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The Bush administration using wire taps to listen to known terrorist is nothing in comparison.
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this is not what they are doing--it is the line floated since yesterday by the administration in defense of its actions--that's all.
and no-one is saying that "lives will be ruined" by these surveillance measures: rather it is an aspect of a larger process teh legitimacy of which is a function of your particular sense of being-threatened--the maintenance of which is the center of republican campaign strategy so you have what amounts to the orchestration of conservative paranoia as justification for the violation of the seperation of powers---on that basis, you might see law as something to be overriden with relative impunity because you see the ends justifying the means. i dont agree with this. too many bad bad bad examples of this type of thinking from the past...you know the list, i am sure. but if you dont, i could provide it.
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I howl against the Bush administration subpena of GOOGLE search records. I think it is wrong. I think it is a far bigger issue than wire taps, or even the government searching public library records. GOOGLE is a private company and I am a private citizen, the government has no business in my transactions with GOOGLE unless there is a just cause.
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interesting: i would not have suspected this. i dont gree with your reasoning, however (public vs. private) and wonder if the results of this orchestration of conservative paranoia as a campaign feature would incline you to suppress your qualms about this split if you were directed to do so...it seems that the same logic would apply.
and that these records would be requested should make your narrow reading of the administration's actions shake a bit, dont you think?
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You call the acts taken by the Bush administration illegal. If those acts are illegal congress has work to do. Noone in congress has taken any action, why? What are they waiting for? Who is the victim?
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can you say: republican control of congress?
there are at least 3 investigations that i know of that are being launched within congress over this: from the congressional viewpoint, it seems that the issue is the violation of the seperation of powers, which goes to the heart of checks and balances, such as they are, in the american system.
the conflict is still playing out: dnot act as though it is not, and do not pretend that you or anyone else has a handle on the story as a whole yet.
side note: it would seem here obvious to reference the wave of Militant Respect for the Law that the right was all about during the clinton period, and juxtapose it to the cavalier apporach you see the bushpeople and their supporters taking now.
two weights, two measures....
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Our enemy is sophisticated. They use our freedoms against us. I truly believe we face a ruthless enemy, an enemy who will not follow any of the rules and traditions of warfare. Given that we have to respond accordingly.
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see above on the orchestration of conservative paranoia: if you beleive the ambient claims floated by the right, then even this dickcheney line could make sense.
empicially, these claims as to the character of organizations like al-qeada follow more from the requirements of the administration to create a rationale for its policies than from anything anyone could actually know about merely from looking at reality. this could branch into a seperate conversation, which i am not sure about doing here, simply because of the threadjack potential... your call on whether to pursue this here.
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I trust Bush won't abuse his power the way FDR did. I think we learned the lesson
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there are so many problems with this that the argument collapses into being funny.
i'll defer responding until i have a bit more time and can do something other than laugh.
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