About Jake007 and this: second, I would advocate what is COMPLETELY LEGAL then – the President signs another Executive Order to round up every Arab-American and put them in camps with no communication whatsoever – then we won’t have to wire-tap them anymore. So much for trying to compromise with you Democrats

Invoking my plenipotentiary powers of troll detection and recommendation to other readers, I declare him a troll and to be ignored henceforth. Among other things, he is so stoopid he thinks *I* am a Democrat.

But you are fun, by golly.

We need to know our limits and be discreet. One dear friend is more than most 'folk' can handle. Thanks.

You understand, I sense that, and O, thanks. Your all are a barrel of clothed monkeys. I mean, people here are not intent to cause damage to others...And that is i safe and enjoyable, either, male/female, to simply, interact.

Lovely people visit the Salon, and it's simple... Learn. Be careful. No compound our troubles/problems. Yes. The nsa causes a bit of grief, would ya' not say?

Nah (but he's too stoopid to realise it). I'm just, in my own way, throwing peanuts to the crowd. If we're sitting around, may as well have some eats with the entertainment.

Cheers,

I don't see any value in treating these "people" as reasonable conversational partners.

Nor do I. See above.

Cheers,

Fine. Lead on.

Are we going to play Stormfront next?

Disgusting, absolutely disgusting.

Michael Chertoff recently met with the EU parliament and said "We don't always capture with precision when the border inspector has relied upon [whether or not the database was used in a prosecution]. I don't know whether it would be possible to construct a system in practical terms that would do that."

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/05/15/surveillance_scutiny/

We are expected to believe that while the DHS can't manage to track the usage of their own databases (which must be connected to) to cases (which are all logged in police databases), they can still manage to catch the most statistically insignificant events (terrorist attacks) by subtle correlations of social networks in our email and web patterns.

Widespread data mining is an application only useful for demographic information, there is no "needle in the haystack" algorithm that can produce the kind of information that is being claimed.

It is a fundamental fact of information theory that a predictive algorithm (such as one used to catch terrorists) will degrade in performance the wider a variety of data that is given to it. (This is the same as saying that a predictive algorithm fails on high entropy data, for you nerds.)

There is no reason to believe these iniatives are primarily aimed at catching terrorists, other than the administration's say-so. They have blocked every inquiry into the actual functionality of these systems.

If the system is being used to monitor the American population (which is what those algorithms are good for, demographic analysis), then that would explain Ashcroft's adamant refusal to sign off on the program, as this would clearly be a felony.

The letter area for this blog has become very active.

The signal to noise ratio decreases as a result.

An example of a greasemonkey script that creates a filter list can be found associated with Pharyngula. Note that each individual handles their own filter, i.e., it only affects what the user sees, not what is posted. The Pharyngula version shows the post as "dumb comment removed" so you know it was there and can remove the commenter from the list at every post.

Would one of you clever programmers PLEASE create one for these comments?

I personally am very reluctant to filter someone and very quick to remove them at any opportunity, but I would hate for this blog to become a food fight like TP.

The President is required to get a warrant to spy on American citizens when they are on American soil. Period. The FISA law was enacted precisely to prevent acts such as the administration’s warrantless wiretapping. If you have any doubt, read the law. It’s all there in black and white.

And who exactly is “the enemy?” And how do you know that those whose conversations were wiretapped were, in fact, “the enemy?” And if “the enemy” is so abundant among us, why is it that the administration has yet to achieve a conviction in a major terrorist case? And if the administration wants to wiretap those it suspects of being terrorists, what prevents them from getting a warrant to do so? Your argument is that everything is permitted as long as it is directed at “the enemy,” which is defined as anyone labeled as such by the executive branch?

The “someone” who brought up the analogy to the Saturday Night massacre was Arlen Specter. The two events are analogous because in both instances, a President pressured or fired senior Justice Department officials to remove obstacles to illegality. Nixon fired Ruckelshaus and Richardson so a pliant Robert Bork could fire Cox. Bush and Cheney directed Gonzales and Card to pressure Ashcroft to certify their illegal evasion of FISA laws. Comey, to his credit, refused the certification and resigned instead. Ashcroft, to his credit, refused to do it as well. They are both gone now, replaced with the incompetent and dishonest (but loyal) Gonzales.

Which brings up a related subject: say what you will about Janet Reno, but she appointed a Special Prosecutor from the opposing party and then expanded his mission when Starr investigated Clinton. It would be unimaginable for this administration (or this Justice Department) to hire a Democratic special prosecutor to investigate the copious wrongdoing and illegality of this administration.

arne: If "session" is defined as the term of the currently elected Congress, then "next session" would be at the end of the next elected Congress's term (the "current session" would describe the one with those currently elected to Congress). Maybe a better read of "session" is when they reconvene from recess until they recess again or adjourn, giving them a chance to give an "up/down" to any such appointments....

Regardless of the meaning of "session" or "next" or even of "is", the fact remains that this is constitutionally granted authority and cannot be changed by legislation.

Any good "textualist" ought to agree here, and not pretend the words "next" means the full current term of Congress.

See "Recess Appointments: A Legal Overview" (http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/50801.pdf) for textualist interpretations.