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It's shameful
That's what the Supreme commander thinks of the leaks regarding the NSA's illegal eavesdropping on American citizens. He's outraged!
Never mind that the NYT sat on the story for over a year! Never mind that his OWN admn outted a CIA agent. Lied to the American people over the pretext to war in Iraq that has cost thousands of lives. Well, it's good to see that he has priorities in order. |
Is the president of USA immune to be tried for crimes against humanity and war crimes at the Hague? Would just like to know. Thanks
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shhhhhhh be very very quiet... but it looks that way |
It's hard to be a right-wing supporter. You have to justify the president and his advisors breaking the law, twisting the Consitution, and lying brazenly and repeatedly every step of the way. At the same time, you have to demand investigations of those who don't support Bush, and do so on the flimsiest pretenses possible.
And while all this is going on, you have to convince yourself and those around you that giving up your freedoms makes you free, that creating historic deficits is fiscal conservatism, that doubling the size of government is actually shrinking government, that warrantless searches and arrests without charges on the basis of secret evidence resulting on American citizens being held indefinitely (and possibly tortured) is all, somehow, the truest expression of American ideals. |
The Clinton administration used the same privilege 38 times, not to mention the fact that it was started by Carter. What's truly shameful is SouthernStar intentionally left that out.
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Clinton and Carter DID use this executive privilege, and it has NOT been proven that Bush (or Clinton or Carter, for that matter) broke any law when doing so. Innocent until proven guilty..... remember?..... Mike |
And before you try to dismiss me as some kind of blind "right-wing supporter" or "Bush-apologist" or some such nonsense.... Let me point out that I completely agree with your points quoted below:
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Bush could have done virtually all the surveillance he did illegally in a legal manner by going through the FISA procedures. That he chose not to illustrates his contempt for anything that would rein in his inclinations. |
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Clinton, February 9, 1995: "The Attorney General is authorized to approve physical searches, without a court order" WASH POST, July 15, 1994, "Administration Backing No-Warrant Spy Searches": Extend not only to searches of the homes of U.S. citizens but also -- in the delicate words of a Justice Department official -- to "places where you wouldn't find or would be unlikely to find information involving a U.S. citizen... would allow the government to use classified electronic surveillance techniques, such as infrared sensors to observe people inside their homes, without a court order." Deputy Attorney General Jamie S. Gorelick, the Clinton administration believes the president "has inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches for foreign intelligence purposes." Secret searches and wiretaps of Aldrich Ames's office and home in June and October 1993, both without a federal warrant. Government officials decided in the Ames case that no warrant was required because the searches were conducted for "foreign intelligence purposes." Government lawyers have used this principle to justify other secret searches by U.S. authorities. "The number of such secret searches conducted each year is classified..." Jimmy Carter Signed Executive Order on May 23, 1979: "Attorney General is authorized to approve electronic surveillance to acquire foreign intelligence information without a court order." |
MM, the operative word in there is: foreign intelligence.. shrub doesn't even hide behind that.. he is just straight up going after citizens.. that's the big difference man.
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I didn't know Ames was not a US citizen. The fact of the matter is that this survaillence stopped the proposed Brooklyn Bridge bombing and several other would be attacks. You know that I have been as critical as many of you regarding Rummy or Bush but if a little snooping is needed to keep my ass from being blown up I can live with it. I do hate the concept but I love it's results. |
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The final trashing of what little remains of the US Constitution? I recently heard some idiot (or liar, I think it was a gov't employee) claim that Bush has kept us safe for four years. I could have made the same claim (much longer than four years, actually) on September 10, 2001. I've seen no evidence that we are one bit safer, for all of the Federal government's recent "war on Americans". |
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That's a bogus claim, predicated on fear and ignorance.
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What is your point? That we have nothing to fear or there is nothing we can do? |
We absolutely should fear State overreach, AND we should remain vigilant for hanky panky by those that MAY theoretically choose to harm us...oh, and try not to get whipped into an undignified frenzy when the guv/media drops their periodic terror-hype bombs. Civil liberties need not be abrogated in the hot pursuit of phantoms of lost security.
Didn't the guv change tack and now, isn't even attempting to try Padilla with dirty bomb charges anymore? WTF? |
Ames is (and was at the time) a U.S. citizen. His now ex-wife, however, is not. That one-time, unusual situation is what that was for.
Bush 43's use of executive privilege is a scary insult to the U.S. Congress and our constitution. In our form of government, we the people assign some of our "unalienable" liberty to the state and ask for the state to protect us in return. We yield that liberty, though, only within the bounds spelled out in the constitution and the law. Bush 43 clearly exceeded the law established by our congress enacted precisely to prevent this type of encroachment. If he wanted to do it legally and had had it legislated, then fine. The American people probably would have been OK with it. The fact of the matter, though, is, without asking the American people, he boldly broke the law enacted by our congress to prevent the government from taking liberty from U.S. citizens. The government continues to do it today. The folks who wrote our constitution would be shocked at the extent to which the president (and not just Bush 43) has encroached, without the consent of the people, on their liberty. Remember our constitution was written the way it was to prevent the office of the president from turning into a dictator like the then-contemporary governments in Europe had. If we the people want to assign an unlimited amount of our liberty to a king or dictator, fine. Just talk about it and decide it as a nation first. The broader question here is what we the people want do about this. Should we ask our congress to investigate Bush 43 and consider bringing a criminal indictment? 2006 should be interesting! |
WASHINGTON -- President Clinton's proposed $1.84 trillion budget includes millions of dollars in new spending on technology and law enforcement programs.
The record budget request for the 2001 fiscal year, which begins 1 October, asks Congress for more money for wiretapping, police databases, antitrust enforcement, and computer crime forensics. One of the heftiest increases, from $15 million to $240 million, will pay telephone companies to rewire their networks to facilitate federal and state wiretapping. Under the 1994 Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement Act (CALEA), Congress may "reimburse" phone companies for their efforts, but the controversial process is the subject of a lawsuit currently before a federal appeals court. Half of that money, $120 million, will come from the Department of Defense's "national security" budget -- a move that alarms privacy groups. "The proposal to use thinly disguised intelligence agency money to fund CALEA confirms what we have suspected all along: The National Security Agency is a silent partner in the government's campaign to make our entire telecommunications system, including the Net, wiretap ready," says Barry Steinhardt, associate director of the American Civil Liberties Union. "If it's up to the FBI and the NSA, the only medium of communications they won't be able to tap will be two tin cans and a string." According to the Defense Department's budget, Clinton asked for $4.96 billion in military "intelligence and communications activities," a $51 million increase over last year. The Department of Justice is another big beneficiary from the mammoth budget, which Republicans have already pronounced an election-year political statement that's "dead on arrival." The White House is asking for $3.28 billion total for the DOJ, including: * $1.42 billion to pay for the 94 U.S. Attorneys and their nearly 10,000 aides, a $100 million increase. The extra cash is supposedly necessary for firearm and pornography investigations and "to increase prosecutions of computer crime or those involved with the theft of intellectual property." * $11.4 million to "hire data forensics examiners to retrieve and enhance examinations of computer evidence." * $100 million for "automated data processing and telecommunications and technical investigative equipment" -- up from $50 million, and $300 million for "counter-terrorism." * $5 million to combine the Immigration and Naturalization Service's IDENT fingerprint system with the FBI's IAFIS database. * $4.3 million to "implement a Public Key Infrastructure" for the Justice Department's own computer network. * $134 million to pay for antitrust investigations and lawsuits, up from $110 million, though the DOJ's antitrust division will likely collect at least that amount in fines and fees. As of October 1999, the division had 411 cases pending. * $1 million for a Web site and "communications network" for DOJ newsletters and publications. The idea is to save on printing and warehousing costs. * $10 million to develop "gun detection/childproof technologies." * $1.8 million to complete a "Joint Automated Booking System" so the FBI can monitor arrests and have a "current, nationwide reference for criminal offenders, arrests, cases, and related data." The system includes images and fingerprints. |
Clinton presses for anti-terrorism tools
clinton Congress agrees tougher measures needed July 29, 1996 Web posted at: 7:25 p.m. EDT WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Clinton asked Congress Monday to put more teeth in a tough new anti-terrorism law, and won broad agreement but no specific commitments from Republican lawmakers. Clinton and the Congressional bipartisan leadership met for about an hour at the White House to discuss what steps can be taken to further combat terrorism at home and abroad. Both sides agreed to meet again Tuesday and Chief of Staff Leon Panetta planned to go to Capitol Hill to continue the discussions. sound icon Flanked by Republican and Democratic leaders of the House and Senate, President Clinton opened the meeting by saying, "You can see that when we are attacked, whether it's from within or without, we come together and that's what we're doing here." (191K AIFF or WAV sound) In a month that has seen an attack on military barracks in Saudi Arabia, the bombing of Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta and the possible sinister downing of TWA Flight 800, leaders of both parties were rallying behind efforts to eradicate terrorism. sound icon During a photo opportunity before the meeting, House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Georgia, told Clinton, "We look forward to having a serious discussion here about how we can work with you to continue to strengthen our ability to deal with these kind of people." (254K AIFF or WAV sound) gingrich Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott echoed Gingrich's spirit of cooperation and suggested a willingness to adopt parts of the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1996 that the White House had supported but were eliminated from the original bill, such as the placing of tracing elements in explosives. Sen. Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-South Dakota, who has voiced concerns about the constitutionality of certain measures, urged the Congress be "expeditious and not rash," in adopting a stricter plan for fighting terrorism. daschle Seizing on a signal that Congress might relent on anti-terrorist tools that were denied him earlier this year, Clinton is asking Gingrich and other legislative leaders "to provide these additional protections." "He'd like to give the FBI more tools so there will be no more bombing like at the Olympics," White House spokeswoman Mary Ellen Glynn said Monday. Clinton told a veterans convention in New Orleans Sunday that he was encouraged by televised remarks by Gingrich that indicated a softening of resistance to expanding wiretapping and to requiring chemical markers in black powder explosives. He spoke a day after a pipe bomb exploded at an after-hours Olympics celebration in Atlanta, killing one person and injuring more than 100, and 11 days after a suspected bomb downed a TWA jumbo jet at a cost of 230 lives. gephardt sound icon Clinton planned to press his request at the meeting Monday with Gingrich, Lott, Daschle, House minority leaders Rep. Dick Gephardt, D-Missouri and FBI Director Louis Freeh. (254K AIFF or WAV sound of Gephardt) sound icon The aim, he said to applause, is "to help to agree on a package that will provide these additional protections against terrorism and any other measures we need to take to increase the protection of the American people." (127K AIFF or WAV sound) Daschle said Monday it was possible an amendment might be offered in the Senate this week to approve Clinton's new proposals but said nothing had been decided. "It may put Republicans in an awkward position," he said, in a reference to the watering down of the anti-terrorism bill last spring before it reached Clinton's desk. "They have to decide between the NRA and the FBI. I hope they choose the FBI." Speaking of terrorism at home and abroad, Clinton told the Disabled American Veterans: "This is a challenge we can and will meet. It may well be the most significant security challenge of the 21st century to the people of the United States and to civilized people everywhere." Meanwhile, it was announced that Attorney General Janet Reno will lead the U.S. delegation to a multinational conference on terrorism in Paris on Tuesday. The anti-terrorism bill that Clinton signed earlier this year applied the death penalty to convicted terrorists and provided $1 billion in special assistance for law enforcement. But a provision to allow the FBI to wiretap all telephones used by a suspected terrorist was dropped and one requiring explosives manufacturers to insert chemical tracers in their products was weakened to cover only plastic explosives. A rare grouping of conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats succeeded in killing the wiretap provision on the grounds that it would encroach further on personal liberties. Clinton said he wanted increased wiretap authority "for terrorists who are moving from place to place," adding: "Where they are flexible, so must we be." |
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Lets look all around the globe and see if we can find an entity that can enforce international law. Show of hands? Bot |
Clinton ignored terrorism, BHD told me so.
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I saving more for later;) I think what spells out the real truth is that these guys refuse to accept the idea that their hero did it, but since Bush used the privilege they only want to nail him. |
They're going after dip$h!t, cuz he got caught with his hand in the civil liberties jar. Would giving up our cherished civil rights have prevented any of those incidents...dunno, but law enforcement just needs to try that much harder with the tools they've already got available, and leave the rest of us alone. If previous dip$h!ts did indeed abrogate civil liberties, then they should be publicly castrated as well.
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Here's a link to a Q&A with a right-leaning Constitutional expert explaining why Bush is violating the law: http://www.fed-soc.org/pdf/domesticsurveillance.pdf Here's an admittedly left-wing website talking about the differences between what Clinton did and what Bush is doing: http://www.thinkprogress.org/index.php?s=clinton+fisa Do you have any facts to support your claim that Clinton and Carter did the same thing Bush is doing? |
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Alberto Gonzales, our second consecutive sociopathic Attorney General, said that they couldn't go to Congress to get the law changed because Congress probably would have refused their request. I believe all of those facts have been admitted by the administration. I will be happy to find you some links, but I don't think any of this is disputed. |
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What they're much less likely to do if'n they follow the letter of the law, is to surveil and or harass quaker peace groups and the like, as they've alledgedly done. This is vintage Nixon: go after them damn peaceniks. |
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http://www.nonviolence.org/ December 22, 2005 Pass the hummus, please, and by the way: are you a fed? It seems that every day brings new revelations from mainstream media about governmental spying on Americans. MS-NBC started the ball rolling on the 14th when they informed us that the Pentagon had a database of protesters including the Raging Grannies and a dozen or so Quakers in Florida. This must have prompted the New York Times to publish a story they had been sitting on for a year: the scoop that Bush had ordered the super-secret National Security Agency to start evesdropping on Americans following the 9/11 terror attacks. It’s revelation was an FBI agent’s email complaining about radical militant librarians [who] kick us around. Trying to outdo the DHS in ridiculous, we learned on the 20th that the FBI has been infiltrating vegan potlucks. Today it turns out the New York City Police Department has been doing its own extensive investigations into protesters. They even apparently staged mock arrests in an attempt to incite violence (their contribution to the self-parody has been to send officers undercover on bicycle protests). Dissent is getting disrespected more and more in our land. Dubbers don't brook no lack of uninaminimity. |
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You mean only weak nations are held to account for violations of international law whereas either of the top two remaining superpowers (top 1 and 1/2 maybe) can pretty much do whatever they want?? Say it ain't so.... |
What freedom is worth protecting, if that same freedom is yanked from under our feet in the name of our safety and security? Government should not be making these blanket decisions for us. Yet, talk to some teenagers and find out how willingly they will give up their rights so somebody else can negotiate the dirty work. This is the future we are creating for ourselves, since we are handing the government unprecedented control over our everyday lives.
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BTW, did I say that what Bush is doing is doing is illegal? The arguments in favor of that position are strong, but unlike mikemover, I am not a FISA expert. I tend to think Bush is breaking the law, in part because the law and the facts both seem clear and in part because I keep hearing and reading the same weak, phony arguments from his supporters in the media. On the other hand, at least those supporters try to offer arguments in support of their positions. All we're getting on this thread are conclusions, no arguments. And another thing, your post refers to the wiretaps in the past tense. AFAIK, the wiretaps continue. |
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As for this FISA issue, I did google it and have not found a single citation to anything that Clinton or Carter did that was the same as what Bush is doing. |
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One reason W has so much trouble with matters of international law is that "good faith and cooperation" are not in his vocabulary. Success in foreign relations requires strength and will, but it also requires an understanding that even the big, bad United States needs the help of others from time to time. Someone should explain to W that pigs get fed, hogs get slaughtered. |
So what exactly did Bush do different than Clinton? Did he spy on political rivals? As I scroll through the Blogosphere I see that many are making the accusation that Bush violated the law and Clinton didn't but I'm confused about where they get the information since the information is classified.
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International Law is bogus because it is not law it is goodwill agreements labeled as law. If I were caught breaking law in the USA I would be subject to law enforcement investigation, arrest, trial, and prosecution if found guilty, punishment. This process derives from a social contract codified in the Constitution and laws of the United States, state, and local government.
In international law the contract is an agreement between governments representing their people. In the case of the USA, we have always maintained that our laws always take precedence over international law. Thus, if a foreign entity were to charge me with a crime they would have to go through our State Department and our court system before they could take me into custody. If our State Department and/or courts rejected their jurisdiction or their law, then they would have to muster their armed forces and invade the USA in order to bring me to justice. I am trying to envision the Hague sending the Belgian fleet and Belgian Army to invade the USA. The obverse is less unlikely. |
so, if it's not a law then why is tommy franks hiding stateside?
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