I don't think the GP was comparing the theory of evolution to sting theory, but but making the joke that string theory proves evolution because it evolves into "another untestable manner to accomadate an uncomfortable reality that it is not really science."
So either you misread the GP or I misread your post.
You just responded to a post listing abuses that the government has committed by essentially saying that they're nice folks and would never do that sort of thing. I'm not sure what to think of that. I also know people who have worked in every intelligence agency that we have, and they're nice people and they eat popcorn and go fishing like the rest of us. That doesn't mean that governments in general and our government specifically don't have a long history of either bending the rules or outright abusing people.
My point was not to deny anything that has or has not happened, but to say that I trust their judgment. If agents charged and sworn with protecting the good people of the USA deem it appropriate to detain foreigners without charge, then I'm not going to question it. Intelligence is a dirty business. War is even dirtier. Good will is not what these people understand. Action needs no translation. Now when citizens start disappearing or the government starts to raid and burn down towns, then you'll have a point. But for detaining 500 people, who are treated quite well, btw, at a military base in Cuba is no cause for alarm.
My complaint (and, I think, the complaint that many other people have) is not that they insist on being able to eavesdrop on phone calls for intelligence gathering purposes, but the fact that they insist on having that power without any oversight. I'm all for giving law enforcement and intelligence agencies all the tools they need to do their jobs well provided there's adequate neutral oversight to prevent them from abusing those tools. When they insist that they need the tools but they don't want the oversight, and then they can't come up with a convincing reason not to have the oversight, a lot of us start questioning their motives. A guy trying to buy a truckload of dynamite should make you nervous. A guy who steadfastly refuses to show ID for the purpose should set off alarm bells.
Agreed. However, I don't think our government has the ability to do anything without oversight, even if that oversight is the press.
History has shown us that when we stop requiring that people justify their exercises of power, they'll start using those powers in unjustifiable ways--even people who would otherwise have been honest folks with our best interests at heart under normal circumstances. As they say, locks keep honest people honest. So does accountability. I'd much rather see a system that's designed in such a way that those nice people are never tempted to become bad people. That way, everybody gets their job done and we can all remain friends.
If this came out of the blue, I'd see your point and agree. However, like it or not, we are at war. Quite frankly, it's not the kind of war that we are very good at. The fact remains that there are people who have the will and are trying their damnedest to find a way to place a mushroom cloud over every American city possible. They have stated in plain Arabic that their goal is kill or convert every person in the world. Right now, we are the primary block to them achieving that goal, which makes us a target. Given this, I think our government has all the justification it needs to listen in on phone calls. Now as I've said before, I may start to take issue when I have to pass through an armed checkpoint to get to the grocery store. But tapping phone calls?!!? I think that is a sacrifice I'm willing to make.
As for power being a corrupting influence. In a bureaucracy, only a few will actually get enough power to become corrupted. All those under the powerful owe no allegiance to them and will gladly blow the whistle when things get out of hand. Now if Bush were to pull a Hugo Chavez and suddenly claim to be Prez for life, we'll have something to worry about. But as seeing that we will have an election in a year and two months, I don't think there is really enough time to complete the corruption process.
You could just read the warranty itself to see if there is any mention of such a thing. If the policy ain't in the paperwork, then it really doesn't matter what the manager says.
You take the current administration -- heck, ANY government, ever -- at face value when they claim the right to detain citizens indefinitely with no charges filed, extraordinary rendition, unprecedented domestic spying -- you're saying you believe them when they say will only use those powers for the sole purpose of protecting us from the boogeymen, uh, terrorists?
Uh, I KNOW them, so of course I trust them. Besides, the "government" is made up of people. The FBI, CIA, IRS and so on are all made up of people. The FBI agent I knew had a wife and two daughters. His daughter was all of five years old and sang Happy Trails while playing with a tape-lint-roller as a guitar. My best friend's wife works for the IRS. She doesn't know shit about taxes. She's in personnel. Hell, for that matter, I was in the US Army, so I guess I was one of these evil government people you are so afraid of. (BOO!) My uncle was Navy. My grandfather was Army Infantry. My step dad is a former Marine. These are not evil men in black who are out to enslave mankind. They are people like you and me... well, like me anyway who have families, and wives and lives. They like to watch football and enjoy sci-fi and like to kick back with a beer out by the pond and shoot the shit. They are not evil people. You need to step away from the bong!
Bottom line for me: there was nothing wrong with intelligence *gathering* pre-911. It was the intelligence *analysis* that faltered. If it ain't broke, don't f%@k it up!:)
I talked with a couple of people I know within the FBI. They both pretty much told me the same thing. Allow me to paraphrase:
We knew something was up. There was too much "chatter" for us not to. We would pick up things we were not exactly authorized to know. For example, when you have a warrant to search for or listen for one thing and you hear something else, it's too late. You can't forget it, but you can't really use it either. We would learn of various meeting places and times but couldn't do a damn thing about it. We couldn't ask for a warrant to raid or tap a meeting when we were not authorized to know about it in the first place. We all wanted to go in and arrest the lot of them, but couldn't because we'd have the ACLU tree-huggers screaming bloody murder. Now of course, if we had known what was about to go down, we would have kicked doors in anyway. 3000+ lives outweigh the rights of 19 terrorists. Even though any chance of prosecution would have been gone, it would have been worth it just to break the cell up. We'd have to go after them another day. And this is the type of thing that the current administration is trying to do away with. When the FBI gets a tip that the CIA accidentally stumbled upon through what may not have been 100% legal means (Let's say the Egyptians beat it out of a "suspect"), then they want to be able to act on it. If a warrant is required for each and every piece of data retrieved, the whole thing falls apart if a piece of data gathered early on is not valid. Items G through Z are not admissible if we didn't have a warrant for item F.
the issue is that in this case, you won't be able to fight the abuse or the abusers. if they don't need warrent, you won't even know who they are
Am I correct in saying that it's not the eavesdropping you're afraid of, but what they may do with the data they retrieve. Well, what could they possibly do? "Booyagrandma ordered extra pepperoni last night. Let's notify her health insurance company so they can increase her rates."??
I don't think the government has that much interest in the phone calls of every day, non-terrorist Americans.
Still, what does eavesdropping have to do with having to show your papers when moving around the county.
And this is so sad. You will continue to wait, won't you, until you one day wake up and find yourself in just that position, having to show your papers when moving around the county. You see, this is why we take it serious when we spot a slippery slope - it is a forewarning. You wait till it is a matter of fact, and before that, you put your faith one of the most violent governments in the west. Hurrah for you. This is one of the reasons why democracy is failing. The checks and balances are eroded by the likes of you, who accept it, and take it, and explain it away so that others like you will feel reassured. It's not just the US, but the whole west is knocking off one democratic liberty after the other, all under the flag of Anti Terrorism and Security.
Ah, the slipper slope argument. If that is your main concern, you've got much bigger fish to fry than wire tapping! One that comes to mind is anti-drinking and driving laws. According to you slippery slope argument, before long, we'll all be forced to have breathalysers installed on our vehicles! And that is just the first step. Next comes curfews until eventually, they will close all bars and keep us locked in our homes to make sure that we don't drink and drive! We must fight all drunk driving laws now before the government abuses them to keep us prisoners in our own homes!
See how silly that sounds? Any law can be abused. Does this mean we fight all laws? Any government can be abusive. Do we fight all things government?
And yes, I'll wait for the abuse to happen before I start making a fuss. I'm not going to preemptively protest a law and fight to handcuff our government because it has the potential for abuse. Hell, anything has the potential for abuse! Saying that this might be abused is like calling for the all government agencies to ban computers because computers can be used to hack into my network!
I'll fight the abuse and the abusers, not the tools that can be abused.
Terrorists don't attack unprovoked. Maybe you have to look at yourself to find out why they are targeting you. Maybe they aren't the problem, maybe your lifestyle IS a big problem but you're too selfish to see the damage you are doing. Maybe you treat women worse than the Taliban does but there's no way you'd ever believe it. Maybe not. But if you are serious about wanting to know 'Why this happened?' referring to 9/11, stop looking to the enemy and start looking at yourself. Violence is VERY rarely unprovoked. Our north american way of life is FAR from perfect, but we take that to mean we're not rich enough. 95% of us don't know what life is about anymore.
Is this a joke? I don't see a/sarc tag so I can only assume that it is not.
Uh, we were attacked because we are doing are best to stop the world from being under control of a Taliban style government. We were attacked because we do not beat our women into submission and force them to wear full body burkas. We were attacked because our men are not forced to wear beards and we can hit the carpet and pray five times a day or NOT. We were attacked because we do our best to defend freedom and fight against those who threaten it. We were attacked not because of the choices we make, but because we are allowed to make them and we fight for the rights of others to make their own choices!
Um, preventing modern day brownshirts from disrupting speeches are hardly what I'd call civil liberties lost.
From your link:
'As far as I'm concerned, the whole country is a free speech zone.' Sorry, but it's not. You are allowed to speak your mind, but you are NOT allowed to do it wherever and whenever you like. For example, I'm not allowed to enter your living room at 3:00am with a bullhorn to give my $0.02 on farm subsidies. I am not allowed to have a "sit-in" on the freeway during rush hour. In the same vein, this person does not have the right to interrupt a Presidential speech. Do his free speech rights over rule the free speech rights of others?
Remember when the difference between America and the Soviet Union was that we didn't need to show our papers just to travel inside our own country? That's the type of thing people are talking about when they say their rights are being taken away. As it turns out, their rights are being taken away.
Are you saying that people have to provide papers to travel within the US? Really? Where? I travel all over the place and no one has asked me to show papers. It makes no sense to state the wire taps mean we'll have to start showing papers to travel within the US. When I have to provide papers to travel within the country, you'll have a point. Until then, you don't.
1) the wiretapping itself is secret and so nobody who's a target of it is likely to be specifically aware of that fact, and that,
Uh, it really doesn't work if the target of the tap is aware of it, now does it!
2) the Bush administration has, by its own admission, avoided seeking approval of the wiretapping by the court that was established to oversee that wiretapping (a court which, by the way, has only rejected requests to perform wiretapping a handful of times in its entire history),
Put yourself in the tapper's shoes. The phone company's switch, which you are legally monitoring, alerts you that a call is being placed from a newly purchased "disposable cell phone" located in Deerborn MI to a tribal region in Pakistan. You don't have a warrant to tap this phone because it's brand new. Do you listen in? Let's say you do. After listening, you find that it is Abu calling his grandma to tell her about the A he earned in Chemistry class. Now, do you request a warrant after the fact? What difference does it make? How many calls a day are "inspected" in this way? Do you ask for warrants for all of them? Do you only request warrants for those that matter? Again, what difference does it make?
those affected by the loss of civil liberties (i.e., freedom from government intrusion into their personal affairs without judicial oversight [see the bill of rights, ammendment 4]) don't know if they've had their rights violated or not.
How does listening in on your phone calls intrude into your personal affairs? Now if they interrupted you or disconnected your call, you'd have a point, but it is 100% NOT intrusive. It wouldn't work if it were. And again, it wouldn't really work if you notified those being tapped.
It is, thus, unreasonable to demand that people elucidate which rights they've personally lost under the Bush administration's activities, since they can't find out...
If they don't know, have any rights been lost? How? If lives are not changed at all, how can you claim that rights have been lost? Here is Amendment IV:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. I've bolded the key points here. Listening in does is not make anyone less secure in their persons (not a personal search), houses (home is not being searched), papers (no paper involved), and effects (nothing physical is being searched at all). No place is being searched and no persons or things are being seized. Also, understand the idea of the IV'th Amendment was to keep government agents from kicking down your door and looking for stuff. It was put into place because that is how the British harassed the colonists. They would kick down the doors of dissident's families and tear the place up. Anything they would find would be used against them. At times, the British would search entire communities as a show of force. This was an extreme inconvenience and thus banned by the Constitution. This is not what our current government is doing.
Oh really? Proof? Maybe you ought to report that to someone if you have information of a national security nature. Or are you just using vague scare tactics to push policy?
Proof? I have no more proof than the alarmists had on 9-10-01. I do have my reasons for concern, however: here here here here and here
(of course, consider the sources as always!)
I've been looking for this type of thing since Beslan. Glenn Beck is reporting on it all week. Not that I expect you to be a Glenn Beck fan or anything, but his points on this are valid, if a bit alarmist.
Really? Hell to pay? Voluntary resignations and the firing/court martials of low level NCOs is hardly hell being paid. Maybe if someone responsible for OKing various abuses were ever charged, or [gasp] impeached then your sentiment would be comforting. From what we have seen thus far, a wrist slap is the most anyone has gotten. Case in point: although the FISA court was the ONLY legal way to tap certain international calls it was sidestepped completely by this administration. In total defiance of the law. Name one conviction of someone involved in ordering or executing those wiretaps without going through FISA. Zero accountability. It matters not whether the President, his legal council, or anyone other than SCOTUS thought the law should be different. It was defined, it was breached as defined, not one bit of accountability.
There is something more powerful than SCOTUS, POTUS and even COTUS (Congress). It's the Press. I linked to the Clinton trying to abuse political opponents by using their FBI files against them and they got caught. Just like if a Prez tries to use a wire tap against a political opponent for political or other nefarious purposes will also be caught and tried in the court of public opinion, much like we are doing here.
Something that people fail to understand is that government has no interest nor the resources to monitor the actions of those that mean no harm. I assure you it does, and it does. So we have no rights now? Have the feds kicked down your door for typing what you just did? If things are as you say they, then they already should have. Have they? Then you must be wrong.
I'm willing to give up some rights to prevent it. You can't be serious? You're either too young or too dumb to understand the concept of a slippery slope. Why does the slippery slope only apply to eaves dropping? We have laws on the books concerning all sorts of things. Do these not apply to the "slippery slope"? The government can post speed limits. Slippery slope? The government can seize your house if you don't pay taxes. Slippery slope? The government can jail you for 48 hrs for no reason. Slippery slope? The government can keep records on you (driving, taxes and so on). Slippery slope? You can apply the slippery slope argument to anything. Why is this different? Should we repeal all laws because they could fall prey to the slippery slope argument?
You're also obviously unaware of the fact that more innocent people die in car crashes every year than died in terrorist attacks in all of the 20 century. Where are the billions in declaring war on people who don't wear seat belts? Would you support police cameras in your garage to check that you were wearing your seatbelt before you left your driveway? Perspective is a wonderful thing. Pity you don't have any. Actually, my car beeps tirelessly if I am moving without my seatbelt on. Should I sue Toyota for infringing on my rights? Should I sue the gov't for requiring me to wear a seatbelt? Back to your slippery slope argument, it is against the law in most, if not all states to drive without a seatbelt, yet no one is suggesting that we place cameras in driveways to ensure that you wear one. Why does your slippery slope argument not apply here?
Yes, more people die from car crashes, and we do things to try to prevent that from happening. We have speed limits, seat belt laws, drunk driving legislation and so on. We have more officers patrolling the streets looking for drunk drivers and speeders than we have looking for terrorists. All of these things could be considered "giving up liberty for security". Traffic laws affect me much more than anti-terror legislation. Is it against the law to drink? Is it against the law to drive? Then why are the two combined illegal? Telling me I can't do both is infringing on my right to do one or the other. Allowing the government to listen in on some telephone conversations is much less of an inconvenience than forcing me to wear a seatbelt or find another way home when I've had too many at the local pub. And in case you haven't noticed, there IS a huge war against drunk drivers.
Now, back to terrorism. Have you read about Beslan? What if I told you that we have reason to believe that there are plans to carry out that sort of attack here? Now I don't mean to sound like I'm saying "think of the children", but if listening to my phone calls will prevent uber-religious psychos from taking over several elementary schools and slaughtering a bunch of school kids like livestock, then please, listen away! The fact that you are not willing to make such a minuscule sacrifice that will have no affect on your life whatsoever tells me where your priorities lie.
The semi-secret (they've been leaked, but aren't officially talked about) agreements between the US and other countries are two-way.
The British are heavily involved, and the way it works is that the British are given wiretap access to US calls, which is legal under British law - though it breaks US law, the violation is occurring in Britain, beyond the reach of US law. They then report back to the US government what they heard. We do the same for their domestic calls, and give them the results.
It's a nasty little mess.
Link?
Either way, how has this affected your life? What rights have been violated? How has the British government enslaved you? As far as any potential for abuse, how can the British government, or any other for that matter, take advantage of any information they have gleaned from listening to your calls?
I wasn't talking about the article so much as the sentiment expressed by this thread regarding suspending rights to "secure freedom".
I understand, but it seems that people are so interested in handcuffing our government that they confuse foreign intelligence with domestic spying and try to shut it all down.
After the attacks that occurred six years ago today, everyone was asking, "how did this happen?", "why were we not able to stop it?", and "what are we going to do to prevent it from happening again?". I remember administration staffers being grilled by congressional committees pointing out things like a PDB titled, "Bin Laden determined to attack the US" and Michael Moore documentaries trying to place blame rather than trying to find resolutions. Can you blame the administration for taking action?
Something that people fail to understand is that government has no interest nor the resources to monitor the actions of those that mean no harm. They equate evesdropping and datamining to kicking down doors and rummaging through drawers looking for something that might be considered illegal. They are convinced that a government that taps calls made to Afghanistan is the same as Orwell's Big Brother. Just read some of the comments posted here that are comparing intercepting German emails to Turkey to turning the US into a barbed wire laden police state. No one is suggesting that. If you are to say that you will give up no rights for protection, then why do you have locks on your doors?
I fear that these people are not aware of what we are up against. There are attacks being planned that make Beslan look like a school yard scuffle. I'm willing to give up some rights to prevent it. Of course, there are limits, but lets be reasonable. Just because I don't care if the government listens to my phone call to Dominoes doesn't mean I'll be OK with having to pass through a checkpoint to buy groceries. The idea is to allow the government do their job with as little inconvenience to me as possible. The idea that someone may be eavesdropping (although the chances are virtually nil) will not change what I say or limit me in the least. I understand that there is the possibility for abuse, but the second this is abused, the press is alerted and there is hell to pay.
BTW, I like your sig! The sentiment is very similar to my own.
Yeah, I think I stole it from you. Hope you don't mind. I'm just tired of the brownshirt downmodding that I see here way too often. If you disagree, don't silence me, tell me why and state your case. That's what free speech is all about!
I have no problem in concept with tapping calls made to people outside of the US provided that warrants are drawn up and signed by a judge, even if it's a FISA judge.
Are you implying that foreign citizens are afforded US Constitutional protection?
The laws that were drawn up worked well enough for a decade against the Soviets, so there's little reason to think that they wouldn't work against would-be terrorists who are almost always far less sophisticated.
We are not fighting the Soviets. Soviet citizens were well educated by comparison and wanted a better life for themselves. The people we are fighting now came from a world of shit and want to make the whole world that way. Soviets were driven by a loyalty to the state. Islamist are driven by a loyalty to God. They actually believe that raping and killing elementary school kids will get them 70 virgins and they are anxious to die in that pursuit.
Comparing these guys to the Soviets is like comparing a rat infestation in your attic with a rattlesnake nest under your child's bed. There entirely different animals and situations.
All this is akin to saying: the ends justify the means. According to current US Government policy, this is true. It is their belief that the bending (if not breaking) of the US Constitution (which in-itself is a form of US Government policy, just one from 230 years ago) is reasonable enough in protecting it's citizens. If you do not agree with this policy, do not vote for those who enact it.
Is Germany, Pakistan and Turkey now part of the United States? No? Then why should our government give Constitutional protection to the citizens of these countries?
From TFA:
American authorities cooperated closely with the German authorities, sharing intercepts of e-mail messages and telephone calls between Germany and both Pakistan and Turkey, which tipped off the German authorities to the plot last fall.
If we are so scared of a terrorist attack that we must suspend citizen rights in order to feel safer (regardless of how much real security is actually bought at that expense) then the terrorists have ALREADY won.
From TFA:
...American authorities cooperated closely with the German authorities, sharing intercepts of e-mail messages and telephone calls between Germany and both Pakistan and Turkey, which tipped off the German authorities to the plot last fall. How does intercepting emails between Germany and Pakistan suspend US citizen rights? Are we applying Constitutional protection to Germans and Pakistanis now?
The end of Wrath of Khan, when Kirk tries to open the door to the reactor chamber, Scotty says, "Sir! He's dead already."
I guess you are right, but any time I hear "Dead" and "Jim" in the same sentence, my mind goes to either McCoy or Futurama Season 4 Ep 12 Where No Fan Has Gone Before when all the trekkies were being executed.
Nichelle Nichols: "And so the Trekkies were executed in the mannor most befitting virgins." Fan 1: "whooo" Officer: "He is dead Jim." Fan 2: "warrrr" Officer: "He is dead Jim." Fan 3: "uahhhh" Officer: "He is dead Jim." .
Slashdot Mirror
**Whoosh!**
I don't think the GP was comparing the theory of evolution to sting theory, but but making the joke that string theory proves evolution because it evolves into "another untestable manner to accomadate an uncomfortable reality that it is not really science."
So either you misread the GP or I misread your post.
Yes, Slashdot I'm so proud of you. I had hoped this group of folks would be smart enough to mock String Theory for the science that it is not.
From what I gather, string theory is more math than science anyway.
(Disclaimer: I am neither a mathematician nor a scientist, so take this comment for what it is worth.)
Bully vs. Harry Potter
Now that is a game I'd buy!
And yet another reason why you should lock down your wifi!
So when they get it wrong, and the police storm my front door instead of my neighbors, will it still be "cool"?
I would hope that if your neighbors are terrorists, you would have already called them in. I wouldn't want a bomb maker living next door to me!
You just responded to a post listing abuses that the government has committed by essentially saying that they're nice folks and would never do that sort of thing. I'm not sure what to think of that. I also know people who have worked in every intelligence agency that we have, and they're nice people and they eat popcorn and go fishing like the rest of us. That doesn't mean that governments in general and our government specifically don't have a long history of either bending the rules or outright abusing people.
My point was not to deny anything that has or has not happened, but to say that I trust their judgment. If agents charged and sworn with protecting the good people of the USA deem it appropriate to detain foreigners without charge, then I'm not going to question it. Intelligence is a dirty business. War is even dirtier. Good will is not what these people understand. Action needs no translation. Now when citizens start disappearing or the government starts to raid and burn down towns, then you'll have a point. But for detaining 500 people, who are treated quite well, btw, at a military base in Cuba is no cause for alarm.
My complaint (and, I think, the complaint that many other people have) is not that they insist on being able to eavesdrop on phone calls for intelligence gathering purposes, but the fact that they insist on having that power without any oversight. I'm all for giving law enforcement and intelligence agencies all the tools they need to do their jobs well provided there's adequate neutral oversight to prevent them from abusing those tools. When they insist that they need the tools but they don't want the oversight, and then they can't come up with a convincing reason not to have the oversight, a lot of us start questioning their motives. A guy trying to buy a truckload of dynamite should make you nervous. A guy who steadfastly refuses to show ID for the purpose should set off alarm bells.
Agreed. However, I don't think our government has the ability to do anything without oversight, even if that oversight is the press.
History has shown us that when we stop requiring that people justify their exercises of power, they'll start using those powers in unjustifiable ways--even people who would otherwise have been honest folks with our best interests at heart under normal circumstances. As they say, locks keep honest people honest. So does accountability. I'd much rather see a system that's designed in such a way that those nice people are never tempted to become bad people. That way, everybody gets their job done and we can all remain friends.
If this came out of the blue, I'd see your point and agree. However, like it or not, we are at war. Quite frankly, it's not the kind of war that we are very good at. The fact remains that there are people who have the will and are trying their damnedest to find a way to place a mushroom cloud over every American city possible. They have stated in plain Arabic that their goal is kill or convert every person in the world. Right now, we are the primary block to them achieving that goal, which makes us a target. Given this, I think our government has all the justification it needs to listen in on phone calls. Now as I've said before, I may start to take issue when I have to pass through an armed checkpoint to get to the grocery store. But tapping phone calls?!!? I think that is a sacrifice I'm willing to make.
As for power being a corrupting influence. In a bureaucracy, only a few will actually get enough power to become corrupted. All those under the powerful owe no allegiance to them and will gladly blow the whistle when things get out of hand. Now if Bush were to pull a Hugo Chavez and suddenly claim to be Prez for life, we'll have something to worry about. But as seeing that we will have an election in a year and two months, I don't think there is really enough time to complete the corruption process.
You could just read the warranty itself to see if there is any mention of such a thing. If the policy ain't in the paperwork, then it really doesn't matter what the manager says.
Or you could just sue.
You take the current administration -- heck, ANY government, ever -- at face value when they claim the right to detain citizens indefinitely with no charges filed, extraordinary rendition, unprecedented domestic spying -- you're saying you believe them when they say will only use those powers for the sole purpose of protecting us from the boogeymen, uh, terrorists?
Uh, I KNOW them, so of course I trust them. Besides, the "government" is made up of people. The FBI, CIA, IRS and so on are all made up of people. The FBI agent I knew had a wife and two daughters. His daughter was all of five years old and sang Happy Trails while playing with a tape-lint-roller as a guitar. My best friend's wife works for the IRS. She doesn't know shit about taxes. She's in personnel. Hell, for that matter, I was in the US Army, so I guess I was one of these evil government people you are so afraid of. (BOO!) My uncle was Navy. My grandfather was Army Infantry. My step dad is a former Marine. These are not evil men in black who are out to enslave mankind. They are people like you and me... well, like me anyway who have families, and wives and lives. They like to watch football and enjoy sci-fi and like to kick back with a beer out by the pond and shoot the shit. They are not evil people. You need to step away from the bong!
I talked with a couple of people I know within the FBI. They both pretty much told me the same thing. Allow me to paraphrase: We knew something was up. There was too much "chatter" for us not to. We would pick up things we were not exactly authorized to know. For example, when you have a warrant to search for or listen for one thing and you hear something else, it's too late. You can't forget it, but you can't really use it either. We would learn of various meeting places and times but couldn't do a damn thing about it. We couldn't ask for a warrant to raid or tap a meeting when we were not authorized to know about it in the first place. We all wanted to go in and arrest the lot of them, but couldn't because we'd have the ACLU tree-huggers screaming bloody murder. Now of course, if we had known what was about to go down, we would have kicked doors in anyway. 3000+ lives outweigh the rights of 19 terrorists. Even though any chance of prosecution would have been gone, it would have been worth it just to break the cell up. We'd have to go after them another day. And this is the type of thing that the current administration is trying to do away with. When the FBI gets a tip that the CIA accidentally stumbled upon through what may not have been 100% legal means (Let's say the Egyptians beat it out of a "suspect"), then they want to be able to act on it. If a warrant is required for each and every piece of data retrieved, the whole thing falls apart if a piece of data gathered early on is not valid. Items G through Z are not admissible if we didn't have a warrant for item F.
the issue is that in this case, you won't be able to fight the abuse or the abusers. if they don't need warrent, you won't even know who they are
Am I correct in saying that it's not the eavesdropping you're afraid of, but what they may do with the data they retrieve. Well, what could they possibly do? "Booyagrandma ordered extra pepperoni last night. Let's notify her health insurance company so they can increase her rates."??
I don't think the government has that much interest in the phone calls of every day, non-terrorist Americans.
Still, what does eavesdropping have to do with having to show your papers when moving around the county.
And this is so sad. You will continue to wait, won't you, until you one day wake up and find yourself in just that position, having to show your papers when moving around the county. You see, this is why we take it serious when we spot a slippery slope - it is a forewarning. You wait till it is a matter of fact, and before that, you put your faith one of the most violent governments in the west. Hurrah for you. This is one of the reasons why democracy is failing. The checks and balances are eroded by the likes of you, who accept it, and take it, and explain it away so that others like you will feel reassured. It's not just the US, but the whole west is knocking off one democratic liberty after the other, all under the flag of Anti Terrorism and Security.
Ah, the slipper slope argument. If that is your main concern, you've got much bigger fish to fry than wire tapping! One that comes to mind is anti-drinking and driving laws. According to you slippery slope argument, before long, we'll all be forced to have breathalysers installed on our vehicles! And that is just the first step. Next comes curfews until eventually, they will close all bars and keep us locked in our homes to make sure that we don't drink and drive! We must fight all drunk driving laws now before the government abuses them to keep us prisoners in our own homes!
See how silly that sounds? Any law can be abused. Does this mean we fight all laws? Any government can be abusive. Do we fight all things government?
And yes, I'll wait for the abuse to happen before I start making a fuss. I'm not going to preemptively protest a law and fight to handcuff our government because it has the potential for abuse. Hell, anything has the potential for abuse! Saying that this might be abused is like calling for the all government agencies to ban computers because computers can be used to hack into my network!
I'll fight the abuse and the abusers, not the tools that can be abused.
Terrorists don't attack unprovoked. Maybe you have to look at yourself to find out why they are targeting you. Maybe they aren't the problem, maybe your lifestyle IS a big problem but you're too selfish to see the damage you are doing. Maybe you treat women worse than the Taliban does but there's no way you'd ever believe it. Maybe not. But if you are serious about wanting to know 'Why this happened?' referring to 9/11, stop looking to the enemy and start looking at yourself. Violence is VERY rarely unprovoked. Our north american way of life is FAR from perfect, but we take that to mean we're not rich enough. 95% of us don't know what life is about anymore.
/sarc tag so I can only assume that it is not.
Is this a joke? I don't see a
Uh, we were attacked because we are doing are best to stop the world from being under control of a Taliban style government. We were attacked because we do not beat our women into submission and force them to wear full body burkas. We were attacked because our men are not forced to wear beards and we can hit the carpet and pray five times a day or NOT. We were attacked because we do our best to defend freedom and fight against those who threaten it. We were attacked not because of the choices we make, but because we are allowed to make them and we fight for the rights of others to make their own choices!
Um, preventing modern day brownshirts from disrupting speeches are hardly what I'd call civil liberties lost.
From your link: 'As far as I'm concerned, the whole country is a free speech zone.' Sorry, but it's not. You are allowed to speak your mind, but you are NOT allowed to do it wherever and whenever you like. For example, I'm not allowed to enter your living room at 3:00am with a bullhorn to give my $0.02 on farm subsidies. I am not allowed to have a "sit-in" on the freeway during rush hour. In the same vein, this person does not have the right to interrupt a Presidential speech. Do his free speech rights over rule the free speech rights of others?
Remember when the difference between America and the Soviet Union was that we didn't need to show our papers just to travel inside our own country? That's the type of thing people are talking about when they say their rights are being taken away. As it turns out, their rights are being taken away.
Are you saying that people have to provide papers to travel within the US? Really? Where? I travel all over the place and no one has asked me to show papers. It makes no sense to state the wire taps mean we'll have to start showing papers to travel within the US. When I have to provide papers to travel within the country, you'll have a point. Until then, you don't.
Uh, it really doesn't work if the target of the tap is aware of it, now does it!
2) the Bush administration has, by its own admission, avoided seeking approval of the wiretapping by the court that was established to oversee that wiretapping (a court which, by the way, has only rejected requests to perform wiretapping a handful of times in its entire history),
Put yourself in the tapper's shoes. The phone company's switch, which you are legally monitoring, alerts you that a call is being placed from a newly purchased "disposable cell phone" located in Deerborn MI to a tribal region in Pakistan. You don't have a warrant to tap this phone because it's brand new. Do you listen in? Let's say you do. After listening, you find that it is Abu calling his grandma to tell her about the A he earned in Chemistry class. Now, do you request a warrant after the fact? What difference does it make? How many calls a day are "inspected" in this way? Do you ask for warrants for all of them? Do you only request warrants for those that matter? Again, what difference does it make?
those affected by the loss of civil liberties (i.e., freedom from government intrusion into their personal affairs without judicial oversight [see the bill of rights, ammendment 4]) don't know if they've had their rights violated or not.
How does listening in on your phone calls intrude into your personal affairs? Now if they interrupted you or disconnected your call, you'd have a point, but it is 100% NOT intrusive. It wouldn't work if it were. And again, it wouldn't really work if you notified those being tapped.
It is, thus, unreasonable to demand that people elucidate which rights they've personally lost under the Bush administration's activities, since they can't find out...
If they don't know, have any rights been lost? How? If lives are not changed at all, how can you claim that rights have been lost?
Here is Amendment IV: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. I've bolded the key points here. Listening in does is not make anyone less secure in their persons (not a personal search), houses (home is not being searched), papers (no paper involved), and effects (nothing physical is being searched at all). No place is being searched and no persons or things are being seized.
Also, understand the idea of the IV'th Amendment was to keep government agents from kicking down your door and looking for stuff. It was put into place because that is how the British harassed the colonists. They would kick down the doors of dissident's families and tear the place up. Anything they would find would be used against them. At times, the British would search entire communities as a show of force. This was an extreme inconvenience and thus banned by the Constitution. This is not what our current government is doing.
Oh really? Proof? Maybe you ought to report that to someone if you have information of a national security nature. Or are you just using vague scare tactics to push policy?
Well, first there's Beslan.
Proof? I have no more proof than the alarmists had on 9-10-01. I do have my reasons for concern, however:
here
here
here
here
and
here
(of course, consider the sources as always!)
I've been looking for this type of thing since Beslan. Glenn Beck is reporting on it all week. Not that I expect you to be a Glenn Beck fan or anything, but his points on this are valid, if a bit alarmist.
Really? Hell to pay? Voluntary resignations and the firing/court martials of low level NCOs is hardly hell being paid. Maybe if someone responsible for OKing various abuses were ever charged, or [gasp] impeached then your sentiment would be comforting. From what we have seen thus far, a wrist slap is the most anyone has gotten. Case in point: although the FISA court was the ONLY legal way to tap certain international calls it was sidestepped completely by this administration. In total defiance of the law. Name one conviction of someone involved in ordering or executing those wiretaps without going through FISA. Zero accountability. It matters not whether the President, his legal council, or anyone other than SCOTUS thought the law should be different. It was defined, it was breached as defined, not one bit of accountability.
There is something more powerful than SCOTUS, POTUS and even COTUS (Congress). It's the Press. I linked to the Clinton trying to abuse political opponents by using their FBI files against them and they got caught. Just like if a Prez tries to use a wire tap against a political opponent for political or other nefarious purposes will also be caught and tried in the court of public opinion, much like we are doing here.
Yes, more people die from car crashes, and we do things to try to prevent that from happening. We have speed limits, seat belt laws, drunk driving legislation and so on. We have more officers patrolling the streets looking for drunk drivers and speeders than we have looking for terrorists. All of these things could be considered "giving up liberty for security". Traffic laws affect me much more than anti-terror legislation. Is it against the law to drink? Is it against the law to drive? Then why are the two combined illegal? Telling me I can't do both is infringing on my right to do one or the other. Allowing the government to listen in on some telephone conversations is much less of an inconvenience than forcing me to wear a seatbelt or find another way home when I've had too many at the local pub. And in case you haven't noticed, there IS a huge war against drunk drivers.
Now, back to terrorism. Have you read about Beslan? What if I told you that we have reason to believe that there are plans to carry out that sort of attack here? Now I don't mean to sound like I'm saying "think of the children", but if listening to my phone calls will prevent uber-religious psychos from taking over several elementary schools and slaughtering a bunch of school kids like livestock, then please, listen away! The fact that you are not willing to make such a minuscule sacrifice that will have no affect on your life whatsoever tells me where your priorities lie.
How's that for perspective?
Yes, it does.
The semi-secret (they've been leaked, but aren't officially talked about) agreements between the US and other countries are two-way.
The British are heavily involved, and the way it works is that the British are given wiretap access to US calls, which is legal under British law - though it breaks US law, the violation is occurring in Britain, beyond the reach of US law. They then report back to the US government what they heard. We do the same for their domestic calls, and give them the results.
It's a nasty little mess.
Link?
Either way, how has this affected your life? What rights have been violated? How has the British government enslaved you? As far as any potential for abuse, how can the British government, or any other for that matter, take advantage of any information they have gleaned from listening to your calls?
I wasn't talking about the article so much as the sentiment expressed by this thread regarding suspending rights to "secure freedom".
I understand, but it seems that people are so interested in handcuffing our government that they confuse foreign intelligence with domestic spying and try to shut it all down.
After the attacks that occurred six years ago today, everyone was asking, "how did this happen?", "why were we not able to stop it?", and "what are we going to do to prevent it from happening again?". I remember administration staffers being grilled by congressional committees pointing out things like a PDB titled, "Bin Laden determined to attack the US" and Michael Moore documentaries trying to place blame rather than trying to find resolutions. Can you blame the administration for taking action?
Something that people fail to understand is that government has no interest nor the resources to monitor the actions of those that mean no harm. They equate evesdropping and datamining to kicking down doors and rummaging through drawers looking for something that might be considered illegal. They are convinced that a government that taps calls made to Afghanistan is the same as Orwell's Big Brother. Just read some of the comments posted here that are comparing intercepting German emails to Turkey to turning the US into a barbed wire laden police state. No one is suggesting that. If you are to say that you will give up no rights for protection, then why do you have locks on your doors?
I fear that these people are not aware of what we are up against. There are attacks being planned that make Beslan look like a school yard scuffle. I'm willing to give up some rights to prevent it. Of course, there are limits, but lets be reasonable. Just because I don't care if the government listens to my phone call to Dominoes doesn't mean I'll be OK with having to pass through a checkpoint to buy groceries. The idea is to allow the government do their job with as little inconvenience to me as possible. The idea that someone may be eavesdropping (although the chances are virtually nil) will not change what I say or limit me in the least. I understand that there is the possibility for abuse, but the second this is abused, the press is alerted and there is hell to pay.
BTW, I like your sig! The sentiment is very similar to my own.
Yeah, I think I stole it from you. Hope you don't mind. I'm just tired of the brownshirt downmodding that I see here way too often. If you disagree, don't silence me, tell me why and state your case. That's what free speech is all about!
I have no problem in concept with tapping calls made to people outside of the US provided that warrants are drawn up and signed by a judge, even if it's a FISA judge.
Are you implying that foreign citizens are afforded US Constitutional protection?
The laws that were drawn up worked well enough for a decade against the Soviets, so there's little reason to think that they wouldn't work against would-be terrorists who are almost always far less sophisticated.
We are not fighting the Soviets. Soviet citizens were well educated by comparison and wanted a better life for themselves. The people we are fighting now came from a world of shit and want to make the whole world that way. Soviets were driven by a loyalty to the state. Islamist are driven by a loyalty to God. They actually believe that raping and killing elementary school kids will get them 70 virgins and they are anxious to die in that pursuit.
Comparing these guys to the Soviets is like comparing a rat infestation in your attic with a rattlesnake nest under your child's bed. There entirely different animals and situations.
Is Germany, Pakistan and Turkey now part of the United States? No? Then why should our government give Constitutional protection to the citizens of these countries?
From TFA: American authorities cooperated closely with the German authorities, sharing intercepts of e-mail messages and telephone calls between Germany and both Pakistan and Turkey, which tipped off the German authorities to the plot last fall.
From TFA:
...American authorities cooperated closely with the German authorities, sharing intercepts of e-mail messages and telephone calls between Germany and both Pakistan and Turkey, which tipped off the German authorities to the plot last fall. How does intercepting emails between Germany and Pakistan suspend US citizen rights? Are we applying Constitutional protection to Germans and Pakistanis now?Chaining everybody up in their homes in straightjackets all day probably helps against terrorist plots too, but that doesn't make it right.
Chaining everyone up will actually change the way we live our lives. Listening in on conversations in a foreign country doesn't change my life at all.
I guess you are right, but any time I hear "Dead" and "Jim" in the same sentence, my mind goes to either McCoy or Futurama Season 4 Ep 12 Where No Fan Has Gone Before when all the trekkies were being executed. Nichelle Nichols: "And so the Trekkies were executed in the mannor most befitting virgins."
Fan 1: "whooo"
Officer: "He is dead Jim."
Fan 2: "warrrr"
Officer: "He is dead Jim."
Fan 3: "uahhhh"
Officer: "He is dead Jim." .
As Scotty once said ...
Actually, Bones (McCoy) said that.
Scotty said: "If I give her any more, she'll blow apart!"
(hate to nitpick, but it IS Star Trek!)