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Yes, I stole the whole postSubmitted by Prometheus 6 on December 19, 2005 - 3:31pm.
on War The Truth About Bush's Warrantless Spying On Saturday, President Bush acknowledged that he had personally authorized a secret warrantless domestic surveillance program more than three dozen times since October 2001. Bush's actions run contrary to the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which forbids "unreasonable searches" and sets out specific requirements for warrants, including "probable cause." They demonstrate a dangerous disregard for the basic liberties that serve as our nation's guiding values. They are also in violation of federal law. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) makes it a crime, punishable by up to five years in prison, to conduct electronic surveillance, except as "authorized by and conducted pursuant to a search warrant or court order." Moreover, since 1978, 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2511(2)(f) has directed that Title III and FISA "shall be the exclusive means by which electronic surveillance...and the interception of domestic wire and oral communications may be conducted." The President's actions were not necessary; if he had legitimate concerns about FISA, "the appropriate response would have been to go to Congress and expand it, not to blatantly violate the law." Below, we debunk the administration's attempts to justify Bush's actions. FACT: BUSH PROGRAM WOULD NOT HAVE PREVENTED SEPTEMBER 11 ATTACKS: Vice President Cheney said of the surveillance program, "It's the kind of capability, if we'd had before 9/11, might have led us to be able to prevent 9/11." This claim is false and sensational. The secret surveillance program authorized by President Bush did not provide the government with any new "capability." The government "already had the capacity to read your mail and your e-mail and listen to your telephone conversations. All it had to do was obtain a warrant from a special court created for this purpose. The burden of proof for obtaining a warrant was relaxed a bit after 9/11, but even before the attacks the court hardly ever rejected requests." Indeed, from 1979 to 2002, the FISA court issued 15,264 surveillance warrants. Not a single warrant application was rejected. FACT: BUSH PROGRAM DID NOT IMPROVE SPEED OF OBTAINING WARRANTS: Another claim made by members of the administration is that President Bush needed "to skirt the normal process of obtaining court-approved search warrants for the surveillance because it was too cumbersome for fast-paced counterterrorism investigations." This argument has several flaws. For one, the New York Times notes, "government officials are able to get an emergency warrant from the secret court within hours, sometimes minutes, if they can show an imminent threat." More importantly, Section 1805 of the FISA Act states that the government can begin a wiretap as soon as it determines a need and can wait up to 72 hours before obtaining a warrant. The Bush administration "did not seek to do that under the special program." FACT: DISCLOSURE OF PROGRAM DID NOT UNDERMINE NATIONAL SECURITY: After the New York Times published its story, President Bush and other top administration officials refused to confirm the existence of the surveillance program, arguing that doing so would endanger the American people. Bush said on Friday he wouldn't "comment about the veracity of the story...because it would compromise our ability to protect the people." Press Secretary Scott McClellan and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice both repeated this line. Within hours, however, President Bush not only confirmed the existence of the program in a Saturday morning address, but provided details about how it worked. In other words, the administration's initial refusal to comment was motivated by public relations, not security, concerns. The scope of surveillance under FISA -- which has long been public -- is the same under President Bush's secretive program. FACT: RICE UNABLE TO EXPLAIN WHAT GAVE BUSH AUTHORITY TO EAVESDROP WITHOUT WARRANT: Yesterday, Condoleezza Rice was asked a simple question: what is the specific statute or law that gives President Bush the authority to eavesdrop on Americans without a warrant? She had no answer. Instead, Rice referenced unspecified "authorities that derive from his role as Commander in Chief and his need to protect the country," then explained she was "not a lawyer and I am quite certain that the Attorney General will address a lot of these questions." Indeed, Rice said several times that she is "not a lawyer." That fact is irrelevant. Rice was the National Security Adviser when President Bush authorized the NSA program, and said today that she was aware of Bush’s decision at the time. Shouldn’t she know why it was legal? FACT: SOME CONGRESSIONAL INTELLIGENCE OFFICIALS NOT TOLD OF PROGRAM: Yesterday, Condoleezza Rice defended the eavesdropping program by arguing that congressional leaders -- specifically "leaders of the relevant oversight intelligence committees" -- had been briefed on the NSA activities. This is apparently not true. At the time the program was initiated, the Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee was former Sen. Bob Graham (D-FL). On Friday's "Nightline," Graham made clear he had never been briefed by the administration about the program: "There was no reference made to the fact that we were going to...begin unwarranted, illegal, and I think unconstitutional, eavesdropping on American citizens." Additionally, in a letter issued last night, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said she had been "advised by Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA), Ranking Democrat on House Intelligence Committee, that the Bush Administration reversed its decision to brief the full House Intelligence Committee on the details of the activities." FACT: IN CONFIRMATION HEARING, GONZALES DENIED BUSH WOULD ACT BEYOND CRIMINAL STATUTES: In a classified legal opinion, the administration argued the President had the power to order the warrantless search pursuant to his authority as commander-in-chief to wage war against al-Qaeda. During his Attorney General confirmation hearings in January 2005, Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) asked Gonzales specifically whether the president "at least in theory [has] the authority to authorize violations of the criminal law under duly enacted statutes simply because he's commander in chief?" After trying to dodge the question for a time, Gonzales issued this denial: "Senator, this president is not — I — it is not the policy or the agenda of this president to authorize actions that would be in contravention of our criminal statutes." Later, Feingold asked Gonzales to "commit to notify Congress if the president makes this type of decision and not wait two years until a memo is leaked about it." Gonzales replied, "I will advise the Congress as soon as I reasonably can, yes, sir." A couple of weeks ago Br. CNulan offered the view that he thought a few of us were becoming unduly paranoid in response to our postings about making plans to get our hats and step away from Uncle Sam. He might have been right but given the fact that we have a government that claims it has a right to go into any bedroom in the world and kidnap people and make them disappear a' la' General Pinochet for any reason it deems appropriate and just (The term "rendition" is a euphemism for the much more apt word "kidnapping".); and, a president who, after first denying, then refusing and, finally, admitting to having authorized wiretaps on American citizens without first obtaining a warrant and says that he will continue to do so (In other words: "fuck y'all and the horses you rode up here on" or "I ain't got to show you no stinkin' warrants.") our paranoia seems reasonable to me. Kudos and a campaign contribution from me for Senator Russell Feingold. Where is Senator Obama? His silence is deafening. Or better yet, how does Aristide wind up in the Central African Republic? That's your paradigmatic test case. Scoop and Drop. Listen for the Roar. No roar. Repeat until exhaustion. Last time I heard anything about Senator Obama he was siddling up next to Warren Buffett getting anointed in cash. Oh, now that's not nice. Didn't you read what Buffett had to say in Fortune? He's really down for the cause. LOL. Re: Barack Obama Big Money bets on all the horses that look like likely winners. And since each horse thinks that he or she is most likely to win they will always take Big Money. The Bush administration has a good case for the Constitutionality of their action if - and it hinges on this point - the targets of their warrantless surveillance were actually in contact with known al Qaida operatives because of the first resolution to use force passed after 9/11 formally acknowledged the use of war powers and satisfaction of the terms of The War Powers Act. The problem here is that the Bush Administration does not believe that its actions can be constitutionally challenged. I'm not an attorney but it seems likely to me that the only parties with sufficient standing to contest the constitutionality of the Bush Administration's actions would be those Americans who have been the object of these warrantless wiretaps. If the Congress and the Courts have granted the President the authority to conduct secret wiretaps, then how would those whose phones have been tapped - regardless of whether or not a warrant has been issued - determine this fact. Not the Bush Administration nor the administration of any president claiming such broad authority would be willing to turn over the names of these individuals either to the individuals in question or the courts. The president's lawyers would assert that to do so would jeopardize national security. The current members of the Supreme Court especially its so-called liberals lack the balls to challenge such an action. After all, Justice Scalia forced Justice Ginsburg to delete a passage from her dissent in the case that awarded George Bush the presidency in 2000 when she attempted to express concern about the disenfranchisement of many of Florida's black voters.
Well, Scalia can't " force" Ginsburg ir another Justice to do anything. What they do is essentially bargain over the language that will be used in the dissents and the opinion. For scalia to get more support or less strident opposition to his legal argument he has to give something up. I believe that the statute governing covert operations ( not FISA, the older, blanket statute from the 1970's) names specific constitutional officers and party leaders in the Legislative Branch, thus giving them standing. However, bringing suit under such grounds substantively concedes the constitutional argument to the Bush administration- however inarticulately they are making it - while leaving the fine-tuning of the execution of that survellance to the courts, which I would expect, would issue some kind of guidelines for future action. Personally, if the NSA was working backwards from foreign, overseas, al Qaida operatives to those in contact with them back here, I have no problem with that. There's no " constitutional right" to be in contact with the enemy nor should such activity fall under peacetime standards of criminal law. Providing aid and comfort to al Qaida is at a minimum a felony under the Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, probably it constitutes Sedition as well and at a maximum it's treason. Al qaida ain't the same thing, legally speaking, as the 1970's SLA. On the other hand, generic surveillance of individuals on some kind of a " hunch" or is completely unacceptable, even in wartime, and is a precedent that must not be allowed to stand. What happened and why needs to be formally investigated by the Intelligence Committees. Mark (alias Anonymous):
...which seems to be what happened. I mean, I'm no friend of PETA but damn... And my research last night convinced me Bush's legal team built in an escape valve. Gonzales says the decision on who to surveil is made by shift supervisors at the NSA. This is significant because the law penalizes those who actually do the surveillance illegally, not those who authorize the illegal surveillance. Let's hear it for the textualists. Hooray! Hooray! Well, Scalia can't " force" Ginsburg ir another Justice to do anything. Yes, it is true that Justice Scalia can't force Justice Ginsberg or any other member of the Court to do anything if that member is either opposed to or simply not inclined to fulfill Justice Scalia's demands. What Justice Scalia did do is to threaten to include in his opinion an accusation that Justice Ginsberg was playing the race card in pointing out what she felt were racially discriminatory practices of Florida state and local election officials. Faced with this threat to breach what she considered to be the Court's decorum, Justice Ginsburg removed that section from her dissenting opinion. The point being made here was not what ultimately caused Justice Ginsberg to remove allegedly controversial language from her dissenting opinion but the fact that she and other liberals on the court are too inclined to defer to ideological bullies such as Justice Scalia. If Justice Ginsberg believed that what she wrote was true then she should have left it in her opinion rather than remove it on the grounds of trying to maintain some sense of decorum within the Court. Personally, if the NSA was working backwards from foreign, overseas, al Qaida operatives to those in contact with them back here, I have no problem with that. There's no " constitutional right" to be in contact with the enemy nor should such activity fall under peacetime standards of criminal law. There is no Constitutional right to conduct warrantless wiretaps against American citizens regardless of who the government believes they may have or may not have talked to. In 1973, the FBI ran a criminal and national security background check on me because I had declined to talk to some of its agents about who I saw or didn't see coming in and out of the Black Panther Free Breakfast Program that was located across the street from my apartment on Downey Street in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury neighborhood. I had never been arrested or even charged with a crime in my life. I wasn 't a member of the Panthers and I did not have any contact with any individuals or groups who were seeking to violently overthrow the government of the United States. The behavior of the FBI didn't frighten me in the least because I was convinced then and now that most of them are brain donors but the FBI had no right to investigate me because I lived across the street from a program that fed needy and hungry children. J. Edgar Hoover, by the way, believed that the n umber one threat to American security was the Black Panther Free Breakfast Program. I should have added that I had reason to believe that the FBI tapped my phone but I have never been stupid or egocentric enough to talk about things over a phone that could get me in trouble with the law. Nonetheless, these clowns had no right to tap my phone or the phones of my neighbors.
"Personally, if the NSA was working backwards from foreign, overseas, al Qaida operatives to those in contact with them back here, I have no problem with that. There's no " constitutional right" to be in contact with the enemy nor should such activity fall under peacetime standards of criminal law. Providing aid and comfort to al Qaida is at a minimum a felony under the Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, probably it constitutes Sedition as well and at a maximum it's treason. Al qaida ain't the same thing, legally speaking, as the 1970's SLA." The stench of bullshit wafting off that post is so strong I have to hold my nose and type with one hand. Anonymous has no idea who the Bush administration has been spying on or for what reasons. Al Cia-duh is just a handy scapegoat or diversion for yet another end run around the constitution. The same kind of end run that put that Bush in the white house in the first place. The stench is deeper than bullshit. As I grow older I am becoming increasingly fed-up with folks who are always reflexively supportive under the guise of national security of the government's abridgement of other people rights as articulated under the Constitution of the United States. These folks actually believe that our government has the right to break into anyone's home any place in the world and kidnap them as long as that person is a suspected Arab terrorist or is suspected of having contact with suspected Arab terrorists. They fail to see that if these kinds of policies are allowed to continue, then eventually the government will not provide any reason or justification for its behavior. It will do so because it has the power to do so. The reasons don't matter and if they do matter, it will only be as an after thought. An ex post facto justification. We killed more than 3 million Vietnamese and have probably killed in excess of 250,000 Iraqis but somehow these folks want us to believe that history, the world and the rule of law changed because 19 Arabs hijacked four passenger jet planes and turned them into guided missles resulting in the deaths of more than 3,000 Americans. Why didn't the world change when 1 million Rwandans were slaughtered?
Having gone through the exercise myself a few years ago, I came to the conclusion that the odds were better for me and mine if we focused on forging adamantine bonds of community - and - making ourselves indispensible within the enveloping context of the same..., Now, a clan can be bombed and surveilled from afar, but it's really hard to penetrate in the up-close-and-personal sort of way required for someone to stroll up into your hood, much less your crib, and perpetrate any kind of old gangsta shit. Simply think in terms of the Mormons, or better still, the Roma. In America, the Roma (so-called Gypsies) have the additional advantage of a language that only a handful of academicians know fluently. On the very low profile, the Roma perpetrate all kinds of Roma-partisan stuff and seldom ever get called out for it, much less busted. The older I get, the more locally and intensely clannish I become..., In America, the Roma (so-called Gypsies) have the additional advantage of a language that only a handful of academicians know fluently. On the very low profile, the Roma perpetrate all kinds of Roma-partisan stuff and seldom ever get called out for it, much less busted. I have a very close friend who did a lot of mediation work in eastern Europe following the breakup of the Soviet Union and its satellite nations. Most of her work was specifically focused on the Roma and the problems they were encountering in terms of trying to get these new governments to pay attention to their needs and issues. My friend, who is a fourh generation American of strictly Lebanese descent, said that while the Roma weren't treated quite as bad as African Americans were in the 1950s, i.e., they weren't lynched or murdered, the effects of the discriminatory practices against them in terms of housing, education, employment etc. was as effectively limiting and debilitating. The Roma are lucky to be in America. I may wind up in the end being buried in the same cemetary as my parents but I still think I may need an escape plan for whatever happens down the road.
"We killed more than 3 million Vietnamese and have probably killed in excess of 250,000 Iraqis but somehow these folks want us to believe that history, the world and the rule of law changed because 19 Arabs hijacked four passenger jet planes and turned them into guided missles resulting in the deaths of more than 3,000 Americans. Why didn't the world change when 1 million Rwandans were slaughtered?" Aaaaaaaaaaaaah. I love the smell of "context" in the morning. Thanks PT. "The stench of bullshit wafting off that post is so strong I have to hold my nose and type with one hand. Anonymous has no idea who the Bush administration has been spying on or for what reasons. Al Cia-duh is just a handy scapegoat or diversion for yet another end run around the constitution" Ah, the conspiracy theorists raise their ugly head. sure, al qaida is a figment of the CIA's imagination. Bush bombed the WTC. Riiiight I thought I was having a serious conversation. Guess not. That's the difference between you and us. We are having a serious discussion but you believe that a serious discussion is only taking place when you control the universe of discourse. Osam bin Ladin and his followers are not fictional characters but you want them to be the end-all and be-all of everyone's existence because you believe that the lives of Americans are ipso facto worth more than the lives of other human beings on this earth. The real problem is that we are not going to allow you to tell us what is important and what is not. If you don't like it, then get to stepping. sigh My life could be easier. You want to know the truth, if you traced your way from an Al Qaida operative to an American citizen, I got no beef with you tapping the American's phone anymore than I'd have problems issuing a beat-down on someone I found was merely planning to give me, personally, any grief. The problem here is, that ain't what happened. The problem here is the Conservative movement's disregard for law. The threat Al Qaida represents to the USofA pales before the threat of the destruction of the balance of power between the branches of government.
"I thought I was having a serious conversation. Guess not.." Anonymous, the "Fluffers for Bush" meeting is down the hall. I didn't know you guys could fluff and talk at the same time. "The threat Al Qaida represents to the USofA pales before the threat of the destruction of the balance of power between the branches of government." The threat the incompetence of the Bush regime poses to the security of this country is greater than that of any foreign "terrorist" organization. Does anyone really believe an administration that couldn't deliver food and water to the citizens of one of its major cities after a hurricane can protect the entire nation from attack or provide timely assistance in the aftermath of an attack. Katrina didn't just expose the problems of race and class in this country; it exposed the lack of preparedness, organization, and competence at the highest levels of government. You want to know the truth, if you traced your way from an Al Qaida operative to an American citizen, I got no beef with you tapping the American's phone anymore than I'd have problems issuing a beat-down on someone I found was merely planning to give me, personally, any grief. Yes, indeedy!
...and competence at the highest levels of government. Let's add the budget surplus these nummies inherited from the Clinton Administration and managed to piss entirely away in less than three years based on their worship at the altar of voodoo economics. Or starting a completely unnecessary war and sending our soldiers into battle without the equipment needed to protect their lives. Now we have George "What Air National Guard" Bush and Dick "Five Deferments" Chaney telling us that they are going to protect our lives. Somebody tell these Maryland farmers to be for real.
A federal judge has resigned from a special court set up to oversee government surveillance to protest President Bush's secret authorization of a domestic spying program on people with suspected terrorist ties, The Washington Post reported. The action by U.S. District Judge James Robertson stemmed from deep concern that the surveillance program that Bush authorized was legally questionable and may have tainted the work of the court that Robertson resigned from, the newspaper said in Wednesday's editions. I've been missing out...there's some good stuff in there. First, let me get at this Barack Obama thing...I'm reserving judgment, so I won't blast the cat for taking money from Buffett or for taking a measured stance re: wiretaps, etc. It may be that his stance on this issue is purely politics - not in the sense you might immediately imagine, but in a much more mundane sense. Obama is the junior senator from Illinois. It so happens that the senior senator from Illinois is Dick Durban. Durban serves on Senate Judiciary Committee that is chaired by Arlen Specter. Durban has called for Senate hearings on the issue...as has Specter. I can't say what will come of this...it may be that Bush's nonchalance has annoyed some of his sponsors and they may be willing to take a measured hit to avoid a larger hit (high-level censure; quid pro quo on a budget item; favorable support to Sen. Cmte. states;etc.). It may also be that this entire story is a well-timed subterfuge for some other major money story that is passing unnoticed on page 32 of your local paper with trillion dollar implications. It's almost uncanny how stories like this come out around the holidays - this would have been a great story just before the election. It seems to me that Obama may simply be deferring to Durban - especially since this is not an issue where he can distinguish himself politically by attacking Bush. The bandwagon is full. Now would appear the time to be a quiet, calm participant in the mob attack...swing a few clubs, stomp out some teeth, but don't say a word. Boom, crash, hush! Obama has a bigger upside than Durban, but will need his assistance to make a power move in national politics (or at least a benign agreement to move out of the way). This is not the time to steal his thunder. Hey, O- Robert Duvall never said it so good. T3, I hear you on Obama. I'm willing to give brother Obama the benefit of the doubt, despite his confimation vote for Condoleeza Rice. But ... I know you knew that but was coming ... and it's a big ol' Shanaynay kinda BUTT... BUT the system is awash with corporate money. The people vote, but corporations and the wealthy buy elected officials. The only way an average citizen can be made equal to Buffett and his ilk in the political process is to establish the "one person one vote" regime that makes for a genuine democracy. That can only be accomplished through financing political campaigns with public dollars and making private political contributions and corporate lobbying illegal. Buffett and his ilk should not be allowed to vote with their checkbooks. Obama had to play the game to get elected. And he has to play the game to stay elected. But if he is a genuine "progressive" he has to do more than "play the game" of politics as usual. To do otherwise simply perpetuates the status quo. I do think you are right about "reserving judgment" on the "junior" Senator. I've done so already, for the most part, because I know his record in Illinois. I also know we desperately need his leadership nationally. Hey man, was that your "fair and balanced" demo tape I peeped on Fox 'Casters of the Future? LOL. Shanaynay got a big 'ol butt, oh yeah. Ow! Sexy, sexy. Was I toe dancing down the middle of the road? The "hope" in me wants to give brah Obama the "fair and balanced" treatment. But the black partisan in me has been disappointed too many times and is quick to reach for a rhetorical shotgun at the slightest sign of betrayal. Obama's just getting started. I'm giving him space too. It was kind of interesting how he got the position...and I hope he's aware he's in a GREAT spot to get progressive, because it something's up with white folks in Illinois; it really looks like the desperately want the right thing done. After all, the same people gave us our last Black Senator. I don't know why, I don't care why. But I'll be pissed if the brother doesn't do the right thing with all that support. Speaking of our last black senator ... Carol Mosely Braun turned out to be a corrupt political hack of the worse ilk. That's another reason why so much is riding on Obama's shoulders. I've only recently emerged from my rock. It's been really dark and damp down there. So, could you 'splain that last bit about Mosely-Braun. It's not that I don't enjoy politics, it's just that the rock is so damn big - and heavy. Thanks O. Links will suffice - if it helps to make the case. I'll leave the particulars to you. Mosely-Braun's (and Jesse Jackson's) association with the late Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha was the straw that broke the camel's back for me. But if you ever want to know why she was a one-term wonder in the Senate, here's a brief summary of her "record" of accomplishments as a politician. Go 'head witcha bad sef. Oh, check this link and then tell me you don't love the internet. You just can't make this stuff up. LOMFL. http://www.opensecrets.org/pubs/cashingin_104th/09glaxo.html The Skeleton Closet didn't relay the story exactly correctly, but the point is well taken...it's interesting that this loop hole did not die a quiet death, but continued. And of course, Glaxo (maker of Zantac) merged with SmithKline (maker of Tagament). Oy veh! It's giving me gas just thinking about it. LOL. Braun was ass deep in da shiznit while in office. During the last Presidential campaign none of the whiteboy Democrap candidates could challenge her on her record for fear of alienating the black vote. And the only blackboy who was running, Al Sharpton, is just as corrupt as she is. Braun was ass deep in da shiznit while in office. I actually met Carol Mosely Braun a couple of years before she was elected to the Senate. In fact, I had a sit down meeting that lasted about an hour in her office with her and one other person who had set up the meeting. I was still in the business of the care and feeding of politicians at that time and the person who arranged the meeting is a native son of Chicago and is an extremely well-connected player on the local political scene. He still calls me now and then to strategize about matters that he is involved in and I am happy to give him advice because he is down for the community. He had arranged this particular meeting because he thought that the people who were gathering around Braun were weak and too opportunistic. In other words, he thought that she needed to be around people who could walk and chew gum at the same time and maintain some integrity. It was a good meeting as meetings of that sort go. We discussed various issues and campaign strategies (she was not running for the Senate then) related to her reelection etc. She looked at my portfolio of campaign literature and mailers that I had written and designed. Then she had to leave for a meeting and the three of us walked out of her Cook County office together. She promised to call me later. She never telephoned but the following year I received a fundraising solicitation from her Senate campaign. I called my friend in Chicago and asked him if I should send her some money. He said no; it would just be wasted.
Three names besmirched by character failings, when two would have done just fine. During the last Presidential campaign none of the whiteboy Democrap candidates could challenge her on her record for fear of alienating the black vote. The problem with giving incompetent black politicians a pass is that white politicians and others including members of the press work out a scenario in their own heads in which they actually blame the black electorate for their own lack of courage on these matters. As a result black candidates in these situations are treated as if they don't have any dog shit on their shoes. The real losers, of course, are black voters who are just seen as pawns in this game.
"Three names besmirched by character failings, when two would have done just fine." LOL PT, I found your account of your encounter with the fledgling demoness in her lair more interesting because of what it revealed about you. With all due respect for your privacy, could you reveal a little more about what your role "in the business of the care and feeding of politicians" entailed? I'm particularly interested in learning if you ever worked for or with a politician (you need not name anyone) who maintained his or her integrity despite the pitfalls of the game. Although I have held my nose and voted over the years, I have remained a steadfast outsider. In 2004, however, I made my first financial contribution to a politican in the hope it would help him unseat a Republican hack. He turned out to be a Democratic hack. He ran a dismal campaign and provided a stark reminder of the axiom: no good deed goes unpunished.
Like clockwork...the big money issue that competes for headline space. Whenever there is a sensationalist headline in the New York Times, it's time to closely read the Wall Street Journal. You'da thunk that these Democratic senators would have spoken up long before now - since they've known about the domestic surveillance program for two years, but that's neither here nor there. $40 billion is a lot of money - especially when you're spending twice that each month betwixt the Tigris and Euphrates. Interestingly enough, I had a thought of Will Smith's movie, Enemy of the State. The protagonist agency in the movie is the NSA. The agency is conducting domestic surveillance in a manner that exceeds wiretaps, and this most recent manifestation of snooping (increasingly Nixonian in character) may begin to resemble the scope of activities in Tony Scott's 1998 thriller. A judge may have resigned, but the jury is still out. Things Fall Apart. Ourstorian, The use of a pseudonym represents my acceptance of the conventions and protocols of the medium we are using. I don't think your question breaches any pretenses I might have for privacy. There is a only one politician that I worked for who I felt made a strenuous and concerted effort to be about more than just advancing her career or worrying about if she was going to be reelected. She eventually decided that the whole business was "deadening to one's soul" in her words and she is now the co-owner of a winery in the Napa Valley. We've known each other for nearly 30 years and we frequently exchange e-mails although they are almost never about electoral politics. I once had high hopes, for example, that Senator Barbara Boxer would be different when she was first elected to the House of Representatives but those hopes were quickly dashed. I don't necessarily mean on the issues that she would deal with in Washington because a certain level of horsetrading and compromise is necessary to get anything done there. I am referring specifically to local political issues in her congressional district. Some black people, like myself, had to pay a heavy price for backing her initial candidacy because the powers that be in San Francisco, except for Willie Brown and John Burton, whose resignation from the House had created this opportunity for Boxer, wanted to put a moderate conservative white woman who lived in Pacific Heights in the seat. The city's entire old line black leaders also supported this candidate because they were beholden to the mayor, Dianne Feinstein. I ran Boxer's campaign in the black community and our team took a lot of pride in the fact that on election day a Marin County Supervisor won 52 percent of the City's black votes in that particular congressional district. We achieved our victory despite the fact that every black elected and appointed official in the City, except Willie Brown who remained neutral, supported a conservative Democrat who belonged to a country club that did not admit blacks as members. We thought that Boxer would throw her weight our way when we began dealing with some local issues but her response, which was delivered through her district staff, was that she didn't get involved in local matters. The staff members who told me this were terribly embarrassed and both of them told me later that Boxer was wrong because she owed us. I should add here that the last time I saw Barbara Boxer was in Washington, DC not too long after she had first been elected to the U.S. Senate. It was in one of the Senate's Conference Rooms and we were both there for a press conference although I can no longer recall what the issue was. Boxer had arrived a little early and I was sitting in a chair near the front. I honestly believe that she expected me to leave my seat and go up and greet her as if everything between us was hunky-dory. After all, she was now a U.S. Senator and who wouldn't want to be close to a U.S. Senator. I stayed in my seat and she and I didn 't exchange a word between us. There was nothing that she had that I needed or wanted.
In all your years of experience, only one politician you worked for passed the stink test? You have confirmed what I suspected, PT. It's the appalling lack of leadership and integrity that leads us to pin all our hopes on a figure like Obama. He has a progressive record, a good mind, and his heart seems to be in the right place. But there are no virgins in Washington, only prostitutes. And a prostitute with a heart of gold is still a ho. Ourstorian, There were a few more I knew but I catch your drift. I don't pin any hopes at all on Senator Obama. He will be whatever his ambition and his sense of his destiny leads him to be. He'll be there with us on some issues and he'll hide out on other issues. I think we should support him (and others) with no sense of illusion and when it benefits us to do so. When it no longer benefits us we should discard him and move on to the next one in line. "We have no permanent friends, no permanent enemies, just permanent interests." It reminds of a line I once heard: "a ho is just is a ho there's more, but I shan't share. if you remember it as well, you'll know that this was quite enuf. |
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This site best viewed with a jaundiced eye
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Talking Points Memo is not correct. The FISA Court rejected one warrant request from the FBI during the late Clinton years. Nevertheless, a remarkably high rate of approval.
The Bush administration has a good case for the Constitutionality of their action if - and it hinges on this point - the targets of their warrantless surveillance were actually in contact with known al Qaida operatives because of the first resolution to use force passed after 9/11 formally acknowledged the use of war powers and satisfaction of the terms of The War Powers Act. If such is the case the targets are then suspected " agents of foreign powers" with whom the United States is at war. The Courts routinely defer to the parameters of the President as C-in-C, provided that there is some kind of armed conflict at hand. You may disagree and that's fine because FISA binding the Executive in wartime is an untested point but this would be a reasonable constitutional argument for the Bush administration to make. In my view, wartime and peacetime are two different constitutional legal states and the Founders seemed to take that view as well.
On the other hand, if the targets were not in contact with known operatives of al Qaida or if the surveillance was of a character best described as " a fishing expedition" then I would say that Bush's actions were unconstitutional and quite likely very illegal ( Though if he signed a finding of a covert action which has yet to be reported to Congress he may be technically within the law though stretching it to the very breaking point by the extended delay. Findings do not have to be reported immediately but they do have be reported within a reasonable time).