McCain Supports Warrantless Domestic Surveillance 650
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "While there have been shifting reports about McCain's view on warrantless wiretapping, nothing could be clearer than the latest comment by McCain adviser Doug Holtz-Eakin, who said, 'We do not know what lies ahead in our nation's fight against radical Islamic extremists, but John McCain will do everything he can to protect Americans from such threats, including asking the telecoms for appropriate assistance to collect intelligence against foreign threats to the United States as authorized by Article II of the Constitution.' Article II, of course, is what Bush has argued gives the President virtually unlimited power during war, and McCain has already voted in favor of Telecom Immunity, though he sometimes mentions, to those asking for accountability, wanting to hold hearings about what the telecoms did."
McFlipFlop (Score:5, Informative)
McCain, spying and executive power: A complete reversal in 6 months [salon.com]
Re:Parity (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Parity (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Parity (Score:5, Informative)
http://action.aclu.org/site/VoteCenter?congress=110&repId=25424&session_num=0&page=legScore [aclu.org]
And for fun, McCain's:
http://action.aclu.org/site/VoteCenter?congress=110&repId=122&session_num=2&page=legScore [aclu.org]
grr, forgot link (Score:3, Informative)
Re:hrm (Score:5, Informative)
Just for the record I don't support either side in this and the above is just my guess so take it as a grain of salt. I just don't see much extremism (from the view of the masses) from the Christians lately but I'd happily see the view that what is going on could be extreme Christan workings specifically the war in Iraq.
Oh - and if modded troll, well I don't mind. However, this is NOT "Informative." It may be interesting, it may even be insightful, but it surely isn't informative. (I keep getting odd moderations.)
Nothing could be clearer? (Score:0, Informative)
Thanks, Slashdot!
Same old, same old (Score:3, Informative)
Sure, warrants surveillance makes people safer. It's a fact. Just look at Soviet Union with its domestic KGB wing. But then throwing people into Gulags for 20 years because the neighbor doesn't like you and reports you in as a spy - it is not the society that most people would like to live in.
So which will it be? "GITMO USA" or "Land of Opportunity and Hope"? Can't have both. The former gives people almost absolute security (unless the secret police doesn't like you), the latter does not. Let freedom die for sake of security or perhaps die due to lack of security in the name of freedom?
You chose. November 2008.
Clear as mud (Score:5, Informative)
There isn't much question that tapping *international* calls is within the government's power. (At least I haven't heard any major Democrats argue with this). There just isn't enough information in this post to know if this is what McCain is talking about, or if it's domestic surveillance.
You should leave the political hack jobs to the professionals.
Re:Parity (Score:5, Informative)
I think that's about as clear a statement as you're likely to get.
(link courtesy of Glenn Greenwald [salon.com].)
Obama is Against Warrantless Wiretaps (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Signing Statements. (Score:5, Informative)
First Google hit [boston.com] on a search for obama and signing statements [google.com]
Signing statements have been used by presidents of both parties, dating back to Andrew Jackson. While it is legitimate for a president to issue a signing statement to clarify his understanding of ambiguous provisions of statutes and to explain his view of how he intends to faithfully execute the law, it is a clear abuse of power to use such statements as a license to evade laws that the president does not like or as an end-run around provisions designed to foster accountability.
ECHELON anyone? (Score:4, Informative)
It is amazing to me that people go with their guts on the domestic wiretap stuff. First of all, from what I've been able to figure, there has been no domestic wiretaps without FISA. Any NSA wiretaps that lead to a domestic connection can be follow up with a FISA warrant. FISA was just worried about where the requests were coming from. Previously the FBI could not get a warrant from a NSA lead. After 9/11 this was allowed. See:
Secret Court's Judges Were Warned About NSA Spy Data [washingtonpost.com]: [...] "the government's failure to share information about its spying program had rendered useless a federal screening system that the judges had insisted upon to shield the court from tainted information."
That was deemed stupid and changed after 9/11. There are some hold outs though.
Remember that you can I can call a tapped number and law enforcement can listen to our call. The tap request only covers the tap target, but they can certainly listen in to anyone that calls that number. So when NSA is listening in to communications in the battlefield, that routes to a domestic number, that does not constitute "domestic wire tapping" since the tap is on the foreign source.
The other aspect of the "domestic" part is Call Detail Records. You do no own your call history, the phone company does. They can do whatever the heck they want with that information. Some states are making CDR's private, but traditionally, it is owned by the phone company. The FBI could use CDR's to see who has been talking to you and get a FISA warrant based on that information.
So, do I think things will change under Obama? Nope, not at all. Even under Clinton's "wall" of separation between the NSA and the FBI, there were still warrantless wiretaps.
Learn some history. (Score:5, Informative)
So, after a hundred years of oppression and suffering, they strike one blow about a ten thousand times less deadly in the number of dead and about a hundred thousand times less damaging as a matter of culture and economy.
And then they won after they proved that the infidel doesn't have the moral fortitude to give everyone the right to a lawyer, no matter how heinous their crime. They proved that we have no moral superiority when it comes to torture and human rights.
America is not the same place it used to be. All there is to do now is sit back and watch what's left of the power structure squabble over the table scraps until we run out of resources and the next revolution occurs.
But don't pay any attention to this. Listen to the President. Go shopping, and he'll take care of the rest.
personal privacy vs continued genicide. (Score:2, Informative)
I find it ironic that our first black president should he be elected will be with the support of the orginization that was founded primarily as a eugentics programs against Negro people (aka NOW).
http://www.blackgenocide.org/negro.html [blackgenocide.org]
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1294086/posts [freerepublic.com]
Still it is a hard chioce to make, continue to let the country slide deeper and deeper into the bush/republic style anti-privacy police state or let it continue to slide into an amoral fascism where people are jailed for trying to stop babies form being killed and thier children from being taught that anal sex is a component of a healty alternative life style.
What can you say
I'm in Favor (Score:2, Informative)
If they find something that pertains to civil criminality, they shouldn't use it in a court of law. But if they find out that you are talking with al Qaeda, this seems fine.
They did far, far more in WWII. I think it is time for people to have a reality check on the ramifications of this. Not saying you need to be for it. But a lot of the fear seems exaggerated.
ACLU and gun ownership (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.aclu.org/police/gen/14523res20020304.html [aclu.org]
I think the typical American "liberal" sees it this way, while the stereotypical American "liberal" is more extreme.
I would like to point out that the view that the Second Amendment applies only to "a well-regulated militia" is irrelevant because of the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, in concert or alone. The right to defend oneself against coercion with any means is neither enumerated nor disparaged, and it is reserved by the people.
Lack of a constitutional guarantee is not license to legislate away whatever powers and freedoms we choose, as noted explicitly and in plain language at the end of the Bill of Rights.
Troll Story (Score:4, Informative)
Israeli support. (Score:4, Informative)
Palestine has received less than four or five billion in the same period if my guess is right, with the added bonus of our veto of any United Nations resolution in their favor.
how about (Score:5, Informative)
â" Washington, D.C., Dec. 19, 2000
"You don't get everything you want. A dictatorship would be a lot easier." - Governing Magazine, July, 1998
"A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there's no question about it." - Business Week, July 30, 2001
bullshit (Score:4, Informative)
Read something about the history of the Middle East before you spout such bullshit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Middle_East [wikipedia.org]
The Middle East was a social and political dump before the Europeans got involved, and it still is. And given Arab aspirations for re-building their empire and imposing their religion on others, I don't even particularly care that the West imposed its rule on the region.
Except every other developed western nation since WWII (which I consider a definitive paradigm shift worldwide.) The whole of Europe have learned their lesson. For some reason we don't seem to get it.
First of all, the Europe you see today was largely constructed by the US; if it had been up to the French, British, and Russians, they would have repeated the mistakes of WWI and we'd have had WWIII by now.
Furthermore, you really have no clue about the attitudes or motivations behind European politics.
Are you a hedonist or a Nazi? I can't really tell.
Well, I can tell that you are an uneducated lout.
Re:radical Islamic moderates (Score:4, Informative)
But... but... they hate our freedoms!!! Right?!?!? Right?!?!?
More precisely, they hate that we have those freedoms while they don't, and they believe that we are responsible for them not having those freedoms.
Re:Parity (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Parity (Score:4, Informative)
Any excuse about FISA being "restrictive" is bullshit.
Too young to remember (Score:1, Informative)
In the 60s and the early 70s, the police, FBI and other agencies pretty much did anything they wanted to obtain evidence. Wire-tap warrant, pfft, I think that might have been an invention of the 80s, or maybe late 70s, after Watergate. Don't even get me started on the 50s. I can't speak to the 50s directly, but in the 60s, The Law had a free run mostly.
[digging] Now where'd my Cap'n Crunch Whistle go
You're a partisan arse (Score:3, Informative)
It is NOT within the traditional role of the AG to fire U.S. Attorneys, simply because they chose to not pursue frivolous, politically motivated charges, which was a part of the agenda of a vengeful administration.
Yes, U.S. attorneys are chosen based on partisan decisions, but they are supposed to be largely independent after appointment, and not taken to task by a venal AG, whose motivation was electoral gains, because they refused to file charges without substantiating evidence.
Re:Parity (Score:5, Informative)
I recommend this article [reason.com] for a critical view of McCain's attitude towards personal freedom.
In short, he doesn't believe you should have it. You're all soldier's in McCain's American army and insubordination will not be tolerated.