People...stop pestering Ustwo. He doesn't care if Bush broke the law or not. He thinks Bush did the right thing regardless of the law.

I don't think he will change this position even if Bush is impeached and hauled off to jail.

Move on... why waste your time chasing your tails (or his).

Excellent point, Charlatan, and one that I have adopted. And once again, I agree with Ustwo that he could make better use of his time by cleaning off his desk. :)

My question is why if someone finds this so unnewsworthy and not worth their time, why post and say so?

It's like the talking heads on radio and Fox and elsewhere the more they talk and try to defend this or try to blow this off the more foolishly stupid and self involved they look.

This is a big issue and hopefully the Left doesn't let this die like they have so many other things.

I just wonder what more Bush is doing that HASN'T been released. We should truly know what liberties he is taking ffor granted or what rights he is destroying, this is 'WE THE PEOPLE'S" GOVERNMENT not just W's not just the Right's but ALL OF US and WE have the right to know.

P.S. As someone who writes his own long posts and sometimes I make sense and sometimes I just babble and most likely I am ignored most of the time.....

I APPRECIATE HOST'S POSTS. I may not read every item but this is a man who has a great love for his country and friends and works hard to speak out against the wrongs he sees.

I may not always agree with him, but I don't always agree with myself...... But to HOST, I say, I truly appreciate what he does and the effort and love of country he has.

I also have yet to see anyone dispute and debate him. Rather they attack him for his posts and not the articles and information he brings. How sad, this man does not get the true respect owed to him.

If you were to listen to the left learning media types even they are saying it appears he didn't 'break' the law, so they are focusing on the ethics of it all. The odds of Bush going to jail for this are far less than the odds of host voting straight republican next election cycle. Unless of course he is an agent of the right wing secret army attempting to sway people to the right by being so far left. (If you read the illuminatis trilogy you know what I'm talking about :p )

So do any of you socialist types think that government agents are posting on this forum? Its time for check here.

Ustwo, back to the tittie forum, please. You do so much better there. Host already addressed your notion of the "liberal" response that you claim to have heard, read, caught in your Renyolds (sic) tinfoil hat. It really isn't amusing anymore when it is obvious that you simply wish to disrupt any topic in the politics forum.

Big yawn, darlin'

Charlatan got it right.

Moved..... <a href="http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpost.php?p=1970385&postcount=67">here.</a>

I would have expected the master of mockery to recognize that he was being mocked with similar jibberish. Host is getting better at your own game, Ustwo.

Ok, lets call a truce. dksuddeth has created a politics topic that is now at nine pages. That deserves all of our respect and getting it shut down now due to the usual shit stirring from the usual source means the terrorists win or some dumb bullshit like that.

Back on topic, but dksuddeth deserves a mighty applause.

It would appear that NSA spying on US citizens has been hiding in plain sight. I remember Bolton needing to defend his requests for NSA information during his confirmation hearing, but no bell rang and no light turned on for me.

Link

There's a very simple way to get at the "suspected" terrorists without treading on the Constitution and taking rights away.

It's this: simply take your suspect in hold him for the 24-48 hours without charge while you get warrants for anything and everything you need..... once you have the warrants and you have the evidence charging the suspect should not be that hard. It's legal and it would work....oooo but wait... for some reason Bush would rather try all these people in private.

I think public trials of these suspected terrorists would not only help show we mean business, but may actually help sway public opinion back to Bush, by showing what he is doing is necessary and that poltical enemies and innocent of terrorism suspects are not losing any rights or freedoms.

Unfortunately, won't happen..... makes one wonder why, also makes one wonder what he is hiding.

the problem with public trials and evidence probes are that figuring out networks of secretive people takes time and discretion. Even in domestic drug network infiltrations, the investigations may take years of covert operations and observations. That's just the shitty thing about all this. But then you have to give up vulnerabilities to get them. Vulnerabilities they exploit to operate. And when we transgress our open society, we illustrate the sham of a freedom loving society we are. That's what much of the world sees when we violate our own tenets. Much of our population manages to see our own actions in ways that don't transgress our values, but these are the choices we have to make in my opinion.

<a href="http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1145243,00.html">Bob Barr</a> is smarter than I thought.

From the column:

america is doomed. either people don't realize or they just plain don't care that if an elected leader like POTUS breaks the law and congress won't, or can't, do anything about it then they (the citizens) are the LAST line of defense for the constitution. It should be every citizens personal obligation to remove the current government when its not working anymore, just like it says in the constitution, but the majority of 'citizens' we have in this nation today are as morally and ethically bankrupt as are the politicians. If President Bush told america at the state of the union address that he's suspending the constitution due to a national emergency crisis, most citizens would just roll over and whine like babies.

I repeat, america is doomed.

When was this golden age when people were not morally and ethically bankrupt?

Just because things have never been perfect does not mean we can't take actions in order to make things better. Don't you hate political corruption (from any party), just like the rest of us? Wouldn't you like to remove that stress from our country?

I think it ended somewhere between the end of WW2 and Vietnam. I guess it should be expected though since people, as a whole because they are little sheep, have a tendency to follow the shining examples of morals and ethics that are exhibited by their elected leaders.

I don't think America is doomed, to be quite honest it is always darkest before the dawn. I think the people will wake up when it is necessary. Sometimes something has to be taken away or threatened before truly appreciated. Ideally, I wouldn't want it to be our rights and liberties but if that is what it takes........

You also have to remember that America is very centrist by it's nature and when we allow the penduulum to swing too far in one direction the people have always moved it back.

It's what happened to the Dems and it's what is happening now to the GOP. The radicals and far Right took over and there are enough moderate GOP that are going to start splitting the party more and more. Same as what the Dems. have gone through.

Historically, the generation following the one in power leans more toward the opposite direction of their parents. Hence Clinton after Bush, JFK after Ike, Ike after Truman, all the way to Addams and Jefferson.

The only thing that concerns me is that right now there is no compromising and the Radical Right refuses to give on anything, which worries me that they may play with the penduulum and try to hold onto power using any means necessary.

If that happens though, I don't see the people rolling over, I see a 60's radical type revolution happening. Noone believed the Boomers would do it, and had you told the people in the 50's what was coming they would have laughed..... and I see that type of struggle coming if things do not change.

It sounds easy enough, doesn't it? But what about when NSA receives some vague intel, that doesn't give them a name. How do you detain a suspect when you don't even know his name? How do you get a warrent when all you have is a bit of info? You can't. So using that bit of intel NSA gains more intel until they have a clearer picture on what is going on. Sometimes things aren't as simple as you put it, Pan. I'm also suprised that you would rather have a a suspect held a detained for up to 48 hours rather than just listening in on their calls. Wouldn't your option infringe on the guys freedom more than just listening to a conversation with al-qaeda?

Do you remember the 21st highjacker, Z. Massoui (sp?)? The FBI had him detained prior to 9/11 and wanted to get into his laptop, but alas, a Federal Judge DENIED the FBI access to his laptop that may have had info on 9/11 and actually prevented it. But we don't hear about that, do we?

The longer this story goes on the more obvious it is that what bush did was legal and moral.

while technically it might be wholly legal, care to point out to me where its 'moral'?

What is done is for PROTECTING the american people, not to undermind them.

fact is that there should be an interesting and potentially important series of consequences for the bushpolicies in question here---there should be an investigation into this, which would set off a series of legal battles over the legitimacy of john yoo's carl schmitt-like usage of a state of emergency to remove all boundaries to executive power and the bushpeople's---um---loose interpretation of this argument.

and if the administration looses, it should fall along with the doctrine of unlimited execustive power that it has ridden since 9/2001.

in the "debate" above all that is really happening is a rehearsal of basic political divisions without any real dialogue--the rightwingers cannot see any possibility of a problem, everyone else sees a problem, round and round.
it is a bit surprising to see the conservatives above already arrayed in a "defense" of total denial of any problem whatsoever--but no matter, this is the right we are talking about here and submissiveness to the dominant talking point of the moment is evidently a kind of marker of belonging to that curious little world. and the recycling of these same divisions is tedious. no-one ever moves when things reach this point. maybe this recurrent state of affairs is a type of penis function, marking of territory, walking purposefully about on it.....it's hard to know, really.

anyway, it would appear that the folk who run the ideological show on the right think that this problem can be managed at the public opinion level--but the problem is bigger than that: it is whether the administration acted illegally in claiming unlimited power for the executive branch (and thereby jettisoning any pretense to democratic accountability--like the carl schmitt precursor for this ove, a state of emergency cannot abide democracy because it is too slow and too messy--a dictator, capable of Decision is required--a "logic" which is essentially that of the national security state as a whole since ww2, and of the ever-submissive american right now---with dick cheney as the most attractive spokesmodel for it.)

i would like to see the legal fight happen.
of course i would hope that the defeat the bushpeople would suffer would be total....
but that is just my opinion about outcome and has nothing to do with the importance of the legal fight--which would function to reinscribe the balance of power between branches as the states enters a new and improved slide into that twilight world of fading empires.

Edit: OOpps read that wrong.

Political scandal was around long before WW2, there is no golden age in American politics.

I'm at work and don't have time to dig up examples beyond the obvious war we had based on false assumptions (Spanish American) civil liberties shot to hell far beyond your wildist imaginations (Civil war), big time scandal (T-pot dome), and lets not forget the great depression.

you've misunderstood what golden age I was talking about. I KNOW there was never a golden age of politics, I was referring to the golden age of the american population when it came to being decently american.

so when any political office holder tells you he/she broke the law and they would do it again to protect you, you'll give them a pass, right? after all, its all about protecting us in a time of war.

so tell me, if the government figures out that you will let them do whatever they need to (read that as want to) as long as they tell you its for your protection, do you ever think that you'll no longer need their protection? and how long will you let the government continue to ignore basic laws, complex laws, constitutional laws?

Bush could bypass torture ban

With this kind of attitude, why should we even bother with congress and the courts anymore? If he can interpret the laws in any way he deems fit and necessary, why should we even bother? somebody just give him a frickin bejeweled crown already and get it over with.

all hail king bush!

Stevo, we don't hear about that, because it didn't come down the way you describe. The Washington Post article below is a long one, but I have posted the relevant information.

Link

That means the FISA procedures were not the reason the FBI failed to inspect Moussaoui's computer files. Rather, the FBI's failure to share and analyze intelligence sufficiently is what enabled Moussaoui to escape further investigation. If you recall, Rowley was the whistle blower on the ineptitude of FBI senior management in reviewing her Moussaouri intel.

Hope you enjoyed your trip.

The 24-48 holding period is a good idea and it is legal. If Bush is going to do these things at least do these things using LEGAL techniques.

I'm not in favor of either but at least my suggestion is legal and would probably garner just as much if not more info.

So according to your scenario There are a few questions..... how did they get the info, how do they know who to tap, and if they know the phone they are to tap then they know who the suspect is?

If you are following the suspect and you know he has info, take him down and get the warrants and all the info you can.

The problem is Bush isn't even getting the warrants. If Bush got warrants (even after the fact), there wouldn't be any argument from me. I'd still believe it was wrong but, again, at least what he would be doing was legal.

It just amazes me that people back him no matter what and the arguments used make no sense, when you know damn well if Bill had used this, or if a future Dem. President uses this, the people supporting Bush would be yelling as loud as we are now.

It's hypocritical, and I have already stated that Waco and Ruby Ridge were abuses of power and at the time I would have supported any Impeachment hearings.

Right, legal and moral is what our leadership should aspire to and set as their goal.... not hiding and using technicalities and flinging bullshit around as they perform illegal tactics, regardless of why or who the party in power is.

Once you start to support such action the government eventually takes more and more liberty on those powers they abuse...... very rarely if ever do they right the wrongs and even if they do it takes generations to correct the situation.

And again I ask if there are no warrants, no paper trails how do we know who truly is being tapped? It could be political opposites of Bush, dissidents that Bush wants tabs on and claims they are Al Quida. If there's no paper trail how do we know he isn't abusing these powers? How do we know what else he is doing, I mean look how long it took this to come out and be admitted to and the "investigations of the leak" we have now. And yet, what isn't being reported, that should scare us even more.

Or are you of the belief what we don't know won't hurt us?

And how can we allow this to continue, knowing the next president can and may take this power even that much further?

Where does it end?

Whether you believe Bush is breaking laws or not, we should make sure NO PRESIDENT ever can excute anything like this without warrants. Because I guarantee you, should we continue down this road it maybe too late, when people who are okaying this and turning blind eyes to it start realizing their rights have been eroded.

(BTW I was raised 7th Day Adventist and the Branch Davidians, who were accused of having some far out religion were also 7th Day Adventists.. but you never really heard that info given anywhere.... just a tidbit of semi-off topic info.)

Elph answered the part I snipped so no sense in my reanswering it.

source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...010601772.html

the legal battle lines are being drawn.
interesting how central the problematic status of this "war on terror" fiction is to the counterarguments
kinda cuts to one of the main questions that conservatives here have never really answered concerning their understanding of this "war" thing, where it comes from, how they understand themselves to be threatened personally by it and the relation of these positions to support for the bushposition on unlimited executive power.

I just read this on Gothamist.com a local NYC blog:

So if private companies can do it via legal loophole, I'm sure that the government can do it as well via similar legal loopholes. And besides, the damage is already done for those affected immediately by it. It's those future "unborn" situations that need to be protected.

While I don't agree phone records should be so easily gotten, that is nothing compared to actually taping a conversation on the phone between people.

Are you saying that you really thought the Terrorists in Iraq could have ever prevailed against the U.S in a war? The fact that any of them are still ALIVE is a miracle. I mean seriously consider that some of the most effective methods of attacking the U.S that they have are Suicide bombers and Car Bombers... Honestly they dont exactly fight us to begin with.. as most of their battle tactics involve getting themselves killed, to kill anyone else.

Well I am Libertarian... I DONT support this violation. The consitution was meant to protect civil rights and limit/balance govermental powers. Not the other way around.

If evidence is gained by breaking the laws that are proficent (as ours are if followed) it can not be used in court. They should without a doubt release him inless they have some more substantail proof of his guilt other than stuff that they got by violating his constitutional rights.

From what I know, the only thing they could have LEGALY done is held him for 24 hours, then, without any other evidence they would have had to release him.

So if Bush is given power because of "broad war time powers" my question is this which war is granting him the power to spy on domestic civilians? I don't think there is some vast conspiricy of civilians helping out Iraq. Or is it the war on terror? Wait did congress ever offically declare a war on terror? Are we allowed to be officially at war with an idea?

Good point, Rekna. The Bush admin says that the "war on terrorism" is a global war, without end. We are being told to cede our constitutional rights to executive war powers, forever. I cannot abide that line of thinking.

I called this six years ago when Bush first got elected (placed) and everyone either won't listen to me or writes me off as either a communist or a plain idiot.

I agree with you. Our democracy is already dead. The sheep of this country will just sit there, watch tv while gouging their faces with Micky D's, get fat and not care one fucking bit.

You can write arguement after arguement after arguement trying to justfity Bush's actions but he violated the 4th amendment plain and simple. So you can't get the name of a suspect that you are persuing? All you have is a bit of info? YOU GET A WARRANT FROM THE FISA COURT. It's a simple process.

You're making this so much more difficult and complicated than it needs to be. I suspect the reason why is to again, to try and justify the criminal Bush's actions.

The longer this goes, I think that more information will come out (espically from Specter's hearings) that this really was an illegal action and Bush overstepped his authority.

He is nothing more than a plain criminal as far as I'm concerned. A murderer too.

Um, Hardknock? Take a deep breath and a short break. You have made really thoughtful posts in all of the time I have been here. I agree with you, but keeping it chilled goes farther.

The truth hurts. And you know what? It needs to be said. Over and over and over again because apparently, the people of this country do not want to either listen or they're too dumb to comprehend it.

That's why Bush was permitted to violate our constitution in the first place. If citizens had only been paying attention......

They have to want to listen first. Shouting doesn't make people want to listen. The funny thing? The best way to defeat Bush and those who would take our freedom is to let them win. It is then and only then that those lazy, apathetic, lethargic people will actually give a crap.

the majority of people in this nation simply will not care. As long as they have a relatively easy time of getting a job, keeping their family taken care of, and not incurring major outside interference they will continue to not care. thats why I say, america is doomed.