Letters to the Editor
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Go Get 'Em Glenn
Just listening to your repartee' with Rivkin on C-SPAN's Tuesday A.M. Washington Journal....and you definitely have the upper hand in all of your responses. Rivkin keeps saying this new law only targets foreigners..WRONG. Rivkin repeats the basis for surveillance as "reasonable"..WRONG..the standard is "probable cause." Rivkin is showing every weakness in this administration's arguments for violating our right to privacy without probable cause or judicial oversight.
Keep up the good work! We don't have enough CLEAR, COGENT voices presenting the TRUTH in opposition to these thugs.
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Which New World Order?
9/11 was Bush's Reichstag Fire, and everybody in the White House knows it.
And that's treason for sure.
It's also conspiracy to commit mass murder.
Neocons did promise they would do this, after all. They planned for it, and then they made it happen:
"We are on the verge of global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis and the nations will accept the New World Order."
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5428.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_world_order
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_World_Order_%28conspiracy%29
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CSpan talk...
The Atta statement was misquoted, and dealt with the '20th hijacker' who was in jail in MN. The Bush appointed judge denied requests to look into his computer.
As for the ticking bomb scenario, that is moot, FISA had a 15 day window to tap in the pending time.
As for the change on FISA it's a chance to give immunity to telecomms on the timetable people are challenging it. It background a blank check for liability to big business.
The change has another purpose, the ability to retroactively classify, backdate, or seal records into the future Bush Library are some of the items of concern. There is a new AG on the way and this helps cover some of the tracks of trespass.
A new AG(sooner or later) will have much on their hands, this gives Dubya a chance to clear some cobwebs. Got to save face for the family name, and for the beltway as a whole.
Can states declare a Constitutional Convention on Ballot initiatives?
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Oops, not just six months...
Just read this on the CNN website:
The power may last longer than some people expect, Graves noted, thanks to a little-noticed provision of the bill. While the law expires in February unless Congress acts to extend it, any surveillance orders that are in place when it sunsets can last up to a full year, she said.
Without a repeal, lawmakers "weren't just giving them the power for six months. They were giving it to them for the rest of the administration," Graves said.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/08/07/terrorist.surveillance.ap/index.html
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As for the liability waiver...
...that should be struck down as a 14th amendment issue. Challenges will occur.
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The bill name is so terribly wrong
I believe Feinstein said that this is only a temporary bill. I seem to remember the Patriot act was only temporary too, until they reauthorized it without the sunset clauses. Anyone doubt that this bill won't become permanent? Got to love the title too, The Protect America Act.
The correct title to this bill is the Enabling Act of 2007. The 9/11 attack was the Reichstag fire, this (coupled with the Patriot Act) is truly the Enabling Act.
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Attention Democrats: With friends like this who needs enemies?
*an old Manichean proverb Glenn :)
I suspect fear-mongering works to the extent people can be fear-mongered.
(see NYT's 'fear of fear itself' ed. this am.- are they on top of it, or what!)
The FISA fix(es): I have a certain amount of conservative compassion for the Moderate Democrats who voted Aye on the FISA revisions/fixes. I am not so sure they voted on this FISA bill out of sense of their own, personal political expediency (*albeit, I would agree that if they did so, they 'will be' obviously mistaken.).
Never underestimate the depriva'tee of ignorance. After considerable effort (&with a little help from my friends & esp. DClaw1 here-ty kindly), I think NO ONE - certainly not the Moderate Democrats - has a clue what the FISA bill just enacted actually means... legally. The technology and legal clauses (based on unknown/secret 'gap') are so convoluted, as to make any meaningful judicial over-sight well-nigh impossible. As far as I can tell, the FISA 'fixes' essentially repeal the legal basis and standing on which FISA was based - i.e. a legal protection/recourse against *executive* mis-use of power. wth (what the hey?)
...
~Update: Marjorie Cohn! (*Glenns' co-guest on Democracy Now interview yesterday) Whoa back jack - that's what I am talking a-bout. The Iraq war is "not a mistake. It is illegal. ...The UN Charter, also a treaty, also a part of US law..." is exactly correct. I have never understood why the Authorization for Use of Force was not contingent on, or tied to a UN mandate? (*I recall reading where a few members of the Senate desired this?) ...Quick, Condi, somebody hire this person!!! This is the 21st century, no country is an island. Maybe texas.
Opposites attract,
bah.
ps. speaking of opposition: My non-scientific analysis shows that, simply based on past experience alone, if one were to oppose the Bush Adm. on Any given matter, one would be correct 93.9% of the time. Just say no and you can hardly go wrong.
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Blinder switch on
Privacy definition: The ability of an individual or group to keep their lives and personal affairs out of public view.
Privacy is a world lost or word lost. Mr. Greenwalds privacy is stored with multiple business, governmental, and personal entities. Every food purchase, movie rental, website visited, earnings, etc.. is recorded.
Greenwald's ego blinds him to the truth. Intelligent and articulate yes, but unwise. He's fighting (delusional) a battle that was ceded when society lashed itself to the oxcart of convienience, "modern technology".
The last battlefield for priv--- is homeland security. The FISA passage is nada compared to the civil liberties Americans will hemorage if terrorist attacks occur frequently or infrequently in this country.
Protect American soil and the remnant of privacy or "freedom".
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WHEN and not if ...
... this latest law is repealed, I want language written into the repeal specifying that the telecoms, Rove, Cheney and everyone else who's just been or is about to be let off the hook, is officially back on the hook and in fact never was off. Otherwise, this legal monstrosity is just the beginning of an orgy of pardons/commutations/whoops-he-didn't-really-mean-its that will go on for the next 532 days.
You listening, Wyden?