Letters to the Editor
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Nice!
Way to find that shit from the Reagan speech and Ashcroft op-ed! These types have no shame.
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Only a Matter of Time
When the government can indiscriminately store and datamine communications by U.S. citizens abroad, it's only a matter of time until they find a justification for doing it at home (although they have probably been doing it anyway for the past seven years).
When that becomes legal, we are truly living in a police state.
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fisa & telecom immunity
glenn's posts of the last two days regarding the selling out of our privacy would be well placed alongside a picture of our congress during shrub's attempt at figuring out the state of the union. slack jawed, glassy eyed and thinking about the post speech buffet. i'm pretty sure they were picking up a few volts through their chairs every now and then to ensure the applause was timely, if tepid.
this my friends, seems to be the government we deserve.
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Can someone explain ...
... why this issue does not have any "traction" with the public? None of the candidates are talking about it (although you better believe they will talk about it with an Obama nomination). Maybe the "Trust Me" government phrase is the needed sound bite. I wish someone would hire an ad agency or something, to distill this message into something the public can digest.
The other alternative is that the majority of Americans are ok with the eavesdropping/FISA abuse -- which makes my skin crawl.
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Great Ashcroft Quote
Seriously, it's beyond ridiculous that every single one of the Bush Administration can be hung by their own words. Proven to be complete liars and frauds by their own words alone, yet the major media ignores it.
That's what pisses me off more than anything. The fact no one calls anything a lie or anyone a liar any more. They use terms like misleading and distorted.
It's a crock of shit. The correct and truly honest journalistic term when dealing with Bush would be lies. The Bush Administration lies virtually every time they open their mouth. That's what we're mad so about and what journalists need to start calling it.
The one good thing from Bush is that with every word uttered, he continues to set the conservative movement back decades. Republicans easily could have kept the majority of the details behind their nefarious curtain secret. All they had to do was serve up one former coked out dry drunk none of them ever liked in the first place, George W. Bush. Had they done that they would probably be in great shape right now.
But, they wouldn't do that one simple thing they probably would have enjoyed doing anyway. They knew he was a spoiled loser. But, they fell for that ridiculous & blasphemous 11th commandment of Regan's. I hope they see where their blasphemy of the lord has gotten them.
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Wonder what excuses they'll use when they have 60 votes?
This next election could give them that, if they reached for it.
Watch, they'll get all tough with the next Democratic President, 60 votes be damned.
Oh well. We do the best we can.
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Thank God for Russ Feingold
I believe we are already in a information police state. Don't most people here send email or call abroad? I mean, if these powers include Canada then half the Northern US has at least an auto-computer file at NSA.
And what if you write an email to your bro in Texas, and he forwards it to his old buddy in Portugal? Your personal information is tapped. How about you send an email to your doctor and it goes to a processing center in Bangalore? The government knows all about the results of your latest psychiatric exam?
If this level of surveillance is necessary, we need another branch of government to act as a check on it.
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It's the lying.....
I'm proud to say that my first donations to EFF took place in the nineties and were a direct result of the Clipper Chip and encryption controversies among other issues.
Read these links for some fascinating history:
http://www.sjgames.com/SS/
http://w2.eff.org/legal/cases/SJG/
As well as an important lesson for how "official exuberance" can turn into gross injustice if not checked by our legal system.
What bothers me more than anything about this whole controversy is the shamelessness the pro-immunity forces show, particularly in misrepresenting the anti-immunity position.
Almost all of us agree that intercepting conversations between terrorists and those who would help and/or finance them is a good and desirable thing. What I in particular object to is the sloth and laziness apparent when FISA was ordered to be bypassed and ignored. The same people who note that we had six months to write the current bill are the same ones ignoring the fact that we had six years to write the bill passed in August and not a thing was done. Rather than update FISA they ignored it and now we're all supposed to pretend that it the Dem's fault.
Bullshit.
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but then
we can count on the FBI to fail to pay their phone bills again? probably our best chance.
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The terrible news is... The "Trust American Act"... protects who?
... The sight of a scarecrow creates delight more often than fear...
... if talking in a cornfield remember there are lots of ears? corny.
.... eavesdropping? No talk too loud in a corn field... ears do listen.
hush. good night. Trust me. I don't trust the government? O, Nope.
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The 15 day extension in the Senate
In comments over at FireDogLake, cboldt is reporting that the extension has passed in the Senate:
8:26, Reid just passed the 15 day extension, standing solo in the well of the Senate.
link: http://tinyurl.com/2nwmj9
When asked for clarification, this was the response:
Positively sure. I have an MP3 of the closing actions (sometime use that to check hot action, rather than wait for the Record to come out the next day), and would upload it if I knew a place that took stuff like that.
How can he do that? He obtained unanimous consent, without gimmicks, before he came to the floor. He also passed 5 Senate Resolutions.
This sort of stuff is REALLY funny when a solo senator passes a treaty, with 2/rd of the senators standing to indicate “for” and “against,” they (the ONE Senator in the chamber) sits and stands. I’ve heard some funny things that never make it into the record.
link: http://tinyurl.com/2trwls