What if it was an illegal directive?

-- jackjumper

A case cannot be brought to find out. That is the whole point. If all you wanted was a ruling on legality, it will come from the current cases. In fact, it has already been ruled illegal in a court of law. So we already know it was illegal, and this law will guarantee that it will be illegal in the future. Now Qwest can get on board too. I'm sure the new CEO learned from the last CEO's experience to just go alone anyway. Now the lawyers will be ok with it too.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071017/ap_on_re_eu/germany_nazi_era

So in all sincerity I am asking, is it time to leave yet?

-- Conservativeslayer

Thursday, October 18, 2007 05:47 AM

I have more than a few liberal friends begging me to join them in their planning to do just exactly that. Canada for some, Britain or the Continent for others.

I'm staying. I'm sure I'll be one of the first mowed down by Blackwater troops after martial law is declared at the same time we launch nuclear missiles at Iran - next August, or maybe September.

But I will stay. I will fight.

I will stand on the graves of my ancestors who killed Indians, French and British to gain a home in the American wilderness, and I will not be moved.

I think I was wrong in my original reply to you. One Senator can put a "hold" on a bill and prevent it from reaching the floor for a vote - not sure what can be done, if anything, to overcome that -

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/08/30/secret.senators/

Senate tradition allows any senator to keep a piece of legislation from reaching the Senate floor by placing a hold on the bill.

Sen. Wyden previously put a "hold" on the anti-net-neturality bill

http://wyden.senate.gov/media/2006/06282006_net_neutrality_holds_release.html

So in all sincerity I am asking, is it time to leave yet?

-- Conservativeslayer

You demonrat/islamoliberalofascist,commiesocialist/pinko traitor!

Precisely how hardball can/should we expect the Democratic leadership to play now, particularly given the Speaker has gone on record as saying at least the House will not pass any teleco immunity?

Rather sad to see how far we've fallen as a country.

-- Iokannan in the Well

We could use strong encryption on all non-voice communication. If someone does this alone, they will be targeted. If a large number of people do this, the computation power required will overwhelm the government's ability to break the code. When they finally do and find out it is just email to your aunt about a cookie recipe they will have wasted a great deal of time. This would give them serious fits if enough people did this.

that the defintion of an honest politician is one who "once bought, stays bought"

http://civilwarstudies.org/trivia-answers.htm#39

I'm afraid it will now become necessary to coin a simalarly cynical definition of "good faith".

In a democracy, people get the government they deserve.

Most folks in Washington think the whole point of government is to make them rich.

Most Americans just don't really care what happens in Washington.

And most Democrats, if they care, don't care enough to make sure their representatives know about it.

Good night, and good luck!

Or, alternatively: All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for enough good people to say "It's a business."

I'm just catching up. Is it still yesterday or tomorrow?

@5:32, 7:08, 8:08, or actually, all the informative letters-posted yesterday- I say okay! It no doomsday. Hurray. Amen.

Another day to be alive, and not a dead-bird-blue-jay quacking up on telecoms Hill. Yesterday:

Arne and Pedinska sitting on a park bench in Washington D.C.

Sipping excellent wine in a soggy coffee cup cup for all neocons to see.

Then come the cops just doing their job, and guess who attracts them with her silly come-on waves? Pedinska. O, Arne. Cheers. Just got to tell the truth. O, Arne, Don't assume the fantasy to come true for you? No hope and anticipate to be experiencing any kinda k.i.s.s.i.n.g. Nope. Never. I tell you, brother. None.

O, Che Pasa, O, kovie, O, disco, O, Tonto, O, lastgirlchosen, O everyone please, O, Zeus's lightening bolts- O, just blow each other a innocent kiss...selise...is the one you-who wears a crown, a queen, in those beautiful child Barbar films?

I never view porn. no.

War is porn. The truth.

Robert Jay Lifton is a great thinker about Holocaust, war-porn, and projections of hate and fears in times of sicko-Body Politics. Is this a ill nation or what? Yes and no. Not as long as some posters keep us AAA travelers wanting some honest smooches- but no 'snoop' sippers...I will hope. kiss. keep-it-simple-stoopids-[k.i.s.s.]. I got to go find somebody to smack me. smooch.

I will never pinch or despair.

What is required for a telecom to "demonstrate to a court that they acted pursuant to a legal directive in helping the government with surveillance in the United States" when another court has already ruled that it cannot be seriously contended "that a reasonable entity in its position could have believed that the alleged domestic dragnet was legal"?

There is provision in the Constitution forbidding the enactment of Bills of Attainder, that is a law declaring someone guilty of a crime. The idea is that criminal suspects were to be tried in a court of law by their peers and not in the legislature. The Congress is expressly forbidden to find anyone guilty of a crime.

But can they declare someone innocent? This FISA Bill appears to be a form of what might be called reverse attainder -- a collection of criminal suspects is declared innocent by an Act of Congress. If you can't evade the courts by declaring someone guilty, it would seem to follow that that you cannot declare someone innocent, also without benefit of trial -- or in this case, when the first trials have gone against the defendants.

It would also appear that the 14th Amendment is violated here, with the Congress depriving citizens of their rights without due process of law, which been has taken to mean without recourse to the courts.