Letters to the Editor
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OT @ Duderino
She's as bloodthirsty as pretty much any Republican, and more bloodthirsty than Ron Paul.
Er, RP ain't bloodthirsty at all. He's strictly non-interventionist.
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Letter to Pelosi
Dear Speaker Pelosi,
It is hard to imagine a greater betrayal of Americans’ demand for change; the democratic promise of change from republican abuses and unfailing support and protection of the criminal Bush regime; and betrayal of the hope for a return to American values that Americans vested in the 110th Congress, than the democratic surrender to the Bush regime’s insistence on permanently degrading our Constitutional rights against an abusive government. I refer of course to reports that democrats under your “leadership” are preparing imminently to permanently undermine FISA and provide retroactive immunity to Bush regime officials and criminally complicit Telecomm executives.
The democrat’s action last August to hand over Americans’ rights to the criminal Bush regime so Congress could hurry off to vacation was dumbfounding. But now, to permanently codify the abuses of past criminality and protect on-going and future abuses is betrayal equal to that of the Bush regime itself. You leave us, the Americans that actually believe in the principles embodied in the Constitution, Jeffersonian principles of limited government responsive to the governed and protector of individual rights, without hope. If the reports are reasonably accurate, your betrayal is profound.
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Kinda splitting butthairs here
Glenn says:
The ony time they are eavesdropped on is when they speak with a target.
The INSTANT a citizen in the US calls a "target" or a "target" calls a citizen in the US, it is absurd to think that even an innocuous US citizen involved wouldn't immediately become a "target". They'd use the fact that the citizen either received or placed a call to a "target" as justification that they become a "target" and from there the spider spreads its legs to everyone US citizen "target" emails, calls, takes call from, etc, regardless of whether they are in the US or not.
There is a problem here with secrets. There is NO need for the FISA court in the first place! Why is it that courts can be trusted to issue warrants for wiretaps on organized crime figures who are perfectly capable of killing various government agents if they found out, or skirting the eavesdropping, but they cannot be trusted to issue handle so-called "national security" issues?
I wager that MOST so-called "national security" issues are, in fact, laughable, ridiculous, weak, pathetic, nonsensical, overly paranoid, BULLSHIT, etc. As a former Air Force B-52 crewman with Top Secret SCI clearance, I can tell you that most secrets, period, that the government keeps are huge loads of idiotic crap. It follows that the entire "reason" for FISA courts (ie, Star Chambers) are equally a load of idiotic crap that can be handled just as well by NORMAL judges in NORMAL courts.
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I called the Progressive Caucus
I talked to Representative Barbara Lee's office, because she's chair of the Progressive Caucus, who took such a strong, principled, effective stand for Constitutional government, as opposed to Steny Hoyer's never-introduced abomination, permanently gutting FISA and the Fourth Amendment.
What Lee's staffer said was that they had taken no official position on any bill (i.e., not on the RESTORE bill above, which I think is from Conyers), but that they would support a bill from Rush Holt, were it to be introduced.
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You spy on mine; I spy on yours.
Glenn, you have a point that "I spy on mine" is worse, but I think you are underestimating the problem nonetheless.
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HJC markup hearing tomorrow
glenn - via siun, i see that the HJC has scheduled a markup hearing tomorrow on the RESTORE act:
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
10:15 am - House Judiciary
Markup of: H.R. ___, the "Responsible Electronic Surveillance That is Overseen, Reviewed, and Effective Act of 2007"
i've updated the weekly hearing list and plan to make an audio recording from the webcast (for posting as a podcast) especially if c-span does not cover it.
http://www.netrootsmass.net/Congressional_Hearings/files/20071008-Congressional_Hearings.html
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Cheney's diet
He prefers folks with flowers in their hair. Dines on 'em daily, I understand. Not a good person.
-- William Timberman
I thought they all liked chewing on young children who receive SCHIP benefits:
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/64753/
The way food inspections are run these days I much prefer kissing cows to eating them.
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Taking tempus one step further
I think Tempus makes a great point about how all of us could fall under the automatic surveillance standards, given the loose standards for connecting targets.
I could see additional ways to abuse that system. Say you want to tap the phones of multiple Democratic campaigns for federal office; all you'd have to do is be in possession of a cell phone on the target list, and us that phone to call up the campaign headquarters. Done and done. Same goes for non-profits litigating against the administration, Hill staffers from the other party, media officials, and on and on.
(Note: I assume that protecting us against terrorists is not really the point, and never was.)
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watched a doc on the history channel a while back on the NSA progam.
Mark Klein was the AT&T employee who first reported the story and was fired by the Telecom. He said that all of the info goes into one large computer in San. Fran.(funny isn't that where Pelosi and Feistein are from?)-the line going into the computer is then spliced so the info from all the calls goes to AT&Ts' computer, then it also goes to a second "secret room on the 6th floor) of AT&T and only NSA has clearance to this room-where the nSA is allowed to intercept the data. This info means ALL calls AT&T recieves go through here-NOT just "terrorists". I've said this before but based on our justice system of "burden of proof" before making arrests-by the govt. is being allowed in Hoover-like form to collect the data before ANY BURDEN OF PROOF IS MADE-MAKING IT ILLEGAL.
I also believe the states have used the info to operate sting operations natiowide in the past-based on this illegal intercepted data-ILLEGALLY-(no burden of proof-that was gained AFTER THE FACT). I also believe the "foreign calls" that GW uses to try to legitimately explain NSA-is actually a private company on foreign soil-where all of the NSA traffic has been directed to. So it's still spying on American citizens-it's just being outsourced like much of the outsourcing to India by Telcos.
I also recently read that a GOP Sen. from Ala.was accused of using info he had obtained through NSA. so it appears that the Dems can't even get any answers about the program-the GOP have already been using it with access given by GW-to information obtained through NSA to be used on political enemies. DUH! Who could see that one coming?
Just today you heard of an outfit that was spying on Bin Laden intercepts-and the WH blew thier cover. Another DUH-is ther really any question now that GW never had any intention of catching O. Bin Forgotten-since it's in the interest of the GOP to keep OBL around to promote more war-and to further play the fear-card.
Looking back at history-if you look at eavesdropping and spying-who have been the ones responsible? The GOP.
From Hoover, to Nixon, to perhaps Reagan stealing Jimmy Carters' speech before the debate...
This being an election year-do you really think it won't be used for political purposes? Oh that's right-we have morons in the Dems we've elected who "trust" that the GOP just would not do that......They can't EVEN get any info about the program or how it is being used....
The Dems are setting themselves up for permanent losses in Govt.-they are essentially rolling over and letting the WH further ist's own agenda-by being able to cherry-pick intel for their own purpose-and as in teh OBL video intercept-to counter any "truth" by stopping it before it even becomes common knowledge by the public.
Do you really think there is anyone in the US in their right mind who trust this WH to do what is right?
I don't.