4. FACT[Ed.]: Requiring intelligence operatives to get a court order before collecting foreign intelligence on overseas targets will not hinder the government's ability to collect intelligence.

* WH SPIN, i.e., Lie [Ed.]: According to Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell, the delays caused by applying for warrants before collecting foreign intelligence from overseas targets meant our intelligence community was "missing a significant amount of foreign intelligence that we should be collecting to protect our country."

Tap can start immediately, warrant granted later[Ed.]

* WH SPIN, i.e., Lie [Ed.]: Requiring intelligence professionals to apply for and wait on a court order before gathering vital intelligence from overseas targets can prevent the swift gathering of intelligence necessary to identify and provide warning of threats to our country.

Tap can start immediately, warrant granted later[Ed.]

* WH SPIN, i.e., Whine [Ed.]: A mandatory court-approval process also requires the intelligence community to divert scarce intelligence experts to the time-consuming process of compiling court submissions.

Tough shit. Do your homework assholes. Leave to an administration run by a no-account slacker cheerleader to try to avoid any homework [Ed.]

Apologies to:

--sysprog

But by that criteria, they should also pass bills that provide immunity from civil penalties for negligent exploding gas tanks, drugs that are known to cause birth defects, etc.. After all, what's good for GM is good for the country.

They've been working on that for years. I believe it's been referred to as "tort reform". ;->

As long as we have a system where corporations fund both major political parties, issues where corporations are threatened, such as this issue where telecommunications companies are being threatened with law suits because they allowed wiretapping while it was undoubtedly illegal, things are not going to change.

Politicians know how they are being elected, via the money they receive from the corporate donations and they're not going to bite the hand that feeds them, since those same corporations pay for the campaign ads that got a lot of them there in the first place.

While there are some politicians who actually have enough of a moral compass to choose what's right rather than what will get them the most campaign cash, it is not enough to overcome the roadblocks that the administration and its enablers in Congress set up.

The dissatisfaction with government in general is, from what I see, in direct causation with the fact that the corporations are in power and regular people are not. Those "30-percenters" feel just as disenfranchised, their method, however, is to worship Jesus, and misguidedly by extension, George W. Bush.

I heard Mike Gravel this morning on Air America talk about an initiative to overturn this wrong. I don't remember what it was called, but it was an initiative to completely reform campaign finance and allow a more representative Congress.

When you hear other sites, such as FDL and Daily Kos talk about "Better Democrats," what they're invariably talking about is Democrats who listen to them and not to their wallets. That is what the "spineless Democrat" issue is really about.

The Constitution stood, bound and blindfolded, before Bush's firing squad. The call to the Democratic cavalry went out. And, lo, the cavalry rode in, at the very last minute... and shot the prisoner themselves.

I used to take the Constitution for granted, and I argued that the Bill of Rights was what really mattered, and what was most endangered. I was wrong, and it is all gone now.

I have always had some sympathy for for the libertarian viewpoint, but felt it was a viewpoint without a meaningful constituency. Now our very founding principles fall into that same category -- hardly anybody who matters gives a damn about the real intent of the framers anymore.

Well, at least enough Senators might -- might -- be willing to make the noble but doomed gesture to try to restore habeas corpus. That is our consolation prize? Pathetic.

Glenn, you say that retroactive immunity for AT&T & other telecoms, for their (Executive ordered) participation in warrantless wiretapping would:

"destroy what is perhaps the best chance for ever obtaining a judicial determination as to whether the President broke the law."

How? If the (lawmaking) government gave a plausible, but factually illegal order to a credulous third party, how does the 3rd party's immunity from prosecution as accessories negate the primary, governmental illegality?

I'm not being facetious. I assume what you say has some basis in law, it's just not any legal principle with which I'm familiar. Diminished culpability, or immunity of the accessory, in Anglo-Australian jurisprudence, in no way negates or undermines the criminality of the principal offender. Immunity, as far as I know, is routinely given in the American system to accessories who are willing to testify against primary offenders. If that's the case, how would retroactive immunity for (accessory) telecoms undermine the "judicial determination" of Presidential lawbreaking? Couldn't any retrospective immunity be specifically legislated as solely applicable to telecommunication accessories?

My apologies -- I mistook lunacy for racism. Either way, Ron Paul is definitely the candidate for you.

keep drinking the kool aid, stupid.

comparing Ron Paul to Hitler? really...

following the constitution is lunacy, huh?

no wonder this country feels so fucked.

The nub of my despair

The Constitution stood, bound and blindfolded, before Bush's firing squad. The call to the Democratic cavalry went out. And, lo, the cavalry rode in, at the very last minute... and shot the prisoner themselves.

-- Blue Meme

Wednesday, September 19, 2007 08:20 AM

No crying at work.

How? If the (lawmaking) government gave a plausible, but factually illegal order to a credulous third party, how does the 3rd party's immunity from prosecution as accessories negate the primary, governmental illegality?

I'm not sure I understand your question. In our system of government, courts apply the law. Congress makes the law. If Congress says there can be no liability for telecom companies for having aided and abetted the TSP, then that is the law, and courts will apply it.

Immunity, as far as I know, is routinely given in the American system to accessories who are willing to testify against primary offenders. If that's the case, how would retroactive immunity for (accessory) telecoms undermine the "judicial determination" of Presidential lawbreaking? Couldn't any retrospective immunity be specifically legislated as solely applicable to telecommunication accessories?

If your point is that retroactive immunity for telecom companies would not technically result in immunity from criminal prosecution for Bush officials, that is certainly true. But as a pratical matter, prosecution for warrantless surveillance crimes is already a remote possibility. Having the Congress essentially endorse what happened by shielding the telecom companies from liability would make that prospect, as a practical matter, more remote still.