For information on the link between the Bush, Saud and bin Laden families, see House of Bush, House of Saud by Craig Unger, The Iron Triangle: Inside the Secret World of the Carlyle Group and The Halliburton Agenda: The Politics of Oil and Money by Dan Briody, both of which deal with Cheney as well, and American Dynasty and American Theocracy by Kevin Phillips. The truth isn't just out there, it's pretty well known. It's all about oil and world domination.

Are you people really that paranoid to believe the government has nothing better to do than to listen to your boring conversations? Seriously, if you don't have anything to hide then you don't have anything to worry about do you? Unless you're directly supporting terrorist activities in this country, what do you have to fear?

This talking point has been retired for sheer inanity. Please consult your troll handbook, and update it if necessary.

If you feel you are unable to maintain updated talking points, please report to the nearest control center for reprogramming.

It is sad for me to say it, but I do not believe that we can do anything right now, except lodge our complaints, wait, vote, and see what happens. If those here who believe that the Dems are in on this, that they fundamentally agree with Bush that the need to stop terrorists at any price trumps the "blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity", then it becomes a question of emmigration or armed resistance. I hope like hell it doesn't come to that. But the next year will tell us. If Obama wins, and he takes no clear steps to dismantle the Imperial Presidency, close Guantanamo and Bagram, and repeal the Patriot Act, then we will be faced with the choice of flight, resistence, or collaboration. That we could be this close to such desperate times is frightening enough for me to deal with. I'll face the choices I've outlined only when I have to--not today.

So I take it that means you don't mind if I come by with a camera next time have sex with someone and get a few shots in?

After all, If I were listening to boring conversations all day, the temptation to spice things up might be well nigh inevitable.

Glenn, I have read your posts every day for so long now that I can't remember. This is the first time, however, that I feel the need to contribute via the comments. (Disclaimer: I don't have the time to read all of yesterday's comments re Obama and his personal silence/capitulation on this issue, so I beg the Comments audience to forgive me if I repeat what someone else already said.)

It is safe to say that this issue bothers me more than most political issues. It is also safe to say that the anger we all feel is multifaceted. Furthermore, you're correct in saying that Obama should actually act on his "bring it on" statement earlier this week; he has a responsibility to paint the Republicans and the pandering Dems as the ones who are actually soft on terrorism, and to tell the American people the truth re the this bill and its implications. I'm waiting for that kind of change.

You're wrong, however, about John Barrow and Regina Thomas. It's true that John Barrow hasn't bled as blue as he ought, and that a lot of his actions as of late have amounted to political pandering in order to get reelected. Let's be honest: his constituents aren't as liberal as his reelection might make it seem, and he's likely to lose less political votes on the Left (who in his district are likely to align more with the right than we'd like) and to gain a few votes by pandering to the Right (who are numerous in his district; his election wasn't easy). But even if we say he should have voted the Constitution/party line/his conscience over the will of the voters', that doesn't mean that Regina Thomas is either a strong contender (I don't remember your exact words) or the person who would be best for that job. Knowing her political history and her perception of reality (as well as the voters' perception of her personally), (1) I'm not surprised that Obama would favor Barrow over her, and (2) I think her motive for entering the race is unbelievably suspect. Of course, whether Obama should have involved himself in their race is an entirely different story.

WE must take action. We can whine and cry all day. does nothing. Work to make sure this never happens again. I say throw the criminals in jail. Once someone goes to jail for 30 years for bribery and treason, the next day this stops. ONE TIME

Seriously, if you don't have anything to hide then you don't have anything to worry about do you?

Good point. Because it's totally impossible that an innocent citizen named, say, "Bucks4McCain" might be, through normal human error, confused with a suspected terrorist named "Bucks4BinLaden."

As we all know, the United States Government is wise and infallible - except, of course, in matters such as taxation and the regulation of tailpipe emissions - and thus there is no danger in vesting it with vast, sweeping powers.

That is, after all, what our forefathers fought and died for.

God Bless America.

Please don't feed the trolls (bucks4mccain).

This article from Dow Jones, celebrating that the telecom industry is completely off the hook as a result of this bill. - Glenn Greenwald

So much for Nancy Pelosi's utterly ridiculous opinion that the telecoms will now be "tainted" by the compromise bill. The only thing that was tainted was the Congress.

Thank you for the opportunity to plug my friend Alonzo Fyfe.

http://atheistethicist.blogspot.com/2006/05/further-considerations-on-government.html

“If you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to fear from government spying.”

Anybody who utters this statement has illustrated the full height of his stupidity.

The problem is, the common citizen does not always get to decide whether he has something to hide. Sometimes, somebody else makes those decisions for him.

In Nazi Germany, “having something to hide” meant being a Jew, homosexual, gypsy, or even willing to work for regime change in the country. Imagine how much easier Hitler’s job would have been if the government already had a practice of wiretapping phones without a warrant and a database of every phone call that had ever been made by anybody in the country.

In America, in the 1950s, ‘having something to hide’ meant how you would answer the question, ‘have you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party.’ Imagine the situation in this country if, instead of asking people to name names, McCarthy simply needed to access a database of who had been calling whom in order to get his list of suspects.

In the 1960s, “having something to hide” meant being a part of the Civil Rights movement. Martin Luther King was viewed as a threat. Many people in government would have loved to have been able to plug his phone number into a database and get a list of everybody he had called as well as when and how long they talked.

In the 1970s, Nixon had an official “political enemies project” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixon's_Enemies_List which involved a program of using government tools such as IRS audits and legal harassment against those who dared to speak out against him. I suspect that, if this database had existed while he was President, he would have made use of it.

Other times in which Americans had “something to hide” included being Japanese American in 1940, or German American in the 1910s. It included being an escaped slave or being somebody who aided in the Underground Railroad in 1850. In the 1770s, it included anybody and everybody who was fighting for independence from England.