Letters to the Editor
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@ Baldie McEagle
Aside: I _STILL_ don't know what bucky's position is half the time.
You're doing better than I. But it can't be for lack of repetition.
Cheers,
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@Bucky1 & Charlie Reese
While I didn't see anything in what Mr. Reese said in the quote you provided that I particularly object to, unless he's changed in the 15 years or so since I used to see his articles in Orlando, he's not especially dedicated to individual rights, and was one of those so-called Libertarians who were basically just a typical conservative republican, but couldn't quite stomach a few narrow things the conservatives republicans advocated (usually an economic issue). Witness their common tendency to see nothing wrong in intrusion into private lives (like seeing nothing wrong with anti-gay legislation, or anti-choice legislation, or other things that are none of the government's business). A good example is Ron Paul, while he has some useful things to say, he undermines his own good points by having contradictory premises.
Still, when any politician or writer or pundit does say something rational, I guess I can say that's a good thing. It's too bad that's mostly what one has to settle for, and has been for a very long time.
--Ron
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GC
I agree. Glenn must be mortified. He does such a great job trying to clean up the national filth and paid trolls with a few quarters are let loose like a pack of mangy Dobermans that need a wash and a dermatologist.
It's difficult to know what other people are thinking but we've all heard Glenn defend the first amendment in no uncertain terms. Hasn't he said more than a few times that it is better to let these people speak? If enough people hear their opinions, they will eventually be turned off by them, seeing them for what they are. It seems to have worked with Shooter. Glenn never banned him. He just ignores him. The amusing thing about this is the that there is not much difference, and some disturbing similarities, between Ron Paul's Newsletters, (written by Lew Rockwell and approved by Paul, both ideological heirs of Rothbard), and some Ann Coulter or Hal Turner screeds, depending on the Newsletter and the audience being pandered to at the time. Somehow, in Bucky's mind, Ann Coulter is a "smear artist" but pointing out she is a "smear artist" for doing essentially the same thing as Ron Paul, Lew Rockwell or Murray Rothbard, is not a smear job.
Most people know by now, especially former Ron Paul supporters in libertarian circles, that a statement was prepared in mid January by Paul’s press secretary Jesse Benton, and approved by Paul himself, finally acknowledging Lew Rockwell as having a role in the newsletters after many months of clumsy denials and claims of ignorance. The statement was subsequently squashed by Kent Snyder, the Paul campaign chairman. That was the end of the campaign and the final straw for most. Only the Rockwellians hang on. It is a tough business. It ain't beanbag. Whether it is Ron Paul, Rockwell and Rothbard or Bush, Cheney and Rove, both Bucky and Shooter backed the losers.
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Thanks Good Celery
The closest I've been to the Himalayas is Mussoorie and Dehra Dun. At sunset in Mussoorie, we saw the Himalayas lit up by the alpine glow. So the next morning I got up early and ran to the other side of town hoping to take a picture. They disappeared! It was like they didn't exist, because the sun wasn't on them.
There's a Tibetan community in Happy Valley there. We ate mo-mos and thugpa.
Dehra Dun has a big military base (it had a prisoner of war camp in World War II) and is where Basmati rice comes from.
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@RMP
Parenti is a stooge of the chinese governement (or at least an academic who likes official access and such to China, etc). See Ondolette's post above yours for some perspective on that. One does not have to believe that Tibet was a paradise to believe that what was done to them was wrong.
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@Jkalos
He may or may not be a stooge. My point is that there are two sides to this conflict and all we hear about is the Dalai Lama Tibet side. It’s very easy for the West to always criticize everything China does. If we were running a country of 1.3 billion people that is undergoing such rapid change, that has left communism and is embracing capitalism, we would find that protecting all human rights and keeping things from blowing up is a daunting task. I think it is too easy to oversimplify and criticize instead of trying to walk in the other country’s shoes. That is a major failing of our culture and politics and it has not served us well.
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The Way I Read It, Condatis
What is the actual difference between the Senate and House bills that ensures that inadvertently intercepted communications with Americans are not disseminated? Is it just a matter of the Senate bill defining the term electronic surveillance to exclude electronic surveillance that involves a foreign target? - Condatis
With regard to your first question, the language difference is slight, but quite meaningful: The House bill requires FISA court pre-collection approval of collection and minimization procedures, while the Senate bill allows the Executive Branch to implement (non-emergency) collection procedures for five days before procedures for the collection or minimization (of 'inadvertently intercepted' communications with Americans) are submitted to the court.
To quote Kate Martin's 3/3 ABA forum comment: "Court involvement ensures that the rules that apply to the surveillance are being followed." In the House bill, those rules would be approved before Intelligence Community dataminers go to work, while in the case of the Senate bill, those rules would not even be submitted for court review for up to five days after the IC has commenced operations (which doesn't count the time before the FISC can render an opinion on the complicated procedures, once submitted).
The Senate [Rockefeller/White House/Intelligence Committee] bill language:
"(a) AUTHORIZATION.—Notwithstanding any other law, the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence may authorize jointly, for periods of up to 1 year, the targeting of persons reasonably believed to be located outside the United States to acquire foreign intelligence information.
...
(e) MINIMIZATION PROCEDURES.—
(1) REQUIREMENT TO ADOPT.—The Attorney General, in consultation with the Director of National Intelligence, shall adopt, consistent with the requirements of section 101(h) or section 301(4), minimization procedures for acquisitions authorized under subsection (a).
(2) JUDICIAL REVIEW.—The minimization procedures required by this subsection shall be subject to judicial review pursuant to subsection (h)."
Subsection (h):
"(h) JUDICIAL REVIEW OF CERTIFICATIONS AND PROCEDURES.—
(1) IN GENERAL.—
(A) REVIEW BY THE FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE SURVEILLANCE COURT.—The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court shall have jurisdiction to review any certification required by subsection (c) and the targeting and minimization procedures adopted pursuant to subsections (d) and (e).
(B) SUBMISSION TO THE COURT.—The Attorney General shall submit to the Court any such certification or procedure, or amendment thereto, not later than 5 days after making or amending the certification or adopting or amending the procedures.
(2) CERTIFICATIONS.—The Court shall review a certification provided under subsection (f) to determine whether the certification contains all the required elements.
(3) TARGETING PROCEDURES.—The Court shall review the targeting procedures required by subsection (d) to assess whether the procedures are reasonably designed to...[snip]...
(4) MINIMIZATION PROCEDURES.—The Court shall review the minimization procedures required by subsection (e) to assess whether such procedures meet the definition of minimization procedures under section 101(h) or section 301(4).
(5) ORDERS.—
(A) APPROVAL.—If the Court finds that a certification required by subsection (f) contains all of the required elements and that the targeting and minimization procedures required by subsections (d) and (e) are consistent with the requirements of those subsections and with the fourth amendment to the Constitution of the United States, the Court shall enter an order approving the continued use of the procedures for the acquisition authorized under subsection (a).
- Senate-passed bill
The revised House bill's language (also modeled on the Protect America Act):
"(a)AUTHORIZATION.— Notwithstanding any other provision of law, pursuant to an order issued in accordance with subsection (i)(3) or a determination under subsection (g)(1)(B), the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence may authorize jointly...[snip]...
...
(i) JUDICIAL REVIEW OF CERTIFICATIONS AND PROCEDURES.—
(1) IN GENERAL.—
(A) REVIEW BY THE FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE SURVEILLANCE COURT.— The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court shall have jurisdiction to review any certification submitted pursuant to subsection (g) and the targeting and minimization procedures required by subsections (d) and (e).
...
(C) MINIMIZATION PROCEDURES.—The minimization procedures required by subsection (e) to assess whether such procedures meet the definition of minimization procedures under section 101(h) or section 301(4) in accordance with subsection (e).
(3) ORDERS.—
(A) APPROVAL.— If the Court finds that a certification submitted pursuant to subsection (g) contains all of the required elements and that the procedures required by subsections (d) and (e) are consistent with the requirements of those subsections and with the fourth amendment to the Constitution of the United States, the Court shall enter an order approving the certification and the use of the procedures for the acquisition."
- H.R. 3773, as amended 3/14/08
With regard to your second question, here's an excerpt (with my elaborations in brackets) from the House Judiciary Committee's 10/2007 Report on RESTORE that explains the significance of the Senate bill's exclusion of certain domestic surveillance acquisitions from FISA's definition of electronic surveillance:
As noted above, section 2 of the RESTORE Act settles the issue of "foreign-to-foreign" [apparently U.S.-stored email] communications, making clear that purely foreign communications do not require a FISA warrant and that foreign targets abroad are not to be extended Constitutional protections [presumably when intercepted on U.S. soil and/or while in communication with an American]. Unlike the PAA [and the Senate bill], however, the RESTORE Act does not accomplish this by exempting such [stored email, presumably] acquisitions from FISA's definitions of electronic surveillance. That [Senate] approach has undercut other vital aspects of FISA that ensured that law-abiding Americans had legal protection against inappropriate acquisition and distribution of their private communications. - HJC Report
Http://www.rules.house.gov/110/text/110_hr3773rpt_judiciary.pdf
So the amended House bill avoids that particular pitfall, includes a significant safeguard by requiring court-reviewed guidelines to limit what (domestic) data can be collected in the first place, in addition to requiring pre-approval from the court before that collection can begin.
Finally, yes, I'd say that the 702(g)(3) language you excerpted helps to facilitate, along with other provisions and "reasonably believed" caveats, the 'group-based' collection authorizations and procedures these bills provide for. The HJC Report states clearly on Page 13 about RESTORE: "Collectively these judicial responsibilities still permit programmatic surveillance based on certifications by the Attorney General..."