Democrats & Liberals: Archives

Paul, Its not hard to believe—Bush has been a JERK all his political life

Paul, I’m glad you wrote about this.

Our Dear Leader, the Liar in Chief, 5/11/06:

“After September the 11th, I vowed to the American people that our government would do everything within the law to protect them against another terrorist attack. As part of this effort, I authorized the National Security Agency to intercept the international communications of people with known links to al Qaeda and related terrorist organizations. In other words, if al Qaeda or their associates are making calls into the United States or out of the United States, we want to know what they’re saying.

They were authorizing warrantless spying on Americans before 9/11. Before Congress ever voted to allow all those unconstitutional provisions of the Patriot Act to become the law.
And impeachment is “off the table” for some reason.

Why Do You Need Immunity, If You Haven’t Broken the Law?

Gosh Adrienne and Steve, the quote by President Bush sounded very clear to me, “I authorized the National Security Agency to intercept the international communications of people with known links to al Qaeda and related terrorist organizations. In other words, if al Qaeda or their associates are making calls into the United States or out of the United States, we want to know what they’re saying.” What part of this don’t you like? Not evesdropping on known enemies would be irrational and extremely dangerous. What would HRC or BO do if President? What other revalations do you have from convicted felons?

Jim

Bush states that after 9/11 he authorized intercepting calls. But it appears that he was doing these things before 9/11 illegally. It is called breaking the law. What part of this do you not understand? Being president does not exclude him from living by the law. We all know that he and Cheney are not necessarily in agreement with this. But never the less he should be held accountable as any of the rest of us would be.

This story came out probably a year and a half ago in USA Today.

The only new twist here is the timeline, but whether it started before or after 9-11, this program is one which deals with compiling information about phone traffic.

It does NOT involve intercepting or listening to specific phone calls and has NOTHING to do with the NSA wiretapping program. You’re comparing apples and oranges.

Jim:
“What part of this don’t you like?”

Duh. The illegal part. The part where there are no FISA warrants, and no oversight by the FISA court.

Loyal O,
You don’t know what you’re talking about, so don’t try to act as though you do. NO ONE BUT BUSH AND HIS CRONIES KNOW WHAT THEY’VE BEEN DOING. They’ve ignored subpoenas on this issue claiming “executive privilege” and refused to supply subpoenaed documents. Everything about all of this wiretapping has been a giant secret, a total mystery, and a redacted black line.

Adrienne, you’re not keeping up.

There are two separate issues in play here—two completely different NSA programs. We all know about the controversial NSA wiretapping program (the one that in August the Democrat-controlled Congress criticized with their mouths but supported with their votes).

Paul is trying to say that the NSA wiretapping program started earlier, before 9-11, but he is confused. Nacchio is talking about a completely different program, and yes, the details of it were out in May of 2006. Nacchio’s objections are in THAT article too, nearly a year and a half ago, and the only new info here is that this program may have been started before 9-11. The Washington Post article is quite badly researched. It depends entirely on these court documents for what it says is known about this program, but many details about it have been available from a number of sources (like US TODAY) for ages now.

But whatever the time-line is, it’s a big so-what because it’s NOT the same program at all, and as the article explains, it does NOT involve wiretapping. The NSA actually has more than one program, you know.

Loyal O,
You’re trying to split hairs when there is really no difference when it comes to these programs being obviously illegal. Whether we’re talking about wiretapping or data collection of American citizens, there have been no warrants, and no oversight.

Adrienne, the fact is that the government legally collects ALL KINDS of data about American citizens and this has gone on for ages now. Very little of it at all requires a warrant.

They know where we work, how much money we make, what property we own, what interest we make on our investments, how much we pay in taxes, etc. They know where we live, go to school, how many children we have, etc. If it’s “splitting hairs” to say that this isn’t all illegal, then so be it. But the difference between premeditated murder and self-defense is also “splitting hairs” then. As is the difference between consensual sex and rape.

The difference between the NSA compiling data about the patterns of phone calls across America and the NSA wiretapping your phone is the difference between a cop watching you drive by on the freeway and a cop pulling you over and searching your trunk. These are VERY different things.

Also, when it comes to the NSA wiretapping programming, I just love how Democrats just keep repeating that it’s “illegal” while the very Congress they control is voting for it. We have a whole new definition of “illegal” under American law I guess.

The President can implement something passed by the Congress, and it’s constitutionality can be upheld by the courts, but somehow it’s still “illegal” in some alternate reality.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Loyal O,
I don’t give a rats ass what you or any member of Congress says left, right or center. What these bastards are doing is a complete violation of the Fourth Amendment. Whether we talk before or after 9/11, they were never given leave to treat We the People like we’re all enemies of the state, and that is what they have done.

Every single time the righties discuss this issue of warrantless wiretapping or warrantless data mining in this blog, the whole argument basically boils down to:

“When the president does it, that means it is not illegal.”

But it is illegal, and Article II of the impeachment charges against Nixon was warrantless wiretapping that Nixon said was ‘necessary’ for national security. There is absolutely no difference between this situation and that one. It was illegal then, and it is illegal now.

[Sigh] I know you won’t agree.

The keyword here is blackwhite. Like so many Newspeak words, this word has two mutually contradictory meanings. Applied to an opponent, it means the habit of impudently claiming that black is white, in contradiction of the plain facts. Applied to a Party member, it means a loyal willingness to say that black is white when Party discipline demands this. But it means also the ability to believe that black is white, and more, to know that black is white, and to forget that one has ever believed the contrary. This demands a continuous alteration of the past, made possible by the system of thought which really embraces all the rest, and which is known in Newspeak as doublethink. Doublethink is basically the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.

The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake… We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.

The ideal set up by the Party was something very huge, terrible and glittering—a world of steel and concrete of monstrous machines and terrifying weapons—a nation of warriors and fanatics, marching forward in perfect unity, all thinking the same thoughts, wearing the same clothes and shouting the same slogans, perpetually working, fighting, triumphing, persecuting—three hundred million people all with the same face.

WAR IS PEACE

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU

Above quotes, from ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ by George Orwell.

Adrienne- I find very interesting the fact that these folks on the Right, would have us believe,

only the bad guy is being listened to. Not so, these
taps come from in a form, of millions an not just

the bad guy. I will not disclose it’s location, but
there is an under ground facility consisting of

twenty five acres, which snags hundreds of pre-

selected words. These super Computers can pull

information from any an all devices capable of

sending or receiving voice or video communication.

A person or persons can be heard talking in a

boat, 10 or more miles out in a lake from shore or

from your house from lines of sight, blocks away.

Best of all, if they can read a news paper from a

Satellite, I think, for the right or left the fact

remains, If the Government an his Big Brother

want to watch you or listen in, they will, an have

for many years. Just Smile, because one never

knows when they might be on candid camera.