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| 25 new of 404 responses total. |
ogre666
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response 17 of 404:
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Dec 28 12:41 UTC 2005 |
Can't we all just get along?
Also I think I'm being wiretapped at home, any suggestions?
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tod
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response 18 of 404:
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Dec 28 12:55 UTC 2005 |
Enjoy it! Not everyone gets the luxury of a captive audience.
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rcurl
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response 19 of 404:
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Dec 28 15:15 UTC 2005 |
Legal counsel for accused terrorists are now pursuing claims against NSA
for unwarranted wiretaps. The illegal use of such wiretapping will likely
result in the dropping of charges against the accused! How stupid could
Bush be?
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richard
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response 20 of 404:
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Dec 28 15:16 UTC 2005 |
klg said:
"No. Federal courtS, including the FISA court, have ruled that the
President has authority to order warrantless wiretaps in the
performance of his constitutionally-mandated duties. (That is despite
Richard's Rantings.)"
That is not true. klg is lying. The FISA court would never rule that
the President could bypass its authority. That would be tantamount to
the FISA court saying it has no reason to exist. That would be like
Congress giving the authority to make laws without them being
involved.
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richard
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response 21 of 404:
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Dec 28 15:29 UTC 2005 |
re #19 true, and klg doesn't even CARE that some or many of the accused
could end up getting released because they have been arrested or
evidence gathered via illegal wiretaps. klg just doesn't care, becuase
if Bush did this, it MUST be right. Because Bush is his king and he
worships him.
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richard
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response 22 of 404:
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Dec 28 15:43 UTC 2005 |
ACLU calls for action. This could get uglier than Watergate before its
all over. Bush can't just decide which laws apply to him and which
don't:
WASHINGTON - In a formal request to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales,
the American Civil Liberties Union today called for the immediate
appointment of an outside special counsel to investigate and prosecute
any criminal acts and violations of laws as a result of the National
Security Agency s surveillance of domestic targets as authorized by
President Bush.
"President Bush s disregard and disrespect for the Constitution are
evident, but in America, we are all bound by the rule of law," said
Anthony D. Romero, ACLU Executive Director. "The president took an oath
to preserve, protect and defend the constitution of the United
States. He cannot use a claim of seeking to preserve our nation to
undermine the rules that serve as our foundation. The Attorney General,
who may have been involved with the formulation of this policy, must
appoint an outside special counsel to let justice be served."
In its letter, the ACLU called on the Attorney General to "appoint an
outside special counsel with the independence to investigate and
prosecute any and all criminal acts committed by any member of the
Executive Branch in the warrantless electronic surveillance of people
in the United States over the past four years by the NSA," noting
that, "such crimes are serious felonies and they need to be fully and
independently investigated."
An outside special counsel is the only way to ensure that all those who
authorized the warrantless electronic surveillance, or engaged in this
electronic interception or monitoring, are held accountable for
committing serious violations of the law. The Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act of 1978 states that electronic surveillance is only
permissible following "a search warrant or court order." The statements
of the president and other officials make it clear that domestic
surveillance, without court approval or review, has occurred and will
continue to occur.
The ACLU also rejected the White House position that the "Authorization
for Use of Military Force" resolutions passed by Congress granted the
president the broad authority to circumvent the Fourth Amendment. As
then-White House Counsel, Attorney General Gonzales may have, along
with other legal advisors to the president, offered interpretations of
the law to encourage the president to authorize the NSA to engage in
domestic surveillance. His possible involvement only further
underscores the need for an independent investigation.
Additionally, the ACLU noted warrantless domestic surveillance was
unnecessary, as well as illegal. FISA already contains a provision to
permit the government to retroactively apply for a wiretap order in
cases of emergencies. The government had legal means at its disposal to
engage in the very surveillance it conducted through the NSA,
procedures that had some judicial oversight and review.
There have already been some calls from Congress that the legality of
the president s actions must be examined. Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA),
chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has committed to conduct
oversight hearings on the NSA's actions. However, no other
Congressional committees, particularly the Intelligence committees,
have committed to conducting inquiries or oversight hearings into the
matter.
The ACLU s call for an independent special counsel follows its
expedited records request on Tuesday, under the Freedom of Information
Act, to the NSA, the Department of Justice and the Central Intelligence
Agency for information about the NSA's program of warrantless spying on
Americans.
"The president cannot use the pursuit of national security as a carte
blanche to undermine the very freedoms that define America," said
Caroline Fredrickson, Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative
Office. "This administration - like that of President Nixon - has
apparently secretly adopted a legal view of the Executive Branch s
power that is unbounded. A commitment to the Constitution and our laws
demand an independent investigation."
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marcvh
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response 23 of 404:
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Dec 28 16:43 UTC 2005 |
klg is, as usual, using half-truths. It is true that the president can,
in some limited circumstances, order wiretaps without a warrant, and
that federal courts have interpreted the law this way (despite klg's
strange belief that they lack the authority to do so.) It also appears
to be true that many of the wiretaps ordered by the administration
exceeded these limited circumstances.
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tod
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response 24 of 404:
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Dec 28 16:52 UTC 2005 |
Kwame Kilpatrick driving the Excursion seems kinda tame when you compare
it to 30 re-initiations of the wiretapping.
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jep
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response 25 of 404:
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Dec 28 18:23 UTC 2005 |
Gosh it pains me to agree with anything said by the ACLU. But I pretty
much agree with what richard posted in resp:22.
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happyboy
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response 26 of 404:
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Dec 28 18:49 UTC 2005 |
klg is ironing his brown shirt. lookout.
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khamsun
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response 27 of 404:
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Dec 28 18:53 UTC 2005 |
Re #4:
> The country has been invaded.
??? the evening of Xmas, while americans were around their trees, evil
communists did cross over the Bering and (re-)took Alaska by surprise?
Anyways, while people chat so much about Emperor Dubya being this or that,
I still am very amazed by that NSA/wiretapping/... thing.
Down to the facts:
--> evildoers are aliens, out there somewhere
--> in the outside universe, out there, people do not speak english, excepted
Tony Blair, aussie John Howard, and few frozen Canadians, who are to be
considered as belonging more or less to the Empire (excepted funny french
speaking quebeckers) and then are friendly and nice to Dubya
--> so, the threat doesn't speak english
--> does NSA &co. employ enough linguists to catch what evildoers are talking
about?
The government is wiretapping noise in fact?
Say few young educated neo-islamists of french citizenship do travel to the
US, which is no problem, does the "intelligence" expect they will discuss
their plot in a transparent manner over their cell phones, in clear english?
If the guys are using suburban french slang together, very few linguists could
be able to understand, even native frenchies.Keep in mind that linguists
working at NSA must be american citizens and pass strong security clearance
inquiries...
cojones!
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tod
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response 28 of 404:
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Dec 28 19:02 UTC 2005 |
Keep in mind that linguists
working at NSA must be american citizens and pass strong security clearance
inquiries...
That doesn't stop the NSA from passing scripts to other agencies for
translation.
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richard
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response 29 of 404:
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Dec 28 19:34 UTC 2005 |
See here's the thing, the far right wing christian right has never
really liked democracy. They want the government to be an extension of
their religion, and christianity is not a democracy. It is a
monarchy. So those on the far right not only have no problem with the
executive branch usurping the powers of the judicial and legislative
branches, they expect and want that to happen. A democracy, in their
minds, can only exist to allow equal voice to representations of faiths
and beliefs other than their own. If you believe there is only one
voice, you only want to follow the person who is best designated to
follow that voice.
klg is a monarchist. he has no use for athiest judges or liberal
lawmakers. Just give him "god" and a King/President who leads the
congregation.
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khamsun
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response 30 of 404:
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Dec 28 19:37 UTC 2005 |
Re #28:
yep tod, of course.
Which switch into another array of possible problems.
But then why so much ado about home-wiretapping?
I feel that if it's really being implemented, it's a waste of big $$$.
Just not efficient, inadequate tool for the task.
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jep
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response 31 of 404:
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Dec 28 19:53 UTC 2005 |
re resp:29: Some time in your life, at some point, I bet you came
across actual evidence for that wild point of view. Care to share
anything of it with the rest of us? Or just your conclusions?
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tod
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response 32 of 404:
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Dec 28 19:54 UTC 2005 |
re #30
Home...business...campaign financial centers...who knows?
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richard
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response 33 of 404:
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Dec 28 20:10 UTC 2005 |
re #31 what is "wild" about that point of view? There are in fact some
people who cannot and will not separate their political philosophies
from their religious philosophies. So to them, if their religious
beliefs are for one "god" and one set of beliefs, you are pre-
conditioned to follow the lead of the few, or the one, not the many.
Democracy is accepting different, multiple, leaders. It is following
the lead of the many. For some of the christian far right, what they
want is an all powerful executive branch with a President who is an
evangelical born again right winger who will follow the DIVINE laws of
the church in all ways. They don't want more than one lawmaker anymore
than they want one god.
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tod
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response 34 of 404:
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Dec 28 20:23 UTC 2005 |
re #31
I see it pretty often among people that think they're among WASPs so they feel
comfortable complaining about all the political correctness that offends them:
"Why don't they speak OUR language?" "This country was founded by Christians
so love it or leave it" "May G-d Bless America"
Nothing takes the fizz out of soda pop in a conversation quicker than
giving the opposing viewpoint to some good ol boy that thinks the bible
was written in English and John Wayne was a war hero.
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happyboy
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response 35 of 404:
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Dec 28 20:30 UTC 2005 |
those very same wasps wouldn't recognise franklin's or
jefferson's *christianity*, i'll betcha.
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gull
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response 36 of 404:
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Dec 28 20:53 UTC 2005 |
Re resp:3: What is there to say about a party that spent more time
listening to sworn testimony about Clinton's Christmas card list than
about Abu Ghraib? The simple fact is they will look the other way at
anything Bush does. If Clinton had been accused of domestic spying,
the walls of the Capitol would have been shaken by the sheer force of
Republican outrage. In fact, that's exactly what will happen if a
Democratic President ever tries to use the expanded executive
privileges Bush and Cheney have been trying to carve out for
themselves.
Re resp:33: I disagree. I think they're fine with democracy as long as
God-fearing Christians hold all the levers of power. If you'll allow
me a little constructive criticism, richard -- I think you often damage
your own arguments by overstating them.
I noticed today that some right-wing commentators are trying to weasel
out of this one with semantics. Now, apparently, what Bush did wasn't
"wiretapping," it was "data mining."
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twenex
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response 37 of 404:
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Dec 28 20:56 UTC 2005 |
The question is, how democratic is a system in which "God-fearing" Christians
hold all the levers of power, if the country where it applies isn't composed
solely of GFC's?
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gull
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response 38 of 404:
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Dec 28 21:01 UTC 2005 |
It's a moot point, since there's very little chance things will ever
actually end up that way.
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marcvh
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response 39 of 404:
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Dec 28 21:03 UTC 2005 |
Well, 75% (roughly) of the population is Christian, but I'm not sure how
to measure the percentage of them who are "God fearing" as opposed to
"God loving" or "God ignoring."
If you favor democracy so long as it gives the outcome you want, then
you don't really favor democracy at all.
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richard
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response 40 of 404:
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Dec 28 21:09 UTC 2005 |
gull said:
"I think they're fine with democracy as long as
God-fearing Christians hold all the levers of power."
When all the levers of power are controlled by one group of people who
think and worship in only one way, you don't need a democracy, or
separate branches of power anymore. You don't need judges or
legislators. You just need somebody to be the King to the followers,
to preach so they can say "preach on!"
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klg
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response 41 of 404:
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Dec 28 21:13 UTC 2005 |
Now. If Richard could explain to me how it is that what he calls
illegal wiretaps could result in charges being dismissed when all over
the news the commentators are saying that the administration knew that
anything discovered in those taps could not be used in legal proceedings
against those whose conversations were being monitored? (Further, using
information from the wiretaps against those individuals would have blown
the government's cover, so - even if the government had wanteded to use
information from the the wiretaps as evidence - it would have had a
greater incentive not to.) (Does Richard think, or does he just pound
on his keyboard hoping some of his lies might make sense to some
people?)
VanHeyningen: If it "appears" that the wiretaps exceeded the "limited
circumstances, why doesn't he edify us as to how they did so?
Curl tells us how the administration was the reason for the fact that
the terrorists found out about the wiretaps. No. That is the fault of
the stupid New York Times for publishing, in a time of war, the
classified information. How much harder are they going to try to see to
it that New York City is hit again??
Here's a tid bit for Richard. It took me about 3 seconds to find a
multitude of sites discussing the fact that warrantless wiretaps were
approved by the FISA Court. When is he going to start paying attention?
http://www.slate.com/id/2070287
". . . The FISA court permits warrantless government surveillance so
long as the primary purpose is to obtain foreign intelligence
information. Under FISA, the government needn't show probable cause that
a crime has occurred. . . "
The more I read the writings of the ACLU, the more I become convinced
that it is one big joke preying upon the weakminded.
Richard knows about as much factual information about the Christian
right as he knows about most other subject. Hardly anything. Can't he
find way to debate other than calling me names? I doubt it. (John,
asking Richard to support his rantings with facts is like asking river
to flow backwards - a waste of time.)
What VanHeyningen and Richard have a hard time understanding is that in
a democracy there's something called rule of the majority. If they have
better ideas, they have to convince enough people to support them.
Obviously, they are unable to do that, so all they have left are lies,
invectives, and complaints.
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