Land of the Free, Home of the Brave? Where exactly is that at now?

Kevin, why do you hate Uh-Murka?

B. Franklin's statements are giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

Franklin would be sent to Gitmo and waterboarded until he explained who gave him those plans for that cast iron bomb, the franklin stove.

Read Posner's "Catastrophe." He defends BushCo, because we face existential threats. He is right that we fact existential threats, but defending BushCo makes severe attacks / threats more likely to come to pass.

(reposted)

This is the worst of all possible worlds.

By spying on fur protests, vegans, lesbians, Quakers, and political opponents, BushCo totally belittles the need for a new approach to new threats. By saying they couldn’t follow the law *because it involves paperwork* (see AmericaBlog) and they couldn’t try to modify the law (also at America), they’ve made it much more unlikely that Posner's or Robert Wright’s proposals will ever get a real hearing.

BushCo are both incompetent (Lawrence Wilkerson’s comments about their not preparing for biological attacks; ignoring “bin Laden determined to strike,” Katrina; etc.) and corrupt (DeLay, Frist, trying to slip ANWAR drilling into the Defense appropriations bill, etc.). BushCO have done everything possible to make us less safe – breaking the law re: spying is just the latest, and probably not as serious as pissing off the rest of the world. To avoid terrorism and existential risks, we need allies.

If you want a safer America, you have to throw these criminals out before they destroy everything bin Laden could never touch.

Posner *must* condemn these criminals, and use that condemnation as a call for reevaluating our laws in the face of existential risks.

Sorry, Kevin, I don't get your point. What's wrong with allowing a computer to scan your e-mail and phone conversations to ensure no terrorist activities are occurring? A tiny loss of liberty can save a thousand American lives. As Posner points out, Bush is just trying to fill in the gaps to ensure that the terrorists don't murder Americans again. If Congress had been doing its job they could've passed a law to allow the scanning but since they aren't Bush has decided to defend the security of the American people on his own. This is part of his power as Commander-in-Chief in the current War On Terrorism. It would have been criminal for Bush not to do everything he could to protect American lives.

That's the key. For all those people who say that they don't have to worry because they are doing "nothing wrong," does that include everybody you talk to? Everybody in your neighborhood? Everybody you do business with? Because according to this administration, if a suspected terrorists lives on your block, then the government is entitled to gather "bits of information" from you in case something might, just MIGHT, be relevant.

How does that make you feel?

And remember: Extremism, no matter how repugnant or illegal, in the defense of Liberty is no vice. Anyone who says differently sides with the terists.

Posner is a man who genuinely cannot imagine a need for personal privacy. He is a wealthy and highly privileged person who has known only respect and deference his entire adult life. He is anti-social, has few friends, prefers books to people, has a conventional and uncomplicated sex life. He dislikes imaginative fiction and spends little or no time trying to understand the lives of people different from himself. His approach to social problems through simple economic analysis demonstrates a person of impoverished emotional capacity.

The possibility that the government might know stuff about someone that is not illegal but that nonetheless deserves privacy is something he may pay lip-service to, but he genuinely doesn't understand it.

In what conceivable circumstances would the government being able to access an innocent person's banking records help prevent an imminent attack?

Anyone who thinks that terrorism (even in its most horrific form) is an existential threat, compared to say the Revolution, the Civil War, and to a lesser extent World War II, needs their heads examined. They probably alo believe that President Bush is uniquely able to deal with such a catastrophe, when he has repeatedly demonstrated his manifest inability to do so.

Terrorists are continuing to murder US citizens--in Iraq. After all its easier to get at them there--thanks to our president.

Pavlovian like, national security is a push button for paranoids and idiots.

Ah, the proto-fascists are really waxing now. The state has rights. Legal entities, such as corporations, have rights. Individuals? F*ck 'em. They exist only to serve.

"existential threats."

There's a phrase that really needs to be retired. There are no threats that threaten the existence of the United States as a nation. If, on the other hand, you mean the American way of life and its traditional civil liberties, I'd agree, but that certainly doesn't seem to be the way Bush apologists like Posner use the phrase.

Al ,Terrorists are murdering Americans as we speak over 2 thousand.Bush hasen't done much for them now has he.

A tiny loss of liberty can save a thousand American lives.

Without "liberty" they're not Americans.

I think it's great that the President should have the right to monitor the communications of every single gun-owning American, to make sure that they're not a terrorist or do not harbor terrorist sympathies or have any terrorist connections, even connections that they themselves might not be aware of, but that might let terrorists get their hands on guns.

Yep, we'll all feel more secure when President Hillary Clinton puts in place her secret program that lets her monitor every single gun-owning American. I mean, we won't know about the secret program, but we'll all feel safer and more secure regardless.

What, you think we should let terrorists have guns?

Limited government and the rule of law is so 9/10.

Wombat, have you read "Catastrophe"? Posner is not the only one who thinks we face existential crises -- Astronomer Royal Rees has written a book ("Our Final Hour"), Professor John Leslie of the University of Guelph has written "The End of the World," and then there is Bill Joy's famous article, and Robert Wright's bits at Slate.

Genetically engineered smallpox, or flu, or AIDS; "grey goo," nuclear and 'dirty' weapons, etc. -- It is a new world we face. Spying on lesbians is, at best, a distraction; at worst, aids those who really want to cause widespread harm.

A Bush guckert recently commented that Judge Posner was 'brilliant.' I guess he is entitled to let Bush, the president who brings male prostitutes into the White House, suck on his penis.

Any man that was loved by the French more than Jerry Lewis is most definitely suspect.

Don't forget,the muckraking philatelist hid on the continent eating cheese with young immoral French girls until 1785 -- just to make sure all the musket balls had landed.

Okay, can we use the "I" word now? As in impeach? the admin's bland assertion of the Right to Nose does not seem to be getting anywhere near the scorn it deserves, except in the blogosphere. Maybe if someone could marry up a computer sim of Richard Nixon with Bush's words, a few folks might get the point. I am not a paranoid or seething libertarian, but the current admin's willingness to take extreme liberties with a a few of ours scares the hell out of me.

Here is Wright's series.

Please -- don't let your (justified) hatred of Bush let you think that there are no threats.

A tiny loss of liberty can save a thousand American lives.

Non-sequitur.
.

If, on the other hand, you mean the American way of life and its traditional civil liberties, I'd agree, but that certainly doesn't seem to be the way Bush apologists like Posner use the phrase.

Used that way, the unconstitutional abuses of the present administration would be the most credible, imminent, existential threat the nation faces.

Don't forget,the muckraking philatelist hid on the continent eating cheese with young immoral French girls until 1785

The man's a GENIUS!
.

In defense of the Republic of Virtue everything, including the persecution of the citizenry, is permissible...I wonder if Robespierre would recognize the world we are making

KEVIN DRUM: ...this passage really floored me:

When are you going to stand for something? When are you going to call for Bush's impeachment?

I know it's comfortable down there on the floor, Kevin, but, for crissake, get off your ass for once and write something that shows you really care about what's been done to this country. Like a battered wife (especially one financially dependent on her husband), you do nothing but enable your abusers. Unlike such wives, though, your voice here means you have resources at your disposal that they do not. Stop being such a floor sitting coward.

At the risk of offending any Muslims, I must say that this reminds me of some statements I read from Islamic fundamentalists regarding Allah that He is 'entitled' to your prayers.

Can't we all just agree that the next major terrorist attack is either going to happen or it isn't? Call it luck, call it whatever you want. We are either going to get lucky (millennium plot) or unlucky (9/11). Our focus should be on real security, not mind reading. We already know that people want to blow our shit up, so why don't we just work harder to make the shit harder to blow up? This cloak and dagger bull is not anymore effective than hardening our important targets, but apparently the Admin thinks spying is exciting and real security is a big yawn.

Oh, and right-wingers... you guys are the biggest pussies on the planet. fucking bed-wetters.

Sorry, didn't get much sleep last night. I'm kind of cranky.

Posner: The terrorist menace, far from receding, grows every day. This is not only because al Qaeda likes to space its attacks, often by many years...

So wait, I thought Bush deserved credit for the fact that we haven't been attacked in four years. But now I find out that the longer we go without an attack, the less safe we are? I'm so confused.

"Please -- don't let your (justified) hatred of Bush let you think that there are no threats."

How do you go from a "threat" (of which there are many of course) to an "existential threat" (of which none have been described plausibly)?

It sounds really butch when Richard Clarke and other acronym-officials use the phrase, but it's still an abuse of the language.

There is one group whose members are very likely to provide a domestic terrorist attack upon the US: American soldiers serving in Iraq. Like T. McVeigh, a few are going to come home and realize they were played for dupes by Bush and the majority of constituents who supported Bush in 2004. They have been militarized and radicalized by our illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq, and are going to use their skills to act out their hostility on the nation that suckered them into having to kill innocent Iraqis. Perhaps the president and Judge Posner can outline the surveillance required to monitor all of the men and women returning from Iraq to prevent another OK City bombing.

Are these the same liberals who cried foul because the dots couldn't be connected to prevent 9/11, but are now trying to tie the administration's hands so that future dots can't be connected...

There is one group whose members are very likely to provide a domestic terrorist attack upon the US: American soldiers serving in Iraq. Like T. McVeigh, a few are going to come home and realize they were played for dupes by Bush and the majority of constituents who supported Bush in 2004. They have been militarized and radicalized by our illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq, and are going to use their skills to act out their hostility on the nation that suckered them into having to kill innocent Iraqis. Perhaps the president and Judge Posner can outline the surveillance required to monitor all of the men and women returning from Iraq to prevent another OK City bombing.

"There is one group whose members are very likely to provide a domestic terrorist attack upon the US: American soldiers serving in Iraq. Like T. McVeigh, a few are going to come home and realize they were played for dupes by Bush and the majority of constituents who supported Bush in 2004. They have been militarized and radicalized by our illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq, and are going to use their skills to act out their hostility on the nation that suckered them into having to kill innocent Iraqis. Perhaps the president and Judge Posner can outline the surveillance required to monitor all of the men and women returning from Iraq to prevent another OK City bombing."

Typical liberal "we support the troops" mentality that sees terrorists as innocents and the American military as a threat.

There is one group whose members are very likely to provide a domestic terrorist attack upon the US: American soldiers serving in Iraq.

Oh, give it a rest you parody. Nobody believes it anymore.

You were so close, and then you went right over the line and kept going. Nice try, though. How's freepertown these days? Are the inmates still running the asylum?

Freedom fighter:

Sorry, I think the dots were well connected by August 6, 2001: "Bin Laden Determined to Attack inside US."

It's not liberals' fault that George Bush failed to effectively respond to this crisis the same way he's failed to effectively respond to the other crisis of his presidency (remember Katrina?).

Also, why are you fighting freedom?

Uli, read Posner's book, or Rees', or "The End of the World," even "Oryx and Crake."

You really think a genetically engineered superbug is impossible? Grey goo is impossible?

Are these the same liberals who cried foul because the dots couldn't be connected to prevent 9/11, but are now trying to tie the administration's hands so that future dots can't be connected...

Do you see these "liberals" all the time, or just when the moon is full? Uh, no. We're the liberals who know the dots simply WEREN'T connected and that a witless president left thousands to die because he's weak. Now the president has gone rogue connecting "dots" about vegans and gays.

So back up and try your sad little hypocrisy fabrication (a ploy I call the "White Trash Rorschach Test") again, 'cause I need a laugh.
.

Hmmm. Impeach Bush? How does President Cheney sound? A formal vote of censure by a joint session of congress seems like a better response to me, but it also seems just as unlikely as long as the party of God is in the majority.

Uh, Hostile? Knock it off already.
.

What theorajones said, Freedom Fighter. There were no dots to connect. (And Uli, I provided the link to Wright's piece)

"Are these the same liberals who cried foul because the dots couldn't be connected to prevent 9/11, but are now trying to tie the administration's hands so that future dots can't be connected..." `Freedom Fucker

Thank you foer a grand non sequitur, FF. The dots couldn't be connected because the Bush administration wouldn't connect them. They are America-hating idiots.

Posner is a self-important jack-ass who thinks that writing a lot lifts him out of intellectual midgetry. Why do you bother? It's bad enough that we have to deal with his legal opinions, but his social ones are NEVER worth discussing!

Kevin remains naive on security issues. Why don't he and his liberal friends take into account there are people who would like to blow up our major cities and, if they could, kill each of us. So yes, if the government wants to take a peek at Kevin's email as part of the effort to fight terrorism, it is no big deal.

To change to the subject of liberal hypocrosy, consider the following about Rockefeller:

Yesterday there were news reports about Senator Jay Rockefeller, who pulled a 2003 letter to Dick Cheney out of the vault. In that hitherto-secret correspondence, Rockefeller expressed "concerns" about the NSA intercept program. This morning, Senator Pat Roberts, Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, responded:

"I have no recollection of Senator Rockefeller objecting to the program at the many briefings he and I attended together," Mr. Roberts said. "In fact, it is my recollection that on many occasions Senator Rockefeller expressed to the vice president his vocal support for the program," most recently, "two weeks ago."

I realize the MSM will protect Rockefeller in this and let him pretend that he was against the program, but the truth is that he places political opportunism above national security.

"It's not liberals' fault that George Bush failed to effectively respond to this crisis the same way he's failed to effectively respond to the other crisis of his presidency (remember Katrina?)."

If Bush is so "failed", what does that say about you guys who keep losing to him?

Sooo, if this wiretappping program is something Clinton did.

And if this wiretapping program is preventing the next 9/11.

This proves one of two possibilities:

Either Bush halted this program -> Which led to 9/11, which means 9/11 was a direct result of Bush incompetence.

Or

Bush kept this program going -> and it failed to prevent 9/11, which means it's not an effective prophylactic against terrorism.

(Frankly, if I ever had the honor of being president, I would have taken my job seriously, and read the August 6 PDB, and prevented the attack by ramping airline security - instead of going on vacation).

So, which possibility is it, wingnuts? Is Bush incompetent? Or is Bush incompetent?

Wow, brian -- imagine that! Roberts says something that serves partisan purposes. Good thing he couldn't possibly be lying. Good thing you are so sure that Rockefeller didn't have evidence, like a letter he wrote. Good thing BushCo made sure Rockefeller couldn't even discuss this with staff, let alone have a vote.

If Bush is so "failed", what does that say about you guys who keep losing to him?

Actually, it speaks volumes about those that voted for him, and still support him.

Anyone hear read 'Body of Secrets'? http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0385499078/002-0099368-2572066?v=glance&n=283155

Good book. This country has been doing these types of things (reading communications) dating back to WWII.

What about carnivore? Anyone remember that? http://www.fbi.gov/congress/congress00/kerr090600.htm. This goes back to 2000.

Why the uproar now? If the arguement is 'we didnt know'? Thats a pretty weak argument. They should have known, they were elected and its there job to 'know' these things.

I feel this is a non issue. 'floored' no.

Gore/Obama '08: "You really think a genetically engineered superbug is impossible? Grey goo is impossible?"

And with that remote possibility it has become acceptable to have a President claim dictatorial powers, which is a reality, not a possibility.

How do you feel about the torture ban? Isn't that legislation tying our hands in some remotely possible case of preventing an attack?

"They are America-hating idiots."

Is that right? Then how come the liberals always come off as American haters? How come the American public won't give you guys a chance if Bush has supposedly "failed" so miserably?

I don't know what my lefty friends are going on about,My wife and I make 70 thousand a year have two children we have adopted,And we pay no taxes,we get free money,Qualify for food stamps,Home heating help,And many other great things All because of G.W. Is this country great or what.

Reviews of Posner's book. The second one is from the Washington Post.

Wasn't Oswald ex-military? I cannot remember if he was ex-Army or ex-Marine prior to assassinating the president.

Bullshit. Can't say it any simpler. Bullshit. The government has NO right to my communications simply as a matter of course. This dictatorship crap has to be stopped dead in its track NOW. In the meantime, I encourage everyone to become familiar with openpgp, pgp, and gnupgp for secure emailing (and other things). I also suggest steghide, a nice app that allows for the hiding of messages, encrypted themselves or not, inside image files, text files, and even sound files.

I am currently looking into secure voice tech to see what's available and reasonable there. On the PC-to-PC voice telephony front there is SpeakFreely, which is capable of encrypting voice transmission. In any case, this shouldn't be necessary but until Congress does its job and/or the dictator-in-chief(s) of this Admin are impeached, look into your encryption options.

None of this matters one whit. Dubya is actually right (or more acurately "correct").

By a bare majority the American people want a dictatorship. They want to be led by a stongman. A man who says what he means and means what he says.

That what he says and means is usually legally or ethically wrong is to be expected from a person who governs by force, so no surprises there. That he is childish and a buffoon and he is still considered a strongman is interesting but not unusual I guess (see Mussolini).

I've talked to many many people about this and to a person my Republican friends don't care about the law or liberty or the Republic, they simply want to wield power.

When we faced nuclear annihilation from the Soviet Union we had a more restricted, contained government. Now, with the (largely imaginary) threat from terrorists, our civil rights are imaginary and government power is supposed to be unrestrained.

There are fewer terrorists by most accounts than Mafia. They have no nukes. The threat is real, but it isn't of a scale that requires unfettered force to deal with. For instance, through normal investigative channels we knew about the impending al Qaida attack of 9/11. It wasn't information that was lacking: it was wisdom and imagination.

If Bush is so "failed", what does that say about you guys who keep losing to him?

Bush's handlers are good at one thing: driving up their critics' negatives using the Republican-owned media. Once in power, however, they have no idea what to do, so it's all campaign all the time to distract from Bush's massive failures, one after another.

Florida 2000 was easy. 9/11 was hard. Swift Boat Veterans for Rest was easy. Unfucking Iraq is hard. See? Not the same thing.

Again with the White Trash Rorschach Test. What gives?
.

How many people on the right will continue to support this presidential power if/when a democrat takes the office in 2008?

And besides the authority to imprison, torture, and wiretap, what other powers has Bush granted himself?

if the mass surveillance does not capture id information then what fucking good is it as intelligence and why are we doing in the first place?

"(Frankly, if I ever had the honor of being president, I would have taken my job seriously, and read the August 6 PDB, and prevented the attack by ramping airline security - instead of going on vacation)."

LEt's assume you had the honor of being president. How would you prevent the 9/11 attacks?

"I have no recollection of Senator Rockefeller objecting to the program at the many briefings he and I attended together," Mr. Roberts said. "In fact, it is my recollection that on many occasions Senator Rockefeller expressed to the vice president his vocal support for the program," most recently, "two weeks ago."

When pressed, however, Roberts could present no particulars, and could not explain what, specifically, Rockefeller could have done.

Just another conservatard hole, like Cornyn. But it's good enough to confuse our trolls, so I guess it worked.
.

It would have been criminal for Bush not to do everything he could to protect American lives.

No, it is criminal for him not to do everything he could to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Sorry, that should have been "Swift Boat Veterans for Rent." They're resting now, certainly, since their objections are no longer useful to their employers.

LEt's assume you had the honor of being president. How would you prevent the 9/11 attacks?

Easy. Keep al Qaeda out of the US, as Clinton did with AQ's Yemeni agents. Of course, as soon as there was a Bush on the throne, bin Laden switched to mostly Saudi agents.

Worked like a charm.

Also, when told of kamikaze style attacks, the correct response is NOT to just add an AA battery to your retinue. Hijackings were on the menu, so were targets in NY. So ... ? How hard can it be?

The Italians were ready at Genoa in 2001, so why can't Bush be ready here? Oh, that's right. Terrorists were just "cockroaches" to Bush. See no threat, stop no threat.
.

"Bush's handlers are good at one thing: driving up their critics' negatives using the Republican-owned media. Once in power, however, they have no idea what to do, so it's all campaign all the time to distract from Bush's massive failures, one after another."

In other words, you admit you guys are truly incompetent?

Slightly off topic, I must comment that the gray goo scenario *is* overblown.

For the gray goo scenario to happen, there would have to be a nano-machine capable of surviving arbitrary environments, getting around some how, having some mechanism to break down other chemical structures, have some mechanism to assemble chemical structures, and also a complete blueprint on how to build a perfect copy of itself, regardless of the environment it is in. Oh, and don't forget that *something* has to power this process. (At this point it is doubtful that the machine would be 'nano' any more. Maybe, just maybe still in the microscopic range.)

Modifying existing biological organisms is much more likely to cause problems than some hypothetical nano-machine run amuck because living cells already have some of these capabilities. However, none of them have managed to achieve a gray (organic) goo scenario, either.

LEt's assume you had the honor of being president. How would you prevent the 9/11 attacks?
Posted by: Freedom Fighter on December 21, 2005 at 1:02 PM | PERMALINK

English - do you speak it motherfucker?

I said "...by ramping airline security..."

When I read about terrorists wanting to hijack airlines and use them as weapons, I think - gee, don't let terrorist on planes with knives, and install air marshalls on planes, and reinforce cockpit doors.

All the things Bush let happen.

Damn, Freedom Fighter. All this time, I thought you were fighting for freedom. Now I know better.

Amy,

Don't forget the Japanese internments, McCarthy's FBI, and Nixon's burglars. The trick (as the administration knows) is to keep these illegal acts secret so they can not be questioned. Checks and balances, division of power . . . that crap is for grade school government classes.

In other words, you admit you guys are truly incompetent?

At making up stuff like "John McCain has a black love child" just long enough to win?

Uh, yeah. That's nothing to be proud of.

But, having slouched their way to power, to go on to be a fuck up of truly historic proportions, resulting in the isolation, humiliation, and impoverishment of your country while slaughtering thousands?

That's pathetic.
.

"Easy. Keep al Qaeda out of the US,"

Wow, you are a super GENIUS! Someone get this man on the 2008 ticket.

Are these the same liberals who cried foul because the dots couldn't be connected to prevent 9/11, but are now trying to tie the administration's hands so that future dots can't be connected...

The problem isn't that they didn't have enough dots, the problem is they were either too stupid or too unconcerned to do anything about it.

Look, two weeks before the infamous 8/6 PDB that warned that OBL was "determined" to strike within the US, possibly using airplanes, Bush was at an economic conference in Italy. Security was incredibly tight, includiing anti-aircraft guns ringing the city and Bush retreating at night to a warship anchored off the coast. Why? Because of intelligence that OBL might be planning to fly an airplane into the building.

So they get the 8/6 PDB and they can't connect those dots? How stupid can a person be?

It is incredibly easy for the government to get a warrant for electronic surveillance. That they chose not to makes me highly suspicious of exactly what they are doing.

In other words, you admit you guys are truly incompetent?
Posted by: Freedom Fighter on December 21, 2005 at 1:05 PM | PERMALINK

If I owned all the major media outlets, I think I'd be somewhat more successful than Democrats have been.

Hmmm. Impeach Bush? How does President Cheney sound? A formal vote of censure by a joint session of congress seems like a better response to me, but it also seems just as unlikely as long as the party of God is in the majority.

Impeachment is not about getting an ideologically better President, that's what elections are for. Impeachment is a tool of incapacitating a present, and deterring future, wrongdoers in office. A censure vote has the same purpose, but is far less powerful -- it is, essentially, a stern warning that continuing the same behavior might result in impeachment, but also signals that the violations to date are not so grave, standing on their own, as to warrant that response.

If there are adequate grounds -- particularly in the form of evidence of involvement in the present abuses -- for such far that Cheney would continue the present abuses to warrant removal of him, as well, that is fully within the scope of the impeachment power.

"(Frankly, if I ever had the honor of being president, I would have taken my job seriously, and read the August 6 PDB, and prevented the attack by ramping airline security - instead of going on vacation)."

LEt's assume you had the honor of being president. How would you prevent the 9/11 attacks?

You don't read so good, do you?

Here's I'll highlight his answer for you:

"(Frankly, if I ever had the honor of being president, I would have taken my job seriously, and read the August 6 PDB, and prevented the attack by ramping airline security - instead of going on vacation)."

"Uh, yeah. That's nothing to be proud of."

Well, at least you are proud loser... that's something to be proud of... I guess.

This is not new. MSM reporting on it is new. This has been used by previous presidents both democratic and repuglican.

You can blame Bush all you want but you will end up being classified as having 'bush derrangement' syndrome.

Dont walk us into another repuglican trap. If you dont like this policy under Bush you must attack the policy. Clinton used this power as well so did Carter.

Make the arguement about the policy and not 'Bush is Evil' and theres a chance at a persuasive arguement. Otherwise, this will be a non invent trumped up by the media and 'bush haters'

If Bush is so "failed", what does that say about you guys who keep losing to him

Shorter Freedom Fighter: I know you are, but what am I? Nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah.

Run along home, Sonny.

I think Abraham Lincoln is going to come out of his grave and change parties (won't that be a sight) since the President and the Republicans seem to no longer believe in government of the people, by the people, for the people.

"If I owned all the major media outlets, I think I'd be somewhat more successful than Democrats have been."

What are you talking about? You have Air America, you guys own talk radio!

"You don't read so good, do you?

Here's I'll highlight his answer for you:

"(Frankly, if I ever had the honor of being president, I would have taken my job seriously, and read the August 6 PDB, and prevented the attack by ramping airline security - instead of going on vacation)."

You don't read so good do you? I asked for HOW, as in specifics, not lip service.

... Clinton used this power as well so did Carter....
Posted by: amy on December 21, 2005 at 1:14 PM | PERMALINK

I don't think so. They may have used the legal mechanism, but the technology is different now - so different, that they're saying they could not use FISA.

This is something new, and making an apples and oranges comparison to Clinton and Carter is simply a disingenuous way of saying "YOUR side did it, so mine can too" - when in fact, these "sides" are just bullshit partisanism. This is not a partisan issue. This is American freedom at stake. If Carter used this power, and Clinton used this power (and I'm certain Reagan and Bush I probably also used it) - that doesn't change the fact that they should not have this power, and if they do, the law needs to be changed. And if they don't, then somebody needs to be held accountable for their illegal actions. This "power" is unacceptable. It did not prevent 9/11, nor the Anthrax attacks, and nobody can prove that it has stopped another 9/11 (aside from Liar Cheney's specious claim about the Brooklyn Bridge), and it's not going to prevent the next attack.

It may be that we haven't had any further terrorist attacks in the US, because bin Laden saw that they achieved his goal: radicalization of the Muslim world, curtailment of American rights, and a holy war between Islam and Christiandom. Why would he waste his time when he's already gotten everything he wanted - he also got what he wanted when he attacked Spain, and maybe he's shifting gears from terror attacks to more traditional warfighting. Or it may be that we simply can't conclude that we have not prevented the next 9/11, because it hasn't happened yet. It could happen at any moment.

Or it may be that we simply can't conclude that we have not prevented the next 9/11, because it hasn't happened yet. It could happen at any moment.

I think Freedom Fighter just crapped his pants.

Freedom Fighter: I think we have different ideas about what constitutes freedom. Would you please tell us your concept of freedom?

... Clinton used this power as well so did Carter....

That's just some shit you pulled off Drudge. Already addressed and refuted on another thread.

But keep spinning. You trolls are spinning yourselves right into oblivion.

I thought conservatives believed that government was the problem and that government was not to be trusted?

'This is something new, and making an apples and oranges comparison to Clinton and Carter is simply a disingenuous way of saying "YOUR side did it, so mine can too"'

But i am on 'your' side. I just dont happen to think that the discussion moves forward with the 'bush is evil' meme.

I asked for HOW, as in specifics, not lip service.
Posted by: Freedom Fighter on December 21, 2005 at 1:21 PM | PERMALINK

"...ramping airline security..." is pretty specific. The difference is: Bush did it AFTER the attacks. I would have done it BEFORE the attacks. Perhaps never having travelled on commercial airlines before, Bush never experienced the horror, as have I, of being on a plane, and realizing that I've accidentally brought my pocket knife with me, and realizing that any terrorist could also have snuck one aboard as well. This realization came on me in 1996 during one of my first of many business trips. My thoughts at that time was that such a thing should never be allowed. This was 5 years before 9/11. Airline CEO's and Presidents apparently didn't share such wisdom prior to 9/11. Apparently, they were concerned about how much it would cost them to provide such security. Didn't seem like a bad idea when they were watching a pair of hundred million dollar buildings collapse into rubble. But it wasn't THEIR relatives being burned and crushed alive. Just their bottom line at realizing that people were going to think twice before flying on their unsecure planes. Once again, the spreadsheet jockeys murder in the name of "fiduciary duty". Fortunately for the Free Market jihadists, the airlines all got their cash bailouts from the government, and they got their employee pay cuts, and then they got to reneg on pension funding as well. What a simply fucking wonderful business. While the pilots may have had to sell homes because they could no longer afford house payments, I'm certain that the CEOs continued to take home multimillion dollar bonuses for being such shrewd businessmen.

So now, the TSA is allowing knives onto planes again. After the next 9/11, are we going to blame the TSA rule change, or are we going to say "Liberals tied Bush's hands!"

I know what the Republican-owned mass media will say.

Personally, my favorite FF is Madison. But Franklin's also excellent.

"I think we have different ideas about what constitutes freedom."

Why would you think that?

""...ramping airline security..." is pretty specific."

Ummm, no that's not specific. What exactly are you going to ramp? What measures will you put in place to prevent the 9/11 attacks? How will these measures be implemented? Or are you just saying: If I were president, I will improve stuff, things will be better so 9/11 would be prevented?

Dollars to doughnuts the next 'terrorist' attack is done by an American veteran of this war.

I read the Ben Franklin book by Walter Isaacson. Good book. Thus, i'd vote Ben Franklin as my favorite ff.

"I think we have different ideas about what constitutes freedom."

Why would you think that?

Because you seem to think that "freedom" means "the goverment should read all of my personal e-mail and listen to all of my personal phone calls any time they want without any reason at all."

"But i am on 'your' side."

No matter whose "side" anyone is on, they should do some research on the Carter/Clinton accusations before leaning on them as truth. It doesn't take much to discover the fundamental differences between their actions, and the NSA flap.

But i am on 'your' side. I just dont happen to think that the discussion moves forward with the 'bush is evil' meme.
Posted by: amy on December 21, 2005 at 1:30 PM | PERMALINK

Read all of my previous posts over the past week. I also post as "Antonin Scalia" "Jack Somethingoff" and "Osama_been_forgotten". Not once have I said "Bush needs to be impeached" or claimed that this warrantless wiretapping is illegal. I have said that he lied (his 2004 statement about wiretapping is contradictory to what he had already ordered).

How do we move this discussion forward?

As I said. Either Bush is incompetent (because he wasn't doing this prior to 9/11, and Clinton was). Or Bush is incompetent (because he was doing this prior to 9/11, and failed to stop 9/11, and continues to violate our privacy even though this technique has been proven not to work).

So we can conclude that since this "power" - which we're still debating and uncovering facts on as to whether it's legal or not, is demonstrably not useful for stopping terrorists, despite what it's defenders say, then this "power" needs to be ended, and we need to introduce legislation to halt it's use, and un-muddy the legal waters that seem to be implying that the president can do ANYTHING as long as he can claim it's in the national interest.

We're moving this discussion forward by saying we want checks on executive power.

The wingnuts are saying that wanting checks on executive power is Bush Bashing. We've already established that some wingnuts apparently have severe reading comprehension problems, so I think maybe that's where your problem stems from.

Some of us ARE claiming that what Bush is doing is illegal. Maybe that's Bush bashing. I don't think it's entirely clear, the legal groundwork. Some of us ARE claiming that unchecked executive power is both immoral, and UnAmerican. Why you're interpreting that as "Bush Bashing" - I have no idea. Well, I have some idea. And when I am claiming that Bush is Incompetent, well, if the shoe fits - that's not bashing, it's simple logic. 9/11 happened on his watch. And whether or not it's legal, he is violating rights left and right. And he still has not succeeded in reducing terrorism worldwide, and he still has not succeeded in capturing bin Laden.

Blind obedience to an incompetent fascist doesn't move the discussion forward either.

Here is a Clintonista explaining the PERFECTLY CONSTITUTIONAL LEGALITY OF BUSH'S SURVEILLANCE WITHOUT WARRANT:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0512210142dec21,0,3553632.story?coll=chi-newsopinioncommentary-hed

YES, MR. DRUM, WERE YOU TO BE SENDING E-MAILS TO YEMEN, THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IS CONSTITUTIONALLY ENTITLED TO SURVEIL THEM; IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT, I.E., THE WELL-ESTABLISHED PRECEDENT EMPLOYED BY, INTER ALIA, CARTER AND CLINTON BEFORE NOW, WE HAVE A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT PROCESS, DON'T YOU KNOW. BUT, OH, THAT WOULD BE DEMOCRACY IN ACTION. NEVERMIND, I KNOW HOW DEMOCRACTIC (WINK) YOU ARE.

The Objective Historian

The Objective Historian is Patton/Alice after a brain hysterectomy.

Also, note that my "objective history" comes from the op-ed page.

I barely finished high school.

. . .Ummm, no that's not specific.
Posted by: Freedom Fighter on December 21, 2005 at 1:43 PM | PERMALINK

Yes. It is.

We know exactly how the 9/11 hijackers accomplished their mission. Those of us with brains knew before 9/11, that this kind of vulnerability existed in our airline system. It doesn't take a genius, and I and others have already given numerous more specific examples.

The only "existential threat" posed to America is by the Bush administration and the frightened weenies who support it. If they are allowed to succeed, there won't ben anything recognizable as "America" left.

"Because you seem to think that "freedom" means "the goverment should read all of my personal e-mail and listen to all of my personal phone calls any time they want without any reason at all.""

My definition of freedom comes from the dictionary.

Freedom: the quality or state of being free as: the abscence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action.

In light of the definition from Webster, can you explain which action or choice you have lost when the government reads one of your emails that is headed to the mountainous regions of Pakistan?

Here is a Clintonista explaining the PERFECTLY CONSTITUTIONAL LEGALITY OF BUSH'S SURVEILLANCE WITHOUT WARRANT:

Nobody disputes that FISA and court opinions allow for warrentless wiretaps. But in order for a wiretap without a warrant to be legal the AG must certify that the communications to be intercepted are not of a "US Person" (a citizen or legal resident alien, or a US corporation).

To say that anything he cited gives the President authority to place wiretaps on US citizens without a court order is just plain wrong. Go read the actual court opinion he cites, because he leaves out this passage:

"the court held that the Executive Branch should be excused from securing a warrant only when "the object of the search or the surveillance is a foreign power, its agents or collaborators," and "the surveillance is conducted 'primarily' for foreign intelligence reasons."

The only "existential threat" posed to America is by the Bush administration and the frightened weenies who support it. If they are allowed to succeed, there won't ben anything recognizable as "America" left.

Ummmm, isn't this exactly what the 'terrorists' want?

Not once have I said "Bush needs to be impeached" or claimed that this warrantless wiretapping is illegal.

Correction - when I posted as Scalia, I implied that the warrantless wiretapping is illegal - by quoting the real Scalia directly. He seems to think that it's pretty clear that the president can't just do whatever he wants just because he says there's a War on. Damn those activist liberal judges.

sure, they are constraining my choice to keep my life private.

amy or gilbert or whatever your name is -- your fear of being associated with shrill partisan liberals is interfering with your optical nerves.

Judge Posner gives away a very valuable piece of information. Are we to believe that his scenario of the innocent neighbor, an American citizen, being surveilled? Did he just make this up, or has be been informed of something we do not know yet?

Spying on innocent Americans without a warrant because a suspected terrorist may live next door is clearly and unambiguously illegal, and is the kind of justification one would suspect from a police state, not a limited free state created by our forefathers that only has the power granted to it in the Constitution, and limited by the Bill of Rights and amendments that explicitly state where its power cannot overstep.

I can guarantee with almost 100% assurance that a vast majority of Americans would be outraged at Judge Posner's assertions. A vast majority of them would also likely open the door to the government, and even give their permission to the government, if the government told them about their concerns about their neighbor, but it goes against our very status as a free nation for the burden of warrantless search to be geographical proximity to a suspected criminal.

Ummmm, isn't this exactly what the 'terrorists' want?

Clearly, Osama understood the American psyche pretty well. One lucky sucker punch, and then just stand back while we bite ourselves to death.

Of course, there is no legal burden that can be met for warrantless search, and ought not to be, but the idea of justifying warrantless search, as out of bounds as that already is, to spy on innocent American citizens in close geographical proximity to a suspected terrorist is beyond the pale and deserving of treason charges against American liberty.

This tells us one more very troubling thing about Posner and the administration.

In order to get ahead of the curve in the news cycle, the Bush administration has clearly briefed Posner on the details of the illegal spying program.

Federal judges acting as cheap political hacks even before they have case in front of them? Sad sad days indeed. Might as well put Woodward on the bench.

Gonzo: That's the key. For all those people who say that they don't have to worry because they are doing "nothing wrong," does that include everybody you talk to?

I think the problem with these people is that they are simply too narrow-minded to understand the larger issue here. Putting aside the fact that "the ends justifies the means" is the absolute cornerstone of conservative ideology, has it never occured to them that the one saying "trust me" might not always be someone trustable?

You can go two ways with this - if a democratic president ordered warrantless, no-oversight spying on its own citizens, the militia crazies would come out of the woodwork claiming that this was proof that the New World Order was taking over, and on and on.

The other way is this: who here can prove to me that Bush's spying activities have 0% to do with his political interests? Even the folks who want King George to "catch terrists" have to acknowledge that spying on one's political enemies to further one's political career is extremely corrupt behavior. Oh, but in spite of a mountain of evidence to the contrary, Bush would never do that, because he's a "good man", and above all those silly "checks and balances" that the founding fathers built into the constitution for us mere mortals.

I mean, seriously. Only a fascist would refuse to understand this or be pissed off by it. And anyone offended by that statement really ought to look up "fascism" in a convenient encyclopedia.

The Tribune op-ed also says that, if you don't want the "inherent authority" for warrantless searches* to be abused, you should be careful who you vote for. He meant Bush, you morons. You shouldn't have voted for Bush.

*I'm not saying I agree with his analysis. But he does go from an assertion that the searches are legal to an assertion that they could be abused when used by the wrong people, which I take to mean power-mad Republicans with little or no regard for the right of privacy or civil liberties in general.

Brewmn: But he does go from an assertion that the searches are legal to an assertion that they could be abused when used by the wrong people ...

Which is the reason why we have checks and balances in this country. One of the most basic principles of the constitution is that no one - no matter who we vote for - should be trusted with too much power.

Maybe the Trib should hire people with at least an elementary-school level of civics education? Just a thought.

P.S.

On freedom.

1. Webster's (What "Freedom Fighter" above believes in): the quality or state of being free as: the abscence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action.

2. Me and Bobby McGee by Kris Kristopherson interpretted by Janis Joplin (what I believe in at certain times in an existential sense): freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose.

3. United States of *&^*%^&$% America spitoon-in-my-living-room-if-I-want FREEDOM (what I believe in and what Bush and Posner disengenously swore to uphold): The Constitution of the United States and every last one of its Amendments, including the Bill of Rights.

And the Bill of Rights says you can't search through my shit (at least until I flush) without saying what you are looking for and getting a warrant based on probable cause that what you are looking for is connected with a crime - no warrantless house to house searches, no warrantless car to car searches, no warrantless phone to phone, no warrantless server to server searches, etc.

The original Bill of Rights, June 12, 1776: (emphasis mine)
********
A declaration of rights made by the representatives of the good people of Virginia, assembled in full and free convention; which rights do pertain to them and their posterity, as the basis and foundation of government.

SECTION 1. That all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity, namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.

SEC. 2. That all power is vested in, and consequently derived from, the people; that magistrates are their trustees and servants, and at all times amenable to them.

SEC. 3. That government is, or ought to be, instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security of the people, nation, or community; of all the various modes and forms of government, that is best which is capable of producing the greatest degree of happiness and safety, and is most effectually secured against the danger of maladministration; and that, when any government shall be found inadequate or contrary to these purposes, a majority of the community hath an indubitable, inalienable, and indefeasible right to reform, alter, or abolish it, in such manner as shall be judged most conducive to the public weal.

SEC. 4. That no man, or set of men, are entitled to exclusive or separate emoluments or privileges from the community, but in consideration of public services; which, not being descendible, neither ought the offices of magistrate, legislator, or judge to be hereditary

SEC. 5. That the legislative and executive powers of the State should be separate and distinct from the judiciary; and that the members of the two first may be restrained from oppression, by feeling and participating the burdens of the people, they should, at fixed periods, be reduced to a private station, return into that body from which they were originally taken, and the vacancies be supplied by frequent, certain, and regular elections, in which all, or any part of the former members, to be again eligible, or ineligible, as the laws shall direct.

SEC. 6. That elections of members to serve as representatives of the people, in assembly, ought to be free; and that all men, having sufficient evidence of permanent common interest with, and attachment to, the community, have the right of suffrage, and cannot be taxed or deprived of their property for public uses, without their own consent, or that of their representives so elected, nor bound by any law to which they have not, in like manner, assembled, for the public good.

SEC. 7. That all power of suspending laws, or the execution of laws, by any authority, without consent of the representatives of the people, is injurious to their rights, and ought not to be exercised.

SEC. 8. That in all capital or criminal prosecutions a man hath a right to demand the cause and nature of his accusation, to be confronted with the accusers and witnesses, to call for evidence in his favor, and to a speedy trial by an impartial jury of twelve men of his vicinage, without whose unanimous consent he cannot be found guilty; nor can he be compelled to give evidence against himself; that no man be deprived of his liberty, except by the law of the land or the judgment of his peers.

SEC. 9. That excessive bail ought not to be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

SEC. 10. That general warrants, whereby an officer or messenger may be commanded to search suspected places without evidence of a fact committed, or to seize any person or persons not named, or whose offence is not particularly described and supported by evidence, are grievous and oppressive, and ought not to be granted.

SEC. 11. That in controversies respecting property, and in suits between man and man, the ancient trial by jury is preferable to any other, and ought to be held sacred.

SEC. 12. That the freedom of the press is one of the great bulwarks of liberty, and can never be restrained but by despotic governments.

SEC. 13. That a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defence of a free State; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided, as dangerous to liberty; and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power.

SEC. 14. That the people have a right to uniform government; and, therefore, that no government separate from, or independent of the government of Virginia, ought to be erected or established within the limits thereof.

SEC. 15. That no free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people, but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue, and by frequent recurrence to fundamental principles.

SEC. 16. That religion, or the duty which we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence; and therefore all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience; and that it is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love, and charity towards each other.

********

...followed, a week later, with the preliminary version of the Declaration of Independence, as part of Virginia's constitution. --If it's a suicide compact, then the country was stillborn and never existed.

thank you bellatrys, let's see if freedom boy believes in that stuff

DH Walker:

"Maybe the Trib should hire people with at least an elementary-school level of civics education? Just a thought."

You are obviously not from Chicago. The Trib would have to fire their entire editorial board.

Thanks bellatrys.

When I read this Virginia Bill of Rights or those in the Amendments to the US Constitution, I hear the words booming loud and clear across time and space. Makes me kind of emotional. These people really meant what they said and their ideas in this orgainzed form have inspired millions ever since, and formed a bench mark around the globe by which to measure whether freedom exists.

The men who wrote those Bill of Rights sure weren't pathetic word weasels like BushCo and Posner.

Time to take our country back.

The George W Bush 2000 Stolen Election commemorative gold coin magnet.

Show Republicans your opposition to the illegitimate Bush regime.

Get them here.

http://www.cafepress.com/revolution09.40907793

http://www.cafepress.com/revolution09

Whenever you write to a Representative or Senator include this text.

Add the following text below to your letter or petition. This will tell the senators and representatives that you will use the power of your purchases to leverage the legislation or action you want done.

We demand that you get the Republican Party to hold a press conference and accede to these demands. Until such a press conference happens and the legislation gets passed we will boycott products from Republican contributors Walmart, Wendy’s, Outback Steak House, Dominos Pizza, Red Lobster, Olive Garden, Eckerd, CVS and Walgreens, Curves for women health clubs, GE and Exxon/Mobil.

Important congressional action.

Call, write, email and fax your member of Congress and Senators and make a list of demands that you see below and send them or read them to them and tell them unless they get the list of demands enacted, you will boycott the companies listed below. Include your own demands too.

We demand that you get the Republican Party to hold a press conference and accede to these demands. Until such a press conference happens and the legislation gets passed we will boycott products from Republican contributors Walmart, Wendy’s, Outback Steak House, Dominos Pizza, Red Lobster, Olive Garden, Eckerd, CVS and Walgreens, Curves for women health clubs, GE and Exxon/Mobil.

We demand that congress pass legislation ending the war in Iraq and withdraw the troops and arrange
with the United Nations to replace US troops with UN troops to defend Iraq until The Iraqi army can defend Iraq.

We demand that the Republican party end their aggressive and hateful action to end a woman’s right to choose abortion or not.

We Demand that congress not confirm judge Samuel Alito to the Supreme court as he will NOT support a woman’s right to choose her own medical treatment including abortion.

We demand that the Congress of the United states and the president of the United States enact a law to increase the minimum wage to TEN dollars an hour and also to extend unemployment benefits to a year or more for all people whose unemployment benefits expired after 6 months even though they still seek work.

We demand that the Congress of the United States to not privatize social security benefits in any form including taking a percentage of the social security tax and placing it in private accounts. People can already create their own pensions with money after taxes in the private sector.

We demand that the congress make all of a person’s earned income taxable for social security FICA tax purposes and remove the 88,000 dollar taxable income limit. This will make social security solvent for many years to come.

We demand the congress increase the payroll tax in order to make social security solvent as well.

We demand congress and the president enact a prescription drug benefit under Medicare Part B which covers 80 percent of medication cost, with no extra premium, no extra deductibles, no means test and no coverage gaps, and no penalties for signing up in a succeeding year.

We call for the complete repeal of the faulty Medicare law HR 1 / S 1 passed by congress in Nov 2003.

We demand congress enact single payer universal health insurance for every citizen as minimum coverage.

We demand that congress and the president enact universal vote by mail throughout the 50 states of the United States of America with paper ballots easy to fill out and difficult to change or invalidate by Republican Party officials. This will prevent Republicans from vote suppression by skin color and political party which happened electronically and in person in the 2000 and 2004 elections.

We demand that congress and the president enact that civil servants on every state payroll keep track of voter registrations and vote counting of mail in votes in each precinct and not companies such as Choicepoint. We need to take the Republican Party out of the business of keeping track of voter registration and counting votes.

We demand that congress and the president ban the secretary of state in each of the 50 states from engaging in politics especially acting as a campaign official for a presidential campaign.

We demand congress enact legislation protecting private pensions from corporations deliberately declaring bankruptcy or ending pensions outright.

We do this in the spirit of peaceful resistance to a congress that refuses to enact this legislation

Search the net for 8GHL8 and you can learn how
We can destroy the Republican agenda and advance a progressive agenda.

Take action now by browsing http://tinyurl.com/8ghl8

If we wanted policies that made sense and led toward a long term reduction of terrorism, we should have elected someone with the proven ability to think long-term. Perhaps Al Gore, to pick a name totally at random.

Posner, BTW, is a Hegemony-paid hack, just like the rest of the sophists-for-hire. I guess the right has no problem with having their opinions dictated to them by oil barons and gunpowder tycoons.

An interesting twist to this data mining, which potentially scans for anything interesting or which could potentially someday be interesting to somebody (unknown unknowns) is if it has been mapped to a nifty color-coded personality categorization scheme.
So, we could have not just the simplistic Red/Blue breakdown of Americans, but a full on spectrum, White (harmless/senile), Pink (kook), Grey (spook/brainy), Green (money bags), Blue (tough guy), Yellow (wild and crazy), Orange (loud mouth), Red (real live one), Magenta (alert, arrest at will), etc.
Where do you think you'd fall in such a schema?
Now we'll know we're in trouble when you get to where a handy colored triangular patch on your coat whenever you walk about in public!

Chetbob, whosays, what impresses me even more is that they still believed in them (mostly) after 15 years of war and figuring out how to run a country themselves.

Yes, there was the Alien & Sedition Act (widely regarded as a tragic mistake) and the fact that slavery was an integral part of the Declaration (the line about "negroes" was amended to the less-obviously-hypocritical "He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us" three weeks later) but for the most part the principles at least were not rejected in spite of the temptations to crack down on their own dissidents and cut corners when it came to law enforcement.

We had British armies burning down the White House at a time when there were still living in this country people who thought that the civil war against England had been a bad idea. If the the country survived *that* in spite of the "suicide pact" of the Bill of Rights and Separation of Powers, it can survive anything constitution intact...

Does anyone think that Judge Posner would argue that there cannot be a homicide where the actions in question are not executed by a sentient being but, rather, by a time-bomb?

Of course not.

Posner -- and common sense -- would recognize that the illegal death caused by the homicide was in no way dependant on the instrumentality through which it was executed. And in the same way, common sense tells us that "the collection and processing" of "vast amounts of personal data" is an invasion of privacy, regardless of the device or devices used to gather the information.

And the fact that the nation is embroiled in an ongoing "war on terror" doesn't change that determination.

Guns are unquestionably a vital tool in the war on terror. And -- in a limited sense -- it's true that "guns don't kill people, people kill people." But those two facts do not mean that we cannot and should not limit the government's use of firearms.

In the same way, just because data collection is a vital tool in the war on terror and -- in the same limited sense -- "government computers don't invade privacy, governments invade privacy", that doesn't mean that we cannot and should not limit the government's use of computers to gather the personal data of U.S. citizens.

If the Republicans think they're entitled to read my email they can pay me for it.

Obvious question:
How much did Posner get paid for that shill?

Posner's words really describe the majority of the cable talking heads. The day of 9/11 they stopped being reporters and started being scared citizens, comforted by Bush's tough, nuturing talk. They are paranoid and trust the government way to much in the arena of national security issues. I mean, would Kronkite or Rather have cried on camera interviewing a 9/11 witness like that CNN anchor did?

We should keep in mind that Judge Posner actually doesn't share the philosophy of our Founding Fathers, in the classical liberal sense, and instead advocates a nebulous and absurd theory of law based upon economic pragmatism.

He is already a philosophical enemy to both the Constitution and Bill of Rights, so we shouldn't be too surprised by what we're hearing from him.

"Those who would give up essential liberty for temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

Franklin, bless his heart, didn't have the responsibility for judging which liberties were "essential", nor which safeties might have been taken "permanantly".

Remember Franklin's others: A stitch in time saves nine. Haste makes waste.

freedom_been_forgotten

Since according to you I am a wingnut, and my reading comprehension, in your opinion is suspect. Please help me reconcile your statements.

First you seem to be suggesting there is a debate over legalities of the behavior as exampled by your statement

'So we can conclude that since this "power" - which we're still debating and uncovering facts on as to whether it's legal or not'

Then you conclude that this power given to the executive branch is illegal in the statement below.

'Some of us ARE claiming that what Bush is doing is illegal.'

So legal or not? Debating or not? I mean according to you i'm a wingnut who has 'severe reading comprehension problems' right?

I once served on a criminal jury in NYC a few years ago. A man was charged with possessing an illegally defaced firearm which he was found sitting on. The jury a diverse group of individuals, male, female, black, white latino was 11 to 1 for 3 days. I individual held out because he said 'fairys could have placed the gun under this man without his knowledge' and that the other 11 of us couldnt prove that 'fairys didnt did do it'. After 3 days we were a hung jury.

My only point in this conversation is that we need to have a coherent message discussion on the legality or illegality of the policy in question, more focused on the policy and less on the user (bush) since this policy can be used by others in the future and may have been used by others in the past.

Being the minority party i fear that if the arguement is focused on the user we could lose the discussion because we will be labeled as bush hating crazys and as I learned on that jury ' you cant argue with crazy'.

amy:

If that's your argument, you're making it in the wrong place. You should be on the DNC blog arguing with liberal "Bush haters;" you'll even get some centrists chiming in on your side.

But this is a liberal blog, populated for the most part (save for the trolls and a very few sincere resident conservatives/libertarians/GOPers) by people with a -- justifiably in my view -- severely critical view of Bush and his administration.

So you're not going to find much of an audience here for a tactical argument that's essentially saying stop trying to appear exactly the way Karl Rove is trying to make you appear. We, frankly, don't care what Rove or the GOP talking points are trying to do to us -- we care about what is objectively true. And we care very greatly about our precious liberties and the Constitution upon which they are founded.

I was a Howard Dean activist in the primaries. I thoroughly reject the political analysis that says we have to agree with 85% of the Republicans in order to make an affect on the remaining 15%. Our Democratic leaders already take your view, amy. They stampeded us into the Iraq war, the Patriot Act, NCLB, Medicare "reform" and a host of other ill-advised legislation. I want my Party back.

But most importantly, I want my country back. We all do.

Triangulation no longer works, if it ever did. It preserved Bill Clinton's personal political fortune while we sustained heavy losses in Congress. It's time for a new approach.

The fundamental cornerstone of that approach is to grow a backbone and call a spade a spade.

You don't like the personal attacks, the long-distance psychologizing? Okay fine; try this then:

President George W. Bush is a clear and present danger to the Republic.

Bob

Too many more op-eds like this and we're all going to start becoming dues-paying member of the Cato Institute.

Please. Because we all have seen the "libertarian" community jump up to criticize Bush's illegal activities. When it was Clinton, sure, but not Our Leeder.

papageno: Franklin, bless his heart, didn't have the responsibility for judging which liberties were "essential", nor which safeties might have been taken "permanantly".

You're right. Participating in the Constitutional Convention, signing the Declaration of Independence, being a representative to our most powerful ally, and negotiating with the British army were all things he did only because the Philadelphia stamp collector's club was disbanded.

Modern people like yourself have far more serious concerns.

Actually, the real libertarians are "jumping up" about this. The only thing to remember is that the real libertarians are not Republicans.

Also, many real conservatives are "jumping up" about this, even as they are predominantly Republicans.

freedom_been_forgotten wrote:

This is not a partisan issue. This is American freedom at stake. If Carter used this power, and Clinton used this power (and I'm certain Reagan and Bush I probably also used it) - that doesn't change the fact that they should not have this power, and if they do, the law needs to be changed.

Thank you so very much. The wingnuts are forever whining about moral relativism, yet they have absolutely no problem using a man they despise (Clinton in this particular case) to justify the steely-eyed Rocketman's criminal actions. They are projecting; they don't understand that this is not a partisan issue for truly objective thinkers who love their country. I will never for the life of me understand the fucking cult surrounding the weasel that currently occupies the White House.

Take away my liberty. I don't want death.

well said

And they said that Bizarro World did not exist in the late 18th Century.

Depends's on programming isn't it and what the program bring up to the user's view. A virus scan checks every item of data in an e-mail but doesn't result in a government employee seeing your personal info.

Say a search engine goes through huge amounts of e-mail then extracts e-mails between a foreign target and the US with 99% accuracy. The 1% is picked up as not relevant by manual viewing...Does that 1% violate your privacy?

I saw a claim on one of the documentary channels that it now takes Al Qaida months to pass along the simplest messages. Wherever Bin Laden is, he can not quickly communicate with anyone else. If the NSA wiretap approach has done nothing else, it has probably convinced terrorists that it is better to use non-electronic means of communication for everything, even ordering simple supplies.

I suspect the immunity the U.S.A. has enjoyed from major terrorist attack will expire soon enough. Not from the likes of Al Qaida, but from a state-sponsored act of war by some regime that is basically holding on to power so tenuously in its own country that a "suicidal" attack on the U.S.A. might make a certain type of desperate sense to said mad regime.

McAristotle:
Lets have a program where we all leave copies of our house keys and car keys with the police and they can search continuously and randomly as long as we aren't around. That way we wont be bothered but they will be able to deter law breakers from breaking the law, and maybe catch some stupid ones.

The problem is that it violates the Constitution.

On your email scenario. One problem is that electronic trolling wont be based on just email addresses. It will troll for information clusters and key words, things like that.

Another problem is typical of your Panglosian approach to police type activity. You fail to note that it is more likely that the kind of searches NSA would have trouble getting warrants for are those which begin with an apparently innocent, but "potentially guilty" domestic party and then trolls for connections to them overseas, or in the current case, as has been revealed this week, between apparantly innocent domestic targets. Given that the Department of Defense considers gay activists (potential?) terrorists and the core of the Republican party thinks Cindy Sheehan, and Jack Murtha for that matter, are traitors, its hard to see where there would be any limits on an executive working with no judicial supervision to limit their domestic activities.

What kind of fool sends any e-mail which says anything at all they wouldn't want revealed in open court? The NSA isn't at all the only player in this game; there are all kinds of ways that careless words get remembered and dragged into the light of day.

Jimbo, upthread, at 12:59PM"By a bare majority the American people want a dictatorship. They want to be led by a stongman. A man who says what he means and means what he says."

The item that correlates most highly with "right-wing authoritarianism"--another name for fascism--is something like "we need a strong leader to stomp out the rot that is threatening our society."

This translates into "we need to allow GEORGE BUSH to operate in secret, break laws, spy on Americans and use torture and 'extradition' to stomp out the rot that is threatening America."

For God sakes, if we're going to go with a strong man, then let's at least find one, and not this clown we call a president.

"Limited purpose" is how it always starts, and then you have concentration camps, reeducation camps, psychiatric prisons, star chambers, secret police, secret arrests, secret trials, and a totalitarian state.

Simply suspend the Constitution.

It is inconvenient to the government.

That it was intended to be inconvenient and limiting on government seems to be lost on some people.

I suspect the immunity the U.S.A. has enjoyed from major terrorist attack will expire soon enough. Not from the likes of Al Qaida, but from a state-sponsored act of war by some regime that is basically holding on to power so tenuously in its own country that a "suicidal" attack on the U.S.A. might make a certain type of desperate sense to said mad regime.

Yeah, if Bush's numbers take another downturn to new record lows, that does become a problem.

Freedom Fighter,

I just want to check in on your consistency:

Do you support Saddam is his trial on charges of torture and murder. Keep in mind he was at war (with Iran) at the time.
I pretty sure its a leader's job to do ANYTHING in his power to protect his citizens.
I would think you would be railing against these trumped-up charges against Saddam.

Also, he was fighting the Ayatollah and his Islamofacists. Based on what I've seen on blogs--if you're against Saddam, your for his enemies (see Bush-Osama, etc).

Also, Iran lost that war (you know--loser like Gore, Kerry, Santorum '06, etc).
Don't tell me you support Iranian Islamofacists over Saddam.

Say it: You support Saddam's right to protect his citizens during wartime.
Be consistent, son.

adult personals

adult personals and adult singles top choice

free adult personals

free adult personals, adult singles and adult chat rooms

adult dating

adult dating for adult personals and adult singles

free adult dating

free adult dating with free adult web cam and free adult chat - adult
dating free

adult swingers

adult swingers and adult personals use this free adult web cam and adult chat

free adult swingers

free adult swingers, free adult personals - adult sex dating

adult chat

adult chat and free adult dating for adult personals

free adult chat

free adult chat and free adult web cam

adult friend

adult friend and adult personals free adult dating

adult web cam

adult web cam and free adult chat for sex personals

adult finder

adult finder for adult personals

free adult web cam

free adult web cam and free adult chat

adult dating service

free adult dating service with free adult chat

sex dating

sex dating for adult personals and erotic adult personals

adult sex dating

adult sex dating for adult personals and adult singles

adult singles

adult singles for adult sex dating

sex adult dating

sex adult dating, adult singles site

adult dating service

adult dating service, sex adult dating

adult models directory

top adult models free directory

adult friend finder

find adult friend for free

adult finder

adults find friends for free!

adult chat

best adult chat available here

best porn stars

best and most famous porn stars

adult dating

top adult dating site

adult dating chat

adult dating chat - any adult welcome!

adult sex dating

adult sex dating portal

free adult dating

free adult dating available here

adult dating online

adult dating online best choice

adult dating personals

find adult dating personals here

adult dating site

best adult dating site

adult xxx dating

adult xxx dating available here

adult singles dating

adult singles dating top site

porn star gallery

most famous porn stars free gallerys

porn star gals

best porn star free gals

famous porn stars

most famous porn stars free photos

katie morgan porn
star

porn star Katie Morgan Free photos

porn stars

porn stars and adult models free photos

free porn stars

free porn stars listings and galleries

top porn stars

top porn stars free listings

online dating
service

free online dating service

dating services

free dating services, online personals

single dating

singles dating online

christian dating

christians dating services free

christian dating
service

dating service for christians

christian dating
services

dating services for christians

free online dating

free online dating services

online dating
Louisville

Louisville online dating

hispanic dating
service

hispanic dating services

dating lexington
online

dating lexington online singles and personals