George Bush protecting your civil liberties by breaking them

Join us.Resistance is fusty.

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The New York Times had the story of warrantless surveillance of US citizens prior to the 2004 election and sat on it at the request of the White House. They took it to press because they were about to be scooped by their own reporter's book.The high irony is that Republicans in Congress are accusing the NYT of running the story just before Congress voted on the Patriot Act (standard pure puking hypocrisy naming convention) renewal in order to undermine its passage.The NYT sat on a story about high crimes and misdemeanors by an American president prior to his reelection because he asked them to...just effin' unbelievable.

Another way to look at it, Dan, is that based on the Bush WH's own figures (30,000 Iraqi civilians dead, more than 2000 U.S. troops dead), 8 times as many people have died from Bush's incompetence and dishonesty as have died in 20 years of terrorism.And let's see, the number of Al Qaeda terrorists in Iraq has gone from 0 to...well, a whole bunch, again according to the WH. If they protect us from Al Qaeda in very many more countries, Al Qaeda will rule the world.I must say, that Yalie-legacy Bush kid does thnk big--dumb, but big.

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There's a strange kind of double-think going on here."We can't use the "72-hour tap without a warrant" provision of FISA because it requires us to be absolutely sure that the court will grant a warrant when we request it.Our respect for FISA is so complete that we would never dream of tapping for those 72 hours without rock solid certainty that the requested warrant would be granted.Therefore, we authorized warrantless taps."Of course, the unstated premise is that the court would NOT have authorized many of these taps.As you've already noted, crash, the obvious thing to do would be to fix the law, not ignore it because you respect it so much.

That's because you don't understand it.Your justifications and that accusation are about as transparently stupid as Bush saying he didn't want a law against torture becuase he didn't want terrorists to know we wouldn't torture them, though of course we never would, really, never have, no kidding, heh heh."lefties"...like the conservative Republican senators and reps who have criticized the illegal taps? Like the former Reagan and Bush Sr. administration officials who have criticized the illegal taps? You did mean anyone who objected, right?Bush and Gang are simply looking to cover their exposed-to-criminal law behinds. This will end up before the SCOTUS, at which time we will either reclaim our Republic of laws or lose it at last.You may recall the initial expose of the illegal wiretaps described "thousands" of intercepts: are we really to believe that thousands of Americans are chatting up Al Qaeda on international lines? Al Qaeda has that many agents in the U.S., but haven't managed to blow up even a dog pound since 9/11? The feds didn't need more wiretaps to have forewarning about 9/11--they had it: they ignored it.The WH cover story evolved to claim that the intercepts were precisely targeted after many conservative members of his own party began condemning the program. The taps are not targeted; the feds are listening to a torrent of calls and net traffic.I guess if we keep giving all this comfort to the enemy, we may end up in camps--since we're in the Forever War now, our rights aren't worth the Constitution Bush wipes his butt with... I agree, Tal: with people like Bush running the country, none of our rights are safe. He'll have to destroy our democracy to save it.

I don't have any problem with listening to Al Qaeda conversations anywhere in the world. And I'm grateful for the Al Qaeda cell they busted up in, uh, er, and the one in, um, ah, too. Safe as houses, all of us, thanks to illegal wiretapping, yessir.You repeat that disloyal/comfort to the enemy line to anyone who thinks Bush shouldn't wiretap American citizens without a warrant.You continue to refuse to respond to the fact that the condemnation of the program comes from every part of the U.S. political spectrum, from far right to far left.That makes maintaining a contrary fiction kind of like, well, sorta like...oh, not a lie, that nasty word...a field expediency, perhaps?I see you've trotted out another quote from Bush claiming that to expose his illegal wiretapping gave aid and comfort to the enemy: like they didn't know we would! Truly, remarkably, bizarrely unbelievable.Once more, slowly:Critics
of
illegal
wiretapping
support
eavesdropping
on
Al
Qaeda.You distort the record (just like Chickenhawk Karl Rove does) and claim Democrats are apparently opposed to listening to Al Qaeda calls, but let me ask you this: This is just partisanship, right? You DO know that many Republicans object? Either they are also treasonous lefties OR the enitre charge is bogus. Pick one.Now, can you give me an operational scenario that sketches out realistic instances where Al Qaeda would call to or from the U.S. and NOT consider the likelihood of eavesdropping? That is, not until they read the NY Times, and say, "Aaiii yahhh tollla aaahh! The Americans are trying to listen to our calls! Who knew??!!"The issue is not wiretapping Al Qaeda calls, and the issue is not even wiretapping American citizens who might be talking to Al Qaeda--the issue is warrantless wiretaps of Americans. Which is illegal. Period.You copy that, good buddy?Goodbye. See ya in the camps.

Yeah, like the Constitution of the United States.

Emphasis added: So the illegal wiretapping was okay because Bush had it done at gun-point rather than with a warrant? The resolution authorized military force against terrorists et al., not illegal wiretapping against citizens.Anyway, the WH has already argued they didn't need the resolution, so that's a lot of hot-and-bothered jabber for no good reason.Also, the WH has told the judiciary that seizure of American citizens on American soil for detention indefinitely, without charge or recourse to an attorney or court, merely on the President's say-so, is not subject to judicial review.Personally, I think anyone who doesn't have a problem with that is treasonous to the founding ideals of our Republic, but...O, wait...I feel an oracular moment coming on...Bush will discover that telling Congress and the SCOTUS that they are not co-equal branches of government is a really bad idea.As in REALLY BAD idea.But we'll see: I notice your location is Ft. Knox. I did basic there about 35 years ago.I'll bet you a double-time march up Heartbreak Hill and back from one of the old training company areas that ultimately both Congress and the SCOTUS will reject Bush's rationalizations and act to prevent recurrences.Deal?

Amen, Br'er Chalmers.