FTA: Capitol Hill Blue: "Because nobody's life, liberty or property is safe while Congress is in session or the White House is occupied."

This isn't where I would go for an intelligent discussion about balancing the right to privacy with national security. Unless I wanted shrill, monkey-shiat-flinging hysterics, that is. Then it seems pretty much the perfect place.

Haha. That was great. They're blaming the Democrats for this

HulkHands:Haha. That was great. They're blaming the Democrats for this

Right now, this is the Democrats show. they can shut down FISA and restore the 4th amendment, if that's what they wanted done. But they won't. Because there is no functional difference between Republican and Democrat these days.

Weaver95:HulkHands:Haha. That was great. They're blaming the Democrats for this

Right now, this is the Democrats show. they can shut down FISA and restore the 4th amendment, if that's what they wanted done. But they won't. Because there is no functional difference between Republican and Democrat these days.

but there are a number of fallacies in that analysis. first, it is looking at the mote in the democrats' eyes when there's a whole forest of beams in the republicans' eyes.

second, it's generalizing too much with democrats... they were split pretty much in half. yes, that isn't the way to accomplish what we want them to accomplish, but to sit back and generalize the people who did try as complicit and indistinguishable from the republicans is pretty lame. there is a difference between the republicans and democrats... there was only one respectable republican taking part in each house, there were hundreds of respectable democrats.

burndtdan:Weaver95:HulkHands:Haha. That was great. They're blaming the Democrats for this

Right now, this is the Democrats show. they can shut down FISA and restore the 4th amendment, if that's what they wanted done. But they won't. Because there is no functional difference between Republican and Democrat these days.

but there are a number of fallacies in that analysis. first, it is looking at the mote in the democrats' eyes when there's a whole forest of beams in the republicans' eyes.

second, it's generalizing too much with democrats... they were split pretty much in half. yes, that isn't the way to accomplish what we want them to accomplish, but to sit back and generalize the people who did try as complicit and indistinguishable from the republicans is pretty lame. there is a difference between the republicans and democrats... there was only one respectable republican taking part in each house, there were hundreds of respectable democrats.

I'm not saying that this is the fault of any one party. arguing over who's at fault is pointless. Actually, an argument about who's at fault is a great way to ensure nothing gets changed at all.

Look - we all agree this is farked up. we all know that Republicans and Democrats alike farked it up. Right now, the Democrats are in position to unfark it for us. And they are in a position that's pretty much unassailable too, since the Republicans are weaker today then they have been in DECADES....

Given all that, do you really want to sit around and play 'he said/she said'?

BJ in oval office = impeachable
Raping the 4th amendment = mehh... he's gone in a couple months

Defies logic

Sir Roderick Glossop:FTA: Capitol Hill Blue: "Because nobody's life, liberty or property is safe while Congress is in session or the White House is occupied."

This isn't where I would go for an intelligent discussion about balancing the right to privacy with national security. Unless I wanted shrill, monkey-shiat-flinging hysterics, that is. Then it seems pretty much the perfect place.

Hmm. You suspect that the site is something less than a reasonable, well-balanced forum for rational political discussion?

Weaver95:HulkHands:Haha. That was great. They're blaming the Democrats for this

Right now, this is the Democrats show. they can shut down FISA and restore the 4th amendment, if that's what they wanted done. But they won't. Because there is no functional difference between Republican and Democrat these days.

How can they shut it down? They can't sign the bills to enact the changes.

Weaver95:

I'm not saying that this is the fault of any one party. 02:00:51 PM

When you were a younger man you sorta did. It seems like only yesterday

Right now, this is the Democrats show. 01:46:50 PM

RussianPooper:How can they shut it down? They can't sign the bills to enact the changes.

Oh i'm sure they could over-ride a presidential veto. NOBODY in Congress wants to be seen supporting Bush. And Bush is not only a lame duck prez, but he's a lame duck prez the the LOWEST approval rating since Jimmy farking Carter.

If the Dems wanted to restore the constitution, now is the time.

Another 1st for me not only am I on Al Franken's side for not allowing congressmen to be lobbyists, but I'm agreeing with the ACLU on its lawsuit against the constitutionality of the FISA 2008 law.

Somethings seriously wrong with our leaders if I'm agreeing with Franken.

SherKhan:Weaver95:

I'm not saying that this is the fault of any one party. 02:00:51 PM

When you were a younger man you sorta did. It seems like only yesterday

Right now, this is the Democrats show. 01:46:50 PM

sad. you are usually more perceptive than this.

burndtdan:Weaver95:HulkHands:Haha. That was great. They're blaming the Democrats for this

Right now, this is the Democrats show. they can shut down FISA and restore the 4th amendment, if that's what they wanted done. But they won't. Because there is no functional difference between Republican and Democrat these days.

but there are a number of fallacies in that analysis. first, it is looking at the mote in the democrats' eyes when there's a whole forest of beams in the republicans' eyes.

second, it's generalizing too much with democrats... they were split pretty much in half. yes, that isn't the way to accomplish what we want them to accomplish, but to sit back and generalize the people who did try as complicit and indistinguishable from the republicans is pretty lame. there is a difference between the republicans and democrats... there was only one respectable republican taking part in each house, there were hundreds of respectable democrats.

True but the only good that comes of that perspective is knowing who should be recalled and who shouldn't, which doesn't work if people don't care.

constitution-raping


It's only claiming rape because it doesn't want to get in trouble with its boyfriend.

CHB is the moonbat equivalent of World Nut Daily.

Rock on, smitty. Of course, I think that jsut aboutr every day, so what prompted the outburst, exactly?

Oh. The FISA bill.

/There's at least 69 lamp posts in DC
//Getting close to time for a rope recall

Weaver95:

sad. you are usually more perceptive than this.

Oh yeah? Well... I plead sobriety. It won't last. Never does.

The Constitution is a suicide pact. My rights are more important than your kid's lives. Fawke you.

RussianPooper:Weaver95:HulkHands:Haha. That was great. They're blaming the Democrats for this

Right now, this is the Democrats show. they can shut down FISA and restore the 4th amendment, if that's what they wanted done. But they won't. Because there is no functional difference between Republican and Democrat these days.

How can they shut it down? They can't sign the bills to enact the changes.

*facepalm*
i hate to admit it but it's true. the dems are in the majority and they caved and let the 4th amendment get raped. hell even obama caved. oddly enough hillary voted against.
why they're scared of that bozo in office with the 23% approval rating is beyond me.
this bill/law will go before scotus though. i suspect roberts will try to annull it.

HulkHands:Haha. That was great. They're blaming the Democrats for this

No, they're blaming SOME Democrats for this.
It's like blaming a rose for stinking vs. blaming a skunk.

Weaver95:Right now, this is the Democrats show. they can shut down FISA and restore the 4th amendment, if that's what they wanted done. But they won't. Because there is no functional difference between Republican and Democrat these days.

There is one;

SOME Democrats will side with Republicans.
NO Republicans will side with Democrats.

Weaver95:burndtdan:Weaver95:HulkHands:Haha. That was great. They're blaming the Democrats for this

Right now, this is the Democrats show. they can shut down FISA and restore the 4th amendment, if that's what they wanted done. But they won't. Because there is no functional difference between Republican and Democrat these days.

but there are a number of fallacies in that analysis. first, it is looking at the mote in the democrats' eyes when there's a whole forest of beams in the republicans' eyes.

second, it's generalizing too much with democrats... they were split pretty much in half. yes, that isn't the way to accomplish what we want them to accomplish, but to sit back and generalize the people who did try as complicit and indistinguishable from the republicans is pretty lame. there is a difference between the republicans and democrats... there was only one respectable republican taking part in each house, there were hundreds of respectable democrats.

I'm not saying that this is the fault of any one party. arguing over who's at fault is pointless. Actually, an argument about who's at fault is a great way to ensure nothing gets changed at all.

Look - we all agree this is farked up. we all know that Republicans and Democrats alike farked it up. Right now, the Democrats are in position to unfark it for us. And they are in a position that's pretty much unassailable too, since the Republicans are weaker today then they have been in DECADES....

Given all that, do you really want to sit around and play 'he said/she said'?

I got that funny feeling in the pit of my stomach and my knees went weak when I read this. Thank you.

/in my bunk.
//compromise, my ass.

Weaver95:Oh i'm sure they could over-ride a presidential veto. NOBODY in Congress wants to be seen supporting Bush. And Bush is not only a lame duck prez, but he's a lame duck prez the the LOWEST approval rating since Jimmy farking Carter.

But see, they can't. And while nationally Bush is hated, in congressional pockets, he can still be popular enough that openly defying him would be extremely harmful to a republican. And of course, the RNC will cut the finding of anyone who doesn't tow the party line.

You KNOW there were republicans who disagree with this Bill. But they voted lock-step with their party. The democrats have to go back in a few months to start running for reelection. Having marks against them that they voted against terrorist tracking... yeah, nice to bring to the people.

That's why I'm saying this bill was a complete and total ploy by the GOP. THey don't give a crap about FISA or Immunity for Telcoms.

I just hope the Telcoms understand this, and work completely with the Obama administration to find the real bad guys here.

What happens when someone sues a phone company for being wiretapped anyway?

/'cause the new law is unconstitutional

Weaver95:Given all that, do you really want to sit around and play 'he said/she said'?

no, i already donated $50 to the ACLU to help them fight it in court.

Sgygus:What happens when someone sues a phone company for being wiretapped anyway?

/'cause the new law is unconstitutional

You need proof that you're wiretapped. Oh, that's classified. You might be a threat and we wouldn't want you to know.

The ACLU tried this. They had evidence (The NSA accidentally included classified info in the discovery information given to the plaintiff) and everything. It was tossed out since it wasn't supposed to be given to them

blick:i hate to admit it but it's true. the dems are in the majority and they caved and let the 4th amendment get raped. hell even obama caved. oddly enough hillary voted against.
why they're scared of that bozo in office with the 23% approval rating is beyond me.
this bill/law will go before scotus though. i suspect roberts will try to annull it.

Don't be a drama queen. This does nothing to impact the Fourth Amendment, just as the passage of the initial FISA act did nothing to strengthen it. All congress did was take back some rights that they gave you when they passed FISA in 1978. Your Constitutional rights remain intact.

Meh, this FISA thing is a great example of how the two-party system is screwing us.

Yes, the Dems dropped the ball and should have done something about this.

But voting for Republicans sure isn't going to solve this problem, they're the reason we're in this situation in the first place.

That said, blaming the Dems for this while ignoring the GOP contribution is intellectually dishonest, at best.

Approves of Subby's headline!

Typical White Person:blick:i hate to admit it but it's true. the dems are in the majority and they caved and let the 4th amendment get raped. hell even obama caved. oddly enough hillary voted against.
why they're scared of that bozo in office with the 23% approval rating is beyond me.
this bill/law will go before scotus though. i suspect roberts will try to annull it.

Don't be a drama queen. This does nothing to impact the Fourth Amendment, just as the passage of the initial FISA act did nothing to strengthen it. All congress did was take back some rights that they gave you when they passed FISA in 1978. Your Constitutional rights remain intact.

Aw...don't take away the Chicken Little's fun...

Why did they leave Barack Obama's name off the list of dems that voted for this piece of shiat legislation?

You know, I sort of sympathize with the ratbastard Democratic turncoats here. If the interim "corrections" to the 1978 FISA legislation had been allowed to lapse, President Pissypants and his minions would have thrown a tantrum and whined about how the Democrat Congress had sided with the turrists - and the lapdog media would have sold the story for them. It would have been all "the Democrats are soft on security!" all the time, and the public would have been bamboozled once again. And there's a kernel of truth there - if one assumes that the 1978 FISA legislation was a good thing (which I do not, but I'm clearly in the minority), then some technical corrections were clearly required to account for new technology. It's fairly easy to make the leap from this fact to the assertion that the new FISA bill is in some sense "necessary."

The real problem I have is that for all the talk about how the Democrats can fix the problem once they get their presumed supermajorities in both houses of Congress and the White House, I don't think for a moment that will ever happen.

CravenMorehead:Why did they leave Barack Obama's name off the list of dems that voted for this piece of shiat legislation?

It was the list of Dems that voted against the amendment that would have stripped immunity from telecoms.

Typical White Person:Don't be a drama queen. This does nothing to impact the Fourth Amendment, just as the passage of the initial FISA act did nothing to strengthen it. All congress did was take back some rights that they gave you when they passed FISA in 1978. Your Constitutional rights remain intact.

you haven't read the bill have you?

if you have, i'd like for you to explain how it isn't a breach of the 4th amendment to grant the executive the authority to continue wiretapping after being denied a warrant by the FISC, all the way through the appeals process (which can take months/years), and regardless of the outcome, keep and use any and all information gathered.

or how it isn't a breach of the 4th amendment to set up blanket court authorizations not for a particular warrant but for the automatic screening mechanism, meaning that the authorization is not based on probable cause and does not "particularly [describe] the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

BMulligan:You know, I sort of sympathize with the ratbastard Democratic turncoats here. If the interim "corrections" to the 1978 FISA legislation had been allowed to lapse, President Pissypants and his minions would have thrown a tantrum and whined about how the Democrat Congress had sided with the turrists - and the lapdog media would have sold the story for them. It would have been all "the Democrats are soft on security!" all the time, and the public would have been bamboozled once again. And there's a kernel of truth there - if one assumes that the 1978 FISA legislation was a good thing (which I do not, but I'm clearly in the minority), then some technical corrections were clearly required to account for new technology. It's fairly easy to make the leap from this fact to the assertion that the new FISA bill is in some sense "necessary."

Eh...they should have dumped FISA altogether.

Well, time to get the ball rolling.

/BOMBS TERRORISM BUSH 9-11 MUPPET BABIES PRESIDENT ASSASSINATE FIST BUMP JIHAD WHISKEY TANGO BRAVO MOONINITE OSAMA
//waves to the NSA

tr0g:Rock on, smitty. Of course, I think that jsut aboutr every day, so what prompted the outburst, exactly?

Oh. The FISA bill.

/There's at least 69 lamp posts in DC
//Getting close to time for a rope recall

Too late. You don't have any machine guns.

Two comments if I may.

Don't argue or think for a second that "they're both alike". They're both as listed in the article but they end up doing us differently. There are definite differences but we still end up pregnant. The Dems want this b/c they'll have the power they want when they get thier turn, unfortunately it get tricky about here...exponential growth of corrupt government begins in earnest.

Second, "this law is unconstitutional". come-on they just rewrote the law and the constitution. Argue lame. More aggressive action necessary.

Write a few hundred letters to your friends and tell them they're now being actively watched (by the other party) for receiving this correspondence from you. Pay if forward. By reading this email you could be on the list....who can tell you otherwise anymore.

Don't waste time with "legal" or "unconstitutional" say more like DANGEROUS, CATASTROPHIC or harmful to your kids.

Thanks

doyner:It was the list of Dems that voted against the amendment that would have stripped immunity from telecoms.

Oops, my bad.

Sgygus:What happens when someone sues a phone company for being wiretapped anyway?

/'cause the new law is unconstitutional

The 4th Amendment only limits the government (so you can sue the DoJ). You'd sue the telcos not for violating your constitutional rights, but for a civil cause of action, and yes, Congress can create or destroy those causes of action as it sees fit.

> They're blaming the Democrats for this

As well they should. The Democratic leadership could have shut this down without any trouble at any point in the past 6 months. Instead, they actively supported it and helpfully moved it forward, loudly echoing every lunatic GOP talking point along the way. It would not, could not, have even come up for a vote, much less passed, without the willing participation of Reid, Pelosi, Obama, and a few others. Heck, the Republican Congress a few years back explicity put the kibosh on telecom immunity, something our reps have utterly failed to do.

I expect this sort of craven, shortsighted, or tactical crap from Republicans. They are so far gone that I'm truly surprised they managed to scrounge up 2 dissenters from the whole lot. We elected Democrats in '06 to be better than this. That they were only 50% stupid as opposed to the GOP's 99.5% doesn't improve my opinion of them in the least.

Obama's offense is the worst, though. Forget the fact that he broke his word and sold us out. He was just plain lazy. At any point, all he had to do was stand up in front of that crowd and promise them that if the President is allowed to place warrantless wiretaps on American citizens if and when he takes office in January, the first and only people who'll receive such treatment will be the ones who passed the law letting him do it.

The RWAs from both parties are operating under the delusion that unaccountable government can't be corrupt and only criminals need fear it. They are dead wrong, their mistake is taking the country down with them, and they need to find out firsthand what it's like to be on the receiving end of a good old-fashioned Kafka-esque nightmare.

burndtdan:you haven't read the bill have you?

if you have, i'd like for you to explain how it isn't a breach of the 4th amendment to grant the executive the authority to continue wiretapping after being denied a warrant by the FISC, all the way through the appeals process (which can take months/years), and regardless of the outcome, keep and use any and all information gathered.

or how it isn't a breach of the 4th amendment to set up blanket court authorizations not for a particular warrant but for the automatic screening mechanism, meaning that the authorization is not based on probable cause and does not "particularly [describe] the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

You don't understand the law very much, do you? The administration has to comply with 1) the Fourth Amendment and 2) FISA. You could repeal FISA completely, and your Fourth Amendment rights will still stand. This does nothing to change that. All this does is roll back the congressionally created rights that FISA gave in the first place.

Isn't there anything we can do as American citizens? There has to be something right?

burndtdan:or how it isn't a breach of the 4th amendment to set up blanket court authorizations not for a particular warrant but for the automatic screening mechanism, meaning that the authorization is not based on probable cause and does not "particularly [describe] the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

Without FISA, no court authorization is need to wiretap calls where you have no expectation of privacy. The Fourth Amendment isn't implicated in instances where you have no expectation of privacy.

Typical White Person:
You don't understand the law very much, do you? The administration has to comply with 1) the Fourth Amendment and 2) FISA. You could repeal FISA completely, and your Fourth Amendment rights will still stand. This does nothing to change that. All this does is roll back the congressionally created rights that FISA gave in the first place.

Oh, silly us. We didn't realize that Bush would obey the Constitution. Why the change of heart?

Typical White Person:All congress did was take back some rights that they gave you when they passed FISA in 1978. Your Constitutional rights remain intact.

Your last second doesn't jive with the first. This has been a long time coming. Sort of like that 'we don't need a declaration of war to go to war' crap. The Constitution has been increasingly marginalized since the 1930s. Whichever 'team' is in power at any point in time takes away a little more and the sycophants cheer it on.

cltbuilder:Oh, silly us. We didn't realize that Bush would obey the Constitution. Why the change of heart?

He will...you just have to get a court to tell him what the Constitution says, first.

Typical White Person:You don't understand the law very much, do you? The administration has to comply with 1) the Fourth Amendment and 2) FISA. You could repeal FISA completely, and your Fourth Amendment rights will still stand. This does nothing to change that. All this does is roll back the congressionally created rights that FISA gave in the first place.

the executive has to do a lot of things it has shown no interest in doing. and while this law is on the books, regardless of it's legitimacy, the executive will use it as a guide to their actions. the 4th amendment in particular and the bill of rights in general aren't meant to just protect us from a theoretical tyranny, but from the actual acts of tyranny whether they theoretically should be happening or not. but since with this law in place those acts, ie warrantless surveillance, will be occurring, this bill does damage the 4th amendment while it stands in a very real way, even if it doesn't in a more esoteric way.

Shaggy_C:Your last second doesn't jive with the first.

Huh? Congress didn't give you "Constitutional rights" when they passed FISA in 1978. They didn't take "Constitutional rights" away with the passage of the new act.

Typical White Person:Without FISA, no court authorization is need to wiretap calls where you have no expectation of privacy. The Fourth Amendment isn't implicated in instances where you have no expectation of privacy.

True, of course. But please, tell me - why is there no expectation of privacy in the electronic communications addressed by FISA?