Poll Finds Mixed Support for Domestic Wiretaps 851
aspenbordr writes "The NYTimes reports that Americans are growing more and more concerned about the tradeoff between 'fighting terrorism' and civil liberties. Forty-seven percent of those polled responded they they did not support 'wiretapping in order to reduce the threat of terrorism'." From the article: "Mr. Bush, at a White House press conference yesterday, twice used the phrase 'terrorist surveillance program' to describe an operation in which the administration has eavesdropped on telephone calls and other communications like e-mail that it says could involve operatives of Al Qaeda overseas talking to Americans. Critics say the administration could conduct such surveillance while still getting prior court approval, as spelled out in a 1978 law intended to guard against governmental abuses."
47%? (Score:2, Insightful)
So . . . (Score:2, Insightful)
Does this mean people realize that the reduction of civil liberties are what the terrorists want?
53% think it's OK???? (Score:3, Insightful)
Death of a democracy (Score:4, Insightful)
From TFA: Here's the problem...the phrase "Americans that the government is suspicious of", can (and is) defined differently every day. Such vagueness virtually invites a police state.
Dubya has shown on several occasions that he cannot be trusted to protect our civil rights. That's OK, he doesn't have to be trusted....that's why we have (had?) the FISA, to ensure that wiretapping is carried out in a lawful manner. All George had to do was run his requests through the court, and everything would have been completely legal. Apparently, that's too much trouble for King George, who is aggressively pursuing the doctrine of the unitary executive, believes he is above the law of the land, and regards our Constitution as "just a goddamned piece of paper".
Trusting George and his Gestapo (that's right, I said it) to safeguard your civil rights is like employing a wild dingo to guard your baby. As of now, "Americans that the government is suspicious of" refers to terror suspects, but it could just as easily refer to foreign-born, dissidents, liberals, or slashdotters.
It's time to stop King George before he corrupts the dream of the Founding Fathers beyond redemption. It's time to draw a line in the sand and say, "this far....no farther". It's time to take back our country.
Operating outside the law (Score:5, Insightful)
obtained after the fact. This invalidates the "need for speed"
agrument. The very few times someone in the media has confronted an
administration offical with this obvious logic, the response has
always been regression into a vague discription of the current NSA
program being "another valuable tool", or needing "every tool
available" to keep the American people safe.
I have not had the misfortune of having listened to the latest set of
talking points being pushed. But as far as I can see, there are only
a few reasons to not use FISA:
held to account for their actions
Either of these motives is an indication of the Bush administration
feeling that they need to operate outside the law.
If they really believe in the rule of law, they should move change the
law to fit the times. If not, they are just showing their contempt
for the rule of law.
I think the framers of the American Constitution are turning in their
gaves right now.
Fear is the key (Score:5, Insightful)
That being said, it's sad that the country is pretty much giving the president a wash on this. But then, nobody said much about the USA PATRIOT act either. We had what, two senators vote against it the first time around?
Jeez (Score:1, Insightful)
Those who trade liberty for security deserve neither - Benjamin Franklin
There's a great quote from Goering about using fear to lead a free public around, but I can't remember it off the top of my head.
Freedom is the most precious thing we have, without that, the Terrorists really win.
The question was loaded, and STILL... (Score:5, Insightful)
Notice that the question isn't about 'wiretapping whomever the president decides he doesn't like' or even about 'wiretapping without appropriate judicial oversight'. It's 'wiretapping in order to reduce the threat of terrorism'.
So, even with a question that implicitly assumes that the president is telling the truth and that there is no malign intent here, and that actually raises the Terrorist Bogeyman in its wording, STILL nearly half of respondents didn't support it.
I'm actually feeling quite positive here. Not only are people waking up to the bullshit that's being done in their name, they're seeing through the trick poll questions too...
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
got the karma to burn, so.... (Score:1, Insightful)
We have a terrorist group, Al-Qaeda, which has repeatedly stated they want to kill lots and lots of american civilians. One day about 4 years ago, they killed 3000 in a few minutes. This proves they're not just all talk, not just an imaginary threat.
They have operatives working inside of the US. When they get phone calls from places like Morocco, Algeria, Syria, well.... I'd like for our government to know what the f they're discussing.
This is not about Domestic->Domestic calls. Those will not be tapped (according to whats being discussed here anyways). This is about international calls (though that is barely discussed in the summary, likely for partisan reasons).
meh. whether its legal or not, every administration since the telephone was invented would be guilty of this to some degree, if it should even be considered a crime. I obviously don't think it should be considering where the world is at to day, but as always, ymmv.
Re:Death of a democracy (Score:5, Insightful)
To have third party look at the evidence and render a judgement on whether or not the "suspicion" is legally justifiable in the first place.
Otherwise the only difference between an "ordinary American citizen" and somone "the government is suspicious of" is the level of paranoia of the government, not any actual action on the part of the citizen.
KFG
Justification of ignoring FISA? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm all in favor of keeping an eye on the bad guys, but I can't help thinking that they're dodging the law because their evidence is so weak even FISA is calling BS on them.
Re:The question was loaded, and STILL... (Score:5, Insightful)
The only logical conclusion, now, is that the NYTimes are inaccurately reporting their own polls. Heck, they inaccurately report a lot of things, why not their own polls.
Not to mention, the poll questions do not reflect reality, or at least do not fully represent the actual usage of the wiretaps. The poll question should have been:
That would be more accurate, as the truth is that even according to the original NY Times article, this is what the wiretaps were used for. In seems that has graduated to "domestic wiretapping" for the NY Times, Clinto News Network (CNN), etc. It does not represent reality.
Party lines (Score:4, Insightful)
It seems pretty evident to me that there is a large percentage of individuals in the US population that no longer think for themselves. They simply know if they dislike Democrats or they dislike Republicans. On any given issue they will simply spout whatever garbage their side's talking heads have been saying on television or political radio. It's unfortunate because can't hardly have a rational conversation with most people about anything involving politics. I don't want to hear the opinions of Rush Limbaugh or Al Franken regurgitated to me. What do YOU think? It's a truly sad state of affairs.
Re:47%? (Score:4, Insightful)
If Bush made breathing illegal, you'd still have 45% of the people support it. People are lemmings.
Re:Death of a democracy (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh no, it's *much* worse than that. This is the stuff police states are *made* of. It doesn't invite a police state, it *creates* one. Yesterday it was terrorists. Today it's pornographers. Tomorrow it's you. That is, if they aren't already surveilling you because of the pornography, which they probably are.
And once it's you, then they'll be listening carefully to make sure you don't say anything anti-American, or better yet, something against the government. Because really, there's a *big* difference between being an enemy of the people, and an enemy of the government. Expose a corrupt government for what it is on the 6 o'clock news, and you're an enemy of the government but a hero to the people and the press.
Re:47%? (Score:2, Insightful)
The poll found that 53 percent of Americans approved of Mr. Bush's authorizing eavesdropping without prior court approval "in order to reduce the threat of terrorism"; 46 percent disapproved. When the question was asked stripped of any mention of terrorism, 46 percent of those respondents approved, and 50 percent said they disapproved.
Take terrorism out and the numbers shift. I wonder why? Does that mean americans care about fightining terrorists?
Also just because someone says "it's against the law" doesn't make it against the law. Right now as the President has said it is within the law - they research these things. Of course it is up to the courts to decide if it is or isn't. So wait for the hearing.
If it is declared legal watch this story quickly be forgotten...
"where I come from people are innocent until proven guilty"
That's exactly it (Score:4, Insightful)
There is no reason at all not to even go through FISA... unless they want to do something truly immoral and illegal.
This is a heads up to anyone paying attention that Bush's people are off the reservation, and are spying on peolpe other than terrorists - or that their definition of "terrorist" is becoming something that would surprise you.
And anyone who does not believe politicians (even their favorites) capable of doing something wrong when left unsupervised should have both their head (if you're that gullible, stay in your home where it's safe, and don't answer the door) and their American citizenship (we have a country where checks and balances are the law of the land, period), examined.
Re:47%? (Score:3, Insightful)
The president makes the laws. Therefore, anything he deems to be legal is legal.
Um...are you from America???
America is (was?) based upon the rule of law. The doctrine of "the King can do no wrong" was exactly why the Founding Fathers fought and died to found this country. The doctrine of "the King can do no wrong" is, coincedentally, exactly what the new King George hopes to secure as his God-given right through the doctrine of the 'unitary executive'.
Bush must be stopped. If not now, when? If not by us, by whom?
Re:got the karma to burn, so.... (Score:2, Insightful)
The big deal is that if the president can authorize torture, detainment of american citizens nullum habeas corpus, warrantless wiretapping of citizens, and torture by american troops, precisely where do his powers end?
The big deal is that the "just trust us" theory behind the current administration's national security policy is unethical, undemocratic, and unamerican.
it's not wiretapping (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't believe it's traditional wiretaps (Score:3, Insightful)
1. Congress gave us this power (which they didn't, sorry) when they approved going to war against Al Queada, and
2. If someone from Al Queada is calling, then we want to know about it - and quick!
However, as another poster pointed out, this latter argument falls apart under the FISA laws which state that you can start a wiretap as long as you go to the courts within 72 hours to get the subpeana. And even at that - it's a secret court! Nobody has to know save for a few people.
So, why not do it? I'm convinced it's because of 1 of 2 reasons:
1. They don't care to have people know at all because they don't think that they could get past any kind of judicial review,
2. They aren't doing specific wire taps, but are scanning and reviewing automatically any phone call from a foreign source.
A combination of the two is probably in effect. I'm willing to bet that their scanning every call coming in from either specific areas (such as Afganistan) and having the computer start checking it out, then alerting an NSA staff member if something sounds interesting (either through voice recognition or just checking the number - if it looks like one that's been used in the past or might have been used by a suspected terrorist, start tracking it).
Either way, it's rather troubling. It's not that I don't think that Bush & Co aren't serious about trying to stop terrorism - I think they're serious about it. The issue is that this kind of behavior is always rife for corruption. J. Edgar Hoover used it to stop "communists", but most of the time it was to keep his power base in check with blackmail and intimidation. Nixon tried to use his power to keep his powerbase by spying on the Democrats (aka - Watergate).
And we're suppose to believe that this power - unchecked and unregulated would only be used for good? What are the odds that someone won't be tempted to listen in on Christian Amanpour's recordings - after all, she talks to Afganistans and middle eastern people all the time, and just happen to listen to her husband's conversations about how to manage the Kerry campaign (or some other ranking Democrat).
Even if people say they won't, we know that absolute power corrupts. If they want to listen on phone calls, fine - they have a process for that to help keep corruption down. If they want to scan all incoming and outgoing calls from the US to other countries, that's fine as long as they get the laws passed to give them the power to do so and check unbalanced power.
Otherwise, the temptation to do something bad will be too much for some - it was too much for President Nixon whom, by all accounts, was a pretty good President. Remember, he thought he was doing the right thing by staying in office, and never dreamed that maybe - just maybe - he had taken his powers too far.
Of course, this is all just my opinion. I could be wrong.
Re:47%? (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is exactly as you said: people are brought up to not question authority. What he is trying to do is illegal, but nobody seems to be doing anything about it because they either think it is legal or it is at least justified by the situation (eg: Fightin' ter'ists!!1!)
As an aside, has anyone else noticed that the people who are most afraid of terrorism are the ones who live where there is the absolute lowest chance of being targeted?
=Smidge=
(Ter'ists ter'ists ter'ists 9/11 9/11 mission accomplished!)
Remember folks, (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:47%? (Score:1, Insightful)
Maybe someone can point out the origins of this: there was a poll in some newpaper asking whether Bush has united our country or divided it. The results were 49% for united and 49% for divided. Gotta love that one.
Garbage Poll (Score:3, Insightful)
And there you have the manipulation of statistics to prove a point. Had they ask the question "Do you approve of Mr. Bush's authorizing eavesdropping on terrorists without prior court approval" the numbers would have been even higher in favor of Bush.
Really, the liberal media needs to stop with the baby crap of calling Bush "Mr. Bush". He's the president, show some respect even if you don't agree with his policies and call him "President Bush". Also, for the love of god, stop calling Bill Clinton "President Clinton". It's former President Clinton, like you do for every other one.
Re:47%? (Score:5, Insightful)
Shudder.
Ya know, I guess this is why this country was set up as a Republic to begin with, because as I get older, its becoming readily apparent that the people don't always know what's best for them. Marketing of this "War on Terror" is done so well that people are readily willing to hand over their freedoms for an obviously flawed perception of additional security. Those who rally against this government abuse and overreaching Big Brother attitude are labeled as unpatriotic.
Shudder.
Re:Goering (Score:3, Insightful)
There is no use in multiplying examples. The point is that we are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield.
When one looks at the all-prevailing schizophrenia of democratic societies, the lies that have to be told for vote-catching purposes, the silence about major issues, the distortions of the press, it is tempting to believe that in totalitarian countries there is less humbug, more facing of the facts. There, at least, the ruling groups are not dependent on popular favour and can utter the truth crudely and brutally. Goering could say 'Guns before butter', while his democratic opposite numbers had to wrap the same sentiment up in hundreds of hypocritical words.
Actually, however, the avoidance of reality is much the same everywhere, and has much the same consequences. The Russian people were taught for years that they were better off than everybody else, and propaganda posters showed Russian families sitting down to abundant meal while the proletariat of other countries starved in the gutter. Meanwhile the workers in the western countries were so much better off than those of the U.S.S.R. that non-contact between Soviet citizens and outsiders had to be a guiding principle of policy. Then, as a result of the war, millions of ordinary Russians penetrated far into Europe, and when they return home the original avoidance of reality will inevitably be paid for in frictions of various kinds. The Germans and the Japanese lost the war quite largely because their rulers were unable to see facts which were plain to any dispassionate eye.
To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle. One thing that helps toward it is to keep a diary, or, at any rate, to keep some kind of record of one's opinions about important events. Otherwise, when some particularly absurd belief is exploded by events, one may simply forget that one ever held it. Political predictions are usually wrong. But even when one makes a correct one, to discover why one was right can be very illuminating. In general, one is only right when either wish or fear coincides with reality. If one recognizes this, one cannot, of course, get rid of one's subjective feelings, but one can to some extent insulate them from one's thinking and make predictions cold-bloodedly, by the book of arithmetic. In private life most people are fairly realistic. When one is making out one's weekly budget, two and two invariably make four. Politics, on the other hand, is a sort of sub-atomic or non-Euclidean word where it is quite easy for the part to be greater than the whole or for two objects to be in the same place simultaneously. Hence the contradictions and absurdities I have chronicled above, all finally traceable to a secret belief that one's political opinions, unlike the weekly budget, will not have to be tested against solid reality.
What happened to "Government = Evil"? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why are so many patriots so happy to violate the constitution? You can't burn a flag, but you can listen on my phone calls without due process? Why is everyone a constitutional scholar when it comes to guns or free speech, but starts whistling and looking uncomfortable when it's comes to due process?
Is the world some delicate and beautiful flower that will be crushed by our founding father's foolish "bill of rights?" Are times all that different?
Has everyone forgotten why we have these laws? We saw the consequences of not having them not that long ago. Most people who saw the civil rights movement and Watergate are still alive today. Collective amnesia?
What kind of patriot are you, if want the ten commandments in a courthouse, but not the constitution?
How do you not call yourself a hypocrite, when you impeach a man for lying about his affair, but not a man who admits to violate his oath of office, and the law of the land, and declares he will keep right on doing it?
FISA hardly ever said no. There's only one reason why they would want to hide their spying from FISA... "terrorists" now include their political enemies.
Re:CNN (Score:3, Insightful)
Good point after all, our canels(I forget which president started that system), our highways (Eisenhower), the panama canel, our flying capabilities(DOD), our space capabilities (NASA), our oil based Automobile(DOD supporting trucks), our nuclear power (DOD-DOE) were all developed by private enterprise and nothing came from the gov.
Even though I am a long-time libertarian, I will say that there are times where gov. make sense. One is to help push us off oil.
Re:Ordinary Americans? (Score:4, Insightful)
While the parent has been moderated up for making a funny statement (and it is), the statement also cuts to the deathly serious nature of what exactly is wrong with the NSA wiretapping program. Few people, myself included, debate that we need as much intel as possible to try and curb future terrorist attacks. I do not debate that there are times when expediency is needed, as provided for in the FISA. While there are surely plenty of persons surveilled with probably cause, who is to say that "ordinary Americans" couldn't be next, with or without probable cause?
Traditionally, the person to say is the judicial and, to a lesser extent, the legislative branches. But, without the judicial or congressional checks, which this administration has flouted, it the President (along with the attorney general, and others) who has decided. The framers of the constitution were fearful of that kind of unchecked power in the hands of the presidency. I for one am even more skeptical of this presidency.
President Nixon was forced into resignation for ordering, and subsequently attempting to cover-up, the break-in at the Watergate Hotel (among other abuses, such as bombing Cambodia). That, too, was in some ways a President using his powers to spy on his enemies (in this case, the DNC), and breaking the law to do so. In this case, the president has been given a lot of leeway because the enemies are terrorists - enemies of the state and people. However, I (and numerous legal scholars, and half of Congress to boot) suspect that the President has still broken the law in pursuit of these enemies.
If Nixon was forced into resignation (lest he be impeached), shouldn't this President at least be under more heat than he currently is receiving? I asking a genuine question: can someone explain to me why more Americans are not up in arms over this?
Re:47%? (Score:1, Insightful)
Wait for the hearing, my ass. Impeach this fucktard NOW and THEN we can file charges against him and have a hearing before the Supreme Court and not before (unless the ACLU case is sped up so we don't have to wait another two years and let this asshole completely destroy the country.)
In three to six months, the fucking Israelis are going to bomb Iran with US help and the biggest military disaster in the US history is going to assist the (currently limping) US economy to evaporate. You'll be paying $20/gallon at the pump due to this moron.
And for your fucking information, everybody on the planet except Bush and Gonzales has concluded he broke the law. If you listen to some Justice Department toady to come to your conclusions, you're an idiot.
As for Americans, they're too fucking stupid to know whether any of this shit is useful in "fighting terrorism" (which it isn't, as any two-year-old SHOULD be able to comprehend). All they can do is shit a brick when somebody waves the word "threat" on a flag and bow down to the nearest alpha male - which unfortunately happens to be the current dry-drunk, corrupt, Christian fanatic. Jesus Baron von Christ, Ayatollah Khamenei has more common sense than our dipshit!
This asshole is what the concept of impeachment was introduced FOR. Use it!
Re:got the karma to burn, so.... (Score:5, Insightful)
"I don't really understand what the big deal is.
[...]
This is not about Domestic->Domestic calls. Those will not be tapped (according to whats being discussed here anyways). This is about international calls (though that is barely discussed in the summary, likely for partisan reasons).
Without judicial oversite and checks and balances, you don't know this.
It's like the same doublespeak Bush used when he said a year ago that under the Patriot Act wiretaps require a court order ("In other words, the government can't move on wiretaps or roving wiretaps without getting a court order."), and how he says these wiretaps are different ("I was talking about roving wiretaps, I believe, involving the Patriot Act," he said. "This is different from the NSA program.")
It's the same doublespeak Clinton used when he said "I never had sex with that woman" and then was confronted with proof he got a blow job from Monica Lewinski -- i.e., Sex = sexual intercourse, not ORAL SEX.
The lawyers on all sides will stretch the truth and mix words to make you believe something that really isn't true.
Re:got the karma to burn, so.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Because you're framing the question incorrectly. You think it is about wiretapping.. it is not. It is about the executive branch bypassing the system of checks and balances.
We have a terrorist group, Al-Qaeda, which has repeatedly stated they want to kill lots and lots of american civilians. One day about 4 years ago, they killed 3000 in a few minutes. This proves they're not just all talk, not just an imaginary threat.
Absolutely. No argument. Also... not related to the discussion.
They have operatives working inside of the US. When they get phone calls from places like Morocco, Algeria, Syria, well.... I'd like for our government to know what the f they're discussing.
Me too. So would most of us. Still not related to the discussion.
This is not about Domestic->Domestic calls. Those will not be tapped (according to whats being discussed here anyways). This is about international calls (though that is barely discussed in the summary, likely for partisan reasons).
You have no idea if it is only Domestic->International calls. Since they bypassed the FISA court, nobody knows but them. The difference is that you, mostly for partisan reasons, trust them when they say the wiretaps weren't for Domestic->Domestic calls. And make no mistake, all you have is blind trust, because since they bypassed the FISA review process there is no way for us to tell for sure. You trust this administration implicitly, I do not. But let me ask you this, and please be honest in your answers.... would you implicitly trust a Democrat President in the same circumstances? Would you have trusted Clinton?
If a practice requires that we trust the government, without oversight, then we rely on it only working well if someone trustworthy is running the government. Regardless of what you think of George Bush... even if you think he is the most trustworthy President in history... he won't always be President. That's where you have to put your partisanship aside and think about whether you would be ok with a practice if it were being done by a President you don't trust.
meh. whether its legal or not, every administration since the telephone was invented would be guilty of this to some degree, if it should even be considered a crime.
"Everyone does it" is the weakest possible defense. Past Presidents breaking the law in no way excuses current Presidents breaking the law.
I obviously don't think it should be considering where the world is at to day, but as always, ymmv.
There is always a major threat to our way of life... where the "world is at today" is no scarier a place than when we all feared nuclear annihilation at the hands of the Soviets. There is always a threat.. there is always pressures that make some, like yourself (who don't have the insight to look at the bigger picture), willing to give up everything that actually makes us Americans.. makes us "this grand experiment".. just so you won't have to worry about the boogie-man anymore.
Freedom is more important than security . Some of our states have mottos like "Live Free or Die" and "Freedom First"... these aren't just hollow words. They speak to us today, if you'd only listen.
Our founding fathers said things like "Give me liberty or give me death" and "those that would sacrifice essential liberty for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both" (not exact quote, paraphrasing). Those aren't just lofty ideals... they are what makes America unique.
You're willing to let those ideals become empty slogans, just so you won't have to watch another terrorist attack like 9/11. The Osama bin Ladens of the world have already defeated you... you're cowering in fear and willing to let your country change in order to better "protect" you.... but they haven't defeated some of us yet.
One more... "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself." You have succumbed to the fear, my friend.
Re:47%? (Score:5, Insightful)
Shudder.
You know, we've disagreed on things before, but you and I see exactly eye-to-eye on this. It is truly frightening. And for more reasons than that... I've been thinking lately a lot about a Ben Franklin quote: [house.gov]
At the close of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia on September 18, 1787, a Mrs. Powel anxiously awaited the results, and as Benjamin Franklin emerged from the long task now finished, asked him directly: "Well Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?" "A republic if you can keep it" responded Franklin.
Sometimes, in my more cynical moments, I think Ben was really on to something there. I fear what he meant was that all Republics are, at best, a temporary construct. That a free Republic of Men can only, in the best case scenario, last a few hundred years at most, and provide that brief of security... before it must be 'refreshed'. I'm not sure if I agree that this is strictly true, but it makes you wonder.
Re:47%? (Score:5, Insightful)
Absolute power corrupts absolutely is a tried and true cliche...but sadly it also describes human nature pretty well.
Re:47%? (Score:4, Insightful)
For the record, the media's term "domestic wiretapping" is a democratic talking point. Your phone was not being tapped when you called from Ohio to Wisconsin to wish your grandmother a happy birthday.
On the flip side, the president's use of "terrorist surveillance program" is a little off, too... surely the net was cast wide enough to catch innocent people, as well.
So as usual, the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle - it wasn't exactly "domestic" spying, as they were targetting calls to and from suspected terrorists in other countries, but they probably did catch a few calls wishing gradma a happy birthday when those calls were in or around suspected terrorist areas.
But, from what I hear, the specific numbers targetted were to and from terrorist's cell phones found in caves in Afganistan and the numbers that they had stored in them. Is that really so bad?
Loaded Poll Questions. (Score:3, Insightful)
[ ] Yes
[ ] No
Me personally, I would check Yes. Now if the poll was:
Do you approve of wire taps on US citizens inside the US with no oversight outside of the Executive branch of government?
[ ] Yes
[ ] No
I would check, circle, draw arrows to, highlight and in all possible ways indicate No.
Using the FISA court to issue warrents and have at least SOME level of oversight is important to me. Mind you, this time last year the ACLU was pitching a loaf over the "secret court" and lack of oversight.
-Rick
Re:47%? (Score:4, Insightful)
Cut the BS about using a friggin BILLING classification to justify illegal wiretapping. If only foreign nationals are on the call you've got a marginal case. If a US Citizen is on the call, you simply can't monitor it without a court order no matter what Dubya is trying to say. Congress spoke very clearly on this with the FISA legislation after the last time we had a president taking 'liberties' with Americans liberties.
Liar (Score:2, Insightful)
"And for your fucking information, everybody on the planet except Bush and Gonzales has concluded he broke the law."
That's a lie.
"The analysis, by the Congressional Research Service, a nonpartisan research arm of Congress, was the first official assessment of a question that has gripped Washington for three weeks: Did Bush act within the law when he ordered the National Security Agency, the country's most secretive spy agency, to eavesdrop on some Americans?
The report reached no bottom-line conclusions on whether the program was legal, in part because it said so many details of the operation remained classified."
See that? The situation has many unknowns that require a thorough investigation.
I love how assholes like you screech about "BROKE TEH LAW!!!!" while completely ignoring due process and making idiotic proclamations of guilt.
Apparently you are so serious about enforcing the law that you're willing to ignore it to hang Bush.
Re:Goering (Score:2, Insightful)
I wouldn't rely on Goering as an authority about what is possible or not in a democracy. It's like when a tobacco executive says "Well there are all sorts of things that can give you cancer. Heck you can get cancer from wheat germ, right?" If it was so simple to get people to simply "go along" in a democracy, the why did the Nazis feel the need to opt out of theirs? Also why wasn't the US at war with Germany in 1940? Had it been left to Roosevelt, he certainly would have just dragged everyone along.
Re:47%? (Score:2, Insightful)
from what you hear . From whom are you hearing this? From the administration...
A. They have never lied to us before
B. George Bush is a good Christian man who would never mislead us.
C. The thought of our government lying to us is unfathomable.
From what you hear!?!?
Giving me a fucking break... what you hear on Fox News, or on Limbaugh's show, or in a Presidential news conference... is not good enough.
He has 72 hours after the fact to get the warrant from FISA and assure the country that everything is on the up and up. There is no justifiable reason to bypass FISA unless the calls were NOT of the nature that you heard.
Re:What happened to "Government = Evil"? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:47%? (Score:5, Insightful)
Liberty isn't about doing illegal things and getting away with it. Liberty is about having basic rights that are rights for a reason, not just because they sound cool or are golly gee fun to have. Liberty is about people who obey the law not being harassed or investigated for a stupid reason or no reason at all. Finally liberty is about protecting us from people who would subvert the power of government, whether you believe that person is Bush or someone taking office in 3 years who would use the power Bush staked out for their own ends.
Re:47%? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:47%? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:hmm-clues are needed; time to get out the Clue (Score:4, Insightful)
Congress cannot make any law which supersedes the Constitution. They have, and SCOTUS has upheld them, but in reality every single one of them is illegal.
The quoted question ignores the FISC totally! (Score:3, Insightful)
That Americans are not more generally outranged by this program calls to mind a relevant Ben Franklin quote during the 1787 Constitutional Convention:
Re:47%? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:47%? (Score:2, Insightful)
"where I come from people are innocent until proven guilty"
And where I come from the United States Constitution protects the people from the Government.
Re:47%? (Score:4, Insightful)
All I'm saying is you do not have enough evidence of wrongdoing. I'm not saying "don't impeach him", I'm saying that, until all the details come out, you have no evidence. Why do you think they haven't already tried impeachment? Because there's no evidence. If and when evidence shows up, I'll be behind you 100%
Now, as far as this particular article is concerned, it bothers me so many support warrantless domestic wiretaps. I can't agree with that; I'm just arguing that what the current kerfufle is all about may not even be "domestic" wiretaps.
I'm arguing that Bush could skip down the street handing out candy to children, and you'd be mad him for it, you'd find something in it to complain about. When you have a valid complaint, I'll agree with you. I don't like Bush, I'm not a republican, and I think there's a lot to complain about - but until someone has EVIDENCE of law breaking, I don't think you should just jump on the impeachment bandwagon.
Re:got the karma to burn, so.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Um
Re:47%? (Score:2, Insightful)
different == terrorist (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:47%? (Score:4, Insightful)
EXACTLY!
Which is why the FISA court is set up... so that another party can review the reasons for the wiretapping and determine if they're kosher or not.
I don't know if the wiretaps were on domestic->international calls or domestic->domestic calls. That's the whole freaking point! You don't either... and the reason neither of us knows is because Bush bypassed FISA!
Get it now? As one of your favorite Presidents (I'm sure) once said, "Trust, but verify". (Reagan, BTW).
All I'm saying is you do not have enough evidence of wrongdoing.
I have evidence of the President bypassing the FISA court and wiretapping without a warrant. My evidence of that is that the administration admitted it. He authorized wiretapping without FISA oversight... he admitted violating the 4th Amendment.
I'm not saying "don't impeach him", I'm saying that, until all the details come out, you have no evidence. Why do you think they haven't already tried impeachment? Because there's no evidence.
They "haven't tried impeachement" because impeachment starts in the House of Representatives and is tried in the Senate. Both bodies of congress are controlled by the Republican party. If there were a Democratically-controlled House, we would be immersed in the impeachment proceedings already.
If and when evidence shows up, I'll be behind you 100%
No.. I bet you won't. You have blind loyalty to the word of this President. The only evidence (of the nature of the wiretapping) you have is the word of this administration.. and you're going with that. You believe in him. I don't. What we need is a .. I don't know... unbiased third party to determine if he's telling the truth about the nature of the wiretapping. Hmmm... FISA court is such a party.. why don't we try them?
oh yeah....
I'm arguing that Bush could skip down the street handing out candy to children, and you'd be mad him for it, you'd find something in it to complain about.
But in Bush's case, he'd be handing out the candy and charging it to me and you (a la Medicare reform). Or worse yet.. he'd be running up the deficit to do it so those kids would end up paying for the candy themselves someday... with interest. ;-)
Re:47%? (Score:1, Insightful)
So you've got a President flat out ignoring the FISA law passed by Congress, but at least telling a few people what he's doing. Where's the check that he's actually telling them the TRUTH or the ENTIRE TRUTH? or do we just 'trust' him because he's the President? Sorry, he lost that privilege right about...oh wait, we don't just trust, we have laws that must be followed. If not we try people for the crimes.
Probable Cause (Score:2, Insightful)
I support wiretapping terrorists! (Score:3, Insightful)
Even if you trust this president, the unfettered and unchecked power for warrantless wiretaps is the first step towards a dictatorship. Even if Bush doesn't abuse the power, who's to say the next guy, or the guy after him, will show the same restraint? Our founding fathers codified this in the fourth ammendment because they realized the danger such power posed to democracy.
Does the fourth ammendment make life for law enforcement a little harder? Probably. But so does the entire bill of rights. If the war against terrorism trumpts the fourth ammendment, I don't see why it wouldn't also trump, say, the right to bear arms. Once again, even if warrantless wiretapping might be undertaken with the best of intentions, it's also the first step on the road to dictatorship.
Re:47%? (Score:3, Insightful)
That don't make it legal.
"If somebody in Cleveland calls"
And that's all that matters. Cleveland is a part of the State of Ohio, which was accepted into the Union in 1803. All persons born in or naturalized by the United States are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside and are entitled to all privileges and immunities of United States citizens, such as those covered in the Fourth Amendment.
Re:47%? (Score:3, Insightful)
For example, if you asked Should the government have the absolute right to listen in on calls being made by known al queda members to people in the united states>
you would get a totally different answer than if you asked
Should the government be able to listen it to calls being made by anyone remotely suspected of being a terrorist?
As far as the wiretapping goes, I don't feel qualified to offer an opinion without knowing all the details of the program. Without all the details, any opinion is speculation and conjecture.
Re:Please stop... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:47%? (Score:3, Insightful)
The President also said that Iraq had vast quantities of WMDs, and that they knew exactly where they were hidden and it was just a matter of going in and getting them.
So you'll pardon me if I take the President's word with a little bit of salt.
"where I come from people are innocent until proven guilty"
I agree. Bush deserves a fair trial.
Re:47%? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:47%? (Score:3, Insightful)
That does not make the President exempt from those laws. He is still liable for prosecution. As well he should be.
Re:Please stop... (Score:1, Insightful)
Those of us on the other side of the issue care about this for the same reason anyone would care about a neighboring country building up an enormous army. As much as they claim it's only for defense, and that they'll never use it against your country, you have to be suspicious. When they start invading other countries, even if they justify it with sweet words, moral obligations, and claiming that they were invaded first, you get very very nervous. It's not necessarily because you think they're evil, or that they're necessarily even wrong (after all, who's to say that at least some of those countries didn't actually attack first?), but because they've shown that they don't mind using their newfound power for their own ends. Regardless of their original intentions, you start wondering whether something your country had considered normal practice before might be considered aggressive by the new military power. Besides, the argument that they aren't necessarily just being aggressive gets less and less convincing as time goes on and their behavior doesn't change. It creates fear.
In all likelihood, the administration believed it had good reasons for doing what it did. They usually do, and often what they try to do isn't all that different from something that would be a good idea. The problem in this case is that the administration's new army of wiretapping has NO OVERSIGHT. It is accountable to no one other than the a select few administration officials, and realistically they are both too busy to look into all of the details and not inclined to believe that mistakes might have been made. Here I'm talking about honest mistakes, like the nightmarish story (not really quite on the same issue as this, but related) of the guy who was picked up and held in prison without legal recourse because his name happened to be the same as a terrorist's. Those are bad enough; what happens when inevitably the people doing the hiring make a mistake and put someone who will abuse his power into a position with so little accountability?
The idea that I shouldn't be upset because my own rights have not been actively violated, while logically sound, is in reality a disaster. Sure, the dog seems to be rabid and has blood on its paws and face, but that doesn't mean it'll attack ME.
Re:47%? (Score:3, Insightful)
No, by "leaked" he meant "anonymous sources at the NSA told the press about it because they thought it was unconstitutional [foxnews.com]". Bush only started talking about it after the cat was already out of the bag, and his first response was to start an investigation to find and punish the leakers. The speeches he gave after that were just damage control, trying to convince gullible people like yourself that he has nothing to hide.
The government is listening to conversations across international borders when they have reason to believe that crimes are being planned. This is not prohibited anywhere in the Constitution.
Better re-read the 4th amendment again. The government needs to get a warrant. What is so hard about that?
Clue: The Constitution was written before phones existed
Are you serious? Do you really think the constitution doesn't apply to anything invented after it was written? A right to privacy is a right to privacy, no matter what communications technologies are in use.
Home of the brave? (Score:3, Insightful)
I think that once we allow ourselves to be stripped of a constitutional liberty we're on a slippery slope. Maybe today we're only trying to justify the removal of unreasonable search and seizure. However who's to say that in the future we won't be trying to justify the removal of the right to bear arms or the right to free speech. If we as a country are not strong and brave enough to face the threat of terror without giving up our constitutional rights to do so, then how can we clothe ourselves in the vestiges of patriotism that were borne from those very rights? I used to like to think that I lived in "The land of the free and the home of the brave"; however it's looking more and more like we'd rather live in the land of the secure, and the home of the pragmatic. I don't see how we can possibly consider ourselves brave if we're willing to simply give away our freedoms.
Re:Why Would He Dodge The Court? (Score:3, Insightful)
Just because a wiretap doesn't yield the information you were looking for does not excuse you from obtaining permission (a warrant) to execute said wiretap.
The fact that you think it does illustrates just how confused you are on this issue.
Re:What happened to "Government = Evil"? (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course not. Have you been hibernating while "tax and spend liberal" became the watchwords of the right? Do you deny that reducing government, due to distrust for it fulfil its basic duties, is a central tenet of Conservatism?
Do you think it matters to the argument if some of their politicians don't follow their own supposed guiding principles? My point is, those principles are well articulated, and are totally contradictory and hypocritical.
Does it bother you when a party spends years propagandizing with some concept, and then when they change their minds, wish everyone to pretend that they had never been so inconveniently inconsistent?
Conservatives neither support free speech, nor oppose gun control.
This is kind of my point, actually. Conservatives support free speech when Clear Channel or Fox News are threatened with things like the Fairness Doctrine, but are against it when nipples slip out.
Americans probably take a rather balanced view on the matter of gun control. But in the political dialectic in the USA, Conservatives take the role of liberalizing gun laws as opposed to Liberals, who take the role of strengthening them. This is why, for instance, Bush's DOJ produced a document explicitly claiming that the 2nd Amendment protects an individual's right to bear arms, a highly contentious and even "novel" position (though one that I agree with personally).
During this dialectic while defending gun ownership or the right of Rupert Murdoch to propagandize on TV, a Conservative will consider themselves to be some kind of haughty Constitutional scholar, while 5 minutes later they will pick up the paper, discover that the 4th Amendment has evaporated, and smile and nod, as if it all makes sense.
They have been fooled into thinking that taking instructions from the talking box is the same as actually understanding what it is to understand the Constitution. Or for that matter, understanding what it means to be an American, or to respect or defend our freedom, or meet their responsibilities as a citizen.
The people who oppose censorship, gun control, the warfare state, etc., are libertarians. They often get called "right wing" by the left, but they also get called "Communists" or "left wing" by the right.
I'm not a Leftist, which is a mistake a lot of people from the Right make. But I'll add that Conservatism as a movement attempts heartily to appeal to highly contradictory groups, and has in a large part succeeded in doing so for many years despite the apparent necessity of collision. Libertarians get to pretend the government will shrink, while Fundamentalists get to pretend their church can take over the government, and everybody votes for Bush. For some reason neither worries much about the other. It does seem rather bizarre, I admit. But it is counter-productive to distract from the Contradictions in the Conservative platform by pointing out the rather obvious fact that politicians don't follow their own codes. This is about what many Conservatives, regardless of their background or where they come to it from, actually believe - not about what they get for it.
Re:47%? (Score:2, Insightful)
To nitpick, the rights outlined in the Constitution (which includes the Bill of Rights) are not the sum total of our rights as US citizens. The Bill of Rights is merely a top 10 list of the rights the founding fathers felt were really really important. In theory, we the people have all rights not denied us by Constitutionally granted powers. That is, the Constitution is supposed to define exactly what powers the Federal gov't has to intrude on us; in everything else, we the people have the right to be free from Federal inteference. So saying something doesn't deny a right outlined in the Constitution is not quite the same as saying that it doesn't deny any of our rights.
Of course, in practice, we the people have (or will eventually have) only those rights that we insist upon.
Re:More Obfustication (Score:2, Insightful)
Also, what do you think the Attorney General is going to say? "We've been intercepting calls from people who we thought may have something to do with al Qaeda, but some of them actually have no relation to the group." Sure. Who exactly determines if there is a "reasonable basis to conclude" if someone is involved with al Qaeda?
The problem here is that there is no oversight to the program: no checks and balances. The way it's set up it can easily spiral out of control and run amuk over the 4th Amendment and the rights of innocent Americans.
Blindly obedient much?
Re:What happened to "Government = Evil"? (Score:4, Insightful)
This begs another question: Why is it that so many liberals are willing to completely and lovingly give up their own and others immediate right to enjoy their rights of property (taxes), but fly off the handle when there is any kind of perception of obscure rights-trampling, even in time of war?
I think your question shows your inability to really look at what conservatives think. People often chalk it up to ignorance, stupidity, or even evil, when that's not the case. In your example, you berade the conservatives for mistrusting the government in one way, but not another, when you mistrust the government in one way, but not another. The conservatives want their rights respected (right of property), but are allowing the government to disrespect the rights of suspected terrorists (right to due process). Allow me to assume you are a liberal. The liberal view would be to disrespect the rights of the conservatives to their property while respecting the rights of the suspected terrorists to due process. You would trample (by degrees) the rights of all to their property, while protecting the rights of some (the suspected terrorists) to their due process.
I have purposefully misrepresented the issue a little bit (I apologize if I went too far, but if I did, so did you), but I hope I made my point: niether you nor the conservatives are interested in the rights of ALL. Your post simply shows that by your own standards (respecting rights), you are as guilty as those you oppose.
Now, to answer your question: Seriously, why is it that so many conservatives don't trust that stupid, evil, wasteful government to run a social program (just give me my taxes back!), but trust them completely and lovingly to tap your phone or imprison you without trial?
Perhaps it is because they see excessive taxation as a direct, constant infringement of their right to property (and the liberty that comes with it), while they see the infringement of the rights of a few (the suspected terrorists) as a necessary sacrifice to ensure the right to life of the citizens of the US.
Another thing that goes along with this: those who support the illegal wiretapping don't think that it will come back to bite them.
Re:47%? (Score:2, Insightful)
Terrorist? What terrorist? The Bush administration held him for 3 years and the best they could trump up on him was "conspiracy to kidnap, maim, and murder in a foreign country". A far cry from what the administration told the press about his plans to set off nuclear bombs in US cities. Terrorism is a bullshit excuse for what the administration has done to a citizen. McVeigh actually set off a bomb and killed people and he got his day in court as called for by the fifth amendment.
the constitution talks about freedoms
It talks about both freedoms of and freedoms from. It specifically mentions that I have the freedom from the government doing what it did to Padilla. If Bush doesn't like it, he can put his party's balls on the line, step up, and announce that he's officially suspending Habeus Corpus (for once, an actually recognized war power). Even Abraham Lincoln had the balls to do that.
It also specifically says that any power not mentioned in the Constitution is specifically denied to the federal government. That includes the power of congress to grant new powers to the President without following the amendment process. In the case of the wiretaps, Bush specifically has the power to defend us, except for the limits placed on him by the fourth amendment: that the government specifically obtains warrants when wiretapping a citizen of the united states. FISA made it easier by allowing them to wiretap first, warrant later, however Bush has decided that the FISA court that he packed with his best buddies after the USA PATRIOT act expanded it is just in the way. Nowhere in the constitution does it give the president the power to ignore the rules placed by Congress, and he has no power to ignore the fourth amendment.
now all lines are probably dead.
Then we won. We successfully shattered the communication lines for all the terrorist cells in the US, they will no longer be able to coordinate attacks and have a serious damper put on their fundraising and recruiting capabilities. Oh wait, there's a billion other ways to communicate, and guess what, the NSA knows about them too. Most likely, any terrorists assumed that they were already being tapped, otherwise their stupidity would have taken themselves out years ago.
uphold the constitution
So would you say that what the Bush administration is doing is like fucking for virginity or fighting for peace?
Re:What happened to "Government = Evil"? (Score:3, Insightful)
A fair enough question.
The answer is, the last several hundred years.
You see, the reason taxes and other forms of collective enterprise and wealth redistribution were written into the constitution, but searches without a warrant and imprisonment without trial were not, is that human beings were basically fucking miserable living in the kind of world Libertarians want to go back to.
I do notice your language seems a little more Libertarian than Conservative. Conservatives want taxes every bit as much as Liberals do. They just want different amounts, and they have different priorities. Missile shields, for instance, or religious education.
I don't want to dismiss this point too casually - you seem like a smart guy and I would certainly enjoy indulging you in a discussion of the finer points of this. But let's not get bogged down just yet.
but fly off the handle when there is any kind of perception of obscure rights-trampling, even in time of war?
So I take it, demanding we obey the constitution is... flying off the handle?
Presidents breaking their oath of office and breaking black-letter law to spy on Americans... "obscure" rights trampling?
You have quite a patriotic gift for language, I must say.
Let me put it this way. You appear to believe the fallacy that you can break these fundamental parts of the law "just for terrorists."
That's absurd, it's juvenile, and frankly, I sense from your genearlly intelligent response that it's beneath you to suggest it.
The worst part is, you know at the outset that you are wrong. If a president wanted to spy on terrorists, then he should have no problem getting it cleared with FISA. He didn't, and you know perfectly well why.
Anyone who has read any history, let alone American history, knows why. Unchecked power is always abused. It's like gravity or the weather. It has always been that way, and it will always be that way.
And this is why it is especially painful to hear Conservatives (who speak about it so much I'd suggest anyone can understand it by now) be so distrustful of the government to run an elementary school, something they did for years, and notably well at one time, but with arm extended in salute, loyally surrender their rights to the FBI, which consistently abused its power for years, getting involved in politics and crime from days gone by, rather notoriously up to the civil rights movement, to Watergate to the day we passed the laws Bush is breaking, and ended it.
Ended it until now, that is.
In your example, you berade the conservatives for mistrusting the government in one way, but not another, when you mistrust the government in one way, but not another.
But this is exactly wrong. I mistrust the government both ways, and you do not.
I am very much skeptical of the government's abilities no matter what it is trying to do. I understand its limitations very well - something your labelling me as "Liberal" seems designed to confuse and obscure. I have no boundless trust in its abilities and desire it to considerably smaller than it is, perhaps almost as small as you do. I am realistic about it, though. You need it, it's important.
This is why I am a firm believer in transparency, checks and balances such as a strong and independent judiciary, a well-educated electorate, a free press... you know, the Bill of Rights. American sorts of things.
Unlike Bush, and do I gather, unlike you?
You would trample (by degrees) the rights of all to their property, while protecting the rights of some (the suspected terrorists) to their due process.
Here I really must congratulate you. You've demonstrated an excellent grasp of Karl Rove's basic theory of American politics.
a) make all opposition Liberals, who are presumably all the same
Re:47%? (Score:2, Insightful)
OK, look. For some reason you seem to believe that despite years of lies about WMDs and being conservative, Bush is some kind of divine savior who would never do any wrong, and thats where we diverge. He offers no proof that the NSA is obeying the law, and by refusing to require the NSA to follow through with the warrant process, he is refusing to execute the part of the law that would prove that the NSA is not doing anything unlawful. He has done nothing his entire career to engender in me the kind of trust that you have placed in him.
Re:What happened to "Government = Evil"? (Score:3, Insightful)
So let me set the record straight:
I think President Bush should uphold the law. Even the ones that make his job a little more difficult.
I am proud to pay taxes.
I could also do with a little less pride.
Rereading my post, I did sound Libertarian, didn't I? No, I don't know that you can call me that. I find it harder every day to find a political idealogy that I can subscribe to. Again, I was trying to sound extreme, as I thought you were doing.
"This is why I am a firm believer in transparency, checks and balances such as a strong and independent judiciary, a well-educated electorate, a free press... you know, the Bill of Rights. American sorts of things."
I also want transparency, etc. "Here I really must congratulate you. You've demonstrated an excellent grasp of Karl Rove's basic theory of American politics. a) make all opposition Liberals, who are presumably all the same, and presumably all wish for a Sharpton/Clinton ticket in 2008 b) make all Liberals the friends and protectors of terrorists."
Doesn't it look like you are doing the same thing? You seem to think that all opposition to your idea are Conservatives or Libertarians, presumably supporting all that Bush and Cheney do, and making all Conservatives and Libertarians the enemies of our constitutional liberties.
To be fair, I think this country is becoming more and more polarized into those camps. That which you call Karl Rove's theory is becoming true, as far as I can see. Hopefully it is a long way off.