Letters to the Editor
Published Letters: 1824
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@ scareduck
[Read the article: PBS's "Frontline: Spying on the Home Front"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Bill Clinton signed the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) in 1994, which basically created the hardware that would make possible centralized wiretapping of the public switched telephone network. Those of us at the time who said this was an abuse waiting to happen have been subsequently vindicated.
The NSA doesn't use CALEA equipment (to my knowledge; no one in a telco would have sufficient security clearance to administer these "warrants"; certainly not the mom and pop outfits). NSA has their own "technical means" (which, FWIW, might include that facility at the AT&T office in Ess Eff, but that's not CALEA equipment).
Cheers,
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@ L.W.M.
[Read the article: PBS's "Frontline: Spying on the Home Front"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"As I said, I lived through it AND have read everything about it since."
How many languages can he speak and/or read?
Bet he can't do this one: "Ahhn yo hee kahh say yoh"
;-)
Cheers,
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Extraordinary circumstances
[Read the article: What Fred Thompson means by the "rule of law"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Fred Thompson: "In our system all citizens are guaranteed equal protection. And when we appropriate unlimited resources and give unlimited power and direct it all toward one individual, there had better be extraordinary circumstances."
"[U]nlimited resources"? Like $60M of taxpayer money and a raft of FBI agents?
"[E]xtraordinary circumstances"? Like a consensual blowjob? Admittedly that may be quite a rare thing in some circles.....
Cheers,
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@ Frankly, My Dear
[Read the article: What Fred Thompson means by the "rule of law"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Clinton badly mishandled the situation. What he should have done when questioned about his sexual relations with a woman was to do the gallant southerner routine: First, pull himself up straight and say in his best southern accent "Suh, where I come from a gentleman doesn't answer a question like that." And then, leaning forward slightly and dropping his voice a notch, say "And suh, where I come from a gentleman doesn't ask a question like that." Think how many millions in taxpayer dollars it would have saved.
Oh, I agree that Clinton mishandled it (although, he wasn't in a great position for arguing; the judge gets to decide who's the "gentleman"). I pointed out at the time what I thought Clinton should be doing (in the depths of Usenet archives).
As for saving millions, no. They jumped on this like flies on ... well ... but if Lewinsky hadn't fallen into Starr's lap, they would have just picked something else (as they had been doing for nigh on six years), perhaps Broaddrick or the "Clinton's love child". It was, as I pointed out, the opposite of good prosecutorial practise (and of the OIC statutes): Investigating a person looking for a crime, rather than investigating a crime looking for the perp.
Cheers,
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@ Frankly, My Dear
[Read the article: PBS's "Frontline: Spying on the Home Front"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here][arne]: WTF does Moussaoui's laptop have to do with FISA?!?!?
I'm surprised that you don't know this. FISA is the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. It is designed to facilitate the collection of foreign intelligence. FISA warrants for search and surveillance are much easier to get than standard criminal warrants. Indeed, it authorizes warrantless surveillance of persons who are "agents of a foreign power". It also defines anyone engaged in international terrorism as an agent of a foreign power. A normal criminal warrant requires probable cause and a specific description of what is expected to be found by the search, but with the information available about Moussaoui's terrorist connections it would have been dead easy to get a FISA warrant to search the computer. The middle management yahoo who wouldn't apply for the warrant did so on the advice of the FBI's lawyers who clearly did not understand the FISA requirements and did not realize that the criteria for a FISA warrant had been met.
Oh, OK. In Rowley's testimony I posted earlier, they were asking for a "criminal" warrant to search the laptop.
I got a bit confused on the scope of FISA; I was thinking of 50 USC Chapter 36, Subchapter 1 (§§ 1801-11), and was not aware of Subchapter 2 (§§ 1821-1829).
FWIW, 50 USC § 1822(a) provides for physical searches without even a court order.
Thanks for the correction.
Cheers,
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@ Denning
[Read the article: Various items]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]conservatists = conservatives oops
typo
I dunno. I kind of prefer "conservatistas" myself. Has a certain panache to it.
Cheers,
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Ignore the Babble-bleating ...
[Read the article: Various items]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]... and bleater. Thanks.
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For those that are tempted to take on the troll....
[Read the article: Various items]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I note that no translation has been shown yet of either language by the perp.
Let's show him what the true meaning of an "Ignore List" is.
Cheers,
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You're entitled to your own opinion but not to your own "facts"
[Read the article: Various items]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]["shooter042"]: Not only was the original finding that the recount in only Gore favored counties was unequal treatment by 7-2,....
Nope. Four (count 'em, four) dissents, all agreeing with one another pretty much and all "dissenting". Not "concurring with part I, and dissenting as to the remedy". "Dissenting".
... The MSM did a recount of their own validating that Bush did indeed win by vote.
Nope. The consortium showed that pretty much by any standard, Gore had the most legal votes (interestingly enough, Dubyu came out closest under the most lax rules for counting the undervotes).
Cheers,
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@ Ché Pasa
[Read the article: Various items]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]While I was out driving this noontime word that The Very Reverend Dr. Jerry Falwell had passed came over the airwaves, and Talk of the Nation did a segment on the Great Man's Passing featuring the slimy toad and crook Ralph Reed and some other apologist for The Moral Majority, who both waxed, each in his own way, rhapsodic about the contributions of the Great Reverend to the Greater Glory of... well, himself, certainly, and the Nation, surely, and, oh yes, it was all for G-d, ya know.
Falwell's "greatest contribution" must surely be his hawking the "Clinton Chronicles" (the one that detailed all the people that Clinton murdered) on his telly show for bucks.
OTOH, he did give us a good unanimous First Amendment precedent in Hustler v. Falwell
Cheers,