The US government's counter-terrorist surveillance program is generally effective and keeping terrorism in the US at low levels.
That, despite its heavy press coverage at the time and seemingly endless references on Slashdot, the media's attention toward a contrived study rushed into publication in an influential foreign publication in a blatant attempt to influence a US election has fallen to merely occasional reference instead of continuous.
The media focuses on the victims of terrorism and not of the suffering of the terrorists when captured or killed. The focus on the victims includes the poor Iraqis who are the continuing victims of both Islamists, and Saddam's remaining forces fighting as guerillas after having been removed from the positions of power which they used to put hundreds of thousands of Iraqis into mass graves. ( At least the Iraqis are dying at a considerably lower rate than when ruled by Saddam. The rate should fall considerably this year as the Iraqi government continues to grow stronger and more Iraqis are drawn into the political process.)
The mainstream media doesn't carry much important news like this.
I think I can identify your concerns, but, other than the last one, not why they should bother you.
I suppose by your reasoning we should give up on watching the mafia too, eh? After all, one of the main goals of the Patriot Act was to make investigative techniques already in use against the mafia available to use against terrorists.
How many degrees of separation are you from John Gotti? Or, for that matter, how many from Bin Laden?
And here I was thinking that they were trying to find people planning to plan bombs, poison people, funnel hundreds of thousands of dollars into terrorist organizations, or fly more planes into buildings when I guess we are watching pizza delivery guys, paper boys, and girl scouts selling door to door. Live and learn, I guess. I wonder how much bigger of a promotion an FBI agent gets for following a trail of associations to find a nerd living in mom's basement surfing porn instead of finding a ring of 19 people funneling funds to terrorist organizations? Based on the noise levels it must be substantial.
What are the odds that there are 3000 invividual situations that legitmately warrant issuing a secret subpeona.
In a country of 300,000,000 people and a huge number of visitors and "undocumented guests"? When one person could have multiple subpoenas applied to them? When even a single foreign country has 3,000 front companies in the US used for espionage? I'm thinking that isn't too unlikely at all.
Let it be sealed, let it be 'secret' that way but there needs to be a check to the power of law enforcement.
There already is more than one check, among them are policy, the law, the Constitution, prosecutorial discretion, rules of evidence, judges, juries, trials, appeals, and legislative oversight.
A little legal analysis from the lawyers at Powerline:
Finally, in 2002, the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review decided Sealed Case No. 02-001. This case arose out of a provision of the Patriot Act that was intended to break down the "wall" between law enforcement and intelligence gathering. The Patriot Act modified Truong's "primary purpose" test by providing that surveillance under FISA was proper if intelligence gathering was one "significant" purpose of the intercept. In the course of discussing the constitutional underpinnings (or lack thereof) of the Truong test, the court wrote:
The Truong court, as did all the other courts to have decided the issue, held that the President did have inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence information. It was incumbent upon the court, therefore, to determine the boundaries of that constitutional authority in the case before it. We take for granted that the President does have that authority and, assuming that is so, FISA could not encroach on the President's constitutional power. The question before us is the reverse, does FISA amplify the President's power by providing a mechanism that at least approaches a classic warrant and which therefore supports the government's contention that FISA searches are constitutionally reasonable.
That is the current state of the law. The federal appellate courts have unanimously held that the President has the inherent constitutional authority to order warrantless searches for purposes of gathering foreign intelligence information, which includes information about terrorist threats. Furthermore, since this power is derived from Article II of the Constitution, the FISA Review Court has specifically recognized that it cannot be taken away or limited by Congressional action.
That being the case, the NSA intercept program, which consists of warrantless electronic intercepts for purposes of foreign intelligence gathering, is legal.
It's worth noting that all of the cases cited above involved warrantless searches inside the United States. The NSA program, in contrast, involves international communications only, and the intercepts take place at least in part, and perhaps wholly, outside the United States. Thus, the NSA case is even clearer than the cases that have already upheld Presidential power.
And later....
The other statute that has been discussed in connection with the legality of the NSA intercept program is FISA. It has been argued that FISA explicitly or implicitly requires the administration to conduct foreign intelligence surveillance only pursuant to the procedures set up under that statute.
As an initial matter, this argument has already been rejected by the very appellate court that is charged with interpreting and applying FISA, in Sealed Case No. 02-001. So, from the standpoint of critics of the administration's program, the argument is a non-starter.
So, the moral of the story is that living in the US is more dangerous than all of the terrorism in the world.
I take the moral of the story you tell to be that you assume murder doesn't happen outside the US, that the people killed by terrorists don't count for much, that the 25,000 people wounded in terrorist attacks don't exist and require no medical care, and that the considerable disruption of daily life and damage to economies caused by terrorism is of no consequence.
I suppose by your reasoning, the attacks on 9/11, and their aftermath, which killed 3,000 people and did $100,000,000,000 of damage to the US economy were just a statistical blip on the radar.
I'm curious, do incidents like Beslan make any impression on you?
Do you have any thoughts on if the US should do anything to prevent Al Qaeda from attaining its stated goal of killing 4,000,000 Americans?
But officials from the State Department and the National Counterterrorism Center were quick to say that they believed the dramatic increase was due largely to the fact that they were using a far more inclusive definition of what constitutes a terrorist attack than in previous years.
The biggest single factor was the inclusion of attacks within Iraq, which in prior years were largely excluded, the report said.
At least 30% of terrorist incidents last year occurred in Iraq, as did 55% of related fatalities, or about 8,300, the report said. Fifty-six Americans were killed in terrorist acts, 47 of them in Iraq. A total of 40,000 people were killed or wounded, including about 6,500 police and 1,000 children, the report said.
There are plenty of sources on-line which document the attacks. A visit to a good research university library would no doubt be useful as well. This isn't exactly new.
The role of "Chemical Ali" is well known. He seems capable of it, if "modest":
He relished the task, launching a reign of terror which was brutal even by the standards of the Baath Party.
According to opposition groups, thousands were murdered.
Victims were made to drink petrol before being set alight or strapped to concrete blocks and tipped into the Shatt-al-Arab waterway.
Bodies were bulldozed into the ground and, according to aid agencies, Al-Majid was filmed selecting Shia prisoners for execution. It was for his earlier atrocities, though, that he gained his nickname. He masterminded chemical attacks on Iraqi Kurds in the 1980s.
On one occasion he rejected suggestions he had killed 182,000 people with the chilling reply: "No, it couldn't have been more than 100,000."
His most infamous outrage was the use of poison gas to kill thousands of Kurds at Halabja in 1988.
The Telegraph has done a series of stories: here, here, and here:
Like thousands of other Kurds who lived in Halabja he had become inured to the frequent artillery bombardments launched by Baghdad's big guns across the valley.
It was not until he saw a yellow mist settling over the town that he realised this attack was different.
Within hours his five children had died an excruciating death. They were among about 5,000 Kurds killed by Saddam Hussein's poison gas on March 16, 1988, as he exacted a hideous revenge for their support of Iran in the Iran-Iraq war.
The memory of every Iraqi Kurd is seared with vivid images of Baghdad's 1988 genocide against its own ethnic Kurds when troops loyal to the Iraqi strongman were under orders to kill every Kurdish male in northern Iraq between the ages of 18 and 55. During the Anfal campaign, rights groups say more than 100,000 men disappeared, 4,000 villages were destroyed, and 60 more villages were subject to chemical weapons attack.
Some 5,000 Kurds died during the gassing of Halabja alone. The photograph of a man shielding an infant with his body ? both killed by gas ? has become an icon of Kurdish suffering and of Iraqi war crimes.
Although a part of the defense establishment didn't believe it for a time, the State Department apparently didn't get the word even in 2001.
Why this should be hard to believe when Iraq was actively using chemical weapons against the Iranians at the time, and more and more mass graves with thousands of bodies from simple mass murder each are turning up in Iraq, I'll neven know.
Al Qaeda and its affiliates. Maybe you've heard of one or two of their many outrages? If you're well informed there are another three, or four, or five or six other commonly known ones. (Actually, there are many more.) And this is not counting just one or two of the many widely known foiled plots.
Our response involves far more than instant retaliation and isolated strikes. Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign, unlike any other we have ever seen. It may include dramatic strikes, visible on TV, and covert operations, secret even in success. We will starve terrorists of funding, turn them one against another, drive them from place to place, until there is no refuge or no rest. And we will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. (Applause.) From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime.
It is clearly directed at nations, not at citizens in the US. Its hard to belive that anyone could make that mistake, but people do.
I find your list of "terrorists" fascinating. You've apparently listed the so-called "Axis of Evil", throwing in Afghanistan and a single(?) Al Qaeda member for good measure, but don't actually list Al Qaeda itself. I must say that is quite odd indeed.
Well, since you didn't actually supply the right answer to your own question, I'll give it to you: The first one to attack is Al Qaeda, the international Islamist extremist terrorist movement which has repeatedly attacked the United States, trained tens of thousands of terrorists in Afghanistan, and which is actively fighting around the world to overthrow numerous governments to try and replace them with Islamist states with the ultimate goal of reestablishing the Caliphate. Now, they probably won't succeed unless there is a massive rise in support among Muslims, but that doesn't mean that they won't kill a great many people and make life miserable in some countries.
Your feigned shock at the idea of the terrorists "who fight back when attacked" is entirely appropriate since that isn't what is going on at all. They are fighting to establish a new Islamic super state with a literal theocracy. They are fundamentally (or is it fundamentalist?) imperialists. Is this new to you?
Maybe it is new. It wouldn't surprise me since you raise the laughable red herring of "Israeli domination of the Middle East". The primary source of Israel's "domination" of the area is simply not being a fundamentally dysfunctional society like so many of its neighbors.
Unfortunately it is their very existence which is their primary offense. That is why the President of a certain "Islamist republic" (oh, all right, Iran) has threatened to wipe Israel off the map. It will be a day of sorrows for the world when said Islamic republic actually manages to build nuclear weapons and attempts their threatened nuclear holocaust.
PS - I hope you don't find that "poofy hair" make the "Dear Leader" cuddly. You seem to be presenting this as if to soften his image. That might take some work given the way he is starving a significant portion of his population to death while building up the army you mention and regularly making threats of war against his neighbors and running concentration camps larger than the District of Columbia.
The argument could be made that an Iran with nukes would actually make the region more stable. It's certainly done that in every similar case.
Nobody in the US or USSR thought that they would be guaranteed entry into heaven if they were killed in Jihad. I doubt that there was much of anyone in either country who considered it their religous duty to God to destroy the other nation, even exterminating the population. The number of utterances of national leaders in the US and USSR in which they promised to destroy a nation they weren't at war with, and didn't even share a common border are next to zero. The Iranian President thinks he will bring the hidden Imam out to bring in the end of the age if he attacks Israel. He says he saw an aura around himself while giving a UN speech. Oh yes, no disaster brewing there.
Well, that and they'd like to categorize the people who criticize them as "terrorists."
Once the public accepts that "propaganda is necessary" and "this is a war of ideas," they'll see that as a mandate to crack down on the "enemy ideas."
Under this government's preferred reading of current law, you are technically providing support to terrorists by criticizing American leaders.
The US government is composed of adults who can discern between people trying to kill Americans with explosives, poison, bullets, knives, or radioactive materials versus those who don't like its policy and express their disagreement verbally or in writing. One is going to get you in big trouble, maybe even killed, and the other might get a laugh behind closed doors. Sadly, you don't seem to be able to figure it out. Here is a hint: Since the media currently feels completely free and comfortable exposing ongoing CIA and NSA operations against the same terrorists who are trying to kill Americans by the millions, what makes you fantasize that the government will be rounding up people who simply criticize it? What a wonderful example of nonsense.
Because the only way to make a corrupt, treasonous, oathbreaking assbag look good is to hold him up against Hitler/Stalin/etc...
That is a harsh judgement against the Ayatollah, but I can understand why you make it. They aren't exactly cuddly, although slightly better than Hitler/Stalin/etc. That is probably due to opportunity as much as anything. When the Iranian Ayatollahs get the nuke, they will no doubt try to give Hitler a run for his money, their leadership having repeatedly threatened to destroy Israel and all that.
Thankfully we have the enlightened leadership of democratically elected Presidents, like Bush,... and Clinton. No threats of genocide there, eh?
More like, it isn't considered "news worthy", or it isn't the story the media is interested in telling, at least not very loudly. It's certainly contrary to their leanings.
Do you think its not true? There are certainly plenty of stories of the misery caused by the various insurgent groups when they take over a town for any length of time, just few like this one.
Do you think Chrenkoff made up his reports too?
"Faux News" - Wow, I haven't heard that one before. Are you saying they make things up? Or is it something else, like presenting the news with a different perspective that you disagree with? Have you actually ever watched them to form an independent opinion, or is this a Slashdot thing?
Sorry, it is just odd that you said "Islamists"--that is a big category that encompasses almost every viewer we are talking about here!
I think you are confusing Islamic with Islamist. They are different.
You mean like the loving truths of the Christians?
The radical Islamists tend to hate the West, Christians, Jews, and a long list of people, institutions, and religions. They are very willing to lie to stir up people. Some of the current rioting over the European cartoons is due to their provocation in adding in additional cartoons to specifically insult Muslim sensibilities. Simply sticking to facts and truth would be a big start, no Christianity required for that. Watch some of the stuff here and see if you couldn't do better in conveying information closer to the truth, and without requiring mythical Jewish conspiracies.
Just for the benefit of a doubt, I'm going to guess that he wants to focus on distributing more white propaganda.
That means that he seriously believes that the people opposing us would stop if they just heard how nice we are.
That boggles the mind.
I can see why your mind is boggled since it is pretty certain that you are completely mistaken as to the intent.
It's more likely that the intent is to provide another source of news and views for the mass of Muslims & Arabs who are not committed to the violent Islamists cause. It might be a good thing if they had sources other than the hateful lies of the Islamists, and the government controlled media in the Middle East, which tends to spew some pretty vile things which you can see here. Muslim spokesmen regularly say that most Muslims want to live in peace. Maybe they will be more favorably inclined to so do, and to not assist the extremists, if they have access to news which sticks to being factual, or at least programming that doesn't regularly refer to Westerners as Crusaders, pigs and monkeys, call for the reconquest of Spain, applaud the exploits of terrorists bombing pizza parlors & pubs, etc. It is hard enough getting balance out of the American & European media. I don't think I've ever seen anything like this reported in the mainstream media. Arthur Chrenkoff's column listing good news from Iraq was practically unique, and not for lack of material. It is clear that if we don't speak up for ourselves, few if any there will.
Information about domestic spying must be kept confidential... Oh, but here's the name of an active CIA operative.
Your national security "spider senses" are failing you.
Apparently you don't see the damage in releasing the list of names (for publication?) of people who have been under surveillance when communicating with known agents of a terrorist organization with a goal of killing 4,000,000 Americans, and that has already killed thousands. (You don't suppose they will escape, go into hiding, change their communications methods, figure out how to avoid future detection, or attack early, do you?) So, for the possibility of real harm to national security: don't care.
On the other hand, you do seem greatly concerned about the career of a woman known to be a CIA employee* who for years made the dangerous trek through traffic to CIA headquarters where she used her influence to help get her husband a CIA assignmnet after which he conducted a public campaign to lie to the American people and the media, in what was an apparent attempt to sway the policy of the American government. And nobody who actually knows is saying who the whistle blower is, although some people have their suspicions. So for a matter with no genuine effect on national security, or even what was possibly a positive one: it's an outrage.
If you were really worried about disclosures regarding the CIA that damaged national security, you would be outraged about the exposure of the CIA's movement of prisoners by air. Ongoing operational cover blown. Damage: real. Mention: zip.
It looks like it's time for you to recalibrate your national security spider senses. They only seem to tingle when you sense a way to damage the administration, not for things that could actually undermine national security.
* "operative" seems a little high flung for a desk job in DC, where she had been for years, don't you think?
And lets supplement your video with some commentary from actual.... lawyers.
The Fourth Amendment includes requirements for the issuance of search warrants, and many critics of the NSA program seem to assume that this means that all searches must be executed pursuant to a warrant. This assumption is wrong. There are dozens of situations where warrantless searches have been approved by the courts. The overriding principle is that searches of Americans (defined to include resident aliens) must be reasonable.
One of the many situations where warrantless searches have been approved is when the government is seeking foreign intelligence information, such as information relating to potential terrorist threats. Next to the Constitution itself, of course, the highest authority is the United States Supreme Court. At least three Supreme Court cases have discussed this subject....
and later...
....The federal appellate courts have unanimously held that the President has the inherent constitutional authority to order warrantless searches for purposes of gathering foreign intelligence information, which includes information about terrorist threats. Furthermore, since this power is derived from Article II of the Constitution, the FISA Review Court has specifically recognized that it cannot be taken away or limited by Congressional action.
That being the case, the NSA intercept program, which consists of warrantless electronic intercepts for purposes of foreign intelligence gathering, is legal.
The Gonzales will just give him the same tripe they've been spouting on TV. Constitution, use of force authorization, blah, blah, blah.
In other words, legal reasons* that you don't like regardless if they are correct or not.
They'll claim it's necessary for "security" and there will be a 5 to 4 vote overturning the order and they'll go right back to doing whatever the hell they feel like.
Does that mean EPIC won't be publishing the list of Al Qaeda suspects, alerting them to flee, as soon as they get their hands on it? That is a relief.
That IS DOMESTIC spying. The fact that the OTHER party is outside of the US does not mitigate that fact.
Ya, the nerve of some people, trying to make an international incident out of a case where clearly one of two people is in the US. And lets not get into the phone company with their "you call overseas and you pay international rates" thing. Clearly they are in bed with the Bush administration, and have been for at least 50 years. You let them tap one communication that crosses an international border to get to an Al Qaeda member and the next thing you know, two Girl Scouts calling each other in Denver will be grounds for wiretapping.... or something.
Filmmaker Andrew Marcus has made a ten-minute video about yesterday's Judiciary Committee hearings on the NSA's terrorist surveillance program; it's been posted at Pajamas Media. The video includes footage of Arlen Specter and Alberto Gonzales inside the hearing room, interviews with Senator John Cornyn and Debra Burlingame, some of the questions Paul asked Ted Kennedy and Dick Durbin, and Paul's concluding summary of the hearings' significance.
It's an excellent recap of the first day's proceedings, with some valuable perspective that is absent from most news accounts. One of the most telling moments is when Debra Burlingame points out that prior to the September 11 attacks, the NSA was surveilling an al Qaeda member in Yemen who placed or received more than a dozen phone calls to and from a number in San Diego. Because these calls involved someone in the United States, the NSA didn't listen to them. It turned out that the "Kahlid" who was receiving the calls in San Diego was one of the September 11 hijackers. In fact, he was one of the hijackers who murdered Debra's brother, the pilot of American Airlines flight 77.
This is what Democrats and the news media call "domestic spying." Do the Democrats really want to return us to the days when al Qaeda could call its American operatives with impunity? Reporting from Capitol Hi
Its sometimes interesting to look up the records of "fascists", especially since there seem to be so many of them these days.
... With the support of an unprecedented coalition of city leaders that transcended political, religious and ethnic affiliations, Giuliani defeated Manhattan Borough President Ruth Messinger -- making him only the second Republican reelected as mayor since Fiorello LaGuardia.
and...
.... To reduce crime, he implemented a "zero tolerance" approach, placing an emphasis on enforcing laws against nuisance crimes as well as serious offenses. Since 1993, the city has experienced an unprecedented 44 percent drop in overall crime and a 61 percent drop in murder, making New York the safest large city in America.
To stimulate the city's stagnated economy, Giuliani reduced the tax burden by eliminating the Commercial Rent Tax in most areas of the city, reducing the Hotel Occupancy Tax, and eliminating the Unincorporated Business Tax. As a result of these targeted tax cuts, the hotel and tourism industries are thriving, 180,000 private sector jobs have been created, and a national financial magazine named New York City the most improved American city in which to do business. Giuliani also cracked down on organized crime to lift the illegal tax the mob had exacted on certain New York City industries for generations. As a result, the Fulton Fish Market, the carting industry, and the city's main convention center have been liberated from organized crime, saving businesses and consumers hundreds of millions of dollars annually.
Faced with a $2.2 billion budget gap upon taking office, Giuliani lowered projected spending by $7.8 billion through a series of cost cutting measures and productivity improvements. He reduced the city's payroll by over 20,000 jobs without layoffs. He kept the rate of spending below the rate of inflation for the first time in New York City history and created a $500 million reserve fund.
In 1993, 1.1 million New Yorkers were receiving welfare. To bring an end to a philosophy that encouraged dependency on public assistance, Giuliani implemented the largest workfare program in the nation. Since his welfare reforms were enacted in March of 1995, 340,000 people have been moved off the rolls, saving $650 million annually in city, state and federal funds. To date, 175,000 people have completed the Work Experience Program, which provides welfare recipients with training to find permanent employment.
There is one relevant constitutional provision that acts as a restraint on the President's inherent power as Commander in Chief. That is the Fourth Amendment, which states:
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.
So all searches and seizures of Americans or their property (including, as the courts have appropriately ruled, interceptions of telephonic and electronic communications) must be reasonable. Note, however, that this requirement does not apply to terrorists overseas. A Special Forces soldier can pick a cave arbitrarily and search it. He isn't trying to prosecute terrorists, he is trying to kill them. He doesn't need probable cause.
The Fourth Amendment includes requirements for the issuance of search warrants, and many critics of the NSA program seem to assume that this means that all searches must be executed pursuant to a warrant. This assumption is wrong. There are dozens of situations where warrantless searches have been approved by the courts. The overriding principle is that searches of Americans (defined to include resident aliens) must be reasonable.
One of the many situations where warrantless searches have been approved is when the government is seeking foreign intelligence information, such as information relating to potential terrorist threats. Next to the Constitution itself, of course, the highest authority is the United States Supreme Court. At least three Supreme Court cases have discussed this subject.
I'm not sure that you actually understand the meaning of the Geneva Convention articles that you quote, or what the designation of Prisoner of War means under the terms of the treaty.
Articles I & II establish that the treaty governs all conflicts regardless of where or who is in conflict, and that the treaty will be complied with. That doesn't negate the tests of Article IV paragraph 2 to determine who qualifies for special status, privileges, and protections of a Geneva Convention Prisoner of War.
Article IV, paragraph 2, establishes tests to determine who qualifies for special status, privileges, and protections of a Geneva Convention Prisoner of War. Al Qaeda fails at least 3 of the 4 tests. Failing those tests means that they don't qualify for the special status, privileges, and protections of a Geneva Convention Prisoner of War. Paragraph 6 applies to a Levee en Mass and doesn't apply.
Article V simply requires that the Geneva Convention applies as long as a detainee is held, and that they be assumed to qualify for the special status, privileges, and protections of a Geneva Convention Prisoner of War until a different determination is properly made. Once again, that doesn't negate the tests of Article IV paragraph 2 to determine who qualifies for special status, privileges, and protections of a Geneva Convention Prisoner of War.
While you can use slippery lawyer talk to try and get al qaeda members out of the POW definitions in Article 4, it simply isn't a logical argument, and it is completely bereft of any moral standing. You want so badly for this to be a "WAR", but then you want to throw away the protections that we've agreed to for the treatment of prisoners of war, because.. oh.. uh.. they're not prisoners.. or something.
I realize it might seem unfair to actually apply the treaty as written and hold people to it, but there are some practical advantages to doing things that way. First, the standards are clear. There is nothing slippery about it. It is all very straight forward under the treaty and the law of war. Captured Al Qaeda members will be treated humanely, but not as Geneva Convention Prisoners of War if they don't abide by the laws and customs of war. As things stand today, they are unlawful combatants, or simply enemy combatants.
Second, it considerably simplifies dealing with them. It means that Al Qaeda members don't qualify to be treated as Geneva Convention POWs which would entitle them to be paid a regular wage (Article 60) by the US, would entitle them to prepare their own food (Article 26) (which would require knives and other potential weapons), and would require furnishing them a store with snacks and dry goods (Article 28), and to write home (Article 70) to let Osama know they've been captured but Abdula wasn't (so the attack can continue), as well as many other rights afforded legitimate Geneva Convention Prisoners of War.
Third, it gives them an incentive to comply with the treaty and the law of war. (You do think that it is a good thing to encourage them to obey the law of war, right?) They might qualify for treatment as Geneva Convention POWs if they obeyed the treaty and the law of war. Nothing requires them to chop off the heads of their prisoners (a war crime = treaty noncompliance) or the other ghastly things that they do. Not requiring them to live up to the same standard as anyone else to receive the benefits of the treaty decreases their incentive to comply with the treaty. That isn't a good thing.
There really isn't much to be confused about in this.
Slashdot Mirror
Your concerns seem to be:
The US government's counter-terrorist surveillance program is generally effective and keeping terrorism in the US at low levels.
That, despite its heavy press coverage at the time and seemingly endless references on Slashdot, the media's attention toward a contrived study rushed into publication in an influential foreign publication in a blatant attempt to influence a US election has fallen to merely occasional reference instead of continuous.
The media focuses on the victims of terrorism and not of the suffering of the terrorists when captured or killed. The focus on the victims includes the poor Iraqis who are the continuing victims of both Islamists, and Saddam's remaining forces fighting as guerillas after having been removed from the positions of power which they used to put hundreds of thousands of Iraqis into mass graves. ( At least the Iraqis are dying at a considerably lower rate than when ruled by Saddam. The rate should fall considerably this year as the Iraqi government continues to grow stronger and more Iraqis are drawn into the political process.)
The mainstream media doesn't carry much important news like this.
I think I can identify your concerns, but, other than the last one, not why they should bother you.
I suppose by your reasoning we should give up on watching the mafia too, eh? After all, one of the main goals of the Patriot Act was to make investigative techniques already in use against the mafia available to use against terrorists.
How many degrees of separation are you from John Gotti? Or, for that matter, how many from Bin Laden?
And here I was thinking that they were trying to find people planning to plan bombs, poison people, funnel hundreds of thousands of dollars into terrorist organizations, or fly more planes into buildings when I guess we are watching pizza delivery guys, paper boys, and girl scouts selling door to door. Live and learn, I guess. I wonder how much bigger of a promotion an FBI agent gets for following a trail of associations to find a nerd living in mom's basement surfing porn instead of finding a ring of 19 people funneling funds to terrorist organizations? Based on the noise levels it must be substantial.
What are the odds that there are 3000 invividual situations that legitmately warrant issuing a secret subpeona.
In a country of 300,000,000 people and a huge number of visitors and "undocumented guests"? When one person could have multiple subpoenas applied to them? When even a single foreign country has 3,000 front companies in the US used for espionage? I'm thinking that isn't too unlikely at all.
Let it be sealed, let it be 'secret' that way but there needs to be a check to the power of law enforcement.
There already is more than one check, among them are policy, the law, the Constitution, prosecutorial discretion, rules of evidence, judges, juries, trials, appeals, and legislative oversight.
And later....
So, the moral of the story is that living in the US is more dangerous than all of the terrorism in the world.
I take the moral of the story you tell to be that you assume murder doesn't happen outside the US, that the people killed by terrorists don't count for much, that the 25,000 people wounded in terrorist attacks don't exist and require no medical care, and that the considerable disruption of daily life and damage to economies caused by terrorism is of no consequence.
I suppose by your reasoning, the attacks on 9/11, and their aftermath, which killed 3,000 people and did $100,000,000,000 of damage to the US economy were just a statistical blip on the radar.
I'm curious, do incidents like Beslan make any impression on you?
Do you have any thoughts on if the US should do anything to prevent Al Qaeda from attaining its stated goal of killing 4,000,000 Americans?
Wow! I bet they have a lot of terrorists to show for all that work. Right...?
You mean like these recent convictions, arrests, or indictments? Hamid Hayat, Abu Ali, and Sayed Ahmed, Shahawar Matin Siraj, Ehsanul Islam Sadequee, and these 19?
Maybe your memory is fading, or you don't pay attention, but there have been plenty of others over the last few years.
So, don't be fooled. This is not some wonderful egalitarian thought experiment. It's politics as usual.
QED.
You can find a primer on it here.
The role of "Chemical Ali" is well known. He seems capable of it, if "modest":
Human Rights Watch covers it.
The Telegraph has done a series of stories: here, here, and here:
The Christian Science Monitor did this story:
Although a part of the defense establishment didn't believe it for a time, the State Department apparently didn't get the word even in 2001.
This site has photos.
Why this should be hard to believe when Iraq was actively using chemical weapons against the Iranians at the time, and more and more mass graves with thousands of bodies from simple mass murder each are turning up in Iraq, I'll neven know.
Saddam's government apparently even killed as many as 61,000 just in Baghdad alone.
Against who, exactly?
Al Qaeda and its affiliates. Maybe you've heard of one or two of their many outrages? If you're well informed there are another three, or four, or five or six other commonly known ones. (Actually, there are many more.) And this is not counting just one or two of the many widely known foiled plots.
They even need close scrutiny in prison.
How did this escape your attention?
The actual quote is:
It is clearly directed at nations, not at citizens in the US. Its hard to belive that anyone could make that mistake, but people do.
I find your list of "terrorists" fascinating. You've apparently listed the so-called "Axis of Evil", throwing in Afghanistan and a single(?) Al Qaeda member for good measure, but don't actually list Al Qaeda itself. I must say that is quite odd indeed.
Well, since you didn't actually supply the right answer to your own question, I'll give it to you: The first one to attack is Al Qaeda, the international Islamist extremist terrorist movement which has repeatedly attacked the United States, trained tens of thousands of terrorists in Afghanistan, and which is actively fighting around the world to overthrow numerous governments to try and replace them with Islamist states with the ultimate goal of reestablishing the Caliphate. Now, they probably won't succeed unless there is a massive rise in support among Muslims, but that doesn't mean that they won't kill a great many people and make life miserable in some countries.
Your feigned shock at the idea of the terrorists "who fight back when attacked" is entirely appropriate since that isn't what is going on at all. They are fighting to establish a new Islamic super state with a literal theocracy. They are fundamentally (or is it fundamentalist?) imperialists. Is this new to you?
Maybe it is new. It wouldn't surprise me since you raise the laughable red herring of "Israeli domination of the Middle East". The primary source of Israel's "domination" of the area is simply not being a fundamentally dysfunctional society like so many of its neighbors.
Unfortunately it is their very existence which is their primary offense. That is why the President of a certain "Islamist republic" (oh, all right, Iran) has threatened to wipe Israel off the map. It will be a day of sorrows for the world when said Islamic republic actually manages to build nuclear weapons and attempts their threatened nuclear holocaust.
PS - I hope you don't find that "poofy hair" make the "Dear Leader" cuddly. You seem to be presenting this as if to soften his image. That might take some work given the way he is starving a significant portion of his population to death while building up the army you mention and regularly making threats of war against his neighbors and running concentration camps larger than the District of Columbia.
Sarcasm is ineffective when your point is ill-considered. The cases aren't comparable.
The argument could be made that an Iran with nukes would actually make the region more stable. It's certainly done that in every similar case.
Nobody in the US or USSR thought that they would be guaranteed entry into heaven if they were killed in Jihad. I doubt that there was much of anyone in either country who considered it their religous duty to God to destroy the other nation, even exterminating the population. The number of utterances of national leaders in the US and USSR in which they promised to destroy a nation they weren't at war with, and didn't even share a common border are next to zero. The Iranian President thinks he will bring the hidden Imam out to bring in the end of the age if he attacks Israel. He says he saw an aura around himself while giving a UN speech. Oh yes, no disaster brewing there.
Well, that and they'd like to categorize the people who criticize them as "terrorists."
Once the public accepts that "propaganda is necessary" and "this is a war of ideas," they'll see that as a mandate to crack down on the "enemy ideas."
Under this government's preferred reading of current law, you are technically providing support to terrorists by criticizing American leaders.
The US government is composed of adults who can discern between people trying to kill Americans with explosives, poison, bullets, knives, or radioactive materials versus those who don't like its policy and express their disagreement verbally or in writing. One is going to get you in big trouble, maybe even killed, and the other might get a laugh behind closed doors. Sadly, you don't seem to be able to figure it out. Here is a hint: Since the media currently feels completely free and comfortable exposing ongoing CIA and NSA operations against the same terrorists who are trying to kill Americans by the millions, what makes you fantasize that the government will be rounding up people who simply criticize it? What a wonderful example of nonsense.
Because the only way to make a corrupt, treasonous, oathbreaking assbag look good is to hold him up against Hitler/Stalin/etc...
That is a harsh judgement against the Ayatollah, but I can understand why you make it. They aren't exactly cuddly, although slightly better than Hitler/Stalin/etc. That is probably due to opportunity as much as anything. When the Iranian Ayatollahs get the nuke, they will no doubt try to give Hitler a run for his money, their leadership having repeatedly threatened to destroy Israel and all that.
Thankfully we have the enlightened leadership of democratically elected Presidents, like Bush,... and Clinton. No threats of genocide there, eh?
Too looney even for Faux News?
More like, it isn't considered "news worthy", or it isn't the story the media is interested in telling, at least not very loudly. It's certainly contrary to their leanings.
Do you think its not true? There are certainly plenty of stories of the misery caused by the various insurgent groups when they take over a town for any length of time, just few like this one.
Do you think Chrenkoff made up his reports too?
"Faux News" - Wow, I haven't heard that one before. Are you saying they make things up? Or is it something else, like presenting the news with a different perspective that you disagree with? Have you actually ever watched them to form an independent opinion, or is this a Slashdot thing?
Sorry, it is just odd that you said "Islamists"--that is a big category that encompasses almost every viewer we are talking about here!
I think you are confusing Islamic with Islamist. They are different.
You mean like the loving truths of the Christians?
The radical Islamists tend to hate the West, Christians, Jews, and a long list of people, institutions, and religions. They are very willing to lie to stir up people. Some of the current rioting over the European cartoons is due to their provocation in adding in additional cartoons to specifically insult Muslim sensibilities. Simply sticking to facts and truth would be a big start, no Christianity required for that. Watch some of the stuff here and see if you couldn't do better in conveying information closer to the truth, and without requiring mythical Jewish conspiracies.
Just for the benefit of a doubt, I'm going to guess that he wants to focus on distributing more white propaganda.
That means that he seriously believes that the people opposing us would stop if they just heard how nice we are.
That boggles the mind.
I can see why your mind is boggled since it is pretty certain that you are completely mistaken as to the intent.
It's more likely that the intent is to provide another source of news and views for the mass of Muslims & Arabs who are not committed to the violent Islamists cause. It might be a good thing if they had sources other than the hateful lies of the Islamists, and the government controlled media in the Middle East, which tends to spew some pretty vile things which you can see here. Muslim spokesmen regularly say that most Muslims want to live in peace. Maybe they will be more favorably inclined to so do, and to not assist the extremists, if they have access to news which sticks to being factual, or at least programming that doesn't regularly refer to Westerners as Crusaders, pigs and monkeys, call for the reconquest of Spain, applaud the exploits of terrorists bombing pizza parlors & pubs, etc. It is hard enough getting balance out of the American & European media. I don't think I've ever seen anything like this reported in the mainstream media. Arthur Chrenkoff's column listing good news from Iraq was practically unique, and not for lack of material. It is clear that if we don't speak up for ourselves, few if any there will.
Information about domestic spying must be kept confidential... Oh, but here's the name of an active CIA operative.
Your national security "spider senses" are failing you.
Apparently you don't see the damage in releasing the list of names (for publication?) of people who have been under surveillance when communicating with known agents of a terrorist organization with a goal of killing 4,000,000 Americans, and that has already killed thousands. (You don't suppose they will escape, go into hiding, change their communications methods, figure out how to avoid future detection, or attack early, do you?) So, for the possibility of real harm to national security: don't care.
On the other hand, you do seem greatly concerned about the career of a woman known to be a CIA employee* who for years made the dangerous trek through traffic to CIA headquarters where she used her influence to help get her husband a CIA assignmnet after which he conducted a public campaign to lie to the American people and the media, in what was an apparent attempt to sway the policy of the American government. And nobody who actually knows is saying who the whistle blower is, although some people have their suspicions. So for a matter with no genuine effect on national security, or even what was possibly a positive one: it's an outrage.
If you were really worried about disclosures regarding the CIA that damaged national security, you would be outraged about the exposure of the CIA's movement of prisoners by air. Ongoing operational cover blown. Damage: real. Mention: zip.
It looks like it's time for you to recalibrate your national security spider senses. They only seem to tingle when you sense a way to damage the administration, not for things that could actually undermine national security.
* "operative" seems a little high flung for a desk job in DC, where she had been for years, don't you think?
and later...
The Gonzales will just give him the same tripe they've been spouting on TV. Constitution, use of force authorization, blah, blah, blah.
In other words, legal reasons* that you don't like regardless if they are correct or not.
They'll claim it's necessary for "security" and there will be a 5 to 4 vote overturning the order and they'll go right back to doing whatever the hell they feel like.
Does that mean EPIC won't be publishing the list of Al Qaeda suspects, alerting them to flee, as soon as they get their hands on it? That is a relief.
*Like this
Ya, the nerve of some people, trying to make an international incident out of a case where clearly one of two people is in the US. And lets not get into the phone company with their "you call overseas and you pay international rates" thing. Clearly they are in bed with the Bush administration, and have been for at least 50 years. You let them tap one communication that crosses an international border to get to an Al Qaeda member and the next thing you know, two Girl Scouts calling each other in Denver will be grounds for wiretapping.... or something.
and...
You should say, more, like this:
I'm not sure that you actually understand the meaning of the Geneva Convention articles that you quote, or what the designation of Prisoner of War means under the terms of the treaty.
Articles I & II establish that the treaty governs all conflicts regardless of where or who is in conflict, and that the treaty will be complied with. That doesn't negate the tests of Article IV paragraph 2 to determine who qualifies for special status, privileges, and protections of a Geneva Convention Prisoner of War.
Article IV, paragraph 2, establishes tests to determine who qualifies for special status, privileges, and protections of a Geneva Convention Prisoner of War. Al Qaeda fails at least 3 of the 4 tests. Failing those tests means that they don't qualify for the special status, privileges, and protections of a Geneva Convention Prisoner of War. Paragraph 6 applies to a Levee en Mass and doesn't apply.
Article V simply requires that the Geneva Convention applies as long as a detainee is held, and that they be assumed to qualify for the special status, privileges, and protections of a Geneva Convention Prisoner of War until a different determination is properly made. Once again, that doesn't negate the tests of Article IV paragraph 2 to determine who qualifies for special status, privileges, and protections of a Geneva Convention Prisoner of War.
While you can use slippery lawyer talk to try and get al qaeda members out of the POW definitions in Article 4, it simply isn't a logical argument, and it is completely bereft of any moral standing. You want so badly for this to be a "WAR", but then you want to throw away the protections that we've agreed to for the treatment of prisoners of war, because.. oh.. uh.. they're not prisoners.. or something.
I realize it might seem unfair to actually apply the treaty as written and hold people to it, but there are some practical advantages to doing things that way. First, the standards are clear. There is nothing slippery about it. It is all very straight forward under the treaty and the law of war. Captured Al Qaeda members will be treated humanely, but not as Geneva Convention Prisoners of War if they don't abide by the laws and customs of war. As things stand today, they are unlawful combatants, or simply enemy combatants.
Second, it considerably simplifies dealing with them. It means that Al Qaeda members don't qualify to be treated as Geneva Convention POWs which would entitle them to be paid a regular wage (Article 60) by the US, would entitle them to prepare their own food (Article 26) (which would require knives and other potential weapons), and would require furnishing them a store with snacks and dry goods (Article 28), and to write home (Article 70) to let Osama know they've been captured but Abdula wasn't (so the attack can continue), as well as many other rights afforded legitimate Geneva Convention Prisoners of War.
Third, it gives them an incentive to comply with the treaty and the law of war. (You do think that it is a good thing to encourage them to obey the law of war, right?) They might qualify for treatment as Geneva Convention POWs if they obeyed the treaty and the law of war. Nothing requires them to chop off the heads of their prisoners (a war crime = treaty noncompliance) or the other ghastly things that they do. Not requiring them to live up to the same standard as anyone else to receive the benefits of the treaty decreases their incentive to comply with the treaty. That isn't a good thing.
There really isn't much to be confused about in this.