Leaky Sieves
Posted on February 13th, 2006 in Democrats, Republicans
It’s perfectly clear to me that President Bush didn’t go to Congress before because history has proven that Congressional offices leak like the proverbial sieve.
Spying Necessary, Democrats Say
Two key Democrats yesterday called the NSA domestic surveillance program necessary for fighting terrorism but questioned whether President Bush had the legal authority to order it done without getting congressional approval.
The Founding Fathers knew how much the Continental Congress leaked, so they did not give the Legislature oversight of intelligence gathering in a time of war. I believe FISA is unconstitutional and no new laws would be Constitutional either.
Hat tip Stop the ACLU
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This post has 10 comments
February 14th, 2006
Yeah, even if FISA was unconstitutional, there’s that pesky 4th amendment, which requires a warrant. And a strict constitutionalist reading of it, doesn’t show any loopholes for the boogeyman de jour. Nor does the whole implied powers of president nonsense work because the constitution specifically laws out his powers, and the 4th and 5th amendments were modifications to constitution.
As for hating the ACLU, that nice organization keeps Christian fundamentalism in check in America. The last time Christian fundamentalism got out of control, 250,000 were massacred in Bosnia. Same thing occurred with the Ustasha back the 1940s, when Catholic fundies got power there.
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February 14th, 2006
The 4th Amendment doesn’t apply to enemy combatants, spies and terrorists in a time of war. The NSA only spies on Americans when they’re in contact with people from overseas that fit one of those categories. We’re at war and the rules are different during a time of war.
You might want to read over the Constitution. Concentrate on Article III, Section 3. The President is also Commander in Chief of the Army (Article II, Section 2) and when he orders warrantless wiretaps he’s acting in that capacity. Bush is spying on enemies of the state, not ordinary citizens.
The ACLU wants to destroy the Christian church, not protect the U.S. from Christians. I don’t see how Bosnia and Ustasha have anything to do with Christian influence over the government here in the United States.
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February 14th, 2006
Jason. but the 4th amendment has always applied to terrorists. I am willing to vent that several hundred, if not several thousand terrorists have been arrested, detained, and convicted following due process, including members of terrorist groups like the Ustasha, who killed far more people than Al-Qaeda. Spies are also covered by the 4th amendment, remember the Walkers, Robert Hassan, or even the Soviet agent they trade for Gary Powers? Thats right, they were all convicted using the rules of due process. Now as “enemy combatants:, thats a Bush neologism (made up word) coined to allow them to torture people legally, and still have you support it.
Now as for, your claim that the” NSA only spies on Americans when they’re in contact with people from overseas that fit one of those categories”, we really have no proof of that other than Bush;s statements, which given the lack of WMDs in Iraq and other nonsense, are not really credible. The information on this issue is still classified, so either you’re guessing, or you’re leaking sensitive information. Also, we’re not really at war, see, if you read your link to the constitution, you’d notice that Congress, not el presidente declares war, which Congress has not done.
Now for the ACLU trying to destroy the Christian church, I don’t believe it, but if it maks you feel better, even though they helped say Jerry Falwell in the past, you go right ahead. My remarks about Bosnia and the Ustasha were references to the lessons history has shown us about what Christian do, when they get power.
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February 14th, 2006
The 4th amendment does not apply to terrorists who are in this country illegally (like most of the 9/11 hijackers were.) Those people are considered “enemy combatants.” They come under military jurisdiction and are not afforded the same rights under the Constitution.
I’m inclined to give the President the benefit of the doubt. The former President thought there were WMD’s in Iraq, but he didn’t go after them. We spent too much time playing around in the U.N. and Saddam was able to move his WMD’s to Syria. BTW, remember what Saddam did to the Kurds? He used WMD’s on them.
Congress gave the President permission to use force against Iraq, but of course people like John “Waffles” Kerry will tell you they were for the war before they were against it.
I don’t trust the ACLU, they use deceptive practices to enlarge their coffers with taxpayer dollars. I’ve seen them file suits against religious expression much more often than I’ve seem them defend any kind of religious expression.
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February 14th, 2006
Nonsense, plenty of terrorists have been here illegally, and have been tried according due process. Remember Ramzi Yousef? Yeah, he was illegally here during the first bombing, yet we managed to follow the rules with him. What about Padilla? He was an American born citizen, yet was called an enemy combatant. See you have to remember “enemy combatant” is a neologism, or made up term, to be used as Bush sees fit. Particularly in the case of Padilla, who was the subject of vague and weak evidence. Remember how he was planning a dirty bomb attack, during of a bout of dirty bomb hysteria? Now he was planning to shoot Americans in some poorly defined plot. Not to mention other changes in the allegations against him. When someone keeps changing their story, it usually means they are probably lying.
Besides, how can you determine people are “terrorists”, until they are convicted?
Will you support Gitmo, when president Hillary Clinton comes to power?
Why are you inclined to give Bush the benefit of the doubt? Seriously, any of with a basic knowledge of the Middle East knows that Saddam and Syria never got alone. Syria, backed Iran, not Saddam during the Iran-Iraq War, to the point it shutdown Iraqi pipelines going through Syria, damaging its own economy and then kept that pipeline closed until 17 years. Then, during Bush Sr.’s Gulf War, Syria sent around 17,000 troops to fight with get this, the United States, (Pollack, Arabs at War), and during this time period Syria was actively helping us fight Al-Qaeda, and supported Resolution 1441. Now, do you really think Saddam is going to give WMDs to a nation hostile to him? I mean, how does guarantee the Syrians don’t rat him to the Americans for brownie points? How does he ensure he would have gotten them back had Bush called the invasion? In any event, I am willing to bet more Americans have been run over by Laura Bush, or drowned in the back of Ted Kennedy’s car, than killed by Saddam’s WMDs.
As for the Kurds, if Reagan and Americans did not care about their gassing in 1988, why care in 2003? Of course, in 1990, the USMC blamed Iran, not Saddam Halabaja, so maybe that’s we did not care (FMFRP-103 Lessons Learned, page 100).
In regard to Kerry’s waffling, his entire election discourse on Iraq was in support of the war. His platform on the issue was that he could do the occupation better, not to end it. His statement, that I voted against it before I voted for it, referred to funding, not the war itself. Bush preferred to pay for the war through deficit spending, while Kerry wanted to increase taxes to pay for the war.
As for the ACLU attacking religious displays more than defending them, that would an interesting and difficult quantitative analysis, because after all, many organizations back down before going to court when the ACLU shows up.
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February 14th, 2006
I’ll still support what’s going on in Gitmo, well after the 2008 election. Hillary’s not going to win.
I didn’t say Saddam gave WMD’s to the Syrian government. I said he moved them to Syria. There’s a lot of desert out there and plenty of terrorists living there that were sympathetic to that brutal dictator’s cause.
Regarding the ACLU: That’s exactly my point, people have become so afraid of the ACLU they back down without a confrontation. People perceive the ACLU as an evil organization. We need more local leaders who say “To Hell with the ACLU, I’m going to put up that Nativity in town square. Let them try to take it down.”
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February 14th, 2006
Your faith in Bush is amusing, given he’s a politician, like Bill Clinton. Your diety of choice willing, if I become president, everyone I dislike is going to gitmo, and I’ll invade Canada, and you’ll support me, because you support the troops. Seriously, I wonder how Republican will reach when some rogue democrat deports them to Gitmo.
So now, Saddam and Iraqi intelligence smuggled large quantities of WMD into Syria, a hostile authoritarian police state, without anyone detecting it, despite the clear weather and (most likely) constant satelite overflights?
And which terrorist groups are actually sympathetic to Saddam? Al-Qaeda? No, OBl called him a dog and not dog as in “sup dawg”, but dog as in, you best expect a knife to chest, kind of dog. They get quite upset about being called a dog in that part of the world. Lets look at some other terrorist groups. HAMAS, PIJ, or Hizbullah? No, they’re Iranian supported, and internally focused. ETA, IRA, RAF, nope. FARC, nope.
Not to mention OBL supported Ansar al Islam, which wanted to overthrow the Iraqi government and install an Islamic regime. The Iraqi government included Saddam, so Saddam supporting Al-Qaeda would be like Bush giving money to the Kerry campaign, i.e. something that will not happen. Besides, given that Iraq declared during the Iran-Iraq war that he was fighting “fundamentalism”, it is unlikely that Islamic fundies would trust him. Especially when you consider that Saddam backed the Serbians during the Balkan Wars of the 1990s, as shown on Otro conducted by SFOR in the last days before the war. See, Al-Qaeda backed the Bosnians and the KLA, though to what degree and effectiveness is still debated.
And using your logic about how people back down before the ACLU, police must be perceived as evil because people back down to them without confrontation, Rather run from or fight them in court, I usually just pay the fine. And do we really need more politicians breaking the law? How about if they did say, an Ashura display, rather than a nativity, would you accept Muslim religious displays? what about Satanic or Wiccan set-ups? Probably not. This is why our founding fathers and the legal minds that followed have intelligently designed our system to prohibit religious displays, though I’ll concede some people go to far, as with the alleged banning of traditional Christmas colors.
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February 14th, 2006
We’ll have to agree to disagree about trusting Bush and WMD’s in Iraq. You’re never going to convince me to see it your way.
I never back down when confronted by the Police. I always fight a ticket in court. If I’m ever stopped and the cops ask to search my car, I’ll tell them to get a warrant. Your logic doesn’t hold up.
The ACLU doesn’t seem to have problems with other religions, just Christianity. They don’t object to the Star of David or the Star and Crescent. If other religious groups want to pay for religious displays in an area zoned for “free speech,” then they can. I don’t care.
When it comes to the religious views of the Founding Fathers, I suggest you check out Freedom Tide. You’ve been sadly misinformed.
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February 14th, 2006
Just because you charge the windmill and fight traffic tickets, does not change the fact that majority of people, including criminals themselves, rarely challenge the police or disprove my logic. There are always exceptions to the rule.
As for the ACLU, when have Jews, Muslims, or Atheists tried to force religious prayer into schools? Nor are they behind the intelligent design movement or creationism. Since Christians have this funny idea that the constitution is based on the bible, (yet cannot find where god approved of free speech, thought, or was anything other than a prtty tryannt) they try to jam their beliefs down everyone’s throats, hence why they clash with the ACLU.
As for the religious beliefs of the founders, well nobody objected to the 1796 Treaty of Tripoli, which said the following
As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion,-as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen,-and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/diplomacy/barbary/bar1796t.htm#art11
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February 15th, 2006
I’m going to end this discussion with a few quotes from the Founding Fathers:
See also.
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