I would hardly consider this ham fisted approach to law enforcement as Machiavellian. More like Nixonian. Clumsy. Stupid. Dangerous.

So how is domestic spying dangerous to you?
.........Your children?
.........This will prevent terrorism?

Wal-Mart Turns in Student’s Anti-Bush Photo, Secret Service Investigates Him

Federal agents visited a college senior two months ago because he requested a book written by Mao Tse-Tung.

Colorado Band Singing Dylan Song Seen as Threatening President Bush

High school student grilled by US Secret Service over artwork

Secret Service Questions Student for Anti-Bush T-Shirt

Secret Service agents visited Oakland High and interrogated two 16 year-old male students in connection with comments they had allegedly made during a classroom discussion concerning President Bush and the U.S. Government's role in Iraq.

Nah!.......nothing wrong with this picture......their just protecting us
Yea.....that's the ticket
Squash that dissent early.......that'll show them foreign terrorists
And it's all nice and legal.....the lawmakers said so!
Morality? what's that got to do with anything?

hmm, they should build that aspect into a law instead of just doing it. is there a case where legislators were told that they needed to enact such a provision and refused? was it even suggested?

another argument i heard was relating to the urgent nature of the searches/taps. as already mentioned, the law allows for retroactive warrants. the approval is basically a rubber stamp, even moreso for the doomsday scenarios used to justify these secret procedures.

i don't think vague language about doing "anything necessary" legally trumps all specific laws that stand in the way. if no laws are being broken, i would hope either 1) they aren't doing what has been alleged or 2) they have a better justification. gonzales has demonstrated his flawed legal understanding before...as a result our country has had to deal with many problems concerning torture.

how is "anything necessary" vague? Its pretty clear to me. A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G necessary. What congress gave the president following 9/11 was tantamount to a declaration of war. He was given the powers to do whatever he needed to catch people involved in 9/11 and al-qaeda and to prevent any future terrorist attacts. Since they gave him this power "he" can spy on people suspected of having terrorist ties. Not just ordinary americans, but people with suspected ties. You have a problem with our government listening in on calls between suspected al-qaeda in the US and agents outside the US?

spying on and harassing ordinary americans is what they are doing.
see my above post for just a few examples
also add anti-war groups
also add envirmentalists
also add political enemies
This is where they have crossed the line

it is vague in application. if this statement is to be streched as far as possible, you can indeed apply it to anything. in that case, why enumerate various powers through legislation? this phrase holds more weight than much more specific laws on the books (FISA) or any law anywhere...! there has been a lot of debate over the mechanics of the patriot act in the last month. yet this short phrase renders volumes of material superfluous? the president actually possesses unbounded power and priviledge to do whatever he wants, even something blatantly unconstitutional or illegal (even torture, assassination, etc.), provided it can be said to prevent terrorism?

that is ridiculous. this statement can not give the president power to do anything under the sun. there must be limits. in my opinion, these limits can be found in better established laws.

i don't "have a problem" with the gov't protecting us from terrorists. surely if they are doing this, the FISA court will grant them permission...just as it has thousands of times before. i don't understand why they wish to bypass this simple procedure.

This thread doesn't have anything to do with that. we have 5 previous pages on this thread about how bush broke the law by authorizing wiretaps. I've read the links you posted before. We've discussed them before. When the secret service is called because someone has a suspicion they have to check it out. Thats their job. If you notice, the only instance where the secret service came without being notified by another party beforehand was the library case. Book's on a list, person's background is suspicious, so they check it out. No one was beaten or thrown in prison. And none of that has anything to do with bush authorizing wiretaps.

Yes, and by receiving the authorization from congress to do anything necessary FISA allows the president much lattitude in what surveillance to undertake.

Except to have unwarranted taps on US "persons".

I disagree, I think it sets a disturbing pattern, especially the one you point out about the book and library..... and there were a few on there that were news to me, so if they were debated here I missed them.

Anytime we have "books" on any freaking list that makes the government take notice, becomes a time when government has become too powerful and too "big brother-ish".

It is apparent reading these, the taps and other items that have been posted in the past..... that Bush is using whatever powers he has not just to combat terrorism but for his own gains and at his own whims.

These are interesting times indeed, they are scary, intriguing and yet overall the same as any other, yet we make them to be bigger than they are, because we wish to be a part of history. The problem with making them bigger than they are..... is that sometimes they become self fulfilling prophecies, sometimes they are bigger than we make them, because we focus on something else and sometimes things are truly as bad and as big as we make them, yet seem too outlandish and too big to believe.

Bush's Administration, I fear falls into all of the above scenarios, with a heavy dose of the latter scenario.

It has everything to do with this administrations criminal activity.
The thread title is: Did the Bush admin break the law?
The wire taps are being done to anti-war groups,
enviromentalists,animal rights groups,students, and political enemies
It goes to show the environment of overreaching
dissent squashing, fear mongering, criminal activity
Perpretrated by this current adminstration.
But it gets worse.....
Ever stop to think about the future?
If this precident is allowed to stand
The next adminstration maybe opposed
to your viewpoint.....

is 'anything necessary' a free ticket to violate standing precedents and laws?

That's because your party is being run by people who do not believe in what your party claims to, and used to, believe in - namely fiscal conservatism. That's really not a bad concept, but unfortunately, somehow the leaders of your party have redefined it to mean "shift funding from what we don't like to what we do, and call it budget cuts, and then lower taxes so we end up with a net loss."

The old republican party would never have endorsed that approach.



I'm curious as to your reasoning there - how can you think that when the terrorist who attacked us is still running loose and we're making little to no effort to catch him - and in fact we're spending much more energy in Iraq, who didn't attack us, than we are going after bin Laden, who did.


Sorry, I am outraged. Any time you take the constitution and say "we must not deviate from the instructions of this document unless we REALLY feel like it" you are making a mockery of the founding philosophies of this country.

Stripping people of thier civil rights is NOT defending America because it is changing America into something that its founders, and its citizens, would never want.



Why? With Rove as the puppeteer a goat could pull off shenanigans like that. Bush IS dumb. Either that, or he's a damn good actor. But you don't need a smart person when that person is the figurehead who is being controlled by people sitting in the wings, namely, Rove, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al.




This is an example of the hypocracy your party is famous for. I've never noticed any republicans giving a democrat a break when he's in power. Don't whine when the democrats do the same thing to you. I also find it interesting that right after you accuse the democrats of whining you whine that they're being mean to your president.

I don't believe this is a complete list, so I will ask for additions. How has the perception of the United States changed since 2001?

- We torture prisoners
- We have suspended habeus corpus
- We kidnap "suspected" terrorists on foreign territory
- We have acquiesed to FBI, CIA, Pentagon and NSA spying on US citizens
- We have corrupted the press with paid propaganda and the threat of exclusion
- We engage in "preemptive" war (the worst oxymoron)

The corruption of this administration is simply a symptom of a larger cause.

The sheeple continue to graze on sparse grass, content in their ideology.

This quote sums up my feelings.

It doesn't get anymore cut and dry than that, and Elphaba's list is everything America used to be 100% against.

Pretty much every nonpartisan expert on these issues has come down hard on President Bush for this. At the very least, he mistakenly overstepped his authority. Alternatively, he intentionally broke the law while lying to the American people about it. The White House's explanation of this revelation has been so weak and defensive that I'm betting this is only going to get worse for the President the deeper we look.

I agreed with everything till that right there.

I am the eternal optimist, I believe in the PEOPLE (we, none of us are sheeple). We are a nation that has proven time and again when the need arises we stand up.

This administration preyed on people's fears after 9/11 to get all they wanted, and now the truth comes out and they are no able to contain it. Change does not happen overnight, the case will be built and we will have justice, it just takes time.

The people will take notice and do something. It takes time for the people to get riled up enough before they demand justice.... and the time is now at hand. The administration is totally losing control and their pathetic excuses are no longer holding water.

Serious question ..

Do you see terrorism as a criminal threat or a military threat ?

Yes, but we are also a nation that has proven time and again that we will sit around and refuse to educate ourselves about the problem until it is a ridiculously large one. The situation we're in right now wasn't hard to predict. I called it LONG before Iraq was invaded. It was obvious to anyone who bothered to look that they had NO justifiable evidence for WMD's, which of course meant they had NO justifiable reason for the war (and you didn't even have to look that hard to see how shaky the WMD fairytale was - just watch Colin Powell's bullshit speech to the UN on the subject to see how flimsy their case was).

And then last year, even though we were chest deep in manure already, the American people (probably) elected the guy again. (I say probably because there ARE some issues revolving around the Diebold voting machines that will probably never be investigated and therefore the '04 election will ALWAYS be questionable) I'm the first one to say Kerry wasn't great, but good grief - Bush was a KNOWN failure, yet he waltzed right back into office. And as I predicted back then, 3 months later people started waking up.

The people always wake up too late, and that frankly frustrates the hell out of me.

So yeah, I'd say "sheeple" is often an apt term.

As you say, perception. And what shapes perception ?

Who's opinions mean something to Joe Average ?

Mainstream news media, stand-up comics, celebrities and cartoonists.
Sounds simplistic, but its true.

Ooohh, and wait, what side do they lean to I wonder ?

Also, I live in South Africa and my perception hasn't changed. I believe in what America stands for and believe in her intentions for the middle-east and the world.

Nixon used to refer to the 'silent majority' - myself and millions others worldwide form part of that group.

Because its a socially-established meme (through repetition) that bush=hitler its actually socially unacceptable to support the Bush administration, which means that polls won't tell the whole story, because people are reluctant to admit their support.

America's worldwide support would be just fine if her own citizens could look past their utopian ideologies and face the harsh realties of the modern world.
An America united behind president Bush ('we support the troops' doesn't cut it) would have seen the Iraq well on its way to peace and prosperity already.

The fact that liberals are so commited to ideology above reality that they would actively undermine their own armed forces is reprehensible to me.

Thank God liberalism didn't have such a shrill voice in the 40's.

stevo, this is a sequence, in chronological order, of what I "know" about the possibility that Bush has "broken the law". It appears that Bush, himself, in an April 20, 2004 speech where he tried to persuade his audience that the Patriot Act should be strengthened and renewed, and his Atty General nominee, Alberto Gonzales, in his sworn senate commitee testimony on Jan. 6, 2005, while answering questions put to him by Senator Feingold, were both untruthful about ongoing wire-tap policies that they had authorized, and implemented.

Please read these excerpts, or the whole linked pages, and comment about what you disagree with in the excerpts, as well as in my comments above, and why. I want to gain a sense on how far apart our views on this issue actually are, before I post questions about what your comments here. Maybe you have read different reports than I have, and maybe there are things that I am citing here that are new to you.....

That's a broad and loaded question and no matter how one answers someone can point and say "see he"s easy on terrorists........ or ..... "see he puts catching terrorists above our civil rights."

It's a little bit of both, depending on the strength of the organization and where we are with the "war" on them.

We must protect ourselves from enemies foreign and domestic but we cannot sacrifice all that we believe in to do so. If we choose to go that route then the enemy has won far more than we ever will.

Does this answer give any legitimacy to the illegal actions and fear mongering this administration has done?

Absolutely not. We must find ways to battle without sacrificing the rights and way of life the enemy seems determined to destroy.

There were ways to legally perform these wiretaps and the President refused to adhere to them. Why?

That's exactly the problem right there. Your ideological outlook demands that you straddle the fence on an issue like this.

It wasn't even slightly loaded. Because its very important to answer this question one way or the other and not prevaricate and tie yourself up in knots as you consider the pros and cons (not that due consideration is wrong - just that at the end of it a decision must be reached.)

If you think its a criminal issue , then so be it, its an understandable, (if injudicious) point of view.

This is my point in a more general sense. - To actually make a decision on where you stand and then stick by it seems to be beyond most liberal ideology.

Like Kerry's flip-floppin' and Senator Clinton's playing the numbers, you haven't made a choice yet. You believe you don't really have to make a choice, don't you ? Your sense of personal morality is preserved because you feel you're on the 'good' side of the issue. The side of reason and moderation and due consideration.

However that can only ever satisfy your ideological moral viewpoint.

In the real world Joe Al Queda says - "yippee, the libs in the states are putting forward the exact viewpoints we need them to. Anyone got a phonecard for the US?"

I jest there, but you get the picture. No matter what your ideological point of view is, at the end of the day it comes down to physical activities performed by individuals - these activities you can make easier or harder. Its your choice.

Oh, and the answer to your 'why' question appears to have been answered already : Pure and simple expediency. Or do you have some proof of another motive ?

OOO so because of my ideology now that gives the president the ok to commit illegal acts???????

Like the way YOU didn't post all of what I said..... you took out just what was useful to you hoping noone would see the rest.

Timothy McVeigh was a criminal and shopuld have been tried as such, because he was pretty much small time.

Al Quida is military because they are a tad more organized and their tentacles reach far and they can do far more damage.

However, fighting neither gives the president the right to justify breaking the law.

What because I don't agree with you you are going to attack me and my beliefs?

How soon until, what I just said, is grounds for the president to wiretap me?

Do I have to drink Bush's piss and believe it's lemonade like so many on the Right do?

And if I don't? If I stand up and say what is going on is wrong and needs to be stopped..... am I going to be considered the enemy????? I have already on here been accused of being a terrorist sympathizer, a non patriot, told to move elsewhere and so on.

I have been personally attacked and had someone on this board use my gambling addiction to do so (Been recovering for 6 proud years) and I'm the bad guy????

Been told I am wanting to be a martyr because I choose to work and better my life than use the system and quit to pay my medical bills..... and I'm the bad guy?????

Been told because I speak out and exorcise my RIGHT to speak out and express my displeasure with Bush and the government.... and I get accused of being anti-patriotic, a traitor, a terrorist sympathizer and so on.... and I'm the bad guy????

This is my country also and I have just as much right to believe and speak out as you do.... don't like it keep supporting Bush and turn me in as some form of criminal for my beliefs.....

I defer to Rekna's Ben Franklin quote as that pretty much says it all:

BTW what is your definition of "a terrorist"?

Well, since you asked...

So no real decision one way or the other then ?

You don't have to sacrifice all you believe in, but you do have to recognize that the situation has changed - globally, and as you must well know, the compromise for the sake of security is always at the expense of freedom, without exception.

Trouble is you look down the road and think that every change to accomodate security will lead to a fascist state.

'Fear Mongering' ? So there really aren't international terrorist organizations who will stop at nothing to kill and maim their ideological enemies, with their ultimate aim being the complete destruction of the non-islamofascist world? That was just made up ?

So here's the real truth, the perceptive break that liberals have with conservatives. Liberals believe that the threat is exagerated, conservatives believe we don't take it seriously enough.

Only one can be true though. Wonder which it is ?

I love that 'must find ways' what does that mean in real terms ? when you're not willing to give up any of your freedoms at all ?

Another liberal trait - lots of things we shouldn't do, not many suggestions about what we should do.


Yeah, but read that quote carefully. The key word is 'essential' what essential liberties have you lost.

As to being accused of non-patriotism etc. It may seem cruel or nasty for you ta have been labeled in such a way. But if you believe that fighting your government will protect your country more than fighting the evil ideology it faces - then you are certainly not being patriotic, and whether you like it not, whether its done for the 'right reasons' or not, whether its 'speaking truth to power' or not is immaterial - you are harming your nations efforts.

For every action there is a consequence. You may not like the fact that your beliefs are an aid and comfort to the enemy but that doesn't stop it from being true.

And lastly :

No, its your ideological outlook that convinces you that the actions are illegal.

So you label and attack and who cares... your side is right I'm wrong....

Is that what you want to hear....

I offer clean debates and not one Righty takes me up on it.... hmmmm

You didn't address the personal attacks against me did you?

It's all or nothing with you isn't it?

Sorry to say but the world is in shades of gray not black and white.

I refuse to have anyone tell me that illegal wiretaps are being done for my own good.

I would rather run the risk of getting killed by a terrorist and living the way I choose than to allow my rights and freedoms to be trampled over by an egocentric president and his self righteous followers.....

sorry.

I'm tired of being attacked in other threads for my beliefs.... I'm tired of the Right picking and choosing what I say and adding their meaning to it and ignoring the rest.

I am tired of being stalked by someone on these boards, making snide personal attack remarks. I am tired of people using my personal life and issues on these boards to pick fights... there's no debates...... I offered to have one in another thread not 1 taker.... wonder why. Because maybe the Right can't... all they can do is attack and make things personal?

I'm tired of having my patriotism and my beliefs questioned by self righteous assholes who keep telling me I'm unpatriotic, I'm a terrorist sympathizer I'm.... whatever because I refuse to believe I have to give up ANY of my God given rights to appease them.

The president broke the law.... but let's ignore that and attack those who speak out.... it's old it's bullshit and it is tearing this nation apart faster and far more effectively than any fucking terrorist ever will.

Ideology above reality? I don't agree. We've been spouting reality since before this debacle of a war began. Iraq was doing just fine without us going in the in the first place. And don't give me any "well Saddam was a bad man and he had to go so we had no choice but to invade" crap. Everytime some sheep spouts this from their mouth I reply with why are Castro, Kim IL Sung, Hu Jintao still in power? I have yet to receive an answer.

Just in case you don't remember, Bush had approval ratings of 85% right after 9/11 happened. The entire country was behind him in the goal of capturing Bin Laden. Now, four years later, he has since pissed it all away with his underground policies and secret agendas. All in the name of "security”. Hogwash. Bush did it to himself.

I also don't think that liberals purposely try to undermine our armed forces. I'm curious to where to got this perception. If anything, liberals are more responsible with our armed forces by using them when there is an actual need instead of fabricating evidence to send them to their premature deaths.

Grey, you need to understand that if any piece of America is destroyed; including all the freedoms that we currently have, then the terrorists have won. Once we turn our state of freedom, democracy, and liberty into a police state, they have won. We have laws and procedures that allow us everything we need to do to engage the enemy in this war but Bush chose to circumvent those procedures claiming that they would take too long. That's ridiculous since the courts can approve surveillance warrants in a matter of minutes if necessary. There was no reason for Bush to circumvent the system. The only reason he did it is that he knew it would be illegal. He even goes to the point where he got desperate to keep the story from breaking out. See this link. NSA officials even demanded that their names be taken off the order to eavesdrop because they questioned the legality of the order.

You want to know why I fight my government? I fight my current government because they are liars. Because they are crooks. Because they are cold-blooded murders. I fight them because they are against everything that this country stands for and that they try and justify every illegal action they do by hiding behind their 9/11 curtain by sending Bush on TV every week or so (notice how the intervals between the "please keep supporting the war" speeches have gotten shorter and shorter since Bush's approval rating has fallen further into the toilet) "pleading" his case to America trying to get the sheep in line with speeches that he didn't write. If we allow Bush to get away with this, then this is the beginning of the end of this great nation. I don't agree with the way my country was founded (on the backs of indigenous peoples) but I believe in the IDEA of America. The idea that ALL its citizens shall have life, liberty, and freedom from persecution. Bush does not believe in any of these things. I knew that the day he took office and on last Saturday, I believe that his admission was the straw that finally broke the camels back.

I believe in America. I believe in freedom. That makes me and anyone else who agrees with me TRUE patriots.

Now this is a problem I definitely have with most rabid left and right wingers. The unending inability to see anything more than two answers, right or wrong, left or right. There is NOTHING that is a cut and dried black or white answer when you consider large issues, i.e. terrorism or choose any other major issue. People talk about the political divide in america and how its tearing the nation apart but its those two radical sides that are causing it.

anyway, back on topic.....

Before you get on me about bringing up Clinton and Carter, wait. Its not about "well, look what Clinton did." Its about "If it wasn't illegal then, why is it illegal now?"
continue.
http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/eo/eo-12949.htm
http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/eo12139.htm
http://nationalreview.com/york/york200512200946.asp
It seemed to be OK when presidents clinton, carter, and even reagan issued executive orders to gather intelligence on US citizens without a warrant. But Mr. Bush does it and every liberal blows his top.

He's trapping you and you're falling for it. He's trying to get you side tracked arguing over what a terrorist is. If he can keep you mired in that maybe we will forget that the real issue is what a presidential crime is. You have to watch out for these tactics, because that political machine is VERY good at obfuscation and distraction. That's how they managed to get enough of the people behind the Iraq war to go through with it - by using smoke and mirrors to make it look like Saddam was a threat to us. Unfortunately not enough people saw through the deception in time. And now that their deceitful and imperialist, not to say criminal, actions have gotten them backed into a corner they're putting the machine into overdrive trying to distract everyone from the real issues long enough so they get away with it. Again.

Stevo stevo, those were done by DEMOCRAT presidents, not evil Hitler Bush. :lol:

I just saw those myself and was gonig to post but you beat me to it :)

Poppinjay I was refering to the big wacky left picture, not just this specificly. Plus if you read above, apparently Clinton and Carter decided do to the same type of thing by executive order. Oddly no one complained then.

I already answered that here post #57 http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthr...ge#post1962298

Wrong is wrong. Illegal is illegal. And NO PRESIDENT is above the law when it comes to the rights of the people.

This quote came from your own National review article:

Quote:

Meanwhile, Congress began discussing a measure under which the authorization for break-ins would be handled like the authorization for wiretaps, that is, by the FISA court.

So in the end, yes, it is still illegal.

All the Carter stuff just puts into action the FISA court, who falls under its authority.

NIce try though to try to paint me as hypocritical.... but won't work.

Here, let me provide the "reasoning" for that, before they say it again:

It's called a free pass for stonewalling long enough. If you REALLY want to poke a gigantic hole in liberal logic, consider that anything Clinton did should be forgotten, but tax money should be given to any descendant of an American slave.

I think his quotes above were what he was referring to as "destroying my arguments," or some such nonsense, but I lost interest in talking to him because of the above.

Terrorism is a criminal threat and should be dealt with as such. Treating it as a mililtary threat simply serves to legitimize the terrorist's actions.

The military response to 9/11 and other terrorist actions has done more than anything to support Al Qaida's position that the US is an imperialist force with designs on controlling the Islamic nations (i.e. the Middle East).


The prevaritcation of others on this issue stems not from the unwillingness to do anything about Terrorists it stems from a lack of understanding about root causes of terrorism in the Middle East, the fact that terrorists in question are not a unified force and that the attacks being labelled "terrorist" are happening to both civilian and military targets.

It is being presented to most people in America (via the media) in a rather confounding way. Grey2000 you confuse a lack of clarity with a lack of conviction.

All you are doing is trying to distract from the issue at hand by discussing something else... Arguing that Clinton did this, Clinton did that... is like saying, "But Jefferson owned slaves!!!"

OK. Clinton did some questionable things while he was in power. Why didn't people spend more time look at these things when he was in power rather than focusing on his blowjobs.

In the end, it is the past and (I think) we are *all* interested in making a better present and a better future (though we may disagree on how to get there).

First:
Clinton and Carter did NOT authorize warrantless searches of Americans

A FISA Court Judge resigns in protest

Spying Program snared purely US calls


So, what happened to the Republicans being strict constructionists of the Constitution? Our founding fathers would declare a new revolution against this government.
This is the kind of overreaching government they were fighting against.

In this case it doesn't really matter if Clinton was a serial killer. My point is that there is a LONG standing precedent for this kind of executive order. Now one could argue that presidents have too much power in their executive orders and I would agree, but the chest thumping here is about the 'illegal' action which are apparently legal.

Lots of people did. Unfortunately what they conveniently ignored as that the proviso in the executive order was that the AG could NOT commit such activity on a US citizen and had no right to examine a citizen's property, phone records, physical being, or conversations except with a warrant. The order was entirely about FOREIGN investigations, and a good order considering the times we've been through.

So far, the tapping under Bush has ENTIRELY been of US citizens. ENTIRELY. How many terrorists so far have been US citizens? How many received aid from US citizens?