Jeez, this war is so NOT Vietnam ...

We don't even need recourse to the Constitution here, since we're talking about an actual law (the Privacy Act) that specifically prohibits the keeping of this information longer than 90 days if not germane to an ongoing investigation.

Ah, these boys are makin' me proud. If only I had a Mighty Wurlitzer of my own back in the day...

All you have to do is shut up and support the war and you won't end up in the Pentagon's database.

Unless you're a pro-war Catholic vegan who gets upset about llama fur.

Lesbians! Save me from the lesbians!

"According to William Arkin, this data is supposed to be purged after 90 days if it turns out to be unrelated to foreign governments or transnational terrorist organizations or illegal activity, but that's not what's happening"

Wow - sounds a lot like the instant background check database for firearms that the Feds are supposed to purge.

I guess there's a lesson here.

Lesson here? If so, direct it to the NRA. As I recall they were the ones supporting "instant check."

damn it- why can't people just do as they are told????

Sorry Pat, you recall wrong.
They (NRA) wanted instant handguns with a cursory check.
The instant check you're thinking of requires a persistent and iterative database, which they were most vehemently against. And lobbied successfully to kill.
Because, you know, no terrorist would ever get a gun license and proceed to buy weapons. So why keep the data?

Thanks. That's right. I remember them (sort of) trying to kill Brady by saying, no, we prefer instant check, but the instant check didn't actually exist hardly anywhere at that time, so it was kind of a BS argument.

We need to make the argument that this sort of crap isn't just bad in terms of civil liberties, it actually makes us less safe. I don't think anyone will honestly claim that vegan or anti-war groups are dangerous terrorists, but the NSA and DOD spend their time tracking them anyway for political reasons. That just increases the noise when you're trying to find people who are actually dangerous. I'm sure there's someone in one of these groups who coincidentally shares a zip code with a suspect who has actual ties to terrorist groups- track enough innocent people and you're sure to find some incidental contact with other suspects. So, you end up spending more time tracking people who are completely harmless, just because they happened to already be on your watch list because they're a vegan and they also happen to live down the street from someone who called Pakistan twice in a week. You start seeing connections and conspiracies where none exist when your bar for suspicion is, "Was in NYC during protests against the RNC." That just makes the few real conspiracies harder to see.

No matter the intentions of things like this at the beginning, they invariably devolve into mechanisms for tracking (and then supressing) internal dissent and political opposition.

SP thinks that tracking of people who were in NYC during the Republican Convention just creates noise in the system. Au contrare--it is the actual terrorists who create the noise. The system as now implemented and run is intended not to track terrorists but to track political dissent. Look at the groups that are tracks, and the activities that are being infiltrated. Only an imbecile would think there is some connection between a Quaker meeting and al Qaeda. The Quakers pose no threat to the nation--but they do pose a serious threat to George Bush's political operation.

According to William Arkin, this data is supposed to be purged after 90 days if it turns out to be unrelated to foreign governments or transnational terrorist organizations or illegal activity, but that's not what's happening

Kevin, even if this was true, how do you know George W Bush didn't issue a executive order which overrides that law which requires the purging? Under the Authorization for Use of Military Force law, the President was given the power to do whatever he believes is justified to fight the terrorrists. This gives him the power to override federal laws. So if George Bush issues a executive order which says it's no longer illegal then no law was broken.

At the end of the day nothing happens in Washington unless a business has a product/service to sell and of course a lobbyist to take "public servants" on golfing excursions.

All of the focus is on the political/legal side of spying on citizens but I wonder how involved some of the biggest names in US business are in the design and implementation of citizen spying programs?

Adjusting my tin foil... What does XP really stand for? Xtra Personal?

Is Intel the perfect business name?

Do the business entities and individuals that promote and work on illegal spying and data-storing endeavors have legal culpability? Criminal and or civil?

"Only an imbecile would think..."
Well, it's Bush, so thank you for agreeing with me.
Yes, my problem is that I'm assuming the good faith of the administration, that when they say they're doing something to stop terrorism, that's what they actually intend. I need to stop making such assumptions. But in the court of public opinion, there are still people who believe that- they think that those who oppose illegal domestic spying are putting us at risk of attack. It's those people who need to be shown that, if they really care about terrorism, what Bush is doing is counterproductive. People really are scared of terrorists, even though such a fear is somewhat irrational- I doubt they'll admit to being scared of Quakers.

Incidentally, I think our government would function much more efficiently and fairly if golf were outlawed.

Tom: I guess there's a lesson here.

Other than a demonstration of your idiocy, I don't see one.

WHY no recent terrorist attacks? They don't need to...with Bush in office all their hopes and dreams will ultimately be fulfilled...he is destroying America...witness Al's little "the president now can do ANYTHING HE WANTS" rant...yup...so much for democracy here!

Well, as long as they aren't keeping records of gun owners or drug abusing talk radio hosts.

Kevin wrote:

this data is supposed to be purged after 90 days if it turns out to be unrelated to foreign governments or transnational terrorist organizations or illegal activity, but that's not what's happening

Yeah, the whole thing sounded quite odd to me when I read that they included stuff about (pretty pedestrian) protests in the database, labeled then "threats," and then wrote a notation next to those entries that said "citizens exercising constitutional liberties."

Huh? It's surveillance's business to maintain records of this? That notation sounded like a figleaf to me, as soon as I read about it- like something they put in there just in case the records ever saw the light of day.

Outlaw golf! LOL. Thanks for that.

oops- should have been,

labeled them "threats,"

in my comment above, of course.

I approve this move wholeheartedly.

Long live the King! Long live his Majesty Bush! Long live my Big Brother!

"We don't even need recourse to the Constitution here, since we're talking about an actual law (the Privacy Act) that specifically prohibits the keeping of this information longer than 90 days if not germane to an ongoing investigation." Jimmm

Wrong, GWB is a wartime president. According to the "Yoo doctrine" the President doesn't need to obey any law, in fact no laws apply to him. His powers as "commander in chief" trump everything.

I suggest you remember that according to our President we are at "war", we have been at "war" at least since 9/11 (it changed everything) and we will always be at "war" "as long as somebody wants to kill Americans." The president's powers are plenary.

In short, don't trouble your little head with worries about this statute or that constitutional right, they are irrelevent. They will become relevant again only when nobody wants to kill any Americans. In short, when pigs fly.

Have a Merry Christmas.

are 'non-gay porno' sites ok though?

I just read the thread and realized that "Al" made the same argument as me. The difference is that I think he believes the argument that the President's plenary powers as commander in chief is a good thing. Sadly, we are both correct when it comes to interpreting the "Yoo Doctrine."

Pretty logical isn't it? A whole generation of these guys have been taught that you lose an insurgency at home when domestic dissent saps the will of the populace. They've studied Vo Nguyen Giap. They are just protecting the mission in Iraq which the political leadership has explicitly conflated with the war on terror? Any questions?

Hey Dickie Boy (and I mean RMN, baby: Milhouse is in the house!),

You nailed it up...uh...there above, man, up-the-thread, or whatever you call these things. I'm so proud these days I could cry. Thanks be to God that some right-thinking patriots have finally burst through the layers of commie liberalism and are protecting this country like they should.

And, hey, how about that Coulter babe: she's HOT!

....According to a JPEN classified briefing obtained by this blogger, the 90-day "data content limit...creates issues for long-term correlation and analysis."

You know, paying my taxes creates issues for my long-term financial liquidity and planning. Nice to know that that's all the excuse I need not to obey the law anymore.

The kids in my treefort club were surprised to learn that we were on the spy database after we voted unanimously that Condi Rice and Karen Hughes were icky and had cooties.

Last week, Jimmy got a note to go see the Principal. He's been gone ever since (so I took his milk).

At was at a war protest before the invasion and a middle age man with a digital camera was walking around and standing next to people while holding the camera leisurely at an angle up by his shoulder. When he stood next to me I thought for certain he took my picture, then he moved on and kept repeating the procedure. FBI, DOD or ?

My sign: Make Bush Eat Yellow Cake!

A brownshirt wrote:

"Under the Authorization for Use of Military Force law, the President was given the power to do whatever he believes is justified to fight the terrorrists. This gives him the power to override federal laws. So if George Bush issues a executive order which says it's no longer illegal then no law was broken."

Wonderful. So if someone shoots the a high federal official under the excuse of preventing terrorism, making the argument that the actions of this official has increased the threat of terrorism, then it's not a violation of law? If the feds issue an order to turn in all domestic weapons to the nearest county sheriff because of the threat of terrorism, then the Second Amendment doesn't apply anymore? When and where does this stop? If the President and his AG infer that they have carte blanche under AUMF, then what limits do they have? I'm sure the brownshirts among us are happy to throw their freedoms out the window for the illusion of security, but I sure as hell am not. We are a nation of laws, and the minute we're not anymore, then all bets are off, and this grand political experiment will have come to an ignomious end.

Only an imbecile would think there is some connection between a Quaker meeting and al Qaeda. The Quakers pose no threat to the nation--but they do pose a serious threat to George Bush's political operation.

Typical lib --- don't come crying to us when the Quakofascists kidnap you and saw off your head.

Simmer down now!

The righties have this paranoid delusion about liberals. Liberals = Stalinist commie pervert terrorists. Liberals are the threat to democracy. They will take away your freedom, concentrate power in the state, spy on "enemies of the state," steal your property, coddle the weak, strangle the economy, and promote immorality and sexual deviance. Osama bin Liberal!

So, to prevent this evil happening, righties are willing, even eager, to give up their freedom and concentrate power in one man who is above the laws of the (evil liberal) state. Given the nature of the threat, they are okay with torture, spying and aggression against their enemies (the liberals). They'll be fanatic advocates just so long as The Man caters to the rich, is harsh to the weak, coddles corporate interests, promotes old time religious values and punishes immorality.

The difference between the righties nightmare and their paradise is the absence or presence of unfettered capitalism and religious intolerance.

Can you spell f..a..s..c..i..s..t?

If there was as much popular support for the Iraq War as the Bushniks claim there is, they wouldn't have to be so secretive about everything they do.

One very interesting (and quite disturbing) feature of the recent debate about the Bush regime's illegal spying on Americans is how it's revealed the hard core of Bush supporters who will justify anything, absolutely anything, that he does. People have joked in the past that if Bush killed and ate a baby on live television you'd still get 20% of the country saying they were OK with it because the baby was probably a terrorist -- well, it's no longer a joke.

We have to realize that a significant percentage of our fellow citizens are, deep at heart, hard-core fascists who care nothing for freedom or liberty, servile followers who'll do anything they're ordered to do by authority. These people have always been with us and have been the faithful servants of every corrupt empire and dicatorship throughout history -- it's distressing, though, to realize how many of them are here with us in this day. What is wrong with America that they turn out this way? What has made them so hateful and paranoid and fear-crazed and servile?

Kevin, even if this was true, how do you know George W Bush didn't issue a executive order which overrides that law which requires the purging?

The easy way to know that is that an EO cannot override the law.

Under the Authorization for Use of Military Force law, the President was given the power to do whatever he believes is justified to fight the terrorrists.

No, he was not. He was authorized to use force against the persons he has determined perpetrated the 9/11 attacks. He was given no additional domestic powers to determine who is involved with the groups that perpetrated those attacks, and is required to abide by existing law in his efforts to do so. He is, of course, free to seek legislation expanding executive authority to assist that effort, and has done so in, e.g., the USA PATRIOT Act.

But, as Dick Cheney has already explicitly stated, this Administration has an open goal of restoring the Nixonian superpresidency and destroying the legal structures imposed by Congress in the aftermath of Vietnam and Watergate to curtail unrestrained executive surveillance and unchecked executive power deployed against the citizens of this country to monitor, suppress, and subvert domestic dissent.

This gives him the power to override federal laws.

The only power the President has to declare exemptions to federal statutes is that explicitly laid out in those statutes, and the Constitution pardon power.

So if George Bush issues a executive order which says it's no longer illegal then no law was broken.

Wrong. The President must obey the law, he is not empowered to rewrite the law at his whim. This is not an absolute monarchy with an elected legislature purely for show.

PTate
Can you spell f..a..s..c..i..s..t?

I get so tired of the "it's fascist!" argument, because fascism as a word means nothing due to its overuse. From the wikipedia (which I cite due to its indication of what people think, not due to its authority)

The word "fascist" ( or "fascism") is sometimes used to denigrate persons, institutions or groups that would not describe themselves as fascist and that do not fall within the formal definition of the word. As a political epithet it has been applied to persons and groups on the extreme left, the extreme right and most points in between...

...By 1944, the term had already become so widely and loosely employed, that British essayist and novelist George Orwell was moved to write " ... the word ‘Fascism’ is almost entirely meaningless...applied to farmers, shopkeepers, Social Credit, corporal punishment, fox hunting, bullfighting, the 1922 Committee, the 1941 Committee, Kipling, Gandhi, Chiang Kai-Shek, homosexuality, Priestley's broadcasts, Youth Hostels, astrology, women, dogs and I do not know what else."

Why do associations to "Poindexter" and "TIA" keep coming to my mind?

Stefan
One very interesting (and quite disturbing) feature of the recent debate about the Bush regime's illegal spying on Americans is how it's revealed the hard core of Bush supporters who will justify anything, absolutely anything, that he does.

Funny. After Monica-gate, a whole bunch of my dem friends who have zero tolerance for sexual shenanigans and would fire one of their employees who was banging one of their interns suddenly decided they were OK with the behavior as long as it performed by the Commander in Chief. Now I'm not arguing right or wrong here, just pointing out that people's standards are often malleable.

We have to realize that a significant percentage of our fellow citizens are, deep at heart, hard-core fascists (ed:, OH MY GOD...FACISTS!!!) who care nothing for freedom or liberty, servile followers who'll do anything they're ordered to do by authority.

That's a nice, simple-minded view of things. Completely glosses over the real calculus of giving up freedoms in order to have security. More than once on this blog (thousands of times, in fact) folks have used the fact that Saddam's brutal suppression kept the terrorists and islamists at bay as arguments for not overturning him.

On both the left and the right live huge flocks of sheeple. See Soviet Union and Commie China for data points.

Stefan, you're sounding like a libertarian! You and Tbrosz...

another association is ABLE danger
and the purging of mucho data/ searching/info

I wonder how the JPEN works. How do they whip up a record on someone? How much effrot does it take to reconstitute it after deletion?

I'm sick of reporters playing "I've got a secret" and becoming self-designated arbiters of our national security by choosing what tid-bits to report and what ones to hold back in the interest of security. If someone leaks something to them, just report the whole damn thing. Enough with the "just a little bit pregnant" security leaks.

Um, what does this part of the post even MEAN?

"The managers of JPEN are hardly being inadvertent about either the 90-day restriction or the intentional collection of information on U.S. persons."

Apparently there are gaps in my knowledge of English...

That's a nice, simple-minded view of things.

It is simple, not simple-minded. It is also true. There is a significant minority of those who believe that the press should never report anything damaging to the president and those who disagree with the govenrment are all suspects. Unfortunately, those crazies have now taken over. Human nature has a fascist impulse that runs through it, and a piece of the Enlightenment philosophy, when it comes to government, was about how to restrain this impulse. That philosophy led to the formation of the US Constitution. We've also entered a time when that impulse has been allowed to run free and run roughshod over our citizens, in part because of paranoia over terrorism and in part because of a creepy cult-of-personality the supporters of the president tend to ascribe to.

The righties have this paranoid delusion about liberals. Liberals = Stalinist commie pervert terrorists.

I had a political science class a long time ago and the TA used a straight line with Fascism on one end and Stalinism on the other end and moderation in the middle to explain the political spectrum. I complained that Fascism and Stalinism were basically the same thing and that he should make his straight line a circle with Fascism and Stalinism next to each other and libertarianism on the opposite side. The TA claimed his straight line equaled my circle as explanation, despite the opposite poles of his visual aid.

Some reasons Bush is often linked to Fascism is because of his corporatism, a major plank of the Fascist ideology, his double speak, describing the action to protect the US from terrorism as endless war, his defense of torture, his rationalizations to hold people without charges or trial and designate them as non-persons, his constant changing of history to explain his reasons for going to war in Iraq, spying on citizens, and his unwavering belief that his ideology of power capitalism will solve all problems. Rather than calling Bush a Fascist, it is better to call him a totalitarian. One of my favorite books is Hannah Arendt's Origins of Totalitarianism, rereading it recently, I could not help but notice everything Bush says and does is described and explained in detail.

More than once on this blog (thousands of times, in fact) folks have used the fact that Saddam's brutal suppression kept the terrorists and islamists at bay as arguments for not overturning him.

That's a misstatement. The argument was that Saddam's brutal suppression was proof that he was an enemy of the terrorists and Islamists, not, as the Bush regime claimed, an ally. It was not that this suppression was an argument to keep him in power as much as it was an argument that his overthrow would unleash these forces, an argument that the Right denied but that proved to be true.

"What is wrong with America that they turn out this way? What has made them so hateful and paranoid and fear-crazed and servile?"

Greed? The average American these days is a useful idiot, all too willing to sign loan papers to buy oversize cars and houses and fill them with junk furniture. They are afraid of foreigners, afraid of critical thinking and the conclusions it may bring, and hardly willing to recognize their crystal meth-like dependency on oil. We live in a country where thugs wait in parking lots to relieve shoppers of their hard-fought and won XBoxes.

Oil? Oil brings us everything in modern America, all the crap we buy, its packaging, distribution, and disposal, the way we live and get around in cities and suburbs and rural areas, the food we grow and eat, and how we work and earn the money necessary to fill the tank and make the payments. Families drive or fly to meet each other during the holidays, and they mostly sit around and eat and watch TV, which largely stokes the appetite for diversion and mo' stuff.

Sounds elitist? Only if you think all of this is somehow the highest and best definition of life. It is comfortable, but ultimately empty and self-defeating. The really scary thing is that the Chinese want this too, in large part because it is the only way they've decided to handle what has been called the largest migration in history, off the farms and into the cities. As China grows into another version of America and to a lesser extent, Europe, the drain on resources like oil will trigger resource wars, and Iraq is simply the latest in a long line of them. No ma'am, your son or daughter did not die for freedom, they died for control of resources that people like Cheney have made us completely dependent upon. And yes, you have to give up your privacy, your right to make a transatlantic call w/o being listened to by computers, in order to protect this social order, all of it built upon lies and petrochemical dependencies.

Americans are weak and stupid cowards, and they are ripe for a fall.

I get so tired of the "it's fascist!" argument, because fascism as a word means nothing due to its overuse.

Well, Mike, Bush, Cheney and Company are sure working hard to put meaning back into the word.

Stefan, you're sounding like a libertarian!

No, I'm not. I'm sounding like a civil libertarian.

Human nature has a fascist impulse that runs through it, and a piece of the Enlightenment philosophy, when it comes to government, was about how to restrain this impulse. That philosophy led to the formation of the US Constitution.

There goes the "fascism" word again. Since the Constitution predates fascism by a hundred+ years, maybe you could use a different, more precise word for what you mean.

What do you mean when you say "fascism"?

I get so tired of the "it's fascist!" argument, because fascism as a word means nothing due to its overuse.

You may be right, but if the shoe fits....

These lists will come in handy if a holy cleansing becomes necessary. In the interim, the existence of such lists can have a salutary cooling effect.

You may be right, but if the shoe fits....

If the shoe's big enough, it fits everything. I'm looking for a snug fit.

SP: I don't think anyone will honestly claim that vegan or anti-war groups are dangerous terrorists ...

Actually, spokespeople for the meat, fur and vivisection industries often claim that animal rights advocacy groups such as PETA, and sometimes even mainstream animal welfare organizations like the Humane Society of the United States, are "dangerous terrorists".

These lists will come in handy if a holy cleansing becomes necessary. In the interim, the existence of such lists can have a salutary cooling effect.

Michael, you better watch out, but you better not cry. Better not pout, either. Here, I'll tell you why.

JPEN is not the only database keeping statistics on our citizens. Neither is TIA or others of its ilk. In fact, there's a database being kept on our children, which can be used to establish their merit as future citizens. It's kept by a Mr. S. Claus.

It keeps a daily accounting of children everywhere, continually verifying who been naughty or nice. Around this time of year it gets checked once...then twice. I've been trying to get access to it for a while now. My kids deny everything, but I know someone broke the vase. It didn't just fall on its own.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

1. Powerful nationalism. Can't deny that.

2. Disdain for human rights. Can you say 'torture'?

3. Identify enemies as unifying cause. Democrats aren't the opposition party, they are the 'enemy'

4. Supremacy of the military. I happen to like all things military, but 454 billion?

5. Sexism? Go after the gays/lesbians.

6. Control mass media. We could argue this all day I guess.

7. Obsession with national security? Spy on your own citizens.

8. Religion and government intertwined? Conservatives certainly want that.

9. Corporate power protected? Why aren't we protecting our chemical plants? Who determines energy policy?

10. Labor power suppressed? Change overtime pay rules, take away time and one-half pay.

11. Disdain for intellectuals and arts Intelligent design?

12. Obsession with crime and punishment Patriot act permanent. Secret prisons, laws, courts.

13. Rampant cronyism Abramhoff? Brownie?

14. Fraudulant elections? I hoped not, but now all these Diebold stories coming out.

Once we invade the North Pole the elves will welcome us as liberators....

GEE, SOUNDS LIKE THE LEFT IS CONCERNED THEIR INTERNATIONAL TIES TO TERRORISTS WILL BE OUTED.

I QUOTE FROM THE POST:

"""supposed to be purged after 90 days if it turns out to be unrelated to foreign governments or transnational terrorist organizations """

SO WHO DECIDES THIS??

If Code Pink has an anti-war demonstration and invites their good buddy Ramsey Clark, SADDAM HUSSEINS ATTORNEY AND BUTT BOY, and Saddam is a known international terrorist.

THEN EVERYONE INVOLVED WITH THE DEMONSTRATION IS TIED TO INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM, AND THE DATA BASE REMAINS.

By the way, I've seen the data base and you are all in their! Huh hah ha ha ha ha ha hahuhuhuu.

RSM, I'm not particularly in the mood to indulge your caprices, today. Move along. Let the adults deal with the issue in peace. You red-staters f-cked up an saddled us with a White House full of freaks with fascist impulses. All the sophistry you can muster isn't going to change that.

The authoritarian personality type has been studied extensively since 1945. It is this human trait to know where in the social ordering of authority one resides and to feel secure in the knowing that allows people to create and follow demagogues. It is the authoritarian impulse that allowed leaders like Hitler, Stalin, and Bush to exist as the embodiment of a people's fears and aspirations for control, and wreck terror on the rest of the world. It is not a Fascist impulse, but an authoritarian impulse that dominates a very large part of humankind's nature.

Fascism is an ideology based on race. Race is used to explain all problems and solutions.

Stalinism or Boshivism is an ideiology based on class. Class is used to explain all problems and solutions.

Richard Perle called the Bush regime pragmatic. I have had a difficult time pinpointing the exact nature of the its ideology, which seems to be based on the power of capital combined with Christian fundamentalist righteousness. For the people of Iraq, it has been a devastating political ideal.

According to Hannah Arendt, the perfect terror society was found in the Nazi death camps. The near perfect terror society was created by Stalin's purges and Gulag. The continuous daily terror in Iraq since the invasion, a combination of US aerial bombardment, US goon squads taking people to prisons from sweeps of neighborhoods, the insurgents' non-stop suicide bombing of civilian gatherings, and the militia death squads, has created a totalitarian society Hitler and Stalin could be proud of.

Many Americans are very proud of the results in Iraq, too.

Just wait for the next big New York Times blockbuster:

The New York Times is set to report that Bush is secretly using the United States military to fight the Global War on Terror!!!!

They left will be outraged and demand an explanantion...KOS will scream for impeachment - how dare he use the military to fight a war - isn't that clearly an impeachable offense!!

The Democrats will claim they were secretly briefed on a plan to use military forces to actually fight a war, but they strongly opposed it, instead arguing a well equip brownie troop would suffice.

SecularAnimists,

When Peta says that our six cats can not have us as their pets, then to hell with PETA.

In addition to "adopting" pets and then killing them, they are vile.

Patton:

Congratulations on going an entire post with out using CAPS.

That's about it though.

RSM, I'm not particularly in the mood to indulge your caprices, today.

Why just today? You're always humorless.

Move along. Let the adults deal with the issue in peace.

Oh, you mean the adults that wrote...

Lesbians! Save me from the lesbians!

Jeez, this war is so NOT Vietnam ...

I think our government would function much more efficiently and fairly if golf were outlawed.

and

don't come crying to us when the Quakofascists kidnap you and saw off your head.

You red-staters f-cked up an saddled us with a White House full of freaks with fascist impulses.

You blue-staters f-cked up put forward a slate of losers that not enough people wanted to vote for. Not just the White House. Congress too. Blame Ralph Nader.

Good catch from Atrios today showing that the Bush regime's claim that they were granted implicit authority the by use of force resolution is contradicted by the legislative history, which makes clear that the drafters expliciitly rejected that claim:

The Bush administration requested, and Congress rejected, war-making authority "in the United States" in negotiations over the joint resolution passed days after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, according to an opinion article by former Senate majority leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) in today's Washington Post.

Daschle's disclosure challenges a central legal argument offered by the White House in defense of the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping of U.S. citizens and permanent residents. It suggests that Congress refused explicitly to grant authority that the Bush administration now asserts is implicit in the resolution.
...

As drafted, and as finally passed, the resolution authorized the president "to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations or persons" who "planned, authorized, committed or aided" the Sept. 11 attacks.

"Literally minutes before the Senate cast its vote, the administration sought to add the words 'in the United States and' after 'appropriate force' in the agreed-upon text," Daschle wrote. "This last-minute change would have given the president broad authority to exercise expansive powers not just overseas -- where we all understood he wanted authority to act -- but right here in the United States, potentially against American citizens. I could see no justification for Congress to accede to this extraordinary request for additional authority. I refused."

Daschle wrote that Congress also rejected draft language from the White House that would have authorized the use of force to "deter and pre-empt any future acts of terrorism or aggression against the United States," not only against those responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks.

thethirdPaul wrote: When Peta says that our six cats can not have us as their pets, then to hell with PETA. In addition to "adopting" pets and then killing them, they are vile.

I believe you are misinformed about what PETA does, and what PETA advocates, but if you don't like PETA for whatever reason, be it misinformed or otherwise, that's perfectly fine. The fact that you -- and lots of other people -- don't like PETA doesn't make PETA a "terrorist" organization or justify the FBI infiltrating them, or the IRS harrassing them with repeated, baseless, politically motivated audits.

RSM:

Not sure what the (fascism) problem is. Defining Bush (fascist) and his ilk has never been (enjoyable) easier. And as you seem obsessed (terrified) with security issues, then clearly Bush (fascist) is succeeding on number 7 above from whosays (I do).

Your posts continue to illustrate a blind (frightened) obedience (baa baa baa) of the typical Bush (fascist) boot (ass) licker.

More than once on this blog (thousands of times, in fact) folks have used the fact that Saddam's brutal suppression kept the terrorists and islamists at bay as arguments for not overturning him.
Posted by: Red State Mike on December 23, 2005 at 11:28 AM | PERMALINK

Assclown.

That fact was evidence that Saddam was NOT in league with Al Qaeda.

Not an argument for not overturning him. There's no argument for not overturning him, other than, there's like a zillion other far worse dictators in the world we should be overturning first - if we're suddenly going to go on a dictator overturning spree. Like the ones in Saudi Arabia. Or Haiti (since 2001). Or that overturning him would unleash a shit storm in the middle east that we would be totally unprepared to deal with.

Those are arguments for not overturning him.

The authoritarian personality type has been studied extensively since 1945. It is this human trait to know where in the social ordering of authority one resides and to feel secure in the knowing that allows people to create and follow demagogues. It is the authoritarian impulse that allowed leaders like Hitler, Stalin, and Bush to exist as the embodiment of a people's fears and aspirations for control, and wreck terror on the rest of the world. It is not a Fascist impulse, but an authoritarian impulse that dominates a very large part of humankind's nature.

Thank you.

From an interesting editorial, avaible from google's cache...

Viable democracies require the conjunction of very special material and social "enabling conditions"... That conjunction happens all too infrequently as the relative rarity of democracies and the overwhelming predominance of authoritarian governments throughout human history can testify. We are social primates, and evolution has endowed the social primates with an innate proclivity to hierarchically structured social and political systems and an innate tendency to dominance and submission behaviors. A species so genetically inclined is hardly promising democratic material -- which is why democracies are a definite minority among governments, why they are so hard to establish and why they tend to be so fragile.

My ape's better than your ape.

What do you mean when you say "fascism"?
Posted by: Red State Mike on December 23, 2005 at 11:55 AM | PERMALINK

Rule by force (ie. Might makes right) - rather than Rule by law.

As in: making the War On Terror a military operation, instead of a Law Enforcement problem.

(by doing that, you alter, and in some cases remove the legal framework governing these activities, and you also give the terrorists the legitimacy they seek by treating them as if they're a soverign nation to be conquered, rather than as criminals to be arrested and punished).

If you use a high-powered rifle to swat a fly, you'll probably miss the fly, and put a bunch of big holes in your house.

Your posts continue to illustrate a blind (frightened) obedience (baa baa baa) of the typical Bush (fascist) boot (ass) licker.

Your posts continue to illustrate what I call the Monet school of arguing. Seems to be something there, but upon close examination is void of logic, consisting of words (misused) constructing sentences (nonsensical) into paragraphs (disconnected).

Keep on keepin' on. Maybe you'll continue to lose elections.

My ape's better than your ape.
Posted by: Red State Mike on December 23, 2005 at 1:02 PM | PERMALINK

There's also a genetic predisposition in primates towards throwing feces at eachother.

Many humans have been able to overcome these animalistic tendencies.

Why have you not?

As in: making the War On Terror a military operation, instead of a Law Enforcement problem.

So we should have arrested the Taliban instead of attacked them?

Or maybe its not an either-or thing.

So we should have arrested the Taliban instead of attacked them?
Or maybe its not an either-or thing.
Posted by: Red State Mike on December 23, 2005 at 1:06 PM | PERMALINK

The Taliban were not terrorists (you fucking retard).

The Taliban were a religious fanatic political movement. (Like the Republican Party).

The Taliban were harboring Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda were the terrorists. We asked them to hand over Bin Laden. They refused. Then it became a problem of military force against a sovereign government. Once that sovereign government was brought down, it became a law enforcement problem. One that George W Bush has completely bungled, because he was so fixated on flinging feces.

'Actually, spokespeople for......often claim that animal rights advocacy groups such as PETA, and sometimes even mainstream animal welfare organizations like the Humane Society of the United States, are "dangerous terrorists".

Posted by: SecularAnimists on December 23'

Actually, SecAn, the FBI have so designated these two as terrorist organisations. HSUS is a cover under another name for PETA. They do things just as Al Qaeda and Zarqawi do, small autonomous cells, training camps in how to kill (people, not animals!)....... lots of PR. Did you know they have armies of disciples in the form of school teachers who are propagandizing your children? No? Well, guys they do just that! In the field where I used to work I used to get a lot of Emails quoting Administration and FBI exhortations about their being threats to the country of greater risk than Al Qaeda because Miss Twiglet the school teacher and Mr Nice Guy the teachers are not obvious, not running about with hook noses and shemaghs on their heads. An apartment complex in San Diego was burnt down: a lab in Washington ?Oregon was burnt down which contained a v large quantity of really rare indigenous plants: a veterinary doctor in Ohio, I think, doing some wonderful research in HIV, but using FIV and cats, was threatened and intimidated so much that he quit the whole research game. They are serious. That is a bit ago; i expect there are better and later examples.

I wonder if my membership in PETA (People Eating Tasty Animals) has me on any FBI watchlists?

I may have been recalling lecture and reading materials and writing about my impressions of them to explain the observable world, but I did not plagiarize wholesale. Those were my thoughts, which you do not seem have any of.

Ape? "Give me, give me, give me detumesence."

The Taliban were not terrorists (you fucking retard).

Attacking the Taliban was a part of the war on terror (you fucking moron). Why else do you think we went in the Afghanistan (you whore-brained imbecile).

Once that sovereign government was brought down, it became a law enforcement problem. One that George W Bush has completely bungled, because he was so fixated on flinging feces.

Then why are our troops still in Afghanistan (you shit flinging monkey)? Why does Afghanistan ask us to stay (you inbred mongoloid)?

Stefan
RSM: More than once on this blog (thousands of times, in fact) folks have used the fact that Saddam's brutal suppression kept the terrorists and islamists at bay as arguments for not overturning him.

That's a misstatement.

I'll buy that one.

Red State Mike: "I get so tired of the "it's fascist!" argument, because fascism as a word means nothing due to its overuse"

I agree that the word has been overused, in the same way that "racist" has been overused: an all purpose epithet that no one wants to be. When we start hurling these epithets all civil discourse collapses. But fascism refers to a political ideology/orientation, and I use it judiciously, not as an epithet. Some people use "right-wing authoritarianism" or "totalitarian" as synonyms, but I like fascist.

Here is a different definition: " A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism.

The wikipedia link you provide discusses the problem of defining fascism, but also provides these features: "Fascism is associated with one or more of the following characteristics: a very high degree of nationalism, economic corporatism, and, after attaining political control of a country, a powerful, dictatorial state that views the nation as superior to the individuals or groups composing it." It is flagged as a not neutral article.

In one measure of right-wing authoritariaism, the item that best predicted RWA was "we need a strong leader to stomp out the rot that is threatening our society."

Among the features of the Bush administration that make me describe it as fascist involve 1) the hero-worship of "strong leader" GWB, annointed by God; its conviction that Bush is above the law, its defense of propaganda, torture, spying as necessary; 2) the magical thinking and contempt for objective science; the promotion of fundamentalist religious ideology including apocalyptic fantasies; 3) its worship of America as above the law; the refusal to address America's addiction to cheap oil; the neo-con neo-colonial fantasy of transforming the ME into an American/Israel friendly region through force; 4) its aggressiveness: the no-holds-bared willingness to smear character and spread lies in order to win; contempt for the weak & poor; the partisanship and hostility towards political opponents; 5) the incompetence & cronism, the whoring for corporate interests while claiming that government is the problem; the taxes cuts for the richest that fuel deficits and budget cuts for the poorest.

Bushco is not Hitler nor Mussolini or Franco. Fascism here won't mirror in all details 30s fascism or 50s McCarthyism. It will be its own special brew fueled by greed and fear of Islamic terrorism. How is it not fascism?

I request that my National Security Agency, NSA, investigate me as a citizen who wants my president humiliated, run out of town, impeached and arrested for war crimes and Constitution ravaging. CC the FBI. This neglectful stumblebum of a traitor is my president and I reserve the Right to say that. As long as this is a free country with a free press, that is. Maybe after the NSA tally, Republicans won‘t be able to cheat on elections.

Bush is our nation’s worst president, considering breadth of policy activism, and for his utter failure in each and every area. He can’t be trusted with our money, our security, our future, or our American Rights. Bush’s motives aren’t good for the USA. Neither his successes or his failures work for us. His policies and practices are poorly thought out and incompetently implemented.

Bush’s ulterior motive behind his Iraq attack is permanent bases. True to (his) form, this won’t happen in the worst way : losing without dignity and leaving anger and anarchy behind.

Just how un-American, just how low, does Bush have to go before his supporters wise up? I hope before the never ending cavalcade of blunders “blowback” on us

SA,
Just saw a special on CNN - lovely display of kindness from two PETA women who "adopted" cats from a Vet - They were going to find homes for the cats and kittens. The "home" they found was a dumpster after killing them.

Call them whatever you will, but they are fanatics and zealots. All of our 6 cats were either from PAWS, the pound or strays which we took in and paid for spaying and neutering. We are now, their pets. Except for one who we take out on a leash, they are all indoor cats. I would love to have a PETA type step onto our property and try to tell us that we can not have pets. Love that axe handle boogie.

hotile:"Fascism is an ideology based on race. Race is used to explain all problems and solutions."

That's an interesting categorization, but doesn't it apply particularly to Hitler's special brand of fascism?

One could argue--and here I am being a typical liberal, willing to take someone else's POV--that the Democratic party and liberals were fascist by this definition, given how central a social critique based on race has been to the liberal policy over the past 40 years: Race has been used to explain all problems and solutions.

maunga wrote: the FBI have so designated these two as terrorist organisations. HSUS is a cover under another name for PETA. They do things just as Al Qaeda and Zarqawi do, small autonomous cells, training camps in how to kill (people, not animals!)

Are you a parody, or a genuine crackpot? In any case, you've got me feeling nostalgic. I used to encounter idiotic drivel like that all the time on the talk.politics.animals USENET newsgroup.

For what it's worth, PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) and HSUS (Humane Society of the United States) are both IRS-recognized 501c3 nonprofit organizations; neither has been designated a "terrorist organization" by the FBI or any other government agency; and they are completely unrelated organizations.

The Fascism tag is a bit off.

Through the prism of his families influence, Bush takes the fascism tendencies of his party and they get warped into truly royalist type tendencies.

The classicism is what does it. That and promoting "loyalists" over competents, and the obsession of admitting policy failures versus getting the problem corrected.

KingGeorgeII

Attacking the Taliban was a part of the war on terror (you fucking moron). Why else do you think we went in the Afghanistan (you whore-brained imbecile).Posted by: Red State Mike on December 23, 2005 at 1:22 PM | PERMALINK

I believe I explained that: In order to apprehend Osama bin Laden.

Then why are our troops still in Afghanistan (you shit flinging monkey)? Why does Afghanistan ask us to stay (you inbred mongoloid)?

Afghanistan is not asking us to stay. The oil-company puppet we installed is asking us to stay.

But in fact, I think our troops SHOULD be in Afghanistan. The troops that are in Iraq (every single one of them) should, instead, be in Afghanistan, hunting down Al Qaeda, and Osama bin Laden. We should have begun the invasion by securing the borders so these bastards could not escape. The president should also be saying the same thing to Mushtarraff as he said to Mullah Omar: Hand over bin Laden, or we will come in and get him ourselves. And with 150k troops in the region, Mushtarraff would not be in a position to say NO (as he is today).

Bush started to fight a war on terrorism, but before he was finished, he changed it into a War on The American Taxpayer, by handing hundreds of billions of borrowed taxpayer dollars over to war profiteers, and accomplishing NOTHING that serves the interests of the American People, other than giving Halliburton a few good quarters.

I know this is off topic, but the PETA reference has jogged an idea I have had. First of all, I really like PETA. The horrors of animal treatment have been well communicated by them and their ability to harass consumers of animal cruelty is admirable. Although I try not to eat meat because of the terrible conditions of US industrial food farming, I think, from a species point of view, chickens, cows, pigs, etc. have become symbiotically intertwined with the human species. Most domestic species would not exist or would no longer exist in the wild if not for the relationship they have with humans. So, if PETA's ideal of having all mankind stop eating meat were realized, would chickens, cows, pigs, etc. become extinct? I think so.

Another question is who started this relationship. Have chickens manipulated mankind into using them for a food staple in order to provide for their species' continued existence or did mankind manipulate them, and their resultant survival during the coming mass extinction of most animals and plants a lucky accident?

I could say the same thing about corn or rice. Did these plants manupulate mankind into developing them as a food commodity, ensuring their species' short term survival, or was it just a lucky accident?

Humans are so proud, they think they manipulate animals and plants and are incapable of being manipulated by them. In the very large scheme of the universe, it is possible we are the ones being manipulated, which returns my arguement to authoritarianism. People's desire for knowing where they fit into their relationship with other people, who is above and who is below, and their fear of being under the control of someone unlike them, is manipulated by demagogues to create despotism or tyranny. Yet, people's hubris prevents them from seeing they are being manipulated because of their base fears, allowing for the killing of tens of thousands or even millions.

PTate...
How is it not fascism?

I've had this argument before with others. I cited the wikipedia out of laziness, I guess. I prefer the definition of the guy who invented fascism, Mussolini. One particular element of the definition is...

Fascism combats the whole complex system of democratic ideology, and repudiates it, whether in its theoretical premises or in its practical application. Fascism denies that the majority, by the simple fact that it is a majority, can direct human society; it denies that numbers alone can govern by means of a periodical consultation, and it affirms the immutable, beneficial, and fruitful inequality of mankind, which can never be permanently leveled through the mere operation of a mechanical process such as universal suffrage....

Now the idea that a fascist George Bush would install a democracy anywhere or tend to be best buddies with long-standing or newly emerging democracies flies in the face of the definition of fascism. It is a non sequitur. As for the points you made...

1) the hero-worship of "strong leader" GWB, annointed by God; its conviction that Bush is above the law, its defense of propaganda, torture, spying as necessary;

Think FDR and how he was worshipped. Japanese internment camps. Etc. I don't think he was a fascist, especially since he was fighting them.

2) the magical thinking and contempt for objective science; the promotion of fundamentalist religious ideology including apocalyptic fantasies;

You'd have to prove the apolcalyptic fantasies slant. But if you read the inauguration addresses of pretty much every president we've had, you'll see they all make calls to a higher authority. Bush's religion is mainstream. I'm not a fan of ID or that stuff, but it does not a fascist make.

3) its worship of America as above the law; the refusal to address America's addiction to cheap oil; the neo-con neo-colonial fantasy of transforming the ME into an American/Israel friendly region through force;

"Above the law" behavior has been a characteristic of dems and repubs. Tonkin Gulf. Bay of Pigs. Iran Hostage rescue mission. Lobbing cruise missiles into Afghanistan. Blowing up drug factories.

4) its aggressiveness: the no-holds-bared willingness to smear character and spread lies in order to win; contempt for the weak & poor; the partisanship and hostility towards political opponents;

Are you really saying the Democrats always play with kid gloves on? I can list off a whole bunch of democratic "machines" that have played dirty. And the last bullet is amusing given the tone on this site. I admit Atwater and Rove are masters, but that's a matter of talent, not inclination.

5) the incompetence & cronism, the whoring for corporate interests while claiming that government is the problem; the taxes cuts for the richest that fuel deficits and budget cuts for the poorest.

Again, not fascist, just bad governance. And you have to make the "tax cuts are bad" argument in the face of the current economy.

But in fact, I think our troops SHOULD be in Afghanistan.

I thought it was just a law enforcement problem?

huh.

but doesn't it apply particularly to Hitler's special brand of fascism?

Quite right. I should have said Nazism is race based. Fascism is a larger political ideology mostly based on corporatism.

Although the civil liberty movement of the second half of the 20th Century in the US was motivated to solve racism, I do not think it was based on the idea the Caucasian race is inherently predisposed to owning slaves. So, no, I do not think the civil liberties movement was motivated by expressing racism but by eliminating the expression of racism as a viable political ideal as practiced under Jim Crow.

What goes around, comes around..

COINTELPRO is an acronym for a series of FBI counterintelligence programs designed to neutralize political dissidents. Although covert operations have been employed throughout FBI history, the formal COINTELPRO's of 1956-1971 were broadly targeted against radical political organizations. In the early 1950s, the Communist Party was illegal in the United States.

http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/cointelpro/cointel.htm

The Bureau does not concur with your recommendations that a report on WLM activity within your division is not warranted at this time. The WLM has emerged as a loosely structured, but nevertheless nationwide feminine activist movement comprised of women with political opinions ranging from liberal to radical extremism. Interwoven with its goals for equal rights for women, is the advocation for militancy and violence in achieving these goals. ... In view of the above, it is absolutely essential that we conduct sufficient investigation to clearly establish subversive ramifications of the WLM and to determine the potential for violence presented by the various groups connected with this movement as well as any possible threat they may represent to the internal security of the United States. Director to SAC, Chicago, May 11, 1970

"""Patton:

Congratulations on going an entire post with out using CAPS.""""

THANKS!!

More of the same:

Dear Senator: I am indeed pleased to note that you are chairing a committee to investigate the activities of dissident student elements on our college campuses. I trust this effort will not become just another "study" but will actually result in concrete results to rid our universities and colleges of the disruptive activities of radicals, leftists and nihilists. In this connection, I have taken upon myself a small project regarding the background of Professor David Herreshoff, of the English Department at Wayne State University. ... Very truly yours, A Fed-up Taxpayer! Anonymous Letter, FBI-authored, circa May, 1968

NEW YORK TIMES SHOCKER!!:

NYT set to report Bush adminstration actually killing people in global war on terrorism.

SHOCK NYT reporters discovered terrorist are actually being killed, wounded and even captured during a war on terrorism.

The NYT will report that even though Congress only authorized war on all terrorist groups with global reach and the countries that support them, Bush has actually interpreted that to mean, actually fighting and killing the terrorists, not just trying to understand and accomodate their global concerns about Kyoto and the starving in Africa.

The NYT has actually interviewed apparent soldiers who claim that they actually went overseas, found terrorists and killed them, without reading them their rights, getting a warrant, or even presenting any evidence to any court anywhere.

Daily Kos and Kevin Drum are fit to be tide, imagine how sick Bush is to actually kill poeple in a war - -what does he think this is, World War II or something??

Bush sends Congress explanation for fighting a war:

See: http://www.sweetness-light.com/

They have posted Bushs response in picture form.

Daschle explains that when he voted for war, he simply meant the card game, or that thumb game or soemthing. Claims never meant for any Al Queda to get hurt.

PTate in MN wrote:

One could argue--and here I am being a typical liberal, willing to take someone else's POV--that the Democratic party and liberals were fascist by this definition, given how central a social critique based on race has been to the liberal policy over the past 40 years: Race has been used to explain all problems and solutions.

I have long argued that all extremists are fascists at heart, whether they're on the right, left or totally off the spectrum, like PETA. Because extremists are so sure that they are right, they would have no problem using force to make everyone to act according to what they (the extremists) think is right.

Fascism is about totalitarian control. Fascism is about forcing everybody to act according to the ideology or beliefs of the "leaders," whether they share them or not. Democracy is about persuading everybody (or a majority) that the leaders' belief or ideology is correct.

Trying to force pet owners (rather than persuade pet owners) to give up their pets is every bit as fascist as trying to force American citizens to give up their rights to some amorphous "war" on "terror." PETA "fascism" would just have slightly less appalling consequences for our country. (And only slightly less appalling... it's the act of forcing the beliefs of the leaders on everyone that's the real problem.)

thethirdPaul wrote: Just saw a special on CNN - lovely display of kindness from two PETA women who "adopted" cats from a Vet - They were going to find homes for the cats and kittens. The "home" they found was a dumpster after killing them.

It is my understanding that the actions of those two PETA employees were unauthorized, and not in accord with PETA's policies, and have been disavowed by the organization. I suggest you look at PETA's web page on the organization's work with animal shelters -- which does include euthanizing unwanted animals by painless lethal injection, as an alternative to the crude and painful methods of euthanasia that some of the shelters would otherwise subject the animals to (e.g. carbon monoxide gas chambers), but also includes spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to provide veterinary supplies and care, housing, bedding, food, etc. to rurual shelters. In particular, read the comments in the "Letters to the Editor" section of that site, and look at the photos of some of the rural shelters that PETA has worked with in Virginia and North Carolina.

All of our 6 cats were either from PAWS, the pound or strays which we took in and paid for spaying and neutering.

That's exactly what PETA advocates.

Except for one who we take out on a leash, they are all indoor cats.

That's exactly what PETA advocates.

I would love to have a PETA type step onto our property and try to tell us that we can not have pets.

No "PETA type" that I've ever known would tell you that. In fact, from what you describe, any "PETA type" would praise you as a shining example of how humans should deal with companion animals.

I worked at PETA for seven years, from 1989 to 1996, when they were located in the Washington DC area. Every single person who worked there had pets, including PETA founder Ingrid Newkirk, and all of the pets were rescue cases, like your cats. PETA allowed employees to bring their companion animals to work with them, as long as the animals were kept under control in the office. The office was full of dogs. They were as much a part of the PETA workplace community as the humans.

You are seriously misinformed about PETA.

RSM:
Mussolini's definition of fascism is way too charitable. I think it's more accurate to look at the origin of the word, from fasces, which was the Roman symbol of power and authority, invested to military commanders (rods bundled with an axe). When this symbol was shown by a commander, in a remote town or garrison, it was a message to the locals that they better get in line, or the axe of Rome was going to fall on them.

This fits the operational philosophy of Republicanism to a T. They want a strong military, not for their own safety, but rather, to have a meanst to bend the rest of the world to their will through the implied threat of force.

Now the idea that a fascist George Bush would install a democracy anywhere or tend to be best buddies with long-standing or newly emerging democracies flies in the face of the definition of fascism. It is a non sequitur.

Fascist George Bush has not installed a democracy ANYWHERE. He has installed a "demo