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173 Comments
- temptxan, on 10/09/2008, -5/+194Trust us, the government said. We will not abuse the powers given to us to spy on terrorists. Guess everyone is a terrorist. What has happened to our Constitution. Whistle blowers are true patriots.
- Minarchian, on 10/09/2008, -6/+129How many people can coherently argue that our Country is not falling absolutely apart?
Even though this story is comparatively timid in it's exposure of government abuse, it is still indicative of a government going outside the boundaries placed on it by the Constitution.
Our Constitution has been mangled, marginalized and riddled so full of holes that it's practically useless to protect us from tyranny. The "4th Estate", the Press, has only rarely been doing its job in watching out for and exposing the actions of our government. All we have are a bunch of wolves running the hen house and too few organizations are there to keep them at bay.
Unless people start standing up, in unison, we'll be living under a vicious dictatorship in less than a decade. - mcarrel, on 10/09/2008, -1/+69Now, wait a sec. Bush told us a wire tap 'requires a court order' and 'constitutional guarantees are in place'. He wouldn't lie to us, would he? Oh yeah.... that's right he would.
Every time someone says we need to surrender some rights in order to be safe from terrorists, I think of what Ben Franklin said, 'Those who would give up liberty for safety, deserve neither.' - Haecceity, on 10/09/2008, -1/+59I'm willing to bet that most people who support this kind of thing also say that government should get out of our lives.
- inactive, on 10/09/2008, -2/+59Who is really surprised by this?
- swrostmore, on 10/09/2008, -1/+53"Exclusive?" This story was a Democracy Now! Exclusive 5 months ago...
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/5/13/fmr_military ...
***** you, MSM. Independent media owns you yet again. - SifuMoKung, on 10/09/2008, -1/+51War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength
- InfectiousD, on 10/09/2008, -2/+42You know how they got that Ben Franklin quote? They tapped his cell phone.
- Insightful, on 10/09/2008, -1/+37Unauthorized surveillance i.e. without warrant is "is punishable by a fine of not more than $10,000 or imprisonment for not more than five years, or both."
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/50/usc_sec_50_0 ...
"Well, when the president does it that means that it is not illegal."
-Nixon, May 19th, 1977
-Bush, Cheney, most Republicans, 2000-2008 - duggtodeath, on 10/09/2008, -3/+36wow
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This comment has been approved by the DHS Version 1.0.7. Visit us online at dhs.gov - Hetman, on 10/09/2008, -1/+34Who would have guessed that passing laws that circumvent the 4th amendment would lead to a loss of civil liberties. Anytime you give the government more power it is going to turn out badly, Power corrupts. And guess what they are not going to freely give that power back. Regardless if Obama or McCain wins in this election year. FISA and The Patriot act will never be overturned by any President.
- UnFriendlyFire, on 10/09/2008, -1/+30I'm surprised its on the MSM.
- oldhick, on 10/09/2008, -4/+33We can thank Obama and McCain for voting to authorize this as well as immunize teleco's from any responsibility. Which ever one you vote for, your gonna get real change alright!!!
- THETEH, on 10/09/2008, -2/+31After all, if I was a terrorist, the first thing I'd do is call somebody overseas and loudly discuss my evil plans when I knew I could be easily listened in on.
Ridiculous. - oldhick, on 10/09/2008, -3/+31Obama and McCain both voted to extend Patriot Act powers and to give immunity to the Telecos...
- sheetrock, on 10/09/2008, -5/+30There's some consternation in the article about the fact that all the calls were transcribed, not just the ones that seemed pertinent at the time.
Well, that's a big difference between a conventional wiretap and a dragnet. The nice thing about the latter is that, if they've got piles of transcripts on a computer somewhere, they can search them and maybe spot important connections between individuals that they wouldn't notice otherwise. Or go back through everything after an event to see if there is added relevance to any of the communication.
In a war zone, it makes sense to monitor everything they can get their hands on -- especially now with the assistance of computers to sort and filter. But I'm amazed at the number of people who have no problem with the concept of bringing this technology home into our everyday lives. Even if you're a bland and uninteresting person, with similarly bland and uninteresting phone conversations... who's to say whether ten or twenty years from now those same conversations of yours become incriminating through a radically different political lens? - inactive, on 10/10/2008, -2/+26Less than a decade? Tell that to the people of Iraq and New Orleans, or those about to be foreclosed on and dragged out of their houses by the cops despite the fact that the banksters caused the economic meltdown, or the journalist beat and imprisoned by the cops at the RNC. We may not be in Hitler territory but we certainly ramping up to Mussolini territory quite rapidly.
Crony capitalism=corporatism=fascism and the knives are out, hint the military is being deployed in the fatherlan... err I mean homeland as we speak:
"They may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control or to deal with potentially horrific scenarios such as massive poisoning and chaos in response to a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive, or CBRNE, attack."
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/09/army_homelan ... - VeryBoredNow, on 10/10/2008, -1/+22This is horrible. I bet that they have not caught ONE terrorist with this ridiculous approach but have humiliated tons of Americans. The invasion of privacy is on a whole other level. When I came to this country from Bosnia the US Constitution was the most beautiful concept I could imagine. Freedom. Pursuit of happiness. Fair trials. Where hard work pays off, there was nothing in the world like the US. Then 911 happened and instead of us showing the terrorist that they can not change the American way, no matter what they do, the administration did the opposite. They did more damage to our freedoms than any terrorist could ever do. Shame on everyone who was involved with this. I wish we could go back in time and bring the WWII troops into this time. I bet they would unleash a can of whoop ass on Washington like you've never seen. I hope the next president can take the US on the right path again. Show everyone that a group of men LIVING IN CAVES will never ever make us disregard our most valued possession which are the freedoms promised to us. This has truly made me sad. American people are better than this, I know it.
- pintomp3, on 10/10/2008, -2/+21bush hates us for our freedoms.
- rockanomicon, on 10/10/2008, -1/+18Looks like the guys with the tin-foil hats aren't quite as "out-there" as previously thought. 20 years ago, if someone would have said the government is going to be listening in on our phone calls, and redeploying troops within America, they would've been ran out of town.
Are we going to wait another 20 years before we do anything about it? - inactive, on 10/09/2008, -1/+17I wonder if the "Justice" dept. will invoke the State Secrets Privilege to silence them like they did with Sibel Edmonds.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sibel_Edmonds - asherchang, on 10/10/2008, -1/+17NSA operators are sharing and saving recordings of US officers' phone sex with their spouses at home? That perfectly shows how if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear in losing your privacy.
Ok, so from now on, since most people aren't hiding cocaine balloons in their rectum, no one should have a problem with cameras being installed in every single toilet in America. - swrostmore, on 10/09/2008, -1/+16I know I'm not, I heard about it in May on Democracy Now. It's about time the dinosaur MSM picked it up.
- netneutrality, on 10/10/2008, -1/+16"The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), called the allegations 'extremely disturbing'"
You mean more like "blatantly illegal". But what in hell's name did they expect when they gave the government that kind of power? - inactive, on 10/10/2008, -1/+16im sure they are doing far more than this
- swrostmore, on 10/09/2008, -3/+17This was done under Bush's illegal "TSP", operational from 2002 to 2007 until it's disclosure forced it to be discontinued. It was never authorized by Congress, and it's blatant illegality nearly caused the entire leadership of the DOJ to resign. The best information suggests it was enacted on behalf of the Office of the Vice President. The House and Senate intelligence committee leadership knew of it but did not know the details. Yes, the major party candidates have voted for unconstitutional surveillance and allowed telecoms to skate for violating surveillance law, but that is a whole 'nother issue.
- inactive, on 10/10/2008, -4/+17Hard left, Libertarians and paleo-cons unite to take back the U.S. from the Constitution eviscerating, corporate centralist globalist bankster Dimocraps and Repiglicons.
- iloveobama, on 10/10/2008, -4/+17Barack Obama voted to renew the Patriot Act. Change we can believe in!
- Shipyaad, on 10/10/2008, -1/+13I don't want my civil liberties to be "respected," George, I want them to be "inviolate."
- wishninja, on 10/10/2008, -1/+13god you're a douche please do america a big favor and stay overseas. And take you're mom with you.
- inactive, on 10/10/2008, -2/+13Your government is the terrorists.
- Mediamoron, on 10/09/2008, -2/+13Glad to see someone still has the party line in mind.
- wishninja, on 10/10/2008, -2/+13FISA makes this stuff law. I knew McCain hates freedom but Obama surprised me. I still love Ron Paul.
- inactive, on 10/09/2008, -1/+12Or 3 months from now?
- roosevans, on 10/10/2008, -2/+12From The Article:
"These were just really everyday, average, ordinary Americans who happened to be in the Middle East, in our area of intercept and happened to be making these phone calls on satellite phones," said Adrienne Kinne, a 31-year old US Army Reserves Arab linguist assigned to a special military program at the NSA's Back Hall at Fort Gordon from November 2001 to 2003.
Kinne described the contents of the calls as "personal, private things with Americans who are not in any way, shape or form associated with anything to do with terrorism." - JFetch, on 10/10/2008, -1/+11I have a feeling this wasn't about catching terrorists, but finding out what the soldiers think about the war and if they are telling people they aren't happy about what is going on there.
- swrostmore, on 10/10/2008, -3/+13What part of "never authorized by Congress" is confusing to you?
- PhilLesh69, on 10/10/2008, -2/+12It is always exciting, for a person like you or me who wants to understand the fall of empires, to be alive at the moment it happens.
I always wanted to understand how the Roman Empire collapsed. Or how all those other civilizations failed. The Abyssynians, the Mycenians, the Egyptians, etc.
Why does it always seem to happen?
Now I get a front row seat.
How nice. I think I would prefer to remain at an academic level, instead of being in a position where I have a front row seat. - inactive, on 10/10/2008, -1/+11poprocksandsoda you really think merely being innocent will save you, you *****?
Tell that to the totally innocent Maher Arar who was swiped from Canada by American officials and then flown to Syria to be tortured. Once the government takes the law into its own hands ALL are crushed innocent and guilty:
"A government commission on Monday exonerated a Canadian computer engineer of any ties to terrorism and issued a scathing report that faulted Canada and the United States for his deportation four years ago to Syria, where he was imprisoned and tortured.
The report on the engineer, Maher Arar, said American officials had apparently acted on inaccurate information from Canadian investigators and then misled Canadian authorities about their plans for Mr. Arar before transporting him to Syria.
“I am able to say categorically that there is no evidence to indicate that Mr. Arar has committed any offense or that his activities constituted a threat to the security of Canada,” Justice Dennis R. O’Connor, head of the commission, said at a news conference.
The report’s findings could reverberate heavily through the leadership of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, which handled the initial intelligence on Mr. Arar that led security officials in both Canada and the United States to assume he was a suspected Al Qaeda terrorist. "
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/19/world/americas/1 ...
Read that article and think before you run your pie hole again, M'K? Then after that read 1984 and think some more, and then read the whole Constitution including the bill of rights and think yet more and don't come back to the U.S. until you understand the 4th amendment to the bill of rights of the Constitution. - 41k1d0k4, on 10/10/2008, -1/+10As long as we have the "US vs THEM", "Red vs Blue", etc politics; we will never be able to stand together.
- Endit, on 10/10/2008, -0/+9This is what the terrorists wanted. They already won. The towers was just a catalyst and them putting on a show.
- obliviousfool, on 10/10/2008, -0/+9If you think the object is to catch terrorists, you haven't really caught on yet.
- LilRabbitFooFoo, on 10/10/2008, -0/+9I
Told
You
So - inactive, on 10/10/2008, -0/+8what a dumb douche bag you are
- pintomp3, on 10/10/2008, -1/+9illegal search and seizure is.
The U. S. Constitution contains no express right to privacy. The Bill of Rights, however, reflects the concern of James Madison and other framers for protecting specific aspects of privacy, such as the privacy of beliefs (1st Amendment), privacy of the home against demands that it be used to house soldiers (3rd Amendment), privacy of the person and possessions as against unreasonable searches (4th Amendment), and the 5th Amendment's privilege against self-incrimination, which provides protection for the privacy of personal information. In addition, the Ninth Amendment states that the "enumeration of certain rights" in the Bill of Rights "shall not be construed to deny or disparage other rights retained by the people." The meaning of the Ninth Amendment is elusive, but some persons (including Justice Goldberg in his Griswold concurrence) have interpreted the Ninth Amendment as justification for broadly reading the Bill of Rights to protect privacy in ways not specifically provided in the first eight amendments.
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/c ... - thePuck77, on 10/10/2008, -0/+8poprocksandsoda...so you are wealthy and you support the spying on American citizens in violation of the Constitution by the Bush administration?
/rolls eyes
No! You don't say! - yolanda1222, on 10/10/2008, -3/+10no doubt. and though the coming years will be truly horrific, as a history grad student I really do appreciate living through such an epochal moment in history. It's going to suck more than anyone can imagine. But as terrible as global war always is, in no way is it ever boring.
- wishninja, on 10/10/2008, -1/+8or if you're in the red cross?
- CivicTV, on 08/14/2009, -3/+9Its sad to see so many people commenting on the very idea that we should have no rights until the terrorists are caught. You are not an American.
- PhilLesh69, on 10/10/2008, -2/+8It's a soft dictatorship, and it hasn't just been the last 8 years.
Ever since we won the second world war, we've been living with a system of government that has grown to create a cold war against Russia, and imported the scientists of the nazi regime, as well as some of the officials who created the nazi regime. -
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