My that does sound bad- but clearly also useful for uncovering terrorist conspiracies.

Which are everywhere, of course. Since the 9-11 fiasco, no "terrorist conspiracy" has so much as broken a window in the US. Why are you so convinced there are "terrorist conspiracies" all over? And please, no canards about right-wing or abortion terrorists. You know, I know and we all know, we are talking about "fanatical Muslim" terrorists.

You do check under the bed at night, right? Don't forget the closet!

And while this doesn't change the fact that this law does indeed help us fight the terrorists,

You wanna substantiate that?

Thanks for telling us about Gina Gray. Having served as an Air Force public affairs officer for 28 years, the mistreatment of her is both disgusting and sad. When top leaders are as sick and demented as Cheney and Bush are, most everyone below them either becomes ill and loses their soul or they opt out. Gina had the guts to do neither and hold to her integrity and principles. Military members like Gina who have this kind of courage, are the real heroes.

Laws with no consequences are meaningless. They're just suggestions. And nothing ensures future lawbreaking more then announcing that the response to government lawbreaking will be to protect the lawbreakers and then legalize what they did. That's why this new law does the opposite of what its apologists claim -- it incentivizes future lawbreaking by making clear that nothing will happen to political officials who break the law.

-- GlennGreenwald

And yet you won't touch impeachment with a ten foot pole. You won't write about it. You won't use your new coalition and money to somehow support it. You ignore Kucinich and people like Sheehan.

It's all about what's possible correct? And what is possible is electing a few more dems and Obama so that they can what? Police themselves? I don't know about anybody else but, given recent history, that doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to me.

And neither will the Democratic Leadership.

If I respond to that, you will do me the courtesy of reading what I read right? I'll take my chances. Here is the proof, showing my work:

1) New FISA law- permits data mining of electronic communications

2) Old FISA law- such data mining is illegal and hence less likely to occur

3) Data mining adds raw intelligence that can be refined into intelligence that can be acted on by enforcement to stop any terrorist conspiracy.

4) Insert Halmos here

Now if you want to argue that terrorist conspiracies themselves are implausible, I doubt very much you have a winner, but that's your perogative. If you want to argue that data mining is counter-productive, my guess is that you will be calling on expertise you don't have, because you will have to show systemic biases in intelligence analysis.

However, before you get into any of that, you may want to first ask yourself what purpose it serves to deny uncontroversial things it is not necessary to deny to disapprove of nearly every aspect of this legislation or of the state of the debate more broadly. To that end, you may want to consider the arguments I made against this legislation that I strongly suspect you've yet to read.

If you want to argue that data mining is counter-productive

Sorry tiger, but correlation does not imply causation.

I'll admit to pouncing if you like, but how do you defend being so fantastically wrong? I mean, really, it wasn't like you were mentioning some cultish thing that appeared in Conspiracy Monthly--anyone who reads the daily paper or even looks at Yahoo headlines would have known that one.-- -- omooex

Fantastically wrong? Please. I didn't say anything that wasn't factually correct. Baghdad had yellowcake and it got moved. Basically I wanted to tweak some guy that wants to relive the beginning of the war yet again. My bad.

As is his want, Scheißer has conflated several points. He supposedly has gotten the idea from the ACLU lawsuit that data mining is the only activity the government is conducting, i.e. vacuuming up all data, running algorithms on the data, then wiretapping only those allowed by law, including obtaining warrants where necessary. So when posters confirm that "it's all about data mining," Scheißer had what he needed to proclaim that the protests are much ado about nothing.

What Scheißer doesn't seem to grok, for some reason, is that data mining is merely one process that is allowed by the incredibly broad and clearly unconstitutional FISA bill.

So it isn't "all about data mining." It's about data mining, wiretapping, eavesdropping, data collection -- it's about allowing the government to do pretty much what it damn well pleases with any and all electronic communication, as long as they're targeting foreigners.

Again:

US Constitution, IV Amendment:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

If to some, the world has changed so much that this amendment is antiquated, you have to amend the Constitution, not FISA.

Me: You're Right Shootster

Running around yelling that the Terrorists will strike us, and that we'll see mushroom clouds and that we could lose a city and that some hate America is just heinous manipulation that has to stop. -- ckelly707

You:Did you happen to see the news a week or so ago that the last of Saddam's 550 tons of yellowcake in Baghdad was carted off? Move along, nothing to see here.

You're right again Shootfooter...nothing to see here. Twice in one day, must be some sort of record for you.

It's all about what's possible correct? And what is possible is electing a few more dems and Obama so that they can what? Police themselves? I don't know about anybody else but, given recent history, that doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to me.

Where is the logic in your argument? I'm quite serious.

Even if we assume for argument's sake the impossible scenario of successfully impeaching and removing Bush, how would this foreclose or ameliorate the possibility you warn of that "dems and Obama" would not be left to "police themselves" after Bush is removed?

In that case, therefore, isn't anyone's failure to strenuously advocate for outright revolution, destruction of the Democratic and Republican parties, and other total systemic upheavals equivalent to Glenn's unforgivable sin of failing to advocate impeachment?

Your argument lacks logic and discernible purpose. It seems to be undertaken as a form of posturing.