You aren't making any sense. Yes, since the FISA was passed. There could be an IMMEDIATE threat and there still wouldn't be any good reason for Bush to break the law by not getting a warrant. If there was a dire, immediate threat, they could tap the suspects and then get a warrant up to a year later. You keep saying that there must be a good reason that they just can't tell us about, but this administration has deceived us so much, it amazes me that you can so blithely trust a man who admits that he is breaking the law and says that he will continue to do so. So now you want to shift some blame to Clinton? Maybe if Bush had listened to the outgoing Clinton admin and Richard Clarke, 9/11 would never have happened. Maybe if Bush had connected the dots between "Bin Laden determined to strike in the US" and "terrorists might use airliners as bombs," 9/11 wouldn't have happened. Maybe if Bush hadn't diverted so many resources away from anti-terrorism in the fist few months of his presidency, 9/11 wouldn't have happened.
Nobody (except you) has ever even CLAIMED that there has been a leak from the FISA court. Seems like a pretty safe assumption to me, much safer than assuming that Bush can be trusted.
quaker groups and greenpeace have allegedly been spied on. watch out for them quakers! http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/01/23/opinion/main1228569.shtml "Before 9-11, the FBI’s watch list consisted of only 16 names. Today it contains 80,000. As of June 2005, the National Counterintelligence Center had amassed files on 190,000 individuals. Do these numbers strike you as reasonable, or are suspicions getting out of hand?" "The FBI has labeled environmental activists “eco-terrorists” simply for protesting a lumbermen’s convention by hanging a banner. The Pentagon considers nonviolent Quakers a “threat” because they oppose military recruitment at high schools. The California National Guard monitored the “Raging Grannies,” an anti-war singing group, because, as a spokesman explained, no one can tell when terrorists might infiltrate the grannies." its really not complicated - dubya himself explained it pretty clearly. "Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires — a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we’re talking about chasing down terrorists, we’re talking about getting a court order before we do so. It’s important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution." of course, he was doing doing wiretaps w/out court orders at the very time he made that statement, which any REASONABLE person would say makes him a dirty liar.
Exactly. This is the kind of judgement the people who giddyup, ROXRAN, and others want us to trust without any use of oversight. Labelling people who peacefully disagree with an administration's policies as terrorists hardly speaks well for giving them additional powers to spy on people without making sure they aren't abusing the powers.
Nor does lying about an ongoing program. That is what gets me. Bush flat out lied when he said that they require a court order for every wiretap and still there are people that will blithely follow him as he tries to undermine the very foundation of our republic.
I never <b>claimed</b> any such thing. I was asked to propose a <b>theory</b> which would explain circumvention of the FISA court. I await your acknowledgement of this correction. Please don't change what I say to suit your purposes.
<b>andymoon You aren't making any sense.</b> Sometimes neither do bureaucracies. Think about it. <b>Yes, since the FISA was passed.</b> Naturally-- that was my point. <b>You keep saying that there must be a good reason that they just can't tell us about, but this administration has deceived us so much, it amazes me that you can so blithely trust a man who admits that he is breaking the law and says that he will continue to do so.</b> Whoever admits to breaking the law and doesn't have an upright purpose for doing so? <b>So now you want to shift some blame to Clinton?</b> No. I'm just pointing out how and why he never got much into the wire-tapping... because of the jurisdiction of the case he brought. Also, that was a decade ago and the technology lagged. <b>Maybe if Bush had listened to the outgoing Clinton admin and Richard Clarke, 9/11 would never have happened. Maybe if Bush had connected the dots between "Bin Laden determined to strike in the US" and "terrorists might use airliners as bombs," 9/11 wouldn't have happened.</b> Will somebody please have listened to Richard Clarke! <B>Maybe if Bush hadn't diverted so many resources away from anti-terrorism in the fist few months of his presidency, 9/11 wouldn't have happened.</b> Any number of "do-overs" would have changed the outcome....
Well, your theory is absolutely preposterous. Any theory which requires one of the most trusted judges in our country to give information to al-Qaeda is beyond inane.
Yeah, but giddyup says he's not doing that. He conveniently replaces the words "FISA court" with "bureaucracy" and comes up with a handy patsy. After all, nobody likes bureaucracies, right? Problem is, in this case, the bureaucracy is the FISA court and they're about as likely to leak as NSA. So, if giddy's still saying he didn't mean to suggest the court was somehow infiltrated with spies, we're down to one theory: Jorge's. He still hasn't backed off his assertion that getting warrants for the wiretaps would tip off the terrorists when we served them with the warrants. In all the internets, that now stands as the only theory as to why Bush doesn't get the warrants. Of course we all know those warrants aren't served to the terrorists, but apparently Jorge is sticking by his story. I asked him for clarification but he just said he had owned me.
It's not just that nobody likes bureaucracies, it's that bureaucracies are rife with problems-- even a small one. The FISA court could have a spy attached to it; I just rejected being credited with saying it was the judge. It also could not have a spy attached to it but have some surveillance. I'm comfortable with the old adage that sometimes it is easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission. I don't really know how I guy sitting in your position (or mine for that matter) can claim to be so expert on how these things work and what their limitations are. Just because you can't imagine what the reason is and are not let in on the reason by the administration, the administration is corrupt. I'll pass on that theory. Bush is out in a couple of years. He has nothing to gain but increase his legacy by doing his job to the utmost of his ability. I expect our minds would be blown if we ever saw the full intricacies of the workings of any of these agencies or other governmental bodies, but hey if you want to sit there and mock.... go right ahead...
Thanks for the rest of that post. It was funny. But I wanted to respond to this bit here because it goes to the core of the issue. I did not say the admin was corrupt in this case. I said it had decided to disregard the oversight that would ensure it was not abusing its power. It has further decided that neither the American people nor Congress nor the FISA court itself deserve any explanation for this end run around our system of checks and balances. I said this in another post and you didn't respond, but our founding fathers came here from a monarchy and determined to set up a system of government that would never give one person that kind of power. That system of checks and balances is as fundamental to what makes America America as any other thing. Bush has decided to place himself above that system and asked us to trust him to do the right thing. The most basic tenet of our system of government insists that we never be asked to do that. Why? Because the founding fathers were intent on the idea that an American president is not a king. After 9/11 Congress took another look at how we gather intelligence in this country and resolved to make it as easy as possible to get all the intelligence we could to prevent an attack. They stopped short only at removing the basic check of judicial oversight for wiretapping American citizens. Bush actually asked for Congress to approve the warrantless wiretapping he is now engaged in and they said no. They accomodated him and NSA by significantly loosening the requirements for the warrants and adding the ability to seek warrants retroactively. But they flatly refused to remove the warrant requirement altogether. And then he did it anyway. And he not only did it anyway, but he boldly lied about doing it in the quote posted previously about how any time the government wiretaps someone they get a court order as required by law. Gonzales also boldly lied when questioned about the legality of such a program in his AG confirmation hearings. He refused to answer on the grounds that the question was hypothetical. Actually it was the opposite of hypothetical and he knew that since he was the president's legal counsel during the entirety of the program. But you don't care about any of that. Incredibly, you don't care about any of that. It's ironic to me that you're offended by my making a mockery of your silly leak theory. I am doing that, yes. I'm sorry it offends you. Meanwhile Bush is making a blatant mockery of our Constitution and the most basic tenets of our American government. And you're throwing him a party for it.
Can you hold your breath for a couple of years? The president may just be saving your life or that of someone you love. 1. I'm not denying it is unusual. 2. I never said that the leak theory was a strong one-- just plausible as you asked 3. I trust; you don't 4. I understand the system of checks and balances but I have no concern about an encroaching monarchy
No I cannot hold my breath when the President of the United States breaks the law and craps on the Constitution. That might sound dramatic to you but I have thousands of words in this thread explaing it to you in cooler terms and you have zero refuting it. In place of ANY credible argument you just keep saying you don't think it's a big deal. No matter how many ways I explain to you that it is, you just keep saying silly stuff like "I trust, you don't." And that "saving you life" stuff is the most offensive red herring of this whole deal. I'm gonna stop arguing with you here before I totally freaking lose it. I have spent the last two days explaining to you how this has NOTHING to do with protecting us and you just keep repeating that fear mongering lie. You are absolutely maddening to try and debate with.
O deer lore, Batty's getting frothy at the mouth again. Neo-demos hold him down before yet another humilating meltdown!
