Democrats Propose Commission To Investigate Spying

metalman writes "Wired has a story on a proposal by House Democrats to 'establish a national commission — similar to the 9/11 Commission... to find out — and publish — what exactly the nation's spies were up to during their five-year warrantless, domestic surveillance program.' The draft bill would also preserve the requirement of court orders and remove 'retroactive immunity for telecom companies.' (We've discussed various government wiretaps, phone companies, and privacy violations before.) But it seems unlikely that such an alternative on phone immunity would pass both the House and Senate, let alone survive a Presidential veto."

Re:Speak really slowly for me...

[theM_xl]

A presidential veto can then in return be overridden by a two-thirds majority. The Democrats intend to try and get the ban on waterboarding [cnn.com] through a veto, I believe. The problem is that the Americans have a two-party system and the one the president belongs to generally has plenty votes to block the two-thirds thing easily.

Re:Speak really slowly for me...

[Notquitecajun]

Study up on early American political theory. Remember, the President is elected (typically) by the people as well as Congress. It prevents Congress from becoming too radical. Go study "checks and balances." Vetoes CAN be overridden.

Re:Speak really slowly for me...

[morgan_greywolf]

It's a system of what they call "checks and balances". There are 3 branches of government in the U.S. -- the Executive (President, cabinet, military, law enforcement), the Legislative (Congress -- House and Senate), and Judicial (the Courts). The purpose of the veto is to keep Congress from having absolute power to pass whatever they see fit. That's the "check". The "balance" is that Congress can override a veto by a 2/3rd's majority -- something that almost never happens except bills with bipartisan support.

Re:Useless....

[bconway]

Yes, the 9-11 Commission was actually very informative and thorough. You can read all their findings here [gpoaccess.gov].

Re:Speak really slowly for me...

[downix]

The Veto is not automatic nor absolute. A 2/3 vote by Congress can overrule the president. In addition, a ruling by the Judicial System can overrule either. Congress also has a check on the President in that they are the sole people able to issue money for programs, the power of the purse, but they are acting like an abused spouce, afraid to actually cut the purse strings that prop this president up.

Re:Useless....

[Anonymous Coward]

from wikipedia:

"In addition, commissioners believed that key agencies of the U.S. government, including the Pentagon, the FAA and NORAD were deliberately deceiving them,[7] and that the CIA was deliberately impeding the work of the commission.[8] On the whole, the chairmen of the commission believed the commission was set up to fail.[9]"

I fail to see how this can be interpreted as "informative" or "thorough". And this is even without bringing up other, more controversial, issues (insider trading, ISI money transfer,...)

Re:How much spying was political?

[theonetruekeebler]

The case started because he withdrew over $4,000 in cash to pay for the "service". Banks are required to report that kind of activity to the IRS, and maybe other departments (DEA seems likely) because it can indicate money laundering, tax fraud or other underground economic activity. It is also illegal to travel with large amounts of cash on you (I forget the amount, but don't sell your car for cash in another state).

What is remarkable is that the former Attorney General for the state of New York never thought that he might get caught.

According to my tax attorney the reporting threshold is $5,000. It used to be $10,000. If there was a $4,000 withdrawal and they knew about it, they were already watching him.

It is not illegal to carry large amounts of cash, though there are numerous reports of it being confiscated on suspicion of drug trafficking, suspicion of income tax evasion, or suspicion of being a large amount of money and we no-knocked the wrong house and we need an excuse to be here. Getting it back can be hell -- all of a sudden you find yourself having to prove your innocence (e.g. documenting the income source behind every asset you have) instead of them proving your guilt. The war on drugs is the worst enemy the Fourth Amendment ever had.

I was a motorcycle salesman for a couple of years, and we had absolutely no problem selling to customers for cash, regardless of where they came from. If a customer spent over $10,000 in cash we had to fill out an IRS form because hey, large cash transaction. The only problem we had with out-of-state buyers was handling their registration. Located in Colorado, we had forms for our state, bordering states and Texas (damned Texans). I personally handled a customer from Georgia. For him we had to get forms FedEx'd to us from a dealership there.

If you're worried about selling your car out-of-state for cash, get a receipt for it so you can prove its origin. Or get a money order or go to the bank with the buyer and have them turn it into a cashier's check.

Re:Speak really slowly for me...

[Anonymous Coward]

If you would like to see an incomplete list of Vetoes, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presidential_vetoes [wikipedia.org]

It's mostly incomplete pre-WWI era.

I would guess most Vetoes are occurring because of the fact that most bills are not single purposed. They have their 'named' purpose. But then they also do x, y, and x that will rarely have anything to do with the named purpose.

Re:Speak really slowly for me...

[jeisen83]

The state appoints the electors to the electoral college as representatives of the state. There is no federal law mandating this; however, every state (and Washington, DC) currently has a law specifying that the electors are selected through a popular vote. Of those, 24 states have laws to punish electors who do not vote as determined by the popular vote (faithless electors). Historically, no faithless elector has ever been prosecuted, and the constitutionality of the laws to punish faithless electors has not yet been challenged in the Supreme Court. So yes, in practice, individual voters elect the electoral college, but constitutionally, they're only guides.

Re:Speak really slowly for me...

[GigG]

You are just plane wrong on this. According to this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:US_budget_2007.svg [wikipedia.org] the Defense makes up 19% of the budget. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Unemployment, Welfare, make up 56% of it.

If you add in some of the 0.9% of agriculture which includes food stamps and Education and training and Community and regional development which has got to have some "welfareish" stuff in there that's another 3.1% and 0.9%.

To be fair I'll add the 2.5% for Vets to the defense budget though in a lot of cases it could be counted in either block.

Re:Speak really slowly for me...

[esocid]

You have a two party system because the system is built in a way to favor a two party system, smaller parties have huge barriers of entry and they cannot gain traction.

No, actually, it's really not inherently set up that way. Read this info about how loosely-organized parties are.

Yes, actually it is. You aren't aware of the public funding [fec.gov] that the federal government does for the "major" parties, i.e. the dems and repubs, during presidential elections. The federal government may have a loose hold on how the parties are organized but are heavily involved in perpetuating which ones and how many there are. That is why you don't see as many parties that are involved in many European elections, because of that federal fund-matching that the "major" parties get in the US.
The rules are basically (directly from the FEC website) that candidates must

1. seek nomination by a political party to the office of President.
2. establish eligibility by showing broad-based public support.
3. raise in excess of $5,000 in each of at least 20 states (i.e., over $100,000). Although an individual may contribute up to $2,300 to a primary candidate, only a maximum of $250 per individual applies toward the $5,000 threshold in each state.

In my eyes it is a system that has the potential to never be broken. The parties that are well known have the money, and the money is given to the parties that are well known. That is how things have gone since 1976 and will probably go for another decade.

Re:Speak really slowly for me...

[Stephen Ma]

As I wrote, I don't care what McCain says, no matter how frequently he says it. His actions convey an entirely different message, and that is what counts with me. His hypocrisy is obvious to everyone now (except a few), and now he is doing damage control.

McCain voted FOR torture

[snarfer]

A comment above says that you should look at people's actions, not their words.

McCain voted AGAINST banning torture. He says he is against torture, but when it came to a vote, he vote to allow it.

Re:Yup, Posturing

[bogjobber]

For the last time, we don't have to be grateful that our taxes are lower than yours. That's the way we want it. We can still complain that taxes should be lower. Prices elsewhere in the world are completely irrelevant. If the Dutch people wanted it that way, taxes would be lower there as well.

Re:Yup, Posturing

[Wesson]

Most people here are complaining about gas prices because not just our cars but our entire economy runs on gasoline. Keep in mind that rail systems here are laughable compared to that of your average Western European country, and nearly every kind of commerce is at some level dependent upon petroleum-powered transit - trucking, shipping, aviation, etc. In aggregate, this means that oil prices have a huge effect on the US economy.

Re:Yup, Posturing

[Ngarrang]

...which with current exchange rates translates to roughly 8.91 dollars/gallon. Why are you complaining again?

Answer me this question: Why are you paying such a rate per liter of petrol? Where is that money going? What is it really paying for? The processing of oil into gas/diesel is an incredibly inexpensive process.