Yet another activist judge...

[jordop]

 

"Our people don't read. And if they did read, they wouldn't understand. They have no clue what other countries are like. We've convinced ourselves that we're the envy of the Earth, that evil countries want to destroy us because we're good. I haven't talked to an Italian for years who had any idea of going to America for anything except drugs or sex."

 

http://www.rbcinvest.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/PEstory/LAC/20070609/COVER09/Headlines/headdex/headdexComment/2/2/20/

 

[tvashtarkatena]

Your information sources about what has been monitored in the warrantless wiretapping program are apparently too limited to make any further discussion useful. You're simply not aware enough of the extent of the program, who has been monitored, or of the nature of the lawsuits that have been filed against the NSA to end it (successfully, I might add) to make any further discussion useful. If you were, you probably would resort to spouting the party line and punctuating with your standard 'dumb hippy' comment, which has become about as original as the snaffle bobblehead.

 

Now, regarding the Taliban: Congress authorized the executive to wage war against them (legally), which makes the rest of your paragraph on the subject ridiculous. The conduct of war, as any one who has been in the military can tell you (and you'd do well to find at least one to consult if you're going to argue the subject) is governed by a body of international law. Nothing in this body of law prevents the U.S. or it's allies from gathering intelligence and attacking military targets, which of course include combatants, based on that intelligence. Rather than remain within the confines of time tested convention, however, the U.S. has consistently violated in its program of torture and detention without bothering to determine a prisoner's status. Under the Military Commissions Act of 2006, the military still has no time limit on determining whether a detainee is an enemy combatant, much less an unlawful one, or not. In addition, evidence gained by torture, even by third party nations, is admissable. All of this violates not only U.S. Constitutional Law but international law governing the conduct of warfare. The courts have yet to weigh in on this new law, but I expect that it, like it's predecessor Military Tribunal system, will be found to be illegal on a number of grounds. This is not to mention the international cooperation the U.S. has squandered through its human rights abuses and go it alone approach, nor the enormous international backlash which has resulted in a step function increase in terrorist attacks against western targets around the world.

 

You seem to be arguing against a nation of laws for expediency's sake. Not exactly a new idea. Quite the opposite: it's a rather common argument in every sense of the word. And, like most tired, poorly thought out ideas, the results are predictably unfortunate. We all should know; we're experiencing them.

[chucK]

I think you're missing Jay's point Trashie. Even though the Dems have had next to no real power until 6 months ago, all of these problems are actually the fault of the Dems due to their shrillness. And if you don't buy that, then certainly you will acquiesce that all of the constitutional trampling of the last five years will soon be their fault in a couple of years once they enjoy real power.

[mattp]

Right, Chuck. It is the damn Dem's fault we didn't catch the bad guy, too. F'n pansies.

[Jim]

The case of the "Warrantless Wiretapping," is also a prime example opportunism trumping seriousness. This term covered the monitoring of phone calls originating outside of the US and answered by known or suspected Al-Queda members operating within the US, not to read Grandma's e-mail. This was a case where serious people should have been asking how to reconcile a sensible intelligence goal with the requirements of the Constitution, but this - to put it mildly - is not what transpired.

 

Calling BS on this one. They were data mining. They said they wre limiting the wiretapping to selecting cases but they were not. The ATT whistle blower showed that they were drift-netting all kinds of domestic and foreign communications with no cause and then sifting it. The Bushies have primarily fumbled after they have someone in custody. There are adequate systems to put someone on trial for terrorism. They have simply detained hundreds of folks (some guilty some not) without any way for people to defend themselves. It's a stick in the eye to a democratic system and our Constitution.

[JayB]

"No further discussion useful," is an interesting attempt to subsititute a nullity for an argument, ditto for endlessly repeating "It's on the books," over and over again.

 

Which sections of the UCMJ or the Geneva conventions applied to Al-Queda members operating in Afghanistan? Which body of law are you referring to that applies when attempting to ascertain the legality of either targetting or capturing transnational terrorists residing in countries that lack either the means or the will to capture or kill them? Congress passed a resolution declaring war on Afghanistan and authorizing the cruise missile attack on Al-Queda's compound there?

 

The point of the Geneva Conventions wasn't to "argue against a nation of laws for expediency's sake," it was to create a legal framework to address phenomena which existing laws weren't designed to contend with. There's a reason that the legal procedures drafted to govern the Nuremburg Trials differed from those which governed the operation of the Small Claim's Court in North Dakota at the time.

 

I'm of the opinion that drafting a body of law that provided specific rules which govern the handling and prosecution of a Yemeni national that's illegally entered Afghanistan by way of the Pakistani tribal areas for the purposes of recruiting fellow Jihadis plotting an attack on Italy and is detained by a Pushtun millitia operated by the local Warlord before being handed over to the Afghan Army who passes him along to Danish troops operating in the Nato coalition would be helpful.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[JayB]

The case of the "Warrantless Wiretapping," is also a prime example opportunism trumping seriousness. This term covered the monitoring of phone calls originating outside of the US and answered by known or suspected Al-Queda members operating within the US, not to read Grandma's e-mail. This was a case where serious people should have been asking how to reconcile a sensible intelligence goal with the requirements of the Constitution, but this - to put it mildly - is not what transpired.

 

 

Calling BS on this one. They were data mining. They said they wre limiting the wiretapping to selecting cases but they were not. The ATT whistle blower showed that they were drift-netting all kinds of domestic and foreign communications with no cause and then sifting it. The Bushies have primarily fumbled after they have someone in custody. There are adequate systems to put someone on trial for terrorism. They have simply detained hundreds of folks (some guilty some not) without any way for people to defend themselves. It's a stick in the eye to a democratic system and our Constitution.

 

BS on the methods or the motives? Using algorithms to evaluate data for the purposes of determining which communcations are suspicious enough to warrant additional surveilance and monitoring seems like something quite apart from actually monitoring the content of the communications that gave rise to the said data sets. This seems like a reasonable activity for intelligence agencies to engage in, but it also seems like an activity that calls for careful statutory limits and judicial oversight because of the potential for abuse.

 

If one were actually serious about reconciling the conflicting perogatives of preserving civil liberties, and intercepting electronic communications from known or suspected terrorists originating from outside the US with destinations in the US - then it seems as though one's primary goal would be to construct a set of rules and a system of judicial oversight that did so as effectively as possible. If the said conversations are taking place in real time, and are over long before the current mechanisms in place for granting warrants can act - then asking if there's some means by which you can get warrants granted quickly enough to be effective would be the way to go. It seems to me like the Democratic leadership in Congress actually went about attempting to take making ammendments to the rules and generally taking constructive action along these lines in order to insure that this sort of intelligence gathering was both effective and legal, while their base went about chanting "Warrantless Wiretapping" over an over again in between hatching an infiinity of conspiracy theories about how a collusion between the Mossad, the Carlyle Group, The Masons, and Dick Cheney brought down the twin towers.

 

 

 

[mattp]

I'm not sure I get your point about the time it takes to get a warrant, Jay. Were not FISA warrants specifically designed for this, and don't they apply retroactively? The Bush team didn't want to be bothered to have to go back to get a warrant after the fact! CNN

 

Yes, they had a bit of trouble with the FISA court, and about 3% of their warrants were "modified" (a couple rejected). UPI

 

I'm not sure what happens when a FISA warrant it "modified," but my guess is that it doesn't mean that record of an important al queda communication is shredded and the perpetrator left unwatched. Is this 3% rate of court restriction a sign that maybe the Bush team was overreaching, is this all the fault of the evil Democrat pansy judges who hate freedom, or is it merely a sign that the court was doing its job and perhaps some small percentage of the warrants sought were somehow overbraod or had other flaws? Either way, I think there WAS a system that DID not slow down the evesdropping, but the Bush team didn't want to adhere to it.

[Kat_Roslyn]

lol like anyone plays by our rules in the world anyways. Handicaps.

Are you calling someone handicapped? That's really not funny. I suggest you find something a little more clever rather than degrading people who are handicapped.

[JayB]

I'm not sure I get your point about the time it takes to get a warrant, Jay. Were not FISA warrants specifically designed for this, and don't they apply retroactively? The Bush team didn't want to be bothered to have to go back to get a warrant after the fact! CNN

 

Yes, they had a bit of trouble with the FISA court, and about 3% of their warrants were "modified" (a couple rejected). UPI

 

I'm not sure what happens when a FISA warrant it "modified," but my guess is that it doesn't mean that record of an important al queda communication is shredded and the perpetrator left unwatched. Is this 3% rate of court restriction a sign that maybe the Bush team was overreaching, is this all the fault of the evil Democrat pansy judges who hate freedom, or is it merely a sign that the court was doing its job and perhaps some small percentage of the warrants sought were somehow overbraod or had other flaws? Either way, I think there WAS a system that DID not slow down the evesdropping, but the Bush team didn't want to adhere to it.

 

I'd agree, but the question is whether they didn't want to adhere to it because they thought that the subset of searches in question didn't require a warrant per their interpretation of FISA, they believed that the intelligence was so valuable that the ends justified the means and overreached the authority granted them by FISA, or they were embarking on a sinister plot to fundamentally undermine the Constitutional structure that preserves all of the political freedoms that we hold dear in order to impose a corporato-fascism on the public under the guise of promoting national security in order to enrich the sinister cabal that put them in power. I'd argue that the first two are more probable than the latter, and that what will emerge from this dispute is legislation that resolves the fundamental conflicts that have been under consideration.

 

 

 

 

[mattp]

If what you are saying is that the question is whether they thought they were doing the right thing or not, I guess I'd say that they probably thought they had reasons for what they were doing.

 

As far as your formulation, "the subset of searches in question didn't require a warrant" I call B.S.: the law CLEARLY applied. And that "the ends justified the means?" perhaps. But "to impose a corporato-fascism on the public under the guise of promoting national security in order to enrich the sinister cabal that put them in power?" That is pure rhetorical hyperbole JayB style, and it clearly obscures the point it refers to.

 

The fact is, at virtually every juncture of this "War on Terror," the Bush folks have figured out a way to conclude that the President and his men have all power, and Congress, the Courts, Allies, even five star generals, are only in the way and must be put out of the way if they disagree. I'm not sure this is "coporato fascism..." blah blah blah. But it is just plain power. And it has been applied so as to serve private profit.

 

As a nation, our international prestige has beem severely damaged by the obvious demonstration that we are no more interested in human rights or respectful of foreign national sovereignity than the worst of those we criticize; we are less prepared for war than we were before all this began, and we are no more secured from terrorist attack than we were six years ago. Is THIS the fault of those Birkenstock wearing metrosexuals for whom you have such great disdain?

[olyclimber]

 

[sk]

 

some people have altogether too much time on their hands.

[olyclimber]

and entirely too much talent

[sk]

and entirely too much talent

 

that is wasted talent...

[olyclimber]

what about this?

 

[sk]

what about this?

 

like everything on the interweb... thats cool, not uber productive

[JayB]

Hey - a revision to the tagline. I didn't think the Birkenstock was a piece of footwear favored by metrosexuals, but perhaps they've come out with a new line. I do think that repeatedly giggling over lines like "Why do you hate Freedom," - whenever the motives of Islamists and their relation to the US are brought into the discussion - by people who can't identify the group who attempted to assasinate Nasser, or what the aims of the said group were, and what role they played in the eventual assasination of Sadat, etc, etc, etc, or who indulge in a penchant for bizarre conspiracy theories as the default mode for comprehending the world around them, who refer to the folks detonating themselves amongst crowds of civilians in markets in Iraq as "Freedom Figthers," with no sense of either shame or irony, and for whom any national setback is viewed first and foremost as a means of securing a tactical domestic political advantage indicates that they are are either profoundly misguided, unserious, craven, myopic, decadent, and fatuous or embody some dismal amalgam of each. What impact this collective has had and/or will have on the national trajectory is an open question, but it most certainly hasn't been nor ever will be positive.

 

How does your rhetoric about the power-mad administration hell-bent on whatever agenda you've projected onto them square with the administration abiding by the judicial rulings that have not gone in their favor? Their interpretation of the powers granted them under the law is challenged and overruled, they abide by the rulings in those cases, and the administration will vacate the White House at the conclusion of Bush's second term - at which time a candidate from your favored party will likely have to contend with the very same set of problems.

 

 

 

 

[olyclimber]

Why DO you hate freedom Jay? And why are you projecting your hateful agenda on these poor liberals?

[Dechristo]

perhaps, he's attempting to cultivate, within himself, patience and sympathy - a ministry as it were - for the narrow-minded deluded in thinking they are broad-minded.

[mattp]

How does your rhetoric about the power-mad administration hell-bent on whatever agenda you've projected onto them square with the administration abiding by the judicial rulings that have not gone in their favor?

 

 

I'm surprised that you would call it "rhetoric" to conclude this is a power-seeking administration in view of Bush's record of the use of signing statements, his sacking generals who told him his war plan was ill advised, his frequent assetion that presidential perogative dictates he abandon decades of practices regarding torture, law enforcement, etc., and his dismissal of our traditinal allies as "old europe," or his record of appointing Department of Justice employees and judges based on their likely loyalty rather than qualifications. Do you simply think this is "politics as usual" or do you hate freedom?

 

I'm not convinced that the administration abides by all court rulings that don't go in their favor, but you have a point when you note that it is unlikely Bush will declare marshall law and try to stay in office.

[tvashtarkatena]

How does your rhetoric about the power-mad administration hell-bent on whatever agenda you've projected onto them square with the administration abiding by the judicial rulings that have not gone in their favor? Their interpretation of the powers granted them under the law is challenged and overruled, they abide by the rulings in those cases, and the administration will vacate the White House at the conclusion of Bush's second term - at which time a candidate from your favored party will likely have to contend with the very same set of problems.

 

The only person on this forum who has consistently injected 'motives' into this discussion as a tired baiting maneuver is the author of this paragraph, to the detriment of his credibility.

 

The record shows that the Bush administration has fought, ignored, and stonewalled both judicial and congression oversight every step of the way. From congress having to threaten John Ashcroft with a subpoena to finally get him to testify (albeit incompletely) about the uses of new powers granted by the USA PATRIOT Act in 2002 to Gonzolez' laughable public memory lapses, this administration has tried to circumvent the basic priniple of checks and balances every step of the way; their motives are not required to warrant severe criticism of their extra-legal behavior to date. They are certainly not to be admired for pursuing illegal policies that must later be shot down by various courts. Sound policy requires that legality be built in up front...or do you not agree with that? It's also useful to note that a 30% approval rating and political route during the last election has markedly increased the admininstration's willingness to abide by recent court rulings without appeal...at least so far.

 

Even in the face of political disaster, however, this administration continues to pursue torture, retroactive immunity for those who torture, and the elimination of habeus corpus.

 

What is Jay's central point in all of this? That the administration is to be admired? That no one else, particularly the Dems, could possibly do any better? That the rule of law should be extended? Abandoned? Does Jay even know what his point is? Well, that is a matter of conjecture, because he certainly hasn't been forthcoming with anything but the usual remanufactured anti-birkenstock comments. Perhaps the rest of us can speculate about a motive....

 

 

Edited June 13, 2007 by tvashtarkatena

[Stefan]

I will say a little prayer for you tvashtarkatena.

[Dechristo]

...add a couple "Hail Mary"s.

 

On second thought, make it a couple "Our Father"s.

 

There are enough "Hail Mary"s in his arguements, as it is.