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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
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.
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?
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.
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
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.
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.
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
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?
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
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.
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
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.
That wasn't a sense of shame, that was a sense of better-make-a-deal-to-avoid-prosecution.
This space intentionally left blank
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
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.
They will bury it and cover it up with another made-up crisis.
Why do you think there's such a push for drones and bots?
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.
But at least back then there was a threat of prosecution.
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.
They actually increased under his presidency.
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.
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.
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.
When was the last time a president followed through on his campaign promises?
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.
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.
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.
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
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 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
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
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
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
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.
Then again, Romney gave away 30% of his income, which is very UNLIKE Clinton and suggests he may be a man of character.
Giving money to your own social clubs like the mormon church and its affiliates like Brigham Young University, or the George W Bush Library, or the private school where 5 of his kids attended isn't charity, it's tax-deductible self-interest.
Before I posted I went and read up on his tax returns, just to make sure that my assumption of self-interest was true. That he hadn't made a liar out of me and my cynicism by really giving the bulk of his donations to organizations that would not benefit himself in one way or another. In the process I found out some interesting "character" related points:
1) His 2010 tax return showed only 11% of his income went to non-profit deductions. The mormon church directly gets 10% straight off the bat as tithing, leaving 1% for everything else. In fact, his own 20-year summary shows he averaged less than 12.6% until the 30% spike in 2011 brought the average up to just under 13.5%. Why such an outlier in 2011 when he had roughly half the income that he did in 2010? Seems to me that once he won the party primary his donations went up.
2) In 2011 he did not claim the maximum allowed tax deductions for his donations. He only claimed a deduction for $2.25 of the $4 million that was eligible. Why would he do that? Well, the guy who runs Romney's family trust said it helped to keep his campaign promise of paying at least 13% in income tax every year. Here's my question, now that he lost the election, did he go back and file an amended return to claim the entire $4M? We will probably never know, maybe a real man of character would not. A real republican would be happy to over-pay his taxes without a complaint, right?
My source for those two points is this article at The Blaze - I figured I'd go with a conservative news source to give Romney the benefit of the doubt in the reporting.
This is not to say the Clintons' donations weren't similar self-serving, that's not my point at all. I'm saying you are drawing a questionable conclusion based on a narrow reading of the facts.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
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)
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.
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.
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. . . .
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.