Many Of You May Be Interested In What THIS Guy Has To Say, Re: FISA/NSA/Snowden...

[WillyT]

Professor Pyle teaches constitutional law at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts. He is the author of several books, including Military Surveillance of Civilian Politics and Getting Away with Torture. In 1970 he disclosed the Army’s massive surveillance of civilian politics and worked for three congressional committees, including Senator Church’s intelligence committee, to end it.

The Secret Court: Is it Constitutional?
By Christopher H. Pyle - warisacrime.org
8/5/13

<snip>

Americans are just beginning to discover that a secret court has been quietly erasing their constitutional right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. They are also learning that this court is made up primarily of conservative activists from the Republican Party who have no respect for the original intent of the Constitution’s framers.

With the blessing of this secret court, the National Security Agency (and well-paid companies like Booz Allen) have recorded billions of phone calls and e-mails belonging to nearly all Americans, with the intent of searching them later.

Under the Fourth Amendment, the NSA and its contractors are supposed to obtain specific judicial authority before seizing anyone’s communications. But, where NSA’s spying is concerned, no judicial warrants based on probable cause and authorizing targeted searches are required. Quite the contrary. The secret “warrant” that Edward Snowden disclosed permits bulk seizures and subsequent searches without probable cause to believe that the targets of these computer searches are terrorists, criminals, or foreign agents. It is the very sort of general warrant that triggered the American Revolution and inspired the Fourth Amendment.

When the secret court was created in 1978, it was meant to authorize targeted searches, but sometime around 2004 it began, in secret, to issue general warrants for bulk seizures of communications. And it secretly coerced telephone companies and Internet servers to betray their customers’ privacy, without telling them.

According to Snowden, the agency’s analysts can use their super-computers to search anyone’s records within these vast caches at their own discretion. The government denies this, but then, it has a long history of lying about its intelligence activities.

They say we shouldn’t worry about these secret searches because the government never does anything wrong. But officials can use the results of these searches to punish their critics or intimidate employees and reporters from blowing the whistle on government waste, fraud, law-breaking, kidnapping, torture, cruel detentions, or the killing of citizens by drone in foreign lands. Embarrassing information can also be used to destroy the reputations of whistleblowers like Daniel Ellsberg and anti-Wall Street politicians like New York Governor Eliot Spitzer...

<snip>

More: http://warisacrime.org/

Permalink: http://warisacrime.org/content/secret-court-it-constitutional

[burnodo]

1. Kick

For those willing to see

[Phlem]

2. K&R!

-p

[markpkessinger]

3. HUGE K&R n/t

[MotherPetrie]

4. K&R

[snappyturtle]

5. YES! K&R nt

[Gregorian]

6. Grateful that you posted this.

[WillyT]

7. You Are Quite Welcome !!!

[think]

8. K&R

[1StrongBlackMan]

9. If I were to post ...

1 or 5 or 55 OPs written be Con Law Professors of similiar credentials, that arrive at the opposite conclusion ... would you be interested, or any less convinced of your opinion?

Just asking ...

[Divernan]

11. Have at it! Exactly which con law profs & their credentials & opinions on the subject.

We're waiting with baited breath!

[WillyT]

12. With THESE Credentials ??? - I'd Be All Ears...

Professor Pyle teaches constitutional law at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts. He is the author of several books, including Military Surveillance of Civilian Politics and Getting Away with Torture. In 1970 he disclosed the Army’s massive surveillance of civilian politics and worked for three congressional committees, including Senator Church’s intelligence committee, to end it.

[usGovOwesUs3Trillion]

13. Have at it...

However, DUers reserve the right to challenge them on their own merits.

Just the same as you have the right to challenge anything presented in this OP, which I have noticed you have chosen not to do, but just raise some completely unrelated strawman distraction.

Why would you choose that route?

Just asking ...

[1StrongBlackMan]

15. Because ...

I believe, after reading post after post on this topic, that folks have decided, one way or the other, and I don't believe anyone is listening to anything that does not support their view.

That's why I asked the question ... not to get the completely expected; but unbelieved, "Yes ... my mind is open to a counter-argument" answer.

[usGovOwesUs3Trillion]

16. What do you expect?

People not to make up their minds after being presented with documentary proof of what is actually going on in secret?

And what, now you expect them to take the authorities word on this matter?

That is a very unreasonable expectation.

We need a full investigation, and we need this mass surveillance to STOP, immediately.

Anything less is enabling the totalitarians to carry on with their illegal activities.

[1StrongBlackMan]

18. And if the "full investigation" ...

results in things NOT being as they have been alluded to by greenwald, snowden, et al., I suppose you will accept the findings, right?

{Do I really need the sarcasm thingy?}

[usGovOwesUs3Trillion]

22. Whistleblowers have revealed to us what is going on

what is needed now is an investigation into the full extent, and whose authorization these illegalities were executed under, in order to fully stop them from being carried on in the future under a different name.

The only ones who really think that they are not harvesting, storing, and analyzing ALL communications, are those who refuse to see.

It is now not only what these insider's have said, but also what the TOP SECRET documents say.

[Maedhros]

58. It's the same dodge that Fox News uses.

There are two sides to every issue, and the "correct" answer lies precisely between them, regardless of the ridiculousness of one side's argument.

One the one hand, we have documented proof of the extraordinary extent and invasive nature of the NSA surveillance programs. On the other, we have simple denials of the existence of the evidence and ad hominem attacks on the people who revealed it.

One argument is clearly stronger than the other.

[Divernan]

25. OK, Pal! Glad to rub your nose in the views of prestigious con law profs.

What legal scholars/experts can you produce to support your point of view? John Yoo, author of the infamous torture memo? Perhaps some shill from the CATO Institute? Some legal whizkid from Bob Jones University?

For your edification, let's start with Harvard - ya know, where the Prez studied con law.
Noah Feldman is a professor of constitutional and international law at Harvard and the author of five books, most recently "Scorpions: The Battles and Triumphs of FDR's Great Supreme Court Justices."

Feldman has a bachelor's degree from Harvard, a law degree from Yale and a doctorate in Islamic thought from Oxford, where he was a Rhodes scholar. He clerked for Justice David Souter on the Supreme Court. As an adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, he contributed to the creation of the country's new constitution. His other books include "Divided by God: America's Church-State Problem - and What We Should Do About It" and "After Jihad: America and the Struggle for Islamic Democracy." He lives in Cambridge, Mass., and is a senior fellow of the Society of Fellows at Harvard.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-06/the-secret-law-behind-nsa-s-verizon-snooping.html

Professor Feldman observes:

That is why legal interpretation needs to be public -- because it has the same effect as lawmaking. When it is secret, we have in effect secret law. And secret laws don't belong in democratic systems. Countries that have them don't even have the rule of law. They have rule by law, which is a very different thing, when the law isn't supervised by the people but is rather used to manage and control them.

The trend of secret legal interpretations goes back to the George W. Bush administration's secret torture and wiretapping memos, which advanced outrageous constitutional and statutory claims. It extends through the secret memo from Barack Obama's legal team authorizing drone strikes to kill U.S. citizens based on executive branch "due process." The Verizon example involves a court, but it belongs to this tradition.

We should recognize that while facts may be kept secret and the application of law to facts might also be a secret task some of the time, the meaning of the law itself must always be public. Only then can We the People make sure we think it is being interpreted correctly.

The alternative to public law is the end of democratic supervision. And when that happens, well, the result is that the government keeps tabs on all calls in the U.S. All of them.

Next, let us check out the Con Law Professor at Georgetown (ever heard of Georgetown?) I'm providing a link to and excerpt from the column written on June 21, 2013, by Laura K. Donohue, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center and Director of Georgetown's Center on National Security and the Law.
http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-06-21/opinions/40110321_1_electronic-surveillance-fisa-nsa-surveillance

The headline reads: NSA surveillance may be legal - but it's unconstitutional.

The National Security Agency’s recently revealed surveillance programs undermine the purpose of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which was established to prevent this kind of overreach. They violate the Fourth Amendment’s guarantee against unreasonable search and seizure. And they underscore the dangers of growing executive power.

The intelligence community has a history of overreaching in the name of national security. In the mid-1970s, it came to light that, since the 1940s, the NSA had been collecting international telegraphic traffic from companies, in the process obtaining millions of Americans’ telegrams that were unrelated to foreign targets. From 1940 to 1973, the CIA and the FBI engaged in covert mail-opening programs that violated laws prohibiting the interception or opening of mail. The agencies also conducted warrantless “surreptitious entries,” breaking into targets’ offices and homes to photocopy or steal business records and personal documents. The Army Security Agency intercepted domestic radio communications. And the Army’s CONUS program placed more than 100,000 people under surveillance, including lawmakers and civil rights leaders.

From Georgetown we also have Con Law professor, Randy Barnett,writing in the Wall Street Journal. Headline: The NSA's Surveillance is Unconstitutional.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323823004578593591276402574.html

All of this dangerously violates the most fundamental principles of our republican form of government. The Fourth Amendment has two parts: First, "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated." Second, that "no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

By banning unreasonable "seizures" of a person's "papers," the Fourth Amendment clearly protects what we today call "informational privacy." Rather than seizing the private papers of individual citizens, the NSA and CFPB programs instead seize the records of the private communications companies with which citizens do business under contractual "terms of service." These contracts do not authorize data-sharing with the government. Indeed, these private companies have insisted that they be compelled by statute and warrant to produce their records so as not to be accused of breaching their contracts and willingly betraying their customers' trust.

Still worse, the way these programs have been approved violates the Fifth Amendment, which stipulates that no one may be deprived of property "without due process of law." Secret judicial proceedings adjudicating the rights of private parties, without any ability to participate or even read the legal opinions of the judges, is the antithesis of the due process of law.

[dkf]

34. Nice post. +1000

[heaven05]

71. figures

with you. Post68 for you too based on your past performance......

[dreamnightwind]

36. Excellent

Thank you for all of that!

[Autumn]

47. THAT should be a stand alone OP so it can be bookmarked

Thank you.

[Mojorabbit]

63. Great post! + a gazillion nt

[heaven05]

68. ANYONE

Last edited Tue Aug 6, 2013, 10:01 PM - Edit history (3)

part of bush's provisional authority in postwar Iraq, feldman, is suspect. Don't care about his credentials/bonifides, whatever. That 'provisional authority' is responsible for the mess Iraq is today, along with the bush-cheney war. Please don't bring a roach like that out of the woodwork to be an 'expert' against Obama's surveillance activities. Any person to do with bush's mess is only someone to be flushed. Are you a republican? To trot out a bushie cohort makes me wonder, just a question. And no I do not agree with the current surveillance activities. For the beginning of this whole mess, go back to the 'emergency' acts created by bush and cheney, Obama had to deal with an apparatus that already had a life of it's own and was huge. I don't think it's possible to dismantle the surveillance state, no matter what party is in control of our government. I choose to believe that maybe, just maybe, it's a slower process with the current administration. Quit trying to blame Obama and prove your point by trotting out bushie neo-cons. You by trotting out these neo cons makes me think PNAC agendas are at work here? Possible? Hell yes with the snakes called conservatives, neo-cons and bluedogs that are chipping away at Obama for various and sundry nefarious reasons just to have election ammunition. You're a usual suspect....in my book.

[WillyT]

73. So... Why DOES Obama Continue So Many Of Bush's Fucked-Up Policies ???

Illegal surveillance, illegal drone-strikes, punishing whistle-blowers...

Where oh where is the change... we hoped for...

Do tell.

[Divernan]

76. Watch out, Willie! He'll put you in his "book", too!

[heaven05]

77. Like

I said, the neo-cons made this surveillance state so huge, that it cannot be dismantled with ease. My President, willy, has to accept that fact and deal with it. If neo-cons had gained office again I venture to say, things would be much further along than they are now. It's politics and the PNAC people in this thread are obvious. Our system of government and the powers that are above that government do not accept anyone going against their plans.

[WillyT]

79. Can You Be Specific... About The Powers Above The Government ???

[heaven05]

80. aww

you don't know? Well I can't help you there.

[Divernan]

75. WHO are you identifying as a "Bushie cohort" or Bushie neo-cons?

Can you calm down enough to tell me which of the three distinguished professors I quoted you believe to be a "Bushie cohort" or "Bushie neo-con" or the "roach", and give a link and some actual, you know, facts to document your statement?

And FYI, I am a lifelong Democrat, and an elected Dem. office holder in my township.

And finally, oooooooooooh, I'm soooooooooooooo scared - NOT! that you ominously tell me I'm a usual suspect - in your book. What book would that be? Sort of like Senator McCarthy's imaginary list? Have such anonymous threats actually ever worked for you? I scuba dive with sharks, buddy, and until I retired, argued cases and motions in Federal courts. You know what the shrinks say - inside every bully is a whimpering little coward.

[heaven05]

78. All that

Last edited Tue Aug 6, 2013, 11:08 PM - Edit history (1)

democrat bonifieds is fine. Not questioning that. Bluedogs are everywhere. Those distinguished professors? What are their politics? I'm a lifelong democrat also, but have never been in the bluedog camp, that's my bonified. One of those illustrious professors was with the Provisional Authority making a bigger mess of the Iraq debacle. I would not trust that professor's word on ANYTHING> He had a hand in perpetuating bush and cheney's war crimes. Get off of it. Nothing to do with McCarthy. He was a jerk like one of your illustrious professors. Provisional Authority negates any statement of alleged truth. I think for myself just like the rare few on here questioning these 'distinguished' sources. Keep scuba diving buddy, you'll probably find what you're looking for buddy. Yeah in court I wonder how good you were buddy. Oh and by the way, all of you use that statement, 'calm down' when you're trying to minimize another human being. I'm calm because I know my position and others throwing your garbage back in your faces is right. Period. Go scuba diving, you might be able to calm down.

[Divernan]

83. Come ON! Name a name!

Be brave, now. You've got the anonymity of the web. You can do it ! Tell us all which of the professors you are trashing, and provide a link.

And "blue dogs are everywhere"? What an odd thing to say. I was stuck with a blue dog representative and we defeated him in the primary.

Oh, and
FYI. It's spelled "bona fides".
"Bona fides" looks like a plural word in English, but in Latin, it's a singular noun that literally means "good faith."

[heaven05]

85. are

you sure it was we? That's fine on bonifieds, I do appreciate that you can understand english. I go by what the poster said about one of the 'distinguished' sources being a part of bushies Provisional Authority snafu in post war Iraq. Hint: a little research and YOU can find it. I need prove nothing to you. Going up against you so called intellects is the only joy I get. By the way don't need bravery to go up against the sheeple I find on here sometime. Do a little research, you'll be okay. Don't be afraid, the truth will bite, but you'll survive Have a good one, I'm done with you.

[Divernan]

93. You're the most confused person I've ever seen on DU. Good luck!

[heaven05]

98. I

really don't care what you think. You are one of the usual suspects in my book and your underhanded disloyalty to our President is not appreciated. Yeah, go scuba diving and play with your kind, sharks, and good luck to you.

[laundry_queen]

112. LOL.

Funny post.

[heaven05]

131. thank you

Last edited Wed Aug 7, 2013, 11:59 AM - Edit history (1)

I'm just disgusted with all the whiners voicing their displeasure and outrage at the man and not the corporate run political system we have. To all the whiners.....

[dkf]

82. You honestly think you will find liberal con law profs who support all this?

I have no idea what the background is of any of the profs listed above, but it seems to me you will find more liberal profs agreeing with this than Bushites.

[heaven05]

84. you

Last edited Tue Aug 6, 2013, 11:13 PM - Edit history (1)

are a confusing person. First you ask if I will find liberal con law profs that will support this. Yeah maybe, maybe not. As far as the backgrounds of these 'distinguished' law profs. are concerned here, they might just have a vested interest in making Obama seem like the evildoer, a little research takes care of that. Uh, small fact, one of the 'distinguished' sources was part of bushies Provisional authority snafu in post-war Iraq. Yet you come right back and say that liberal con profs would agree more than with bushies when a bushite prof would have a vested interest in making this POTUS look like the he is the evildoer when it was the Woos, bush, cheney and the rest of that neocon cabal who set this surveillance in motion and who the professors would like to take a spotlight off of. Bluedogs and neocons, scum of the earth. Without them our country would be a lot better off. I remember you from another recent case. geez

[JDPriestly]

116. I will ask you as I asked another DUer, how much background do you have in constituational law/

What courses have you taken? What decisions have you read?

Are you trained to judge these things?

This is not a political issue. It is a legal one. Lawyers will have different views, but the problems with the surveillance and the secret courts are so many and amount to such serious violations of the Bill of Rights and the fundamental concept of separation of powers that it really would be hard for any serious, honest student of the Constitution to defend what Snowden says is being done. It is nearly impossible to even defend the collection and analysis of metadata in this day of computers of huge capacity.

This has nothing to do with Obama. This has to do with the NSA. Obama should not be defending it, but I should think he would like to survive his presidency. I would like him to.

This is not just Obama's problem. It is the problem of all of us. How far do we want our government to intrude into our personal business, our private lives?

When does simply watching turn into influencing, interfering, intimidating, silencing? It does turn into those things, but at what point. That is a legal issue.

How much surveillance, how much collection of metadata does it take before people abridge their speech based on its political or religious content? How much surveillance does it take before people decide to avoid using the internet to check their medical records? to call a child who may be going through a rebellious period and be in trouble? to avoid e-mailing a colleague about a controversial discovery concerning the environment or a medical issue?

When is the line crossed?

And why should a court have privacy with regard to its rulings on mass surveillance while the people under surveillance are deprived of any privacy with regard to their metadata and that of their friends, clients, patients, employers, employees, doctors, customers, fellow inventors, competitors, colleagues, spouses, children, parents, friends, lovers, etc.?

[heaven05]

134. no

problem with any of that. Tell it to the corporations who are the real rulers of the american system. Those blaming a POTUS.... get a life and your whining........ Wont change a thing, don't mean a thing to the people who run this system of 'government.

[JDPriestly]

144. I won't disagree with you there.

But then, let's admit that President Obama, like Clinton and the Bushes and Reagan before him, does not have the courage or means to stand up to those very same corporations. He has two children to educate after he leaves the White House.

That is why you and other DUers should understand that this is not about Obama. It is about us as citizens in a country in which the Constitution and our Bill of RIghts in particular is considered by the very corporations you are talking about to be the enemy.

When these corporate flunkies (and there are too many of them to name individually) talk about fighting terrorism, their aim is focused on the very freedom that is guaranteed to us only by that piece of paper on which is written our Constitution and in particular on the Bill of Rights. In fact, the entire concept of separation of powers is under attack. The corporations want it all -- the ballot boxes, the Senate, the House, the courts and, of course, last but not least, the White House.

Nobody is attacking President Obama in particular. We are attacking the corporation-dominated system to which the person in the White House, no matter his name or party affiliation, is beholden to.

Nobody is attacking a specific person. But all of us need to work together to demand better.

Back beginning in the late 19th century, working Americans worked together to form labor unions and improve working conditions. Today we need to work together to insure that we maintain our basic rights including the right to vote in honest, free elections -- that right on which the rest of our rights rely.

So, we are not so far apart. We need to listen to what Snowden is saying.

One of the questions that this surveillance scandal raises is whether it would be possible (and may be already done) to track votes as they come into the state reporting offices from the precincts with huge computers. Could a sitting government plug into the vote reports at the level of their transmission from the local computers to the state vote-count headquarters and alter the results? or closely track the results and interfere somehow?

Could there be and has there ever been vote-tampering via a system like this surveillance one?

Is that what happened in 2004?

Could it happen in the future?

[heaven05]

147. good one

got no argument here. A realist is refreshing. on edit: with the technology available to those with money, every since the Diebold questions, I believe vote tampering is par for the course now.

[muriel_volestrangler]

138. Feldman is a liberal

He wants a much more progressive Supreme Court.

Imagining a Liberal Court

After decades of stagnation, progressive constitutional thought is reaching a crisis point. Consider that the two great “liberal” justices who retired from the Supreme Court most recently — David Souter in the spring of 2009 and John Paul Stevens a year later — were conservatives. Not only were both appointed by Republican presidents, but both also subscribed loosely to the adage “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” With a handful of exceptions, neither favored identifying new constitutional rights where none existed before. Their status as liberals came from the fact that, as the court on which they served tilted to the right, they held their ground as moderate Republicans, consistently voting to sustain the constitutional rights that were discovered by the Supreme Court before they were on it. To be sure, without their votes, the liberal constitutional legacy of the period stretching roughly from Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 to Roe v. Wade in 1973 would have been reversed. But Souter and Stevens were not independent forces for progressive change in American life.

To a great extent, the crisis of liberal thought on the Supreme Court is a result of liberalism’s success. From the time that Franklin Roosevelt’s appointees came to form a majority on the Supreme Court until the appointees of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan came to predominate, liberal constitutional thinking had two major objectives — both of which it largely achieved. First, it sought to give bite to the 14th Amendment’s promise to extend to all persons the equal protection of laws. The Brown decision voiding racial segregation in schools as unconstitutional was the most famous piece of the court’s push for equality. The same ideal was also encompassed in holdings that demanded “one person, one vote” and — more controversially — that upheld affirmative action as consistent with the values of the Constitution.
...
More alarming is the fact that, over the past couple of decades, evident gains from deregulation have made many lawyers — progressive and conservative alike — too complacent about deferring to the markets on which our economy depends. That markets work well in so many contexts has strengthened the traditional conservative argument about the constitutional duty to respect private economic transactions — even in the minds of many liberals. Civil libertarian commitments, meanwhile, have become increasingly absolutist, leading some liberals to favor extending basic rights to corporations, not just to individuals. The American Civil Liberties Union, for example, has long urged the Supreme Court to treat corporations just like individuals when it comes to political speech.

To address these challenges, progressive constitutional thought must discover (or rediscover) a core set of beliefs about the right relationship between government, the individual and the powerful corporate entities that operate under the umbrella of the market. Reregulation, embraced by the Obama administration to address a range of serious economic and environmental dangers, demands its own set of constitutional explorations and explanations. A truly progressive constitutional project needs to go beyond simply upholding regulations challenged in court. It demands that the Supreme Court and other bodies acknowledge the government’s responsibility to protect our democracy from the harmful side effects of all-powerful markets.

http://www.law.harvard.edu/news/spotlight/constitutional-law/imagining-a-liberal-court.html

[heaven05]

141. okay

still a country and politicians run and controlled, respectively, by the money machine(corporations). A politician must pass corporate muster before he can be considered able to run for the occupancy of 1600. Rethug or democrat, he/she has to kneel before the throne of corporate money and power and swear obedience to king money. Usually in a dirty back room out of sight of the unwashed masses(voters). After Nov 63, the rest of the assassinations in that decade, my service to a corrupt war and watching all Presidents I voted for either marginalized(carter) to ineffectiveness, break very important promises to the people, push agendas that hurt the people(clinton)--nafta, deregulation of media, to finally the surveillance nightmare foisted upon my President, I have had to face reality. It does not matter what party occupies 1600, at the bottom of all this betrayal of democratic principle by rethug and democrat leaders, money. Election and nominees bought and sold. I hope, at least with democrats, they were not as gleefully ready to acquiesce to the throne of money and corporate power as the Reagan, Bush-Bush, Cheney cabal. I'm done with this whole bubble dweller thread. Have a good one.

[AppleBottom]

108. Awesome post, thank you. nt

[JDPriestly]

115. Wonderful opinions. Thanks for posting, Divernan.

[JDPriestly]

114. How much training/education do you have on constitutional law?

[1StrongBlackMan]

121. Well ...

I would believe more than most of the posters here. I was a Political Science (Public Administration) Major in Under-grad and two Constitutional Law courses in Law school.

But I will admit ... that by no stretch of my imagination or ego makes me an expert on the subject. What I took away from my education is that the Constitution says whatever the SCOTUS says the Constitution says.

[JDPriestly]

150. With that background, it should be clear that the SCOTUS says that the Constitution

says whatever they say, but that we would still be ruled by Dred Scott and numerous other cases that are laughed at as they are pulled out of the bin of big historical goofs.

So much for the SCOTUS.

I was a child when Brown v. Board of Education was decided. I remember reading the headline in the paper. I remember seeing that picture of the children going to school in Little Rock surrounded by what looked to me like soldiers at the time. In fact, I was pretty young at the time, and I thought the students were much younger than they actually were. That was my perception of the picture when I was a child.

The SCOTUS's opinions change, sometimes for the worse, sometimes for the better. Precedent is not the golden lock and key that we think sometimes. The fact is that the case, Smith v. Maryland

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith_v._Maryland

was decided with regard to facts very, very different from those of our world. I think that is a decision that might be easily distinguished on its facts. I would not rely on it for deciding to invest billions of dollars.

[1StrongBlackMan]

155. And yet ...

the SCOTUS remains the supreme law of the land and until they rule differently (or Congress acts) Smith v Maryland reigns.

[JDPriestly]

157. But there is no harm in pointing out the flaws in the reasoning of the Supreme Court

and the inapplicability of past decisions to present facts.

How can it be reasonably OK for the government to collect ALL the metadata from most of the phone companies in the US? That's metadata on American citizens. It makes no sense.

What percentage of us are believed to be involved in terrorism. Can't be very high. Could be less than a half a percent, probably considerably less than that.

Drugs? That's a different matter. But if this metadata is being used for drug investigations of individuals, the government still might need a warrant given the broad range of data they can get from it today. And as I understand it, the metadata is collected under laws applying to the gathering of foreign intelligence data, not to local drug enforcement.

The FISA court order pertaining to Verizon that I saw was far, far too broad. The government is collecting records on all calls and internet traffic on Verizon phones if that order is typical. That is simply far too broad. It implicates the rights of journalists, of doctors, of scientists, of teachers, of ordinary people and most important of politically active people, union organizers, religious organizers of all faiths. It is just a horror story in the making.

It is unacceptable. Obama is not the problem. This program is a huge problem.

[1StrongBlackMan]

158. Declaring something ...

that the SCOTUS has addressed and upheld, ... unconstitutional, is a little more than harmlessly pointing out flaws in the SCOTUS' reasoning. And pointing out that the facts of Smith can be distinguished from those of any case on these facts is ... well ... irrelevant. And calling/acting as though those that, relying on that SC decision, disagree with you, idiots is far from harmless.

[JDPriestly]

160. But the fact that the Supreme Court has declared something OK by the Constitution simply

does not make it so. It may make it legal, but it does not make it constitutional.

Dred Scott was the Supreme Court ruling for a long time. It still wasn't constitutional.

[1StrongBlackMan]

162. YES IT DOES ...

Just as Dred Scott was constitutional until the SCOTUS reversed its position. Since M vs Madison, that is the way our system of government works.

But I think you are confusing "constitutional" with "right" or "moral" or one of the many value statements that have zero legal effect.

[JDPriestly]

163. The Constitution is pretty clear about the rights of the accused.

Surveillance of this kind in this computer age makes a mockery of the rights of the accused to confront his accusers.

The Constitution is pretty clear about not abridging the right to freedom of association, the right to free speech, the freedom of religion, etc. This surveillance chills speech, association, free exercise of religion and everything else that the constitution protects.

The surveillance will be abused just like everything else that human beings who are power hungry find useful. It is unconstitutional. If the Supreme Court's past rulings were always correct, there would be no need for Supreme Court Justices and their many clerks. But we do need them because we have a living Constitution.

Many are the laws that were considered unconstitutional for generations but found constitutional under FDR.

The internet we have today and the capacity to use it for universal surveillance did not exist in the late 70s when the Maryland case was decided. That decision applied to requests to phone companies for specific records in specific cases. It did not state that the massive all-encompassing acquisition by agents of the government of millions of records of communications each month might be constitutional. This program is way overbroad. Whatever the Supreme Court may say, Madison and all the others who worked together to amend the Constitution to include the Bill of Rights would be horrified to think of the massive surveillance in the country today.

[1StrongBlackMan]

165. The Constitution was pretty clear on ...

every thing ... until the SCOTUS changed the interpretation. You can't argue the clearness of the Constitution; but only include the interpretations that you like ... if you accept the Dred Scott reversal, you have to accept Citizen's United.

[JDPriestly]

166. Corporations are people only as a legal construct. But groups of people have the right to free

speech so it amounts to the same thing. We could pass an amendment to the Constitution to end the result of Citizens' United, but corporations would get around it -- call themselves something else, I suppose. We are pretty much stuck with Citizens' United unless a lot of candidates who have a lot of corporate support lose a lot of elections. That could happen but isn't likely.

[sabrina 1]

17. What about this do you disagree with?

When the secret court was created in 1978, it was meant to authorize targeted searches, but sometime around 2004 it began, in secret, to issue general warrants for bulk seizures of communications. And it secretly coerced telephone companies and Internet servers to betray their customers’ privacy, without telling them.

I think we all knew Bush was doing this and back then I don't remember a single Democrat who was not outraged.

Then we have had a string of Whistle Blowers plus Democratic members of Congress trying to warn us that not only had nothing changed, things were getting worse.

Do you think what Bush was doing was okay now? Were we all being unfair to Bush? Was he, after all, just trying to keep us safe?

And considering that all of this is a Right Wing Republican policy, added to Bush's Private Security Corps, most them friends of his, like Booz Allen eg, and its former CEO, Clapper, is there some reason who we should all feel better about what we were once outraged over?

[1StrongBlackMan]

20. Well ...

I am self-aware enough to know (and admit) what I do not know.

But what I do know is, on this topic, there is far more unknown/unknowable than what is being reported ... on either side of the issue.

[sabrina 1]

21. But there is also plenty that we know. And what we actually know is bad enough.

We've never doubted before that Bush was implementing these policies and we never thought HE was doing for 'our own good'.

I'm totally in agreement with you that there is plenty that we don't know. Everything is so 'secret' how could we know?

I'm also certain that if what we don't know was beneficial to those running these programs, we would know about them. They need OUR SUPPORT to continue getting the billions of dollars in funding they've been getting.

But all I've seen from them are lies (see Clapper, old friend of Bush and former CEO of the multi-billion dollar Private Security Corp) and attacks on the messengers, one after the other.

What we haven't seen is any progress in Bush's Great WOT. In fact, considering we have spent billions, maybe more, on these 'programs' to go after a scattered bunch of extremists over the past 12 years, it looks like this WOT is as much of a failure as the War on Drugs.

If we can't win a war against some extremists on over a decade and billions of dollars, then nonoe of this working.

Except for the Private Security Corps, (one of them Clapper's) who have made obscene amounts of money and stand to continue to make it so long as we are told 'trust us, we are doing this for you' and CEOs of Private Security Corps march into powerful positions in our government, Director of Intelligence eg, in order to convince Congress to keep on funding this failure.

[Enthusiast]

43. Thank you, sabrina 1.

Your arguments are always reasonable and convincing.

[heaven05]

69. post 68

[tkmorris]

37. That is positively Rumsfeldian

[Enthusiast]

42. I thought the same thing.

Rumsfeldian.

[cui bono]

39. And so you still try to defeat the facts with nothing.

The posts you don't like are presenting you with facts but your response is to dismiss them without any counter evidence or argument.

[1StrongBlackMan]

45. And to make your argument ...

you have to "accept" certain information as "fact" and discount other counter information as "not fact"; BUT you can't use the character or question the motivation(s) of the messenger(s) to help you determine the credibility to the information because its not about the messenger.

Do you see a problem with that? If not, try placing yourself in gop shoes, circa November 2012 ... there were competing "Facts" out there, the gop chose one set and ignored even the possibility of the counter set and refused to look at their messenger. It didn't end well for the gop.

Face it ... We don't know what we don't know.

[Maedhros]

60. The facts and evidence have been examined by a large number of credible people

including multiple constitutional law scholars (see Post #25), former intelligence professionals and U.S. Senators, who conclude that the cause for alarm is legitimate.

Sure, everything about the NSA program isn't known. But there is a preponderance of evidence that is available that tells us there is a big, big problem.

[heaven05]

70. credible

because you say so? Doesn't mean a thing. Post 68 for you too.

[sabrina 1]

101. See post #100 in response to post #68

[JDPriestly]

119. How much money do you think our government spends on this program?

Add that to the incredible sums spent on Homeland Security?

Do we really feel insecure enough to spend those sums for surveillance and snooping?

Those of us who grew up in the 1940s-60s were taught that these were things that NAZIs and Communists did. We were taught that our country was free, meaning we could travel without showing IDs as we go and that we were not under surveillance.

Surprise. We are no longer free. We now have to go through what is in fact an official shakedown before we can board a plane, and we are under surveillance.

I think some young people have never read the Constitution. Used to be we read and studied the Constitution both in high school and quite possibly in college even if we did not go to law school.

I guess times have changed. All that freedom stuff is no longer relevant since the fall of the Soviet Union. How sad.

[heaven05]

133. Hey

you have no argument from me on anything you posted. Haven't been 'free' for many, many decades. Nov.63, my hallmark, followed by his brother, MLK and a host of 'malcontents' deemed so by the PTB. Obama, he's my Pres. Billions, maybe trillions spent on security(from us, don't tell anyone!) sad but since neocons Patriot Act and such, is a huge apparatus and sadly a fact of life into perpetuity. Obama had no chance to dismantle the corporate owned system to better reflect we the people. He, as a person, MIGHT have thought he could, the PTB, the corporations, told him reality. All the whiners on here about Obama and the security state, deal with it. ANY POTUS who would have gotten into that high office would be in the same predicament. Some would gleefully perpetuate the corporate line, others like Obama have to, once they are faced with the reality of who really runs America. Any adult knows this reality. Our country has been sold out to the corporations for a long time. Just fact, those who want to blame Obama......... Don't care, I had hoped he would be able to change things for the better, corporations said, "no way." Deal with it. geez

[JDPriestly]

146. Nothing against Obama. He is my president too.

But we did not accept 12-hour days just because the corporations wanted them that long.

We did not accept child-labor because the corporate bosses wanted our kids working from the age of 8.

We don't have to accept this surveillance.

[heaven05]

74. yeah

but what are their politics? Just because it is written down and accepted, DOES NOT mean it is right. Right for people who need justification to bash Obama and forget where this mess started. In THE REPUBLICAN CAMP! You are not fooling people who know who the usual suspects are. Provisional authority people cannot be trusted. They are neo-cons. Period. Flush that credible mess, credible for someone who doesn't think for themselves with the obvious hitting them in the face, not for people who can see the hidden agendas here. Have a good day.

[Maedhros]

103. You're a new one.

Night shift? Is this your first assignment, or have you trolled other boards?

[laundry_queen]

113. The word salad is strong in that one. nt

[heaven05]

127. guess

Last edited Wed Aug 7, 2013, 12:05 PM - Edit history (2)

what? He's my Pres. The political bed mates made in that game just amazes me sometimes and more often than not disappoints. Yet again, he is my Pres., and all you voicing all this outrage and displeasure, don't mean a thing. He walks out that house in 2016, deal with it. Your whining? Lamentable yet expected and not going to change a goddamn thing. I do not like the surveillance state. I do not like the tea drinker, rethuugs, rethug in a lot of state houses fucking up voting and human rights, yet not much short of total revolution is going to change that. Ballot boxes are the only recourse we have and now according to SCOTUS, that's in jeopardy....that's my concern and a meaningless concern. Since Reagan we as progressives, liberals and sane people have been under attack, actually since Nov of 63. All this whining by you babies will let the powers that be know that we the people have our eyes open and minds working. Fine. Please continue on if it is necessary to trash the Pres. Doesn't change a damn thing and means even less to the PTB's, who are they?........the CORPORATIONS(MONEY). Hey people! "The chickens have come home to roost". You're stuck. Deal with it.

[Maedhros]

145. You're projecting.

I'm objecting to the NSA surveillance program. I'm NOT bashing the President.

[heaven05]

87. yeah

but what are their politics? Just because it is written down and accepted, DOES NOT mean it is right. Right for people who need justification to bash Obama and forget where this mess started. In THE REPUBLICAN CAMP! You are not fooling people who know who the usual suspects are. Provisional authority people cannot be trusted. They are neo-cons. Period. Flush that credible mess, credible for someone who doesn't think for themselves with the obvious hitting them in the face, not for people who can see the hidden agendas here. Have a good day.

[Maedhros]

102. Ron Wyden is a neocon?

Are you high?

[heaven05]

129. I

Last edited Wed Aug 7, 2013, 12:07 PM - Edit history (1)

didn't say that. Feldman is. Whine on, he's my Pres. till 2016, duly elected, and you whiners are stuck with him. Your displeasure and outrage, laughable. Politics is a dirty, vicious game soiled by big money of the real power, CORPORATIONS. Not going to change anytime soon. My response to all you whiners.....

[heaven05]

139. actually

I'm through with this discussion to nowhere. The whiny, naive bubble dwellers, on this site mainly, don't want to address the reality that this is not a democratic system. No matter who gets to occupy 1600, they have to pass corporate muster on many levels. We put up a good front as a nation showing we have 'freedom' with our ability to pull a lever every four years. With the help of MSM and 'news' shows we are distracted from the reality that America is controlled by, get this, the Corporate money machine. All power and change comes from there. good luck bubble dwellers...........

[sabrina 1]

106. Lol!! I actually took you seriously upthread. But now I get it, you're a comedian!!

[heaven05]

128. thank you

all of you voicing your outrage and displeasure, that's funny. You will not change a damn thing until the corporate power over politics is abolished which will be never. Whine on about my Pres., till the system is truly made democratic, nothing will change. So whine on, hope it makes you feel better. A warm bottle and a blankie might help also. 2016, better hope we can change the system. Oh never mind, the corporate interests(big money) WON'T let this happen, our pockets aren't that deep. He's my Pres. NO MATTER HOW MUCH YOU WHINE.

[cui bono]

64. However, you aren't presenting any opposing argument.

Just saying we don't know if that's true. Well, then prove it false.

I gather from having seen past posts of yours that your agenda is to defend PBO no matter what, but you really need an actual defense. And this isn't just about Obama, it's about all administrations. In fact, it's more about plutocracy and our corrupt govt. that is controlled by the ones who hold corporate power.

[heaven05]

81. I

Last edited Tue Aug 6, 2013, 09:43 PM - Edit history (2)

gather from your posts that you will defend a bluedog democrat agenda, coupled with PNAC, without questioning the validity of the politics of one of the 'distinguished professor sources' who was part of bush and cheney's Provisional authority in the Iraq debacle. Some one a part of that segment of bush's war crimes cannot be accepted by thinking people as a credible source to trash PBO. Who are you to talk of actual defense when one of the sources used to bolster your argument was a bush neo-con? That negates ANY and possibly ALL sources used as a defense of the position you are defending. Get off of it. Their politics are suspect therefore, no matter how 'distinguished' they may seem to be, they are suspect also.

[1StrongBlackMan]

89. Let me ask you a question ...

didn't we, the left, question every bit of information that we received from the media during the bush years ... and didn't we laugh at the gop for believing the information they believed from the media?

What changed? The media didn't.

[heaven05]

90. yep

and we must continue to question ALL sources and suspect agendas.

[1StrongBlackMan]

91. Apparently ...

that is not the case.

It seems ... Some information is to be unquestionly believe (e.g., any and everything coming from snowden, assaunge and greenwald ... as well as every opinion based upon what Snowden, Assaunge and Greenwald said) and other information is to be unquestionably disbelieved (e.g., any and everything passing through President Obama's lips or from "the government."

[heaven05]

97. seems

that way for some here. But I look at the individuals that don't question, based upon their 'distinguished' sources being unimpeachable, and their disbelief based upon their intellect being greater than our President or his advisers and them knowing all reasons for a decision by the POTUS that they disagree with him on and I just write them off as suspect in their loyalty based on very spurious reasons. I don't like everything coming out of Washington these days, but I know if a bluedog or neocon had gotten in there or gets in there I won't like anything coming out of that district. Obama is a 'good' POTUS. Despite many misgivings spouted here by the usual suspects, a hell of a lot better than romshit or any neocon. Period. For a man to have faced the total mess of the previous administration, the racist rethug/tea party obstruction, the weakness of Harry Reid, Pelosi and the back stabbing non support of bluedog democans, and still has gotten some important things accomplished, we're on our way to universal healthcare, among others, he's pretty strong in my book.

[sabrina 1]

100. You don't want 'Busies' dragged into this?? Really?? Well, then we are on the same side.

So tell us, why is a true blue 'Bushie' now Director of Intelligence in the Obama Administration???? I didn't want any Bushies dragged into this. WE GOT RID OF THEM. But they keep getting appointed to the Cabinet of the president we elected to REPLACE THEM..

Know anything about Clapper?? You want to meet a REAL BUSHIE? Go meet Clapper and his Private Security Corp which has been making billions from this fake, pretend Bush 'policies' designed for one purpose only, to privatize and enrich Bushies old friends, like Clapper and his Private Security Corp. Booz Allen, multi-billion dollar private corp thanks to these 'policies' Democrats ONCE OPPOSED.

What a ridiculous argument considering all the Republicans who have been appointed by this President. Are you going to tell us what the Bushies used to tell us?? 'Democrapos are no good at protecting this country'?? Because that is the message sent each time a Democratic Presient appoints a REPUBLICAN to positions in his cabinet.

Let me ask you, because I expect to see the usual excuse for this. Do YOU think there no Democrat who could have been appointed to the position of Director of Intelligence, someone let's say who wasn't a 'Bushie' and who did not have such a glaring Conflict of Interest??

Talk to the President if you don't want Bushies dragged into this. We kicked them OUT.

[heaven05]

126. you're

right in this defense of your position. Period. Yet Pres. Obama is my POTUS. I just hope things will get better. May be a forlorn hope, yet he has time to make things right, hopefully, notice the word hope, before he walks out the door. Yeah a lot his advisers are telling him god awful advice. I just guess it's not a good idea to defend my Pres. on this board because all of you Obama haters do pile on. Hell, all you Obama traitors have your day. Still better than Romshit. I just know all of you whiners would be screaming more than bloody murder if he had gotten in. All of you voicing your outrage and displeasure, so what. He's Pres. like it or not and he's my Pres. Till he walks out the front door. All of you? Pile on, hate on. I laugh at your displeasure and on it. You're not going to change a damn thing, the politics of the office, the corporate hold on the politics or the fact that election isn't until 2016, deal with it.

[Maedhros]

143. It helps that Snowden and Greenwald have evidence...

...and the Administration has Clapper lying to the Senate.

[1StrongBlackMan]

153. And yet ...

much of that which has been reported as "evidence" has been shown to be less than "evidentiary." Thus, my statement that I don't know what I don't know.

[Maedhros]

164. It's been shown as "less than evidenciary?"

By whom? U.S. Senators, former intelligence agents and whistleblowers and acknowledged Constitutional scholars have all come forward to corroborate what Snowden is claiming.

The only people denigrating Snowden's revelations are those who have a great interest in suppressing his message: the intelligence community and its political overseers.

[cui bono]

104. Not sure how you gathered that... but no, I don't think I am that person you described.

I mentioned that it's not just this admin but all of them. And, well, you can read it again yourself.

Not sure why you think that and where you get what my "argument" is. But to answer your "gathering", no, I won't defend anyone without questioning validity, I am both critic and supporter of many, depending on their position on whatever is at hand.

I also don't discredit someone entirely just because of their political leanings or history. The point of my post was that the person I was responding to didn't use anything to discredit what he says we can't say is true.

[1StrongBlackMan]

120. And ...

The point of my post was that the person I was responding to didn't use anything to discredit what he says we can't say is true.

You continue to miss my point. The only way for me to "discredit" what is being cited to as "fact" is to cite to counter facts that have been put out there ... by the same media that we once, and now selectively, distrusted.

Are we now to a point where we cannot acknowledge that we are picking and choosing what information to believe based on what we believe and deciding the credibility/believability of our information source based on whether or not they report what we believe?

[1StrongBlackMan]

88. What part about ...

"I don't know what I don't know" suggests I should use that confessed ignorance to form an opinion? Doesn't that mean I'm confessing that any conclusion I come to is likely wanting. I guess admitting ignorance is uncomprehensible/unacceptable to you.

I gather from having seen past posts of yours that your agenda is to defend PBO no matter what, but you really need an actual defense.

No ... I have and have had my reservations about specific policy moves President Obama has made ... I just don't feel the need to focus on them ... especially, in the face of such oppositional glee.

[heaven05]

72. who's

Last edited Tue Aug 6, 2013, 09:46 PM - Edit history (1)

facts? Bushie facts. Don't mean a thing. I sense a PNAC agenda all through this thread. Provisional authority people who screwed up Iraq ARE NOT credible sources. Maybe for you, but no, not for me. geez

[heaven05]

86. I

have had immense joy this evening. Yeah I get tired of people on here always attributing bush malfeasance to Obama. The surveillance state is huge because of the bush cabal, not Obama. I just hope, behind the scenes, he is more than what we're allowed to see. Hopefully.

[AppleBottom]

110. Yep Bush is STILL president

Except he has a D by his name and people call him Barack....

[heaven05]

130. deal

with it. Your whining will change nothing and don't mean a thing.

[AppleBottom]

132. Kind of defensive aren't you?

Point out facts isn't whining. But now it's time for me to feign a superior argument by randomly selecting smileys as a show of confidence in my position.

[heaven05]

135. no

not defensive just a realist. All you whiners haven't mentioned the 'real' power behind the throne, elephant in the china shop. Corporations run this country. All the people who blame Obama for the current state of Amerikan politics...... Get a life.

[AppleBottom]

136. So what you're effectively saying is that Obama has no power to change anything, is that correct?

?

[heaven05]

137. no

POTUS can change anything without approval of the PTB. Did you get NO POTUS? Are you just naive or is this a serious question??? ?backatcha

[AppleBottom]

140. Ahhh I see, so it doesn't matter who you vote for and your support of Obama's fascist

policies is like you supporting a sock puppet telling you lies?!

P.S. False indignation doesn't help your argument either.

[heaven05]

142. bubble

dweller. I refuse to engage on this meaningless topic with naive individuals such as yourself who refuse to understand truth. Stay in your safe, comfortable place and believe anything you please about amerikkka, Obama and the touted democratic system supposedly enjoyed by a free and democratic people. BS. I am through with a thread that is basically meaningless and without true merit. That means you too.

[AppleBottom]

109. Wow, what a dodge.

[1StrongBlackMan]

122. A dodge? ...

Well ... Okay.

[JDPriestly]

118. What Obama has admitted -- that they collect metadata,

and what Congress has discovered -- that they have millions of Americans under surveillance under their system of watching those who communicate with those who communicate with people under suspicion and that that collect and perhaps analyze millions of communications a month are horrifying enough.

You and I are probably among those under surveillance (although I pity anyone studying my e-mails). They are likely to find long lists of duly elected individuals who send me their newsletters and fundraising e-mails. Oh, well.

And don't you object to the money spent on this nonsense?

It's crazy. Meanwhile they can't fix bridges or the bathrooms in inner-city schools and we have millions of homeless people sleeping on our streets tonight.

This surveillance if not objectionable on constitutional grounds is objectionable in that it reflects utterly sick priorities.

[1StrongBlackMan]

123. Yes he did ...

but you choose to disbelieve everything else President Obama says on this topic, as your second paragraph demonstrates ... President Obama has also said that no one is under "surveillance" and no e-mails are "studied" but with a warrant.

Are we now to a point where we cannot acknowledge that we are picking and choosing what information to believe based on what we believe and deciding the credibility/believability of our information source based on whether or not they report what we believe?

I agree that the money being spent on NSA programming is a lot and could go to fixing bridges, going to education, etc.; but I don't object to the money being spent as I believe it necessary for national security. But I would fund it via cancelling weapons systems like the F-35 that is battlefied obsolete and unwanted by the military ... but provides a bunch of high paying jobs (so that must fugire into the equation).

[JDPriestly]

148. How would Obama know what the technicians like Snowden

are really told to do or do with the data they collect?

He repeats what he is told. He has probably never spoken with a technician at the level of Snowden. He probably does not know what they are doing.

We should be grateful that Snowden was honest enough to come forward publicly and describe his job.

The truth will gradually become apparent. But I am inclined to believe Snowden and Greenwald. That's based on my own background and experience.

[1StrongBlackMan]

154. Really? ...

President Obama doesn't know what technicians do and is told what technicians do; but he is responsible for what those technicians do?

Really?

[JDPriestly]

161. Yes. Really. He believes what he is told.

He does not work in the office in which Snowden worked. Obama does not know what Snowden could or could not do or what is actually done in the offices in which Snowden worked,

[AnotherMcIntosh]

24. "If ..."?

Because you haven't, that indicates that you can't.

[Divernan]

26. Yup! He hasn't been able to quote/cite/link to a single opposing opinion.

Somebody explain to him we're here to discuss and debate, and that requires him to come up with a rebuttal if he disagrees.

[burnodo]

44. How about you?

Would you be any more or less convinced of YOUR opinion?

[1StrongBlackMan]

46. Actually ...

my thoughts on this topic has evolved., to being able to state: I don't know what I don't know.

Thanks for asking

[burnodo]

51. but you're saying the person who is the subject of the OP is wrong

without any real counter

[1StrongBlackMan]

124. No ...

that is NOT what I said. That is what other have framed my question to be ... go back and re-read what I actually wrote.

[Bluenorthwest]

53. I note you don't actually post even one peer of Pyle's as you claim you could.

The definition of intellectual dishonesty. Typical of the 'say anything Centrists'.

[1StrongBlackMan]

125. I made no such claim ...

go back and re-read my question.

[Douglas Carpenter]

10. knr

[cantbeserious]

14. K&R

eom

[forestpath]

19. K&R

[Vinnie From Indy]

23. K&R

Cheers Willy!

[midnight]

27. Time to stop this...

[Rosa Luxemburg]

28. Who exactly is a member this court?

who appointed them and why is this court allowed to exist?

[dkf]

35. Roberts did the appointments. Nuff said.

[Mnemosyne]

29. Night Willy! Thank you. nt

[WillyT]

49. Anythime...

[99th_Monkey]

31. Secret court, secret laws, etc. <-- not cool with me. K&R eom

[liberal_at_heart]

32. good question for those who swear spying is okay as long as it is democrats doing it. If the court

is comprised of republicans is it still okay?

[JDPriestly]

33. K&R. Now that is how a constitutional scholar and professor thinks about these issues.

[truedelphi]

38. Maybe he could take a moment and chat up President Obama - giving him

A refresher course on the matter.

[xchrom]

40. du rec.

[Enthusiast]

41. Oh, baby! Kicked and Recommended!

I like it.

[Solly Mack]

48. K&R

[librechik]

50. sadly, because this article clearly names the Republicans as perps, and not "both sides"

no one will pay any attention to it. Believe me, the Republicans have any opposition or protest to their shenanigans totally neutralized. We have to come up with a different solution.

[Savannahmann]

52. We as a Party have to rise up against it.

We have to stand for the principles that are contained in the Bill of Rights. We have to stand against it, not join with them. Instead, we run from principle because if we stand up for it we might be labeled as soft on crime, soft on Terror, soft on drugs, or whatever.

We have to stand against this crap as a party. The Democrats in the house should have voted en masse for the Amash Amendment totally defunding the NSA programs. Instead we split, and gave the Authoritarian jackasses the win, if only barely.

Just pointing our fingers at the Republicans is not a bad way to start, but we have to go beyond that to get where we need to be.

[Maedhros]

61. As Democrats our targets should be our congressmen that voted against our interests [n/t]

[GiaGiovanni]

54. "When the secret court was created in 1978, it was meant to authorize targeted searches, but..."

To the guy who sent me the 1984 FISA decision:

"When the secret court was created in 1978, it was meant to authorize targeted searches, but sometime around 2004 it began, in secret, to issue general warrants"

[blackspade]

55. Tragically this will not penetrate

The minds of authoritarians here.

[bvar22]

57. The Conservative Bubble:

[font size=3]Its not just for Republicans anymore![/font]

[snagglepuss]

56. k & r

[Peacetrain]

59. I did a little hunting on this the other day myself..and Prof Pyle missed a big old target

If you are looking for ground zero.. well Christopher Pyle missed the boat.. unless it is deeper in his article.. just reading what you posted..

What you need to look at is the 2007 PAA Protect America Act.. its an eyeopener.. and it explains why all of this is legal .. whether anyone likes it or not. And if you take a second and think about it .. it explains how Bush Cheney got away with it scott free.

You need to look at the congress..I know it is so much easier to focus on one person.. really can vent the frustrations easier.. but this is a complex issue.. and forget the Patriot Act..till we visit the Protect American Act (that is where Prism came from) everything else is mute.. and undo able to correct

EDIT TO ADD: This is my link.. just a whole lot easier than trying to retype everything..
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023404591

[bvar22]

65. You say all that like it MEANS something.

It doesn't!
Bush got a note from Gonzales saying that TORTURE was legal.

Congress passed and the President signed a bill that granted Ex
Post Facto immunity for the Telecomns making what was once CRIMINAL, and WAS criminal when they DID it,
NOW perfectly LEGAL.
(And People say the president doesn't have a Magic Wand!)

Everything that happened in Germany in the 30s and 40s was LEGAL.
When "they" wanted something, they simply passed a LAW giving it to themselves,
[font size=3]Just. Like. NOW!!![/font]

That does NOT make it "Constitutional" or RIGHT,
even IF they get a note from their lawyer.

[Peacetrain]

66. Well a person has a choice bvar..

You or I, anyone can contact their congressperson and say.. this act needs to be brought back up. Because you or I anyone can talk about things being unconstitutional or constitutional .. (Women not having the vote was "Constitutional" at one time) the thing is law and now we have to deal with it from that perspective. Getting it overturned or rewritten.

The magic wand WAS the congress. That is the whole issue of this act. The congress passed the law and the President Bush signed it.. and now it is a law. But laws can be changed and it takes a lot of work.

The Republicans in the states are now changing laws on a state level, so that when it goes to a Republican controlled Supreme Court.. things like the Voting Rights Act.. are being struck down.

President Obama cannot overturn this law. We as the voters have to get our people back in congress and get it overturned.

Or make enough noise that it gets taken up by the Supreme Court.

Or get the Congress to rewrite the law.

Lots of things that we can begin to do.

But we can bellyache about the Patriot Act till the cows come home bvar.. this is the one the trumps it. It is so very vague in language that it can be used for anything.

I was pretty clueless about this Act.. so much happened at one time, it was almost impossible to keep up with during the Bush years. I was trying to make heads or tails out of Prism, NSA etc.. and like I said in that op.. doing some reading on Wikipedia and Prism led to this.

This is not Germany.. and thinking about what happened in the 30's and 40's maybe our system is better in correcting things like this. Because if people start popping off..sometimes they can pop off in the wrong direction.

But one thing I know for sure, we have to educate ourselves and do some research and digging on our own

[bvar22]

92. AS the LEADER of the Democratic Party,

and President of the United States,
President Obama could do something,
IF he wanted too.
For an absolute minimum, he could STAND UP and disapprove of this.
There are MANY other ways for a sitting President and Leader of the Democratic Party to actually LEAD,
and use the weight of his office to help people See things HIS way.
I KNOW. I've seen them do it for all those years before the position of President of the United States became such a weak and powerlessposition, as YOU claim.

Here is something you should read about the weak & powerless Presidency:
"The Arkansas primary fight illuminates some unpleasant though vital truths about the Democratic Party establishment "

"So what did the Democratic Party establishment do when a Senator who allegedly impedes their agenda faced a primary challenger who would be more supportive of that agenda? They engaged in full-scale efforts to support Blanche Lincoln.

* Bill Clinton traveled to Arkansas to urge loyal Democrats to vote for her, bashing liberal groups for good measure.

*Obama recorded an ad for Lincoln which, among other things, were used to tell African-American primary voters that they should vote for her because she works for their interests.

*The entire Party infrastructure lent its support and resources to Lincoln — a Senator who supposedly prevents Democrats from doing all sorts of Wonderful, Progressive Things which they so wish they could do but just don’t have the votes for.

<snip>

What happened in this race also gives the lie to the insufferable excuse we’ve been hearing for the last 18 months from countless Obama defenders: namely, if the Senate doesn’t have 60 votes to pass good legislation, it’s not Obama’s fault because he has no leverage over these conservative Senators. It was always obvious what an absurd joke that claim was; the very idea of The Impotent, Helpless President, presiding over a vast government and party apparatus, was laughable. But now, in light of Arkansas, nobody should ever be willing to utter that again with a straight face.

[font size=3]Back when Lincoln was threatening to filibuster health care if it included a public option, the White House could obviously have said to her: if you don’t support a public option, not only will we not support your re-election bid, but we’ll support a primary challenger against you.[/font] Obama’s support for Lincoln did not merely help; it was arguably decisive, as The Washington Post documented today:"

<much more>

http://www.salon.com/2010/06/10/lincoln_6/

Anybody who walked away from the Arkansas Democratic Primary in 2010 could NOT be faulted for believing that,
"Gosh. Looks like the Last THING this Whit House WANTS is a Progressive Majority in Congress."

I've ALWAYS found the idea of The Impotent, Helpless President, presiding over a vast government and party apparatus to be so transparent as to be utterly laughable.

I guess that is because I am old enough to remember OTHER Presidents whop were able GET THE JOB DONE without all the claims of Impotence.

Bush-the-Lesser managed to get most of what he wanted,
and he NEVER had 60 votes in The Senate.
I don't remember Bush whining pathetically that "Its ALL Congress' fault."
Do you?

Now THIS is a President who always Found a Way!.
If he didn't have the votes, he went out [font size=3]GOT THE DAMNED VOTES!![/font]

"Johnson was the catalyst, the cajoler in chief. History records him as the nation's greatest legislative politician. In a great piece on the Daily Beast website, LBJ aide Tom Johnson, writes about how his old boss would have gotten a health care reform bill through the current congress. It's worth reading to understand the full impact of the "Johnson treatment" and how effective LBJ could be in winning votes for his legislation."

http://thejohnsonpost.blogspot.com/2009/08/johnson-treatment.html

So all that BS about President Obama being impotent and weak...
STOP saying that!
It doesn't do YOU
OR President Obama any good.



You will know them by their [font size=3]WORKS,[/font]
not by their EXCUSES.





FOUND the votes!

[Peacetrain]

94. You don't want to be involved..

Got it.. putting it in big old letters .. I am sure you were shouting about something.. but I am talking about the PAA... Protect America Act.. have not got a clue what you are talking about. Who said the President was weak? Hmph.. who are you quarreling with.. did I walk in on a debate with someone else?

[heaven05]

99. you're

twisting, obfuscating and most glaring, missing some important point(s) concerning what Obama is facing from his adversaries that your hero bush NEVER faced even without 60 votes in the senate. But seeing who's posting I'm responding to, I am not surprised at the BS coming from the source.

[bvar22]

149. What in the WORLD is "obfuscating" & "twisting"...

....about pointing out the Bush NEVER had 60 votes in the Senate, and yet found a way to get the votes for almost everything he wanted?
It just a plain, historical FACT.

How do you feel about the White House rescuing the failing Primary Campaign of DINO Blanche Lincoln, who was CAMPAIGNING as the woman who killed the Public Option, in the Arkansas Democratic Primary 2010?
Don't you think the President could have put a little pressure on her to stay with the Party on critical votes like Health Care and the Public Option?
(remember that Lincoln had NO CHANCE against the Republican in The General,
while the Pro-LABOR Pro-Health Care challenger, Democratic Lt Governor Halter DID.)
It looks like Lincoln was REWARDED for opposing the Obama Agenda, doesn't it?

Back when Lincoln was threatening to filibuster health care if it included a public option, the White House could obviously have said to her: if you don’t support a public option, not only will we not support your re-election bid, but we’ll support a primary challenger against you.

It was always obvious what an absurd joke that claim was; the very idea of The Impotent, Helpless President, presiding over a vast government and party apparatus, was laughable. But now, in light of Arkansas, nobody should ever be willing to utter that again with a straight face.

http://www.salon.com/2010/06/10/lincoln_6/

The same could be said of Traitor Joe Liebeman (that he was REWARDED by the Democratic Party Leadership for his treachery)

Ad Hominem Attacks like yours take very little thought and effort.
Anybody can do them, even refugees from the Beavis & Butthead Chatroom at AoL. That is one reason why I never take them seriously.
The other reason is that they ARE a Logical Fallacy,
and a sign that one can NOT post a cogent rebuttal.

AFIC, posting an unsupported Ad Hominem as a "rebuttal" is a concession.
Thanks!

Cheers!

[heaven05]

151. like

I said. ANYTHING you believe is extremely suspect. Take your bubble dwelling logic and put it where it belong, toilet please. You are not trustworthy or believable. You want to make my Pres. treacherous, fine. You are just nobody to me. You cannot be trusted with speaking the truth unvarnished. You did it to yourself. Have a good one.

[bvar22]

152. Your behavior belies your words.

If I were really a "nobody" to you,
you wouldn't keep embarrassing yourself with these empty and pathetic Ad Hominem attacks.

[ProSense]

95. The PAA expired in February 2008

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023026724

[Peacetrain]

96. Well Thank You Pro

That has been bother the ever loving stuffing out of me for the last two days ... I looked up the voting record on it tonight.. and who voted for it and who did not..

EDIT TO ADD:

But it has a continuance directive according to Wikipedia, so this is still a bothersome thing to me.. Now Wikipedia can be manipulated I understand that.. and I do not have a great grasp of legalese..

FISA Amendments of 2008: Continuance of Protect America Act authorizations and directives under

Whereas it is generally understood that the FISA Amendments of 2008 repealed the Protect America Act, this is not the case for existing directives and authorizations

(1) IN GENERAL- Except as provided in section 404, effective December 31, 2012, title VII of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, as amended by section 101(a), is repealed.
Continuance of Protect America Act 2007 Rules for Existing Orders

Section 404 (Transition Procedures) allows for continuance of Protect America Act Sections 105A, 105B and 105C for all existing orders. So for authorizations for intelligence information and directives issued under such authorizations, Protect America Act application continues to apply.

Section 404(a)2(A)subject to paragraph (3), section 105A of such Act, as added by section 2 of the Protect America Act of 2007 (Public Law 110-55; 121 Stat. 552), shall continue to apply to any acquisition conducted pursuant to an order, authorization, or directive referred to in paragraph (1); and
Section 404(a)2(B)sections 105B and 105C of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, as added by sections 2 and 3, respectively, of the Protect America Act of 2007, shall continue to apply with respect to an order, authorization, or directive referred to in paragraph (1) until the later of--

(i) the expiration of such order, authorization, or directive; or
(ii) the date on which final judgment is entered for any petition or other litigation relating to such order, authorization, or directive.

Section 404 (Continuance Procedures) allows for continued authorizations and directives to be renewed under same circumstances indefinitely; It also allowed for continuance of Immunities for persons and corporations (including but not limited to telecoms) under FISA 2008 Amendments.

Section 404(a)7(B) CONTINUATION OF EXISTING ORDERS- If the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence seek to replace an authorization made pursuant to section 105B of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, as added by section 2 of the Protect America Act of 2007 (Public Law 110-55; 121 Stat. 522), by filing a certification in accordance with subparagraph (A), that authorization, and any directives issued thereunder and any order related thereto, shall remain in effect, notwithstanding the expiration provided for in subsection (a) of such section 105B, until the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (as such term is defined in section 701(b)(2) of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (as so added)) issues an order with respect to that certification under section 702(i)(3) of such Act (as so added) at which time the provisions of that section and of section 702(i)(4) of such Act (as so added) shall apply.

[avaistheone1]

62. k&r

[heaven05]

67. good one

[DirkGently]

105. "It is the very sort of general warrant

that triggered the American Revolution and inspired the Fourth Amendment."

Exactly.

[AppleBottom]

107. The people in power have been lying to us for years

And now that the truth is coming out they've decided the best thing to do is to lie more and lie louder.

[woo me with science]

111. Proud to be the 199th rec.

Thank you for this post.

[dipsydoodle]

117. and 200th here

for posting.

[whatchamacallit]

156. Only the most obtuse don't understand this. K&R!

[GiaGiovanni]

159. K & R