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Originally Posted by Willravel
So you're saying they're not guilty because if they were prosecuted they might turn on Bush to get immunity? I don't think there is any way to respond to something like that other than to say I expect a lot more from someone so seemingly certain.
The evidence was him admitting he bypassed FISA. As soon as he didn't use a warrant to eavesdrop, he was breaching civil rights.
They probably care when I instant message my Iranian friend who lives in Lebanon. They definitely care that I was very close to an Iraqi family up until they had to flee to Syria in late 2005, and spoke to them on the phone at least once a month until their power finally went down for good.
What was done was illegal, and took advantage of not just "mom and pop"s buy savy investors, too.
We will, in fact, likely have the same situation again because nothing was done to legislate it in the future.
What we're writing now is public. My conversation with Omeed is private. Unless they have a legal warrant, they have no right to listen to my phone conversations. As for communicating with terrorists, there's no such thing as a "terrorist". There are militant extremists who utilize guerrilla tactics. "Terrorist" doesn't have any real meaning.
If they had the evidence to demonstrate that one or more parties was a "terrorist", they could have EASILY gotten a warrant from FISA, which in it's history has turned down less than 5 requests.
We're not at war, therefore war authority cannot be invoked. War authority only can be claimed between the time congress has declares war and the time the war ends. The war ended in 2003.
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You don't think we are at war, I understand that, but the Administration does think we are at war. The argument they used was on that basis. Those who think Bush violated the law and abused his authority should challenge that in court. Going after the telecoms is a red herring in my view. For some reason Democrats won't challenge Bush on this issue. Us going back and forth is merely an excercise in futility.
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Originally Posted by roachboy
the way the telephone surveillance thing works, ace, is by way of a fairly crude oracle data-mining system that operates off of keywords.
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Yea, I saw that in a movie about 10 years ago. Think they made any updates ?
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so it is entirely possible that you--or any of us---could have been or are being monitored.
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Yea, I once did a thought experiment on how my activities could be tracked (i.e. credit cards used, going to gym, using the internet, traffic cameras, etc.) during a one week period. It was amazing to me how easily someone could reconstruct my life that week, I can imagine if "they" actually tried to track me.
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it seems to me that the crux of your argument is: you are quite sure that the "terrorist" is a coherent category because whatever it may mean, it doesn't mean you.
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Even paranoid people have enemies, I saw something like that on a bumper sticker. "They" are il defined but "they" are real. In fact if you as some - our presence in Iraq caused more of "them" to exist - at least I think that is how the logic goes..
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this is the reverse side of your assumption of "good faith" everywhere amongst those who you support politically---which is, in turn, the reverse of your assumption of "bad faith" everywhere amongst those whom you do not support politically.
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True, I could not of said it better. Problem is that I am usually right. Sorry, my ego again. I think I will do some research on my ego, I bet there is a pattern - a certain time of day or a moon cycle or something when it gets out of control.
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this may cut to a premise-level disagreement: speaking for myself, i never found *anything* compelling or even coherent about the bush people's notion of "the terrorist"....apparently, you imagine that term to have a meaning.
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Perhaps it is the "police" action philosophy vs. being at war that is the root of our differences. We have clearly been the victim of terrorist, don't you agree?
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it is obvious that most of the folk who have a Problem with the wire-tapping actions also have at the least doubts about the coherence of the notion of "terrorism"...
if this is accurate, then all we are "arguing" about the theological question of whether you believe in the mystical power of the "terrorist" to be many and one, everywhere and nowhere and to redeem the republicans from certain disaster, all at the same time. if the center of your support for the bush people was "national security" then it would follow that for you fear of an Enemy is a central motivation for your politics.
i don't think there is an Enemy.
i think there are legions who oppose the united states for political reasons, and who often have every justification for doing so as a function of the various policy choices which have enabled the "amurican way of life" to metastasize as it has over the past 30 years.
you no doubt do not share this view.
this may lead to another underlying matter of whether you can relativize the "amurican way of life" or not, whether you can see it as an outcome of systems which are not rational in the main or whether you see it in the way you see the chair you sit on, as necessary and inevitable and given because your ass is in it.
reversed: the "amurican way of life" is necessary because it's given, or its a result of larger-scale choices that have particular outcomes, intentional and not, good and not, and so is something that can be thought about as a problem and not simply accepted as given.
but if this is the differend, there really is no debate happening.
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I think, again, you describe the root of our differences. I do have a better understanding now. We will forever disagree because of our root difference in point of view.
Thanks for adding clarity.
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Originally Posted by Willravel
Who was it that said "our enemies are never as evil as we think they are" or something like that? It keeps popping into my mind.
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Perhaps that is true most of the time. What about when it isn't, what do you do then? I will error on the side of - it ain't good to be our enemy and that our enemy needs to believe we ain't as evil as they think we are.
Yes, I know the above is full of moral problems and that I should be more evolved, etc, etc. But again, I am being honest with you, even though it makes me appear heartless. I really do have a heart, and my friends and family know I would sacrifice almost anything for them.
