Sorry, but there is no "there," there. US Attorneys are political appointees that serve at the pleasure of the President. Normally practically all of them, if not all of them, are replaced when a new administration comes in to office, especially from a different party. As I recall the standard is that they offer their resignation, and it is normally accepted. If that is all you have to hang your hat on, that is pretty weak tea indeed. And they weren't spied upon inappropriately, just fired, as was administration's right.
Leaving them in the positions to begin with was probably ill-considered by the Bush administration since they didn't really support the administration. Not really helpful. President Bush may have been thinking that he would be able to work with Democrats at the national level as he was able to in Texas. That didn't appear to work out in a lot of areas.
That's not true. Bush got over 5 years before the media stopped kissing his ass after 9/11.
So you're saying that Bush really only had opposition in the media for the last 2-3 years of his term? I think you have a different recollection than I do, and what the facts might suggest.
Face it, the media sucks up to the GOP because if they don't, the GOP cries about the "liberal" media, never mind that the media itself is already right of center.
Two things. First, I haven't noticed the media bend all that much to that objection.
Second, "right of center" media? It might look that way to you, but that is because you are probably running into a parallax problem which is exacerbated by your left of left of center politics.
All of this prompted Investors Business Daily to publish a trenchant op-ed by William Tate that reported on his examination of Federal Election Commission records for donations by journalists.
You'll never guess what he says he found -- 235 journalists donating to Democrats while only 20 gave to Republicans for a total of $225,563 to Democrats and $16,298 to the the GOP-inclined.
That's small potatoes moneywise in terms of the nearly $1 billion collected so far in this election cycle. But Tate sees a valuable built-in bias among Democratic journalists for candidates of their party.
Last summer Bill Dedman at MSNBC did a massive research project, examining political donations by journalists over several years and found a similar overwhelming number of Democratic journalists (125 of 143 political donors while only 16 gave to Republican candidates
Journalists as a group tend toward progressive or liberal, not center, or center right. If they look right of center to you, you might want to think about recalibrating your mental peg of where your politics are on the continuum.
This wasn't a laptop, this was servers. Probably a pretty substantial setup too. I wouldn't be surprised if it was a cluster of big RISC boxes with a substantial SAN. Where you are thinking, "HDD," think disk storage array, a big one.
Sounds to me more like the firm is concerned with covering their own asses for not having properly secured the data in the first place.
It is clearly indicated the agents went outside what was in the warrant, were warned about it, and took the data anyway - just to get some financial data on one former employee. I would normally expect you to be outraged about this sort of thing, violated warrant, government overreach and all.
Voting for a Republican is going to make it all better huh.
It has been pointed out many times before: If you want something approximating consistent media scrutiny of the executive branch in the last few decades, given the current values of the media, you need to have a Republican president. A large part of the media has been carrying water for the Obama administration from the start. The only thing that might be turning that around in any meaningful way is the AP scandal - What!? They spy on us too?
The IRS is the one that is charged with ensuring that everyone has insurance, not with keeping and maintaining medical records.
Lets use the ever popular car analogy. The Department of Motor Vehicles checks to make sure that you have car insurance. The Department of Motor Vehicles doesn't keep copies of the maintenance records, oil changes, refueling, car washes, and tune-ups. The IRS is like the DMV - they will check to make sure that you have insurance, they shouldn't have your health records. This is over the line.
I would hope your wouldn't actually want that. The most charitable thing you can say at the moment is that they apparently have more power than they can manage is a responsible way, let along legal way.
Substitute storage array and you might be right. From what I've read, it almost certainly wasn't a trivial amount of data as it included treatment plans, history, etc.. Since it was for a former employee, you have to wonder why they couldn't either just ask for a report to be printed, or something else. It is very hard to believe that this isn't a massive over-reach.
They had a search warrant for financial data regarding one former employee, and they took tens of millions of medical records too, which they weren't entitled to.
Warrant said they could take A, they took A and B.....ZZZZZZZZ. Everything from B on was unrelated information to the investigation proper, and not covered by the warrant. They stepped over the line, despite being warned. How is this confusing to you?
The US Government needs to get the problems at that agency fixed, now. Between this and the suppression of political groups going on, this is intollerable and undemocratic. What did Franklin say? A Republic, if you can keep it?
When you get a tip about suspicious activity that might suggest a connection to Cthulu summoning, there probably aren't any undead bodies, and the police or security services can investigate in a calm, thoughtful manner, with all of the legal nicities that everyone here likes. So, which is your preference? Discovery before or after an attack?
Clever, I guess. Here is a list of arrests and convictions for terrorism related offenses. Do you think you can find something similar for Cthulu related offenses? I'll assume not, since that is make-believe, but the terrorists sitting in prison are real.
Denver: Man Arrested for Providing Material Support to a Designated Foreign Terrorist Organization
Jamshid Muhtorov was arrested by members of the FBI’s Denver and Chicago Joint Terrorism Task Forces on a charge of providing and attempting to provide material support to the Islamic Jihad Union, a Pakistan-based designated foreign terrorist organization.
Baltimore: Man Pleads Guilty to Attempted Use of a Weapon of Mass Destruction in Plot to Attack Armed Forces Recruiting Center
U.S. citizen Antonio Martinez, aka Muhammad Hussain, pled guilty to attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction against federal property in connection with a scheme to attack an armed forces recruiting station in Catonsville, Maryland.
Washington Field: Man Pleads Guilty to Shootings at Pentagon, Other Military Buildings
Yonathan Melaku, of Alexandria, Virginia, pled guilty to damaging property and to firearms violations involving five separate shootings at military installations in northern Virginia between October and November 2010, and to attempting to damage veterans’ memorials at Arlington National Cemetery.
1.Tampa: Florida Resident Charged with Plotting to Bomb Locations in Tampa
A 25-year-old resident of Pinellas Park, Florida was charged in connection with an alleged plot to attack locations in Tampa with a vehicle bomb, assault rifle, and other explosives.
2.Baltimore: Former Army Solider Charged with Attempting to Provide Material Support to al Shabaab
A man who secretly converted to Islam days before he separated from the Army was charged with attempting to provide material support to al Shabaab, a foreign terrorist organization, and was arrested upon his return to Maryland after traveling to Africa.
Wait, are you saying that people report things to the police now? So why are you agitated that they might use a web site to do it instead of a phone? Do you think the internet is evil or something?
Then you should feel much better since that isn't what happened. But don't worry, anytime the country gets tired of taking proper security measures, there will be fellows like this bunch that come along to give incentive to correct the problem.
I'm afraid you've misaddressed that complaint. You should be sending it to this lot. If they have their way, it won't just be a "chilling effect" you feel on your neck. On the other hand, they like to give people a "hot time" when they can. If it makes you feel any better, I think the restrictions on that sort of thing aren't as rigid as they were in WW 2.
No, what I'm doing is making comments based on background knowledge of the problem. If you look at the history of hijacking, there have been very many aircraft hijacked under threat of a bomb, as in, "Fly to Greece, or I will explode the bomb." It generally worked pretty well. Being able to actually see the bomb added to the threat. The purpose of hijacking in those instances wasn't necessarily to use the plane as a weapon, per se, but to keep hostages and have transportation. However it could still be used as a weapon, too.
I consider bravery a virtue, and am all for it. But being brave does not mean that you shouldn't exercise care to reduce the opportunity for evil men to work their will and flourish. And keep in mind that bravery, courage, is not a constant.
He supposes all men to be brave at all times and does not realize that the courage of the troops must be reborn daily, that nothing is so variable, and that the true skill of a general consists in knowing how to guarantee it by his dispositions, his positions, and those traits of genius that characterize great captains. --- MAURICE DE SAXE. Reveries on the Art of War
--------
BTW, have you ever met a new government power you didn't like?
What is going on here isn't a new government power. Many of the powers that the government already has can be used for good or evil purposes, it all depends on the intent, much like surgery. If my leg has gangrene that will kill me and you cut it off to save my life, with my permission, I will be happy to be alive. If you cut off my leg to try to force me to tell you where all my bank accounts are because you think I cheated on my taxes, that is torture, evil, and I won't be happy at all. Same thing with intercepting communications. The NSA and army listening in on the communications of an enemy division that is going to attack them overseas is completely OK. The NSA listening in on a communications session of someone in the US in direct contact with Al Qaida is OK, as long as proper procedures are followed. NSA listening in on a couple of American moonshiners in West Virginia planning to deliver a truck full of hooch to Ohio is completely over the line and unacceptable in any way.
Giving up the right to vote, maybe having a "President for Life" based on the idea that it would bring security would be BAD. Is that agreeable to you? You might keep in mind that Benjamin Franking opened other people's mail during the war to get intelligence information to help the colonies in their war effort. I doubt he did that in peace.
You might want to check out this post. I strongly disapprove of much of what is going on here. There should be people going to jail for a number of things going on. When authority is granted, it must not be abused, it must not be used to persecute, and that appears to be what has been going on.
Hardening cockpit doors works because terrorist have a fairly hard time getting a bomb on board, both because of screening before the gate, and general law and immigration enforcement. That didn't used to be the case.
This new reporting mechanism doesn't constitute a witch hunt any more than the phone on the sheriff's desk.
TSA is largely an amalgamation of the existing security mechanisms, there isn't much new there.
There is at least as much civil rights theater as security theater.
Good luck with that. Even if Congress goes to the trouble of answering it, much of the media, including social media, will likely down play it if it might reflect badly on the current administration.
One of the interesting controversies regarding the MX missile was the plans for basing. One of the proposals was called "dense pack." The idea was that if you put a bunch of missile silos close to each other, attacking one silo with a nuclear warhead would result in so much turbulence, blast, and local radiation that if more warheads were arriving at the same time, they would be battered by the effects of the previously exploding nuclear warhead and be ineffective in attacking the silo they were targeted at. (No, I'm not kidding.) You might be seeing the political equivalent of that right now. There are so many scandals coming out of so many agencies, they compete for attention, confuse the public, allow the media to more or less squeeze them out, and attenuate the political damage. This could be one of those, "They are incompetent, insane, or brilliant" moments. I don't like much of any of what has been revealed, but I wouldn't place a bet on it having any lasting impact on the administration. Most of the media, minus AP, seems indifferent to being spied on, and you would expect that to rouse them if nothing else would. Apparently not.
An eyewitness report of an actual crime and a tip on some subjective activity that is arguably suspicious are two different things entirely.
Agreed. And when it comes to terrorism, here is the difference: If you have eyewitness reports of an actual terrorist attack, you most likely already have dead bodies, maybe a lot of them. The terrorists may be on their way to escaping, and the two in Boston almost did. When you get a tip about suspicious activity that might suggest a connection to terrorism, there probably aren't any dead bodies, and the police or security services can investigate in a calm, thoughtful manner, with all of the legal nicities that everyone here likes. So, which is your preference? Discovery before or after an attack?
In florida, sitting and reding the Koran on my front porch would probably be enough to get me called in.
In Florida it would probably get you called, "neighbor," as in "Howdy neighbor."
Metropolitan Orlando's Muslim population grew dramatically in the past decade, gaining more than 25,000 worshippers since 2000, according to a new census of religions released Tuesday. Muslims were second only to Roman Catholics, whose numbers increased by nearly 64,000, the census found.
Muslims now outnumber Presbyterians, Lutherans and Episcopalians in the Orlando area of Lake, Orange, Osceola and Seminole counties. Imam Tariq Rasheed, director of the Islamic Center of Orlando, said the growth comes from Muslims moving to Central Florida from other American cities and from abroad.
Slashdot Mirror
Allegations are cheap. Facts are more worthwhile.
What Really Happened in the U.S. Attorneys Mess
Nets Ignored Clinton Firing 93 U.S. Attorneys, Fret Over Bush's 8
Sorry, but there is no "there," there. US Attorneys are political appointees that serve at the pleasure of the President. Normally practically all of them, if not all of them, are replaced when a new administration comes in to office, especially from a different party. As I recall the standard is that they offer their resignation, and it is normally accepted. If that is all you have to hang your hat on, that is pretty weak tea indeed. And they weren't spied upon inappropriately, just fired, as was administration's right.
Leaving them in the positions to begin with was probably ill-considered by the Bush administration since they didn't really support the administration. Not really helpful. President Bush may have been thinking that he would be able to work with Democrats at the national level as he was able to in Texas. That didn't appear to work out in a lot of areas.
That's not true. Bush got over 5 years before the media stopped kissing his ass after 9/11.
So you're saying that Bush really only had opposition in the media for the last 2-3 years of his term? I think you have a different recollection than I do, and what the facts might suggest.
Face it, the media sucks up to the GOP because if they don't, the GOP cries about the "liberal" media, never mind that the media itself is already right of center.
Two things. First, I haven't noticed the media bend all that much to that objection.
Second, "right of center" media? It might look that way to you, but that is because you are probably running into a parallax problem which is exacerbated by your left of left of center politics.
Do journalists' political donations (mostly Democratic) = news bias?
All of this prompted Investors Business Daily to publish a trenchant op-ed by William Tate that reported on his examination of Federal Election Commission records for donations by journalists.
You'll never guess what he says he found -- 235 journalists donating to Democrats while only 20 gave to Republicans for a total of $225,563 to Democrats and $16,298 to the the GOP-inclined.
That's small potatoes moneywise in terms of the nearly $1 billion collected so far in this election cycle. But Tate sees a valuable built-in bias among Democratic journalists for candidates of their party.
Last summer Bill Dedman at MSNBC did a massive research project, examining political donations by journalists over several years and found a similar overwhelming number of Democratic journalists (125 of 143 political donors while only 16 gave to Republican candidates
Journalists as a group tend toward progressive or liberal, not center, or center right. If they look right of center to you, you might want to think about recalibrating your mental peg of where your politics are on the continuum.
This wasn't a laptop, this was servers. Probably a pretty substantial setup too. I wouldn't be surprised if it was a cluster of big RISC boxes with a substantial SAN. Where you are thinking, "HDD," think disk storage array, a big one.
Sounds to me more like the firm is concerned with covering their own asses for not having properly secured the data in the first place.
It is clearly indicated the agents went outside what was in the warrant, were warned about it, and took the data anyway - just to get some financial data on one former employee. I would normally expect you to be outraged about this sort of thing, violated warrant, government overreach and all.
Voting for a Republican is going to make it all better huh.
It has been pointed out many times before: If you want something approximating consistent media scrutiny of the executive branch in the last few decades, given the current values of the media, you need to have a Republican president. A large part of the media has been carrying water for the Obama administration from the start. The only thing that might be turning that around in any meaningful way is the AP scandal - What!? They spy on us too?
The IRS is the one that is charged with ensuring that everyone has insurance, not with keeping and maintaining medical records.
Lets use the ever popular car analogy. The Department of Motor Vehicles checks to make sure that you have car insurance. The Department of Motor Vehicles doesn't keep copies of the maintenance records, oil changes, refueling, car washes, and tune-ups. The IRS is like the DMV - they will check to make sure that you have insurance, they shouldn't have your health records. This is over the line.
I would hope your wouldn't actually want that. The most charitable thing you can say at the moment is that they apparently have more power than they can manage is a responsible way, let along legal way.
Substitute storage array and you might be right. From what I've read, it almost certainly wasn't a trivial amount of data as it included treatment plans, history, etc.. Since it was for a former employee, you have to wonder why they couldn't either just ask for a report to be printed, or something else. It is very hard to believe that this isn't a massive over-reach.
They had a search warrant for financial data regarding one former employee, and they took tens of millions of medical records too, which they weren't entitled to.
Warrant said they could take A, they took A and B.....ZZZZZZZZ. Everything from B on was unrelated information to the investigation proper, and not covered by the warrant. They stepped over the line, despite being warned. How is this confusing to you?
Oh, it's more than that. The IRS is the key enforcer for the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.
Your Next IRS Political Audit - The tax agency is getting vast new power in health care
The IRS Is Accessing Your Health Records. You Trust Them?
The US Government needs to get the problems at that agency fixed, now. Between this and the suppression of political groups going on, this is intollerable and undemocratic. What did Franklin say? A Republic, if you can keep it?
The IRS’s Curious Immunity - It’s worse than the PATRIOT Act.
'Bullies' Excerpt: How The Left Crucified George Zimmerman
Race-baiting modded "Insightful" - what a surprise . . . not.
Shielding makes the bomb bigger and heavier. Bigger and heavier bombs are harder to handle and hide. That makes them easier to detect.
because terrorists care about prison and the paperwork trail found after they do their evil deeds?
From what I hear they don't care to be at Guantanamo.
Thank goodness that only exists in jokes... or does it?
8 Arrested For Smuggling Radioactive Substances
Report Reveals Rampant Smuggling of Radioactive Materials
When you get a tip about suspicious activity that might suggest a connection to Cthulu summoning, there probably aren't any undead bodies, and the police or security services can investigate in a calm, thoughtful manner, with all of the legal nicities that everyone here likes. So, which is your preference? Discovery before or after an attack?
Clever, I guess. Here is a list of arrests and convictions for terrorism related offenses. Do you think you can find something similar for Cthulu related offenses? I'll assume not, since that is make-believe, but the terrorists sitting in prison are real.
FBI’s Top Ten News Stories for the Week Ending January 27, 2012
FBI’s Top Ten News Stories for the Week Ending January 13, 2012
FBI’s Top Ten News Stories for the Week Ending December 9, 2011
FBI’s Top Ten News Stories for the Week Ending December 2, 2011
More here.
The Slashdot tradition: Facts are flamebait if they don't agree with your politics.
Wait, are you saying that people report things to the police now? So why are you agitated that they might use a web site to do it instead of a phone? Do you think the internet is evil or something?
It isn't thought crime that is the concern, but rather "ball bearing" crime.
This is what happens when you catch them before they attack.
Bomb plot: Life sentence for Irfan Naseer, ringleader of Birmingham men planning wave of UK suicide attacks
This is what happens when you don't.
Madrid Train Station Blasts Kill 190
Bali bombing remembered 10 years on
London Attacks
Investigation of Boston Marathon bombings continues
I would think this is easy to understand.
Then you should feel much better since that isn't what happened. But don't worry, anytime the country gets tired of taking proper security measures, there will be fellows like this bunch that come along to give incentive to correct the problem.
I'm afraid you've misaddressed that complaint. You should be sending it to this lot. If they have their way, it won't just be a "chilling effect" you feel on your neck. On the other hand, they like to give people a "hot time" when they can. If it makes you feel any better, I think the restrictions on that sort of thing aren't as rigid as they were in WW 2.
You're conflating hijacking with bombing a plane.
No, what I'm doing is making comments based on background knowledge of the problem. If you look at the history of hijacking, there have been very many aircraft hijacked under threat of a bomb, as in, "Fly to Greece, or I will explode the bomb." It generally worked pretty well. Being able to actually see the bomb added to the threat. The purpose of hijacking in those instances wasn't necessarily to use the plane as a weapon, per se, but to keep hostages and have transportation. However it could still be used as a weapon, too.
I consider bravery a virtue, and am all for it. But being brave does not mean that you shouldn't exercise care to reduce the opportunity for evil men to work their will and flourish. And keep in mind that bravery, courage, is not a constant.
He supposes all men to be brave at all times and does not realize that the courage of the troops must be reborn daily, that nothing is so variable, and that the true skill of a general consists in knowing how to guarantee it by his dispositions, his positions, and those traits of genius that characterize great captains. --- MAURICE DE SAXE. Reveries on the Art of War
--------
BTW, have you ever met a new government power you didn't like?
What is going on here isn't a new government power. Many of the powers that the government already has can be used for good or evil purposes, it all depends on the intent, much like surgery. If my leg has gangrene that will kill me and you cut it off to save my life, with my permission, I will be happy to be alive. If you cut off my leg to try to force me to tell you where all my bank accounts are because you think I cheated on my taxes, that is torture, evil, and I won't be happy at all. Same thing with intercepting communications. The NSA and army listening in on the communications of an enemy division that is going to attack them overseas is completely OK. The NSA listening in on a communications session of someone in the US in direct contact with Al Qaida is OK, as long as proper procedures are followed. NSA listening in on a couple of American moonshiners in West Virginia planning to deliver a truck full of hooch to Ohio is completely over the line and unacceptable in any way.
Giving up the right to vote, maybe having a "President for Life" based on the idea that it would bring security would be BAD. Is that agreeable to you? You might keep in mind that Benjamin Franking opened other people's mail during the war to get intelligence information to help the colonies in their war effort. I doubt he did that in peace.
You might want to check out this post. I strongly disapprove of much of what is going on here. There should be people going to jail for a number of things going on. When authority is granted, it must not be abused, it must not be used to persecute, and that appears to be what has been going on.
Hardening cockpit doors works because terrorist have a fairly hard time getting a bomb on board, both because of screening before the gate, and general law and immigration enforcement. That didn't used to be the case.
This new reporting mechanism doesn't constitute a witch hunt any more than the phone on the sheriff's desk.
TSA is largely an amalgamation of the existing security mechanisms, there isn't much new there.
There is at least as much civil rights theater as security theater.
Good luck with that. Even if Congress goes to the trouble of answering it, much of the media, including social media, will likely down play it if it might reflect badly on the current administration.
Heard anything about this one?
IRS sued for improperly seizing the medical records of 10 million Americans
It is just an adder to the growing pile.
The IRS Scandal, Day 8
Benghazi Emails Directly Contradict White House Claims
Congressman Paul Ryan on Benghazi, IRS, and DOJ Snooping the House: “Of course I’m troubled. Are you kidding?”
One of the interesting controversies regarding the MX missile was the plans for basing. One of the proposals was called "dense pack." The idea was that if you put a bunch of missile silos close to each other, attacking one silo with a nuclear warhead would result in so much turbulence, blast, and local radiation that if more warheads were arriving at the same time, they would be battered by the effects of the previously exploding nuclear warhead and be ineffective in attacking the silo they were targeted at. (No, I'm not kidding.) You might be seeing the political equivalent of that right now. There are so many scandals coming out of so many agencies, they compete for attention, confuse the public, allow the media to more or less squeeze them out, and attenuate the political damage. This could be one of those, "They are incompetent, insane, or brilliant" moments. I don't like much of any of what has been revealed, but I wouldn't place a bet on it having any lasting impact on the administration. Most of the media, minus AP, seems indifferent to being spied on, and you would expect that to rouse them if nothing else would. Apparently not.
;)
An eyewitness report of an actual crime and a tip on some subjective activity that is arguably suspicious are two different things entirely.
Agreed. And when it comes to terrorism, here is the difference: If you have eyewitness reports of an actual terrorist attack, you most likely already have dead bodies, maybe a lot of them. The terrorists may be on their way to escaping, and the two in Boston almost did. When you get a tip about suspicious activity that might suggest a connection to terrorism, there probably aren't any dead bodies, and the police or security services can investigate in a calm, thoughtful manner, with all of the legal nicities that everyone here likes. So, which is your preference? Discovery before or after an attack?
In florida, sitting and reding the Koran on my front porch would probably be enough to get me called in.
In Florida it would probably get you called, "neighbor," as in "Howdy neighbor."
Muslims grow, Baptists decline in Metro Orlando, religion census says
Metropolitan Orlando's Muslim population grew dramatically in the past decade, gaining more than 25,000 worshippers since 2000, according to a new census of religions released Tuesday. Muslims were second only to Roman Catholics, whose numbers increased by nearly 64,000, the census found.
Muslims now outnumber Presbyterians, Lutherans and Episcopalians in the Orlando area of Lake, Orange, Osceola and Seminole counties. Imam Tariq Rasheed, director of the Islamic Center of Orlando, said the growth comes from Muslims moving to Central Florida from other American cities and from abroad.