First off, implementing his own method of screening is not remotely sufficient. As the Supreme Court and every other President since 1850 or so has recognized, Congress and the Courts provide checks and balances on the Executive.
As to the "briefings" - they consisted of "here's what we're doing - you have no means to comment or object, and if you talk to anyone else about what we just told you, you'll go to jail for violating secrecy". This is, obviously, utterly bogus - a fig leaf one micron in diameter.
Sadly, the US has become a strongly polarized nation - the Blue states, which look similar to the rest of the developed world, and the Red states, which look like the developing world.
The Blue states could try to break away - but secession was tried in the 1860s, caused a very big mess.
The Supreme Court (bless them!) ruled that the President only has "extraordinary wartime powers" as a temporary expedient to quickly do things that would take Congress too much time. But he must then work with Congress as soon as is practical.
Until Bush, all presidents had recognized this. Lincoln suspended Habeas Corpus in areas where it was no longer effective - but he immediately turned around and asked Congress to codify his action, which they did. FDR did the same when he (unfortunately) interred Japanese-Americans during WWII.
Only Bush interpreted Article 2 to mean that he could utterly reject all checks and balances - that he could do anything, to anybody, forever, and that Congress and the Courts had no way to stop him,
George Bush is Workin' Hard For You
on
Growing Insulin
·
· Score: 1, Insightful
Oh, you want to be cured?
Well, by banning the public funding of stem cell research today, George Bush has helped you towards the cure! His great deeds are hastening the Rapture, when the good people (those who accept Jesus Christ as their Lord) will be cured.
If the Bush-bots were truly just interested in what they say they're interested in, then they could
ask specific questions of the data,
give those questions to Google, and
Google could return the answers.
For example, they could ask for the percentage of searches that returned results with adult material that got clicked on.
The fact that they're looking for raw data clearly indicates that they want to do something with it that they'd prefer others to not watch - which, incidentally, is the only reason that fits for why they decided to evade judicial oversight of domestic wiretaps.
Slashdot Mirror
Your arguments are totally wrong/misleading.
First off, implementing his own method of screening is not remotely sufficient. As the Supreme Court and every other President since 1850 or so has recognized, Congress and the Courts provide checks and balances on the Executive.
As to the "briefings" - they consisted of "here's what we're doing - you have no means to comment or object, and if you talk to anyone else about what we just told you, you'll go to jail for violating secrecy". This is, obviously, utterly bogus - a fig leaf one micron in diameter.
Sadly, the US has become a strongly polarized nation - the Blue states, which look similar to the rest of the developed world, and the Red states, which look like the developing world.
The Blue states could try to break away - but secession was tried in the 1860s, caused a very big mess.
The Supreme Court (bless them!) ruled that the President only has "extraordinary wartime powers" as a temporary expedient to quickly do things that would take Congress too much time. But he must then work with Congress as soon as is practical.
Until Bush, all presidents had recognized this. Lincoln suspended Habeas Corpus in areas where it was no longer effective - but he immediately turned around and asked Congress to codify his action, which they did. FDR did the same when he (unfortunately) interred Japanese-Americans during WWII.
Only Bush interpreted Article 2 to mean that he could utterly reject all checks and balances - that he could do anything, to anybody, forever, and that Congress and the Courts had no way to stop him,
Are you?
Oh, you want to be cured?
Well, by banning the public funding of stem cell research today, George Bush has helped you towards the cure! His great deeds are hastening the Rapture, when the good people (those who accept Jesus Christ as their Lord) will be cured.
Got it?
Good.
For example, they could ask for the percentage of searches that returned results with adult material that got clicked on.
The fact that they're looking for raw data clearly indicates that they want to do something with it that they'd prefer others to not watch - which, incidentally, is the only reason that fits for why they decided to evade judicial oversight of domestic wiretaps.