In regard to this so-called domestic spying...Follow

My understanding is the rules from congress are quite clear in this area and that he broke the law.

Link? quote from a link? I actually glanced through all your posts. Saw none.

Perhaps you are talking about FISA? This requires warrents. Perhaps you are talking about after a declaration of war? That is time limited, which he has exceeded. Perhaps US code title 18, part I, chapter 119, section 2511 (the socalled "wiretap act" )- requires warrent, must be a criminal prosecution. FISA is for national security.

Google New search: Bush wiretap 500 - came up with nothing suggesting it is legal.

Well. There's MSNBC's story.

Interestingly enough, they seem to have changed the text since I first read this exact same page a couple days ago. Annoying how frequently online news sources do that...

Some bits:



In the earlier version, it said "more then a dozen", and included Congress reviewing and approving it in committee in this same paragraph. They've removed the congressional parts since then, and kinda scattered them through the article:

This section is totally different, since Cheney wan't mentioned in the original article:



The intelligence committee was briefed on the program. It's kinda hidden in there (and makes one wonder why they moved stuff around and reworded it). This committee holds the purse strings for all intelligence related programs and certainly could have stopped this if they'd wanted too.

Also, the original text of this article mentioned that Rockefeller was on that committee (which he is) and had no comment.

Today of course, he's released a copy of a letter he alleges to have sent to VP Cheney in which he questions the validity of the program and complains that they weren't given enough information to make a good decision about it. Funny that. It didn't stop him from approving funding for it though...

Funny also that now they mention Cheney in this article and his connection to the story (which wasn't there before. Coincidence? I think not...). God! I hate it when news sites go back and edit their stories as new stuff comes in. If you have something new, write a new story. Don't go back and change a story you wrote 2 days ago so that it more neatly matches todays story...


Um. I found another site somewhere (but lost it. sigh) that mentioned that the intelligence committee was kept briefed of the program regularly (the "over a dozen" that I'd run into earlier referred to this process). Despite Rockefeller's comments to the contrary, the intelligence committee *does* have the power to shut down any program it's briefed on. If he'd felt so strongly that this was a violation of people's rights, why did he wait until the news broke the story to do something (and technically he's *still* not done anything other then feed more fuel to the press)?


It's one of those programs that everyone is for when it's secret, but if it becomes public knowledge everyone starts pointing the finger at everyone else. As I've already said in this thread, there are a lot of such programs. I'm pretty sure that if details of what SEAL teams regularly do were to become public knowledge, there'd be a similar amount of fingerpointing. Same deal with any of a hundred or so classified programs that the government runs.

This whole thing is entirely about generating a kneejerk public response.

Who among us has not had the pleasure of the little chinese firework which one attaches to a doorknob and upon opening it goes... Snap.

You know, the little string thing, with the tiny incendiary device in the center. Imagine if we attached one end of said minor explosive's fuse to Jophiel's e-peen and the other end naturally to Gbaji's internet equivalent; they tug and tug, and finally: "Oh snap!".

I've lurked here for long enough, and I wonder, for I've never seen the suggestion:

"Why don't you two get a room, and maybe invite Katie, 'cause I hear she's a *****."

So Bod, Smash, and Jophiel, your argument is that this time is different? Because we have a technology that we didn't in 1905, or that somehow human nature has changed in the past 100 years so that this is "power grab," unlike any other administration, or simply because a judge resigns even though we don't know what motivated him to do it, this time our rights will not be returned to us.

Uh-huh. Well, I will owe you guys an apology when that day finally arrives, I suppose. Meanwhile, when a civic minded and freedom oriented Democrat president is elected-- which I assure you, will happen in the not-to-distant future --he will undoubtedly restore each and every lost Constitutional right we have coming. Or the Patriot Act will be due to expire and Congress will choose not to renew it. Or we will have won the war on terror because militant Islamic facism, like Communism, implodes from its' own inconsistentcies.

Or all of the above.

At any rate, I am not losing sleep worrying that my supposedly rescinded rights are or will not be returned to me sometime soon, but yes, ElneClare, you are absolutely correct that discussion of this issue keeps the flame of liberty bright. I just hope that you haven't bought into the "sky is falling" theory, because it sure is exhausting running around in a panic all the time.

Totem

I don't recall any reprentative of the government cying about the sky falling.

It's been discussed ad nausea here but FISA was created to put a process into place with checks and balances, accountability and YET still allow for a president to get expedited approval to 'spy' on people. So, when you discuss all the presidents that did it before FISA it's a moot point.

Maybe the process isn't doing the job, but to just ignore your governments regulations at will is a problem. No, it doesn't mean the sky is falling but it means something isn't working right and should be fixed.

Uh I'd say if anyone is panicing about this it's the pubbies that are now making claims that the dems are trying to undermine this war on terror. I've heard this said over and over and over by the righty pundits and it's the about the most over zealous bullcrap I've ever heard anyone try to preach concerning politics.

Skeet didn't give you your password back?
I dunno.. you were the one comparing wiretaps to a hundred years ago.

I've just said it should be investigated. The Right, while asserting the total legality of the program, is throwing out every reason from Abraham Lincoln to Liberal Conspiracies to Navy SEAL operations as excuses why a potential breach of both civil rights and the law shouldn't be looked into.

No, Elinda, the reference to the sky falling is for those on this board who are screaming like little schoolgirls that this is the final death knell for the Bill of Rights since Bush is so obviously using the very parchment that the Constitution is written on as toilet paper, isn't he?

I have demonstrated by historical precedent that such roll backs of rights are invariably returned one the nation is satisfied that the threat has been neutralized. Our system of checks and balances works and has worked in every instance in our past, so why should this be any different? Does this mean we should allow ourselves to become sanguine about our system of government and how they conduct themselves? Absolutely not. But at the same time, the sheer anxiety I've seen here so openly displayed by many of the posters of this board smacks of a lack of perspective and an over-wrought emotional response to a non-existent threat to our freedoms.

Totem

Elinda didn't say that. Pay attention.

But he also said the administration has been able to restore some of "the legitimate authority of the presidency."






So he is claiming that the passed laws that were made to check the powers of the presidency are actually waht was unconstitutional.

Sounds like they are admitting that they are breaking the law, and yet are choosing to adamantly justify it with this kind of talk. They are saying that the CURRENT LAWS DO NOT WORK FOR US, SO WE ARE GOING TO BREAK THEM BECAUSE WE ARE IN CHANGE AND WE SAY SO

Well, I say that they are NOT in change, they are not the sole rulers, and THEY DO NOT MAKE UP THE RULES. Here however, it is obviously waht they are trying to do.

They Are ROGUES

Yes, you'll notice the mispelling in this quote? See, "to" is one of the words I know how to spell correctly.

I don't understand how anything would even happen to the BushHouse by way of law. Isn't most of the government sucking BushCock anyway? They'll continue to sweep it further and further under the rug.