuse Obama, but unless you claim he is an all-knowing god, correcting problems will be complex.
Mr. icebike, you want them to ask: "Why would the President keep power abuse active?" That's the question people defending President Obama against impeachment need to ask, and then fully, irrefutably completely answer.
How does the President even justify such abhorrent mal-use of power as correct action for survival? The response has been: "It's secret, stop asking". This is insufficient and unacceptable.
A defense of this magnitude MUST be a complete and solid logical argument, unfortunately most indicators seemingly point to blatant abuse.
This is most unfortunate. It makes me sad because the whole world is putting their hopes on this dude. :(
The world is what you make it. Don't make it hell.
Wait? WAIT!? That's what they want us to do. As a comment says below, drones and bots don't have a conscience.
This should get ugly (politically and socially, above comments mention that if there's enough people for violent revolution then there are enough for an electoral change) RIGHT NOW. Same way it's been for a while. We need some serious change.
-
Why do you people keep going on about "constitutional" or not, when a vast section of the US is not afforded constitutional protections as it no longer applies 100 miles from the border. Get it in your heads.
Forget it. The US constitution, for all intents and purposes, is an interesting piece of history now.
"Unconstitutional"? So fucking what? Doesn't mean shit anymore.
Yeah, I know AC and all that...
Hint: D's want to expand government. This is expansion.
The last scary thought I shall leave with. What if J Edgar Hoover had the NSA's ability to spy on people?
Well, when the head of the CIA refused to take the fall for the President's decision to let a bunch of Americans get killed in an embassy attack, he might, for instance, suddently have been found to be having an affair.
Oh, wait ...
I'm not sure that giving to universities etc. is self-interest
LIke the AC said, it is quid pro quo. When you get something back in exchange for your donations it isn't really charity. But as long as it isn't directly tangible the IRS can't really tax it so people tend to ignore it.
It's like donating to NPR. When they give you a tote bag the IRS requires that the value of the tote bag be counted against the amount of the donation because it is easy to quantify. While the value you get from be able to listen to NPR isn't easy to measure so it gets a free pass by the IRS, but it is still morally self interest.
Donating to BYU specifically (versus an unaffiliated university) gets him standing in the mormon church. Donating to his kids' private high-school makes sure that his grand-kids are at the front of the line even if they don't necessarily measure up to the school's normal admission standards.
Even if his grand-kids don't end up attending, donating money to a hoity-toity private high-school isn't really about helping the needy - only a small fraction of such donations go to needs-based scholarships, the rest go to school infrastructure that benefits wealthy kids. Is it really charity if it pays for 20 kids to go sailing on the lake for phys-ed and 19 of those kids drive to school in BMWs while 1 can only afford to ride the bus? That's an example from my personal experience at a similar school, with a sailboat donated to the school.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
It's not called impeachment when you're removing the entire ruling body. That's more of a revolution.
I'd wait until the military starts grumbling about it, or is deployed against us on our own soil (which will cause major strife within the lower ranks, at least). Right now, a revolution would be seen as undemocratic, too violent for what they've done. Which means they get to launch a military crackdown that the public will see as at least kind of justified.
Let's give the peaceful solutions some more time, or at least give the ruling body enough rope to hang themselves with. Because once the military is on our side, not theirs, the revolution won't be stopped by anything short of a nuclear attack of us, on ourselves. And I don't think they're willing to do that, because who wants to be emperor of the ash pile?
Can't be done. The system is designed so you can not get rid of an incumbent. No one in his party will run against him and Republicans won't vote for a Democrat and Democrats won't vote for a Republican. It's political gridlock and the likes of McCain, etc can not be gotten rid of.
Since when is "public safety" the root password to the Constitution?
Huh? Troll mod? Why? Some people might actually think "Fact" was meant to be taken literally. Read the link, mods!
Jeez. Quit with the partisan bullshit. When was the last time a Republican shrunk government?
Bush G? GW? Even the deified Regan created an enormous military industrial machine, that dwarfs all other.
The democrat party is no better.
Don't get me wrong. Non politicians who describe themselves as democrats or republicans that I've met are fine people, and generally love their country and want the constitution upheld. I have no beef with most of them.
Elephants and asses have more in common with each other than they have with us.
Now this is a productive first step. Very hard to do so though, since it will become yet another political blog reflecting maintainer's political opinions. Even Groklaw, as awesome as it was, had rambling qualities (PJ had an ax to grind against SUN Microsystems for some reason).
What does GOP have to do with any of this? Because someone is anti Obama they are pro GOP? Great logic you got there bud.
Of course he can stop it. It's called an Executive Order. He signs it, and it's done.
Did you ever ask yourself why he doesn't sign Executive Orders for all of the things he talked about during his campaign?
Is it impossible that there is some outside motivation that keeps him from acting along those lines? Something he didn't know about during his campaign?
The other possibility is that he was completely disingenuous and said all those things just to get elected, with no intention of following through.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Reagan's questionable achievement was "slowing the growth" of the government. As for military spending there's been a lot of R's in support of reducing it to the extent that when Obama thought the R's would give in to avoid military cuts (sequestration) the R's agreed to reductions in military spending (essentially calling his bluff). That would never have happened prior to the tea party.
As for the other R generalizations you made, yeah, you're pretty much right. The marginal difference between R's and D's is R's want to expand government less than the D's.
So I look at party as an approximation, but I would likely vote for someone with JFK's policies or maybe even Evan Bayh (especially if it was Bayh vs. McCain).
But even talking in terms of democrats vs republicans is a problem. It makes people choose one or the other, based on their various differences. Once people have chosen they tend to side with their choice on most issues, if not all. They're distracted by these issues which aren't the most pressing issues that the country faces.
The important issues are agreed by Rs and Ds in government. Expansion of executive power. Lobbying. Erosion of the constitution. Big defense. Militarization of the police force. Reduction of state power. Monitoring citizens, esp. dissenters. Deficit spending. Foreign policy.
It is, without a doubt, the largest most successful sleight of hand ever achieved. And no end is in sight.
A vote for R or D is a vote for the machine. The Party. More of the same (MOTS - I feel a meme coming on).
Bush (MOTS)
Clinton (MOTS)
Romney (MOTS)
It's possible that Ron Paul isn't - or maybe he's just better at the sophistry...
Don't vote MOTS!
It is GOVERNMENT that is at fault here.
This is technically correct, but most people will mis-interpret it.
In Soviet Russia, Stalin was the government. He had the power.
In the United States of America, the citizens are the only government, the only source of power.
Officials are hired hands in the USA - they are not the government. "Of the People, By the People, For the People"... and we chose hired hands to exercise some of our power as a convenience. But it's not their power, it never is - it's ours.
Two problems:
1) It's (roughly) a democracy, so the citizens must go along with being out-voted by their fellows. Many won't, and therefore accept law-breaking when they think it suits their personal cause.
2) It's on the citizens to monitor, and correct, hired hands that get out of line. It's called "the Rule of Law". If you tolerate a violation because it supports your personal cause you've abandoned the United States of America.
The citizens are responsible. The citizens are the government. Everyone else is quite right to blame them for what they allow their hired hands to do.
It's constant hard work being an American citizen. That's not an excuse, though. We're still un-excuseably responsible for what is done in our name.
There is a significant difference on a number of social and economic issues. But not much difference on any issues that involve the true power structures of this country (e.g., military industrial complex)