If there is actually someone named Barbie or Barney, then it wouldn't be intentionally misleading, or not overtly so to the point that it is punishable as an attempt to lure kids into porn. I support free speech, just not attempts to violate little kids. There is a very clear difference to anyone who cares to look for it and understand what we are discussing.
If it is a legal site with legal teens, the word "teen" would be fine, I'm sure. The problem (which I would have thought was very obvious and explicitly spelled out) is when people try to trick little kids into visiting pornographic sites by using meta keywords to trick them into thinking it is a site about Barney or Barbie or Pokemon. I'm don't think that it is a problem to use "Barbie" if it is a site about a pornstar who calls herself Barbie, but if the site has nothing to do with any "Barbie" of any sort, and yet uses "Barbie" and other child-oriented marketing terms in the meta tags, then they are scum and there is no reason that any reasonable person would defend that.
But, as I have been pointing out, people on slashdot aren't typically the most reasonable.
Oh... what other meanings of "Barnie", "Pokemon", or "Barbie" do you regularly encounter that pertain to naked women with semen on their face? Are you actually being serious? Of course, as noted above, this is slashdot, so it wouldn't surprise me if you actually think you just said something intelligent. There are so many faux intellectuals here it is frightening.
"Pipes" are a very good metaphor for explaining the situation to the general public. They don't know what "pipes" are withing the context of networking, and won't be the least bit confused. You obviously don't get out much, and are a perfect example of why I am perfectly justified in "harangueing" slashdotters.
So, can you offer a single good reason why anyone would reasonably use "Barney" or "Barbie" or "Pokemon" as keywords for a site featuring a naked woman with semen all over her face? Do you realize how silly you sound defending that?
You, like the OP, are dealing in non-sequitors. I suppose it is to be expected on slashdot, where faux intellectualism and superficial points lacking in substance are the norm.
So are you implying that we should repeal all anti-spam laws and let the spammers that have been convicted out of jail? We should go ahead and make wire fraud legal? Afterall, we can't necessarily enforce that outside of the US. Should we also make terroristic threats legal? Someone could call anyone from outside of the country where we couldn't enforce it and threaten someone's family. Should we make producing narcotics legal since those can be produced in other nations?
If you follow your logic to its conclusion, it becomes unworkable.
And for what it's worth, the whole "series of tubes" thing is actually a pretty good metaphor for use in the net neutrality debate, even if it was horribly misused.
Well, did anybody here actually read about their reasons for launching? They cite the law of unintended consequences... they have already made the single largest change to the vehicles aerodynamics since it was designed. They don't want to "fix" all of it at once, opting instead to make small incremental changes.
What is it with slashdot and cynicism. It's always "the man"'s fault.
... how P2P just happens to start being a major problem when the economy takes a dive around 2000, and is finally contained when the economy is booming in 2006.
Of course, they'll tell us that "containing P2P" is what caused the huge economic boom, I'm sure.
Well, you clearly haven't even read Res. 1441. What is it with you people and your refusal to actually read anything?
All other tales of Al-Qaida operatives in Saddam's Iraq at Saddam's behest or with his support are bullshit, as Saddam hated those guys more than we do.
Lol... okay, keep telling yourself that. Meanwhile new documents keep turning up showing that notion to be as baseless as common sense tells us it is. If you are going to engage in these conversations, you need to do some reading beforehand, and you need to inform yourself. There is no basis, whatsoever, for the assertion that Saddam "hated those guys more than we do." There is, however, ample evidence that they had low level contacts at the least, and other more suggestive evidence that they had operational ties.
Al-Zarqawi was not an Al-Qaida operative until *after* the invasion
You can split hairs all you want, but I will not allow you to abfuscate the issue. He was running a terror training camp in Afghanistan up to 2001, working with al-Queda, then fled to Iraq after a US missile strike where he was provided medical care by Saddam Hussein.
The UN inspections prior to 1998, and the UN sanctions, were working well. There was agreement on that. Obviously, if the UN weapons inspectors had been allowed to stay in Iraq, that would have been ascertained. The sheer amount of harassment Iraq was receiving was hindering it greatly. The money Saddam did have was diminishing rapidly. We saw that when his army failed to do anything when we attacked.
I think I will let this little gem stand on its own merit. Hehe. I mean you clearly have your facts in order, obviously. There certainly must be agreement on that. We saw that when your string of assertions failed to provide any supporting evidence at all, obviously.
Read about the downing street memos. Read about the scandal surrounding the "sexing-up" of intelligence dossiers to make Saddam sound dangerous
I have read them... I think that it reflects poorly on you that you think they are as important as you suggest they are.
No, that is incorrect. The Congressional Authorization for the Use of Military Force constitutes a de facto declaration of war for legal purposes. You can reference Hamdi v Rumsfeld for the legal justification for that.
Every single reason for going into Iraq was proven incorrect.
Such as? Are you saying that Saddam hadn't systematically violated his cease-fire agreement? Are you saying that he had accounted for all of his illegal weapons? If so, direct me to the source, because as of UNSC resolution 1441, that was not the case, and in fact large quantities were unaccounted for. Hans Blix, in his final report to the security council, reiterated that many bio and chem weapons were unaccounted for.
Are you saying that Saddam wasn't harboring known al-Qaeda operatives? al-Zarqawi, for example. Are you saying he wasn't harboring the bombmaker for the original WTC attack, who mysteriously killed himself by shooting himself multiple times in the head just before the invasion? Are you saying that Saddam really wasn't funding suicide bombers? Are you saying that Saddam didn't have contacts with al-Qaeda (more docs have been coming out recently to affirm this, by the way)?
The whole world knew what would be found in Iraq, yet Bush et al. steamed on anyway.
That is the most uninformed, or blatantly revisionist, statement I have seen on slashdot today, and that is saying a lot. I ask you simply to provide a SINGLE reputable source that indicates that a major western nations intel services thought that Saddam had no WMDs. You won't find one, of course, because you just made that up out of nowhere. But you have to at least look now, lest you appear to be a complete fool.
This militia represented a gov. (taliban) and a group (al Qaeda) who fought against us and continues fighting. Just because you buy into Bush's say so, does not mean that either are correct.
What the hell are you talking about? Are you arguing that al-Qaeda is part of Iraq's military? You do realize that you just made an very substantial argument for going to war which wasn't even made by the Bush admin?
Interesting that the poll would have been several years ago.... And the poll has nothing to do with liberal vs. conservative. It does show that the press thinks that they are under pressure to NOT attack bush
Why don't you read it instead of making things up? It wasn't several years ago, it was 2004. And Section 4, "Values and the Press" clearly addresses the question. I understand that most slashdotters are intellectually lazy and will believe anything that reinforces their own biases, but I spoonfed you links. At least read them.
And your 2'nd poll has absolutely nothing to do with what you are saying. Are you hopeful that nobody reads your red herrings?
You SERIOUSLY need to read things if you are going to contribute to this dialog. It says exactly what I said it says... That the press is significantly to the left of the general population on the Iraq war. Maybe you need to read more than the first sentence? Maybe you don't understand how to read simple charts and bar graphs?
I've said it before, but I'll say it again. It amazes me that a site like Slashdot which should attract very intelligent people can attract so many people who can't even read. I know that a lot of it is because many of you are just immature kids (like the guy who responded to my long post to complain that I had misspelled the word "definitely"), but this is ridiculous.
If you are going to respond again, please read the links first. I handily discredited your entire argument. Now, go read.
I'm sure he knows how to pronounce it, but I have a hunch he gets a kick out of petty, self-important assholes who have nothing better to do than obsess over how he pronounces a word as thought they themselves are smarter than he is.
***"Gitmo is not illegal. What we are doing there, is. It violates every one of our laws and conventions... these people, well, they are POWs... they are soldiers and to say otherwise, is a lie. They should all be in a POW camp with the geneva convention being applied"
You clearly haven't read the Geneva convention. Go read it. Maybe next time you won't sound like an 8th grader spouting off crap he read on Daily Kos or something.
For the benefit of others, who may be interested in actually knowing the facts of the matter... a POW is defined as follows...
A. Prisoners of war, in the sense of the present Convention, are persons belonging to one of the following categories, who have fallen into the power of the enemy:
1. Members of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict as well as members of militias or volunteer corps forming part of such armed forces.[NOPE]
2. Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, belonging to a Party to the conflict and operating in or outside their own territory, even if this territory is occupied, provided that such militias or volunteer corps, including such organized resistance movements, fulfil the following conditions:
(a) That of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;[NOT EXACTLY, but arguable]
(b) That of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance;{DEFINATELY NOT]
(c) That of carrying arms openly;[WELL, IN SOME CASES... but telling a retarded kid to drive a truck somewhere and remotely detonating it is arguably underhanded]
(d) That of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.[NOPE]
3. Members of regular armed forces who profess allegiance to a government or an authority not recognized by the Detaining Power.[NOPE]
4. Persons who accompany the armed forces without actually being members thereof, such as civilian members of military aircraft crews, war correspondents, supply contractors, members of labour units or of services responsible for the welfare of the armed forces, provided that they have received authorization from the armed forces which they accompany, who shall provide them for that purpose with an identity card similar to the annexed model.[NOPE]
5. Members of crews, including masters, pilots and apprentices, of the merchant marine and the crews of civil aircraft of the Parties to the conflict, who do not benefit by more favourable treatment under any other provisions of international law.[NOPE.]
6. Inhabitants of a non-occupied territory, who on the approach of the enemy spontaneously take up arms to resist the invading forces, without having had time to form themselves into regular armed units, provided they carry arms openly and respect the laws and customs of war. [NOPE, nothing spontaneous about the "insurgency"]
***"Now, as to the media leaning left, you have to be kidding me. Show me any real study and the result, coward."
Something like 90% of the Washington press corp votes Democrat, and twice as many self-identify as liberals as the general population.
Here is at least one poll of journalists that you could find for your self if you really wanted to know the answers to your questions.
And another, showing that they are way to the left of the general public on the Iraq war.
Furthermore, if you don't trust the journalist themselves, the public, by a 5:3 margin perceives the media as being biased to the left. This margin handily exceeds the margin by which the public self-identifies as conservative (not to be confused with Republican).
Does anyone remember the terrorist's laptop that was confiscated in Iraq that contained emergency plans for specific elementary schools in the United States? That actually happened, and those sorts of things could obviously be exploited for very bad reasons. Don't jump to conclusions so easily.
I am sure if nothing had been done post-911 and there had been a few more attacks, the chance of falling prey to a terrorist act would still be far lower than that of being in a car accident.
So you fall into the fringe leftist "there is no terrorist threat" category, huh? Car accidents don't cause recessions, deprive 50,000 people of their workplace while killing 3000 of them, bring the transportation industry to a halt, and ostensibly give fundmentalist Islamists nutcases influence of the governmental policies of some Western nations.
I think someone needs to grow up a bit, put down the Chomsky books and Michael Moore propoganda and get into the world for a while.
The most important part of a functioning democracy is the free press. I have yet to hear a single solitary word about establishment of 'free press' in Iraq.
Maybe that's because you haven't bothered to hear anything about it. You have predetermined what you want to be the fate of Iraq, and ignore anything that might contradict that near religious view.
For some of the hundreds of new news outlets that have appeared in Iraq since the fall of Hussein, go here.
That's old, it appears, but it was the relevent link that I saw when I googled it. Google is here if you ever get the urge to read up on things before parroting the drivel of the likes of Noam Chomsky.
Some brief background: The Foreign Intelligence Security Act permits the government to monitor foreign communications, even if they are with U.S. citizens -- 50 USC 1801, et seq. A FISA warrant is only needed if the subject communications are wholly contained in the United States and involve a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power.
The reason the President probably had to sign an executive order is that the Justice Department office that processes FISA requests, the Office of Intelligence Policy and Review (OIPR), can take over 6 months to get a standard FISA request approved. It can become extremely bureaucratic, depending on who is handling the request. His executive order is not contrary to FISA if he believed, as he clearly did, that he needed to act quickly. The president has constitutional powers, too.
It's also clear from the Times piece that Rockefeller knew about the government's eavesdropping, as did the FISA court. By the time this story is fully fleshed out, we'll learn that many others knew about it, too. To the best of my knowledge, Rockefeller didn't take any steps to stop the eavesdropping.
It really is a good idea to get out of the echo chamber on occasion and read some of what the "other side" has to say. The NYT isn't exactly notorious for giving you the full story, nor is the BBC who simply summarized the NYT article.
First, you take the logical fallacy of a false dilemma, either terrorists destroy the Brooklyn Bridge or NSA spies on all Americans without any kind of judicial oversight.
There are only 500 people in America? Or did you not read the article before bloviating? How typical.
If you want to be taken seriously, you need to substantiate what you say and demonstrate some knowledge of the topic--which very few people here have.
Your first point should have been worded:
"either terrorists destroy the Brooklyn Bridge and other targets, or NSA spies on a couple of hundred suspected terrorists with congressional and judicial oversight by the secret national security court."
How do you reconcile that with the absolute fact that the surveilance of a small number of terrorists engaged in international communications prevented an attack on a national monument/landmark (the Brooklyn Bridge)?
You can't escape the fact that you are indisputably arguing that you would prefer that people had died in the destruction of the Brooklyn Bridge. This is an argument you can't win, so give it up.
You guys are transparent. No one in their right mind believes that you wouldn't be raising hell if the Brooklyn Bridge had been blown up. You, like many Slashdotters, are a fringe leftist looking for anything at all to complain about.
Spare us the faux outrage. Like I said... self-important, and disingenuous hypocrites, all of you.
Yeah flamebait is right. Now that some immature 14 year old on slashdot has said it, I can say with absolute certainty that it is a "blatant violation of the constitution."
Slashdot Mirror
If there is actually someone named Barbie or Barney, then it wouldn't be intentionally misleading, or not overtly so to the point that it is punishable as an attempt to lure kids into porn. I support free speech, just not attempts to violate little kids. There is a very clear difference to anyone who cares to look for it and understand what we are discussing.
If it is a legal site with legal teens, the word "teen" would be fine, I'm sure. The problem (which I would have thought was very obvious and explicitly spelled out) is when people try to trick little kids into visiting pornographic sites by using meta keywords to trick them into thinking it is a site about Barney or Barbie or Pokemon. I'm don't think that it is a problem to use "Barbie" if it is a site about a pornstar who calls herself Barbie, but if the site has nothing to do with any "Barbie" of any sort, and yet uses "Barbie" and other child-oriented marketing terms in the meta tags, then they are scum and there is no reason that any reasonable person would defend that.
But, as I have been pointing out, people on slashdot aren't typically the most reasonable.
Oh... what other meanings of "Barnie", "Pokemon", or "Barbie" do you regularly encounter that pertain to naked women with semen on their face? Are you actually being serious? Of course, as noted above, this is slashdot, so it wouldn't surprise me if you actually think you just said something intelligent. There are so many faux intellectuals here it is frightening.
"Pipes" are a very good metaphor for explaining the situation to the general public. They don't know what "pipes" are withing the context of networking, and won't be the least bit confused. You obviously don't get out much, and are a perfect example of why I am perfectly justified in "harangueing" slashdotters.
So, can you offer a single good reason why anyone would reasonably use "Barney" or "Barbie" or "Pokemon" as keywords for a site featuring a naked woman with semen all over her face? Do you realize how silly you sound defending that?
You, like the OP, are dealing in non-sequitors. I suppose it is to be expected on slashdot, where faux intellectualism and superficial points lacking in substance are the norm.
So are you implying that we should repeal all anti-spam laws and let the spammers that have been convicted out of jail? We should go ahead and make wire fraud legal? Afterall, we can't necessarily enforce that outside of the US. Should we also make terroristic threats legal? Someone could call anyone from outside of the country where we couldn't enforce it and threaten someone's family. Should we make producing narcotics legal since those can be produced in other nations?
If you follow your logic to its conclusion, it becomes unworkable.
And for what it's worth, the whole "series of tubes" thing is actually a pretty good metaphor for use in the net neutrality debate, even if it was horribly misused.
Just because it's impossible to enforce globally doesn't mean we shouldn't codify it here. That's sort of a non sequitor.
Well, did anybody here actually read about their reasons for launching? They cite the law of unintended consequences... they have already made the single largest change to the vehicles aerodynamics since it was designed. They don't want to "fix" all of it at once, opting instead to make small incremental changes. What is it with slashdot and cynicism. It's always "the man"'s fault.
... how P2P just happens to start being a major problem when the economy takes a dive around 2000, and is finally contained when the economy is booming in 2006.
Of course, they'll tell us that "containing P2P" is what caused the huge economic boom, I'm sure.
Well, you clearly haven't even read Res. 1441. What is it with you people and your refusal to actually read anything?
All other tales of Al-Qaida operatives in Saddam's Iraq at Saddam's behest or with his support are bullshit, as Saddam hated those guys more than we do.
Lol... okay, keep telling yourself that. Meanwhile new documents keep turning up showing that notion to be as baseless as common sense tells us it is. If you are going to engage in these conversations, you need to do some reading beforehand, and you need to inform yourself. There is no basis, whatsoever, for the assertion that Saddam "hated those guys more than we do." There is, however, ample evidence that they had low level contacts at the least, and other more suggestive evidence that they had operational ties.
Al-Zarqawi was not an Al-Qaida operative until *after* the invasion
You can split hairs all you want, but I will not allow you to abfuscate the issue. He was running a terror training camp in Afghanistan up to 2001, working with al-Queda, then fled to Iraq after a US missile strike where he was provided medical care by Saddam Hussein.
The UN inspections prior to 1998, and the UN sanctions, were working well. There was agreement on that. Obviously, if the UN weapons inspectors had been allowed to stay in Iraq, that would have been ascertained. The sheer amount of harassment Iraq was receiving was hindering it greatly. The money Saddam did have was diminishing rapidly. We saw that when his army failed to do anything when we attacked.
I think I will let this little gem stand on its own merit. Hehe. I mean you clearly have your facts in order, obviously. There certainly must be agreement on that. We saw that when your string of assertions failed to provide any supporting evidence at all, obviously.
Read about the downing street memos. Read about the scandal surrounding the "sexing-up" of intelligence dossiers to make Saddam sound dangerous
I have read them... I think that it reflects poorly on you that you think they are as important as you suggest they are.
No, that is incorrect. The Congressional Authorization for the Use of Military Force constitutes a de facto declaration of war for legal purposes. You can reference Hamdi v Rumsfeld for the legal justification for that.
Every single reason for going into Iraq was proven incorrect.
Such as? Are you saying that Saddam hadn't systematically violated his cease-fire agreement? Are you saying that he had accounted for all of his illegal weapons? If so, direct me to the source, because as of UNSC resolution 1441, that was not the case, and in fact large quantities were unaccounted for. Hans Blix, in his final report to the security council, reiterated that many bio and chem weapons were unaccounted for.
Are you saying that Saddam wasn't harboring known al-Qaeda operatives? al-Zarqawi, for example. Are you saying he wasn't harboring the bombmaker for the original WTC attack, who mysteriously killed himself by shooting himself multiple times in the head just before the invasion? Are you saying that Saddam really wasn't funding suicide bombers? Are you saying that Saddam didn't have contacts with al-Qaeda (more docs have been coming out recently to affirm this, by the way)?
The whole world knew what would be found in Iraq, yet Bush et al. steamed on anyway.
That is the most uninformed, or blatantly revisionist, statement I have seen on slashdot today, and that is saying a lot. I ask you simply to provide a SINGLE reputable source that indicates that a major western nations intel services thought that Saddam had no WMDs. You won't find one, of course, because you just made that up out of nowhere. But you have to at least look now, lest you appear to be a complete fool.
This militia represented a gov. (taliban) and a group (al Qaeda) who fought against us and continues fighting. Just because you buy into Bush's say so, does not mean that either are correct.
... And the poll has nothing to do with liberal vs. conservative. It does show that the press thinks that they are under pressure to NOT attack bush
What the hell are you talking about? Are you arguing that al-Qaeda is part of Iraq's military? You do realize that you just made an very substantial argument for going to war which wasn't even made by the Bush admin?
Interesting that the poll would have been several years ago.
Why don't you read it instead of making things up? It wasn't several years ago, it was 2004. And Section 4, "Values and the Press" clearly addresses the question. I understand that most slashdotters are intellectually lazy and will believe anything that reinforces their own biases, but I spoonfed you links. At least read them.
And your 2'nd poll has absolutely nothing to do with what you are saying. Are you hopeful that nobody reads your red herrings?
You SERIOUSLY need to read things if you are going to contribute to this dialog. It says exactly what I said it says... That the press is significantly to the left of the general population on the Iraq war. Maybe you need to read more than the first sentence? Maybe you don't understand how to read simple charts and bar graphs?
I've said it before, but I'll say it again. It amazes me that a site like Slashdot which should attract very intelligent people can attract so many people who can't even read. I know that a lot of it is because many of you are just immature kids (like the guy who responded to my long post to complain that I had misspelled the word "definitely"), but this is ridiculous.
If you are going to respond again, please read the links first. I handily discredited your entire argument. Now, go read.
Ahh, thank you. You are an excellent spellchecker, sir.
I'm sure he knows how to pronounce it, but I have a hunch he gets a kick out of petty, self-important assholes who have nothing better to do than obsess over how he pronounces a word as thought they themselves are smarter than he is.
You clearly haven't read the Geneva convention. Go read it. Maybe next time you won't sound like an 8th grader spouting off crap he read on Daily Kos or something.
For the benefit of others, who may be interested in actually knowing the facts of the matter... a POW is defined as follows...
***"Now, as to the media leaning left, you have to be kidding me. Show me any real study and the result, coward."
Something like 90% of the Washington press corp votes Democrat, and twice as many self-identify as liberals as the general population.
Here is at least one poll of journalists that you could find for your self if you really wanted to know the answers to your questions.
And another, showing that they are way to the left of the general public on the Iraq war. Furthermore, if you don't trust the journalist themselves, the public, by a 5:3 margin perceives the media as being biased to the left. This margin handily exceeds the margin by which the public self-identifies as conservative (not to be confused with Republican).
Article
Does anyone remember the terrorist's laptop that was confiscated in Iraq that contained emergency plans for specific elementary schools in the United States? That actually happened, and those sorts of things could obviously be exploited for very bad reasons. Don't jump to conclusions so easily.
Where does Slashdot find so many immature kids?
I am sure if nothing had been done post-911 and there had been a few more attacks, the chance of falling prey to a terrorist act would still be far lower than that of being in a car accident.
So you fall into the fringe leftist "there is no terrorist threat" category, huh? Car accidents don't cause recessions, deprive 50,000 people of their workplace while killing 3000 of them, bring the transportation industry to a halt, and ostensibly give fundmentalist Islamists nutcases influence of the governmental policies of some Western nations.
I think someone needs to grow up a bit, put down the Chomsky books and Michael Moore propoganda and get into the world for a while.
The most important part of a functioning democracy is the free press. I have yet to hear a single solitary word about establishment of 'free press' in Iraq.
Maybe that's because you haven't bothered to hear anything about it. You have predetermined what you want to be the fate of Iraq, and ignore anything that might contradict that near religious view.
For some of the hundreds of new news outlets that have appeared in Iraq since the fall of Hussein, go here.
That's old, it appears, but it was the relevent link that I saw when I googled it. Google is here if you ever get the urge to read up on things before parroting the drivel of the likes of Noam Chomsky.
Some informative commentary:
Some brief background: The Foreign Intelligence Security Act permits the government to monitor foreign communications, even if they are with U.S. citizens -- 50 USC 1801, et seq. A FISA warrant is only needed if the subject communications are wholly contained in the United States and involve a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power.
The reason the President probably had to sign an executive order is that the Justice Department office that processes FISA requests, the Office of Intelligence Policy and Review (OIPR), can take over 6 months to get a standard FISA request approved. It can become extremely bureaucratic, depending on who is handling the request. His executive order is not contrary to FISA if he believed, as he clearly did, that he needed to act quickly. The president has constitutional powers, too.
It's also clear from the Times piece that Rockefeller knew about the government's eavesdropping, as did the FISA court. By the time this story is fully fleshed out, we'll learn that many others knew about it, too. To the best of my knowledge, Rockefeller didn't take any steps to stop the eavesdropping.
-- Mark Levin at NRO.
It really is a good idea to get out of the echo chamber on occasion and read some of what the "other side" has to say. The NYT isn't exactly notorious for giving you the full story, nor is the BBC who simply summarized the NYT article.
First, you take the logical fallacy of a false dilemma, either terrorists destroy the Brooklyn Bridge or NSA spies on all Americans without any kind of judicial oversight.
There are only 500 people in America? Or did you not read the article before bloviating? How typical.
If you want to be taken seriously, you need to substantiate what you say and demonstrate some knowledge of the topic--which very few people here have.
Your first point should have been worded:
"either terrorists destroy the Brooklyn Bridge and other targets, or NSA spies on a couple of hundred suspected terrorists with congressional and judicial oversight by the secret national security court."
How do you reconcile that with the absolute fact that the surveilance of a small number of terrorists engaged in international communications prevented an attack on a national monument/landmark (the Brooklyn Bridge)?
You can't escape the fact that you are indisputably arguing that you would prefer that people had died in the destruction of the Brooklyn Bridge. This is an argument you can't win, so give it up.
You guys are transparent. No one in their right mind believes that you wouldn't be raising hell if the Brooklyn Bridge had been blown up. You, like many Slashdotters, are a fringe leftist looking for anything at all to complain about.
Spare us the faux outrage. Like I said... self-important, and disingenuous hypocrites, all of you.
Yeah flamebait is right. Now that some immature 14 year old on slashdot has said it, I can say with absolute certainty that it is a "blatant violation of the constitution."