The nutroots are all abuzz now that the House passed its version of the amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance act, which fails to protect telecoms who assisted the government with the terrorist surveillance program after 9/11.
Apparently, they missed — or forgot — this story from the Politico last week:
After weeks of negotiations and no final settlement, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) signaled Thursday night that she is ready to fall back on the strategy of “ping-ponging†alternatives back and forth between the two chambers. This risks more stalemate but also could provide a path for a final resolution of the issue before lawmakers go home for their spring recess next Friday.
***
However, with the immunity issue still unresolved, no one expects the House proposal to be the final word. One possibility is that the Senate could give its blessing to the first title and then insist on concessions in the second. That could set up a situation making it easier for the House to claim a partial victory and allow final passage.
At a minimum, the strategy could serve House Democrats’ purposes by showing a willingness to act on the issue. Republicans have been pounding Pelosi for not allowing the Senate bill to come to the House floor for an up-or-down vote, and the new strategy will help the speaker counter this criticism.
In short, it is a cover vote, not only for Dems in swing districts who wanted to claim they voted on the bill before going on Spring Break, but also for the left-libs who want to be able to tell the nutroots they showed some spine before the final bait-and-switch vote passes with telecom immunity. When playtime is over, the bill heads to the Senate, where Senate intelligence committee Chair Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) still supports protecting the telecoms.
Mort Kondracke said that the only thing driving the Democrats in the House is Bush hatred. I believe that.
I dunno,; in this case, some are probably just pandering to the nutroots, knowing what the final outcome is likely to be.
Boy, this site is sluggish for me today.
Thanks Karl, I remembered this little scenario.
I’m not sure why they should bother about an Easter break. It’s not as though they give us the tookus of a rodent.
nobody is saying that final decision has been achieved.
Everybody realizes that there is still the Senate again, and then the Veto from the abomination of a president also.
Majority are just happy that fear mongering stupid ignorant lying bully received that kick in the empty head and this may cause him a nervous breakdown:- how come somebody finally dared to stand against the king who tells his subordinates to break the law and thinks it is a patriotic duty from them to do so…
P.S. Politico, since when it is a Bible ?
I wonder why the asshole is so livid and fear mongering if it is such an obvious ploy from the dems to accommodate the Yoo’s boss anyway?
sashal,
If you were filled with any more love, you could start your own religion.
And the majority of the House, if allowed to vote on it, would have voted for the Senate bill.
But frankly, if your opposition is principled, it shouldn’t matter to you what the majority thinks anyway.
true Karl, it is principled.
I recall I was against Kosovo when majority were for way before it started.
The same with Iraq.
The same with executive’s power desire for more control
and very true about my “love” towards G>W>B>.
Guilty as charged,I admit.
for all the good will and respect and in some cases love he had after 9/11 and Afghanistan from the majority of the Americans, Humanity and ME personally-
he fucked it up sooo badly, asshole..
for all the good will and respect and in some cases love he had after 9/11 and Afghanistan from the majority of the Americans, Humanity and ME personally-
And he has held steady and not changed his position. Can’t say the same for the weak-minded who now resort to infantile name calling.
you actually may be correct , alppuccino.
It is my fault that I did not recognize the idiot right away and believed in him, but he was steady moron all the time.
Well, at least I did my awakening, how about you?
he fucked it up sooo badly, asshole..
The people that display full blown BDS are the people that follow the herd.
“everybody is saying it, it must be true”;
Despite France and Germany democratically changing to more Bush friendly administrations.
Despite African leaders praising Bush for doing more for them than anyone had before.
Despite what Iraqis are saying.
I bet Sashal watches E! entertainment channel religiously.
Oh , and I am sure you all support him envying our soldiers in Afghanistan, how romantic and such, and his desire to be there with them.
Too bad the lying coward missed his romantic chance a few years back in Vietnam, fighting commies…
cover vote…but also for the left-libs who want to be able to tell the nutroots they showed some spine before the final bait-and-switch vote passes with telecom immunity.
Speak it and paranoid word salads with specific BDS shall appear.
#10.
You win the thread……
If we all, majority of people did not get BDS( was it virus?) right after the decision to invade Iraq, all would have been so peachy in the USA including the economy…..
economy…..
If Bushitler’s as-applied Bush Doctrine had not been 100% successful so far in preventing further 9-11 like attacks, we’d likely not even have had much of an economy.
get BDS( was it virus?) right after the decision to invade Iraq
You’re joking, right.
BDS began as a hanging chad the day after Pres. Bush won the election.
After the spittle-flecked rants, years of anti-bush propaganda has seduced you into identity politics, in your case negative identity politics.
As an aside,the idolatry of Obama is a release of BDS, courtesy of Oprah!.
Baaaaaa
J.Peden.
Are you still checking for a bearded muslim hiding under your bed every night?
Or Bush already took care of that problem for you.
Unfuckingbelievable. Some of you are so gullible to the government propaganda and BS, you would have been perfect loyal citizens for Stalin and Brezhnev…
ok lee, let’s assume you are smart and you did not understand just because I speak with the accent.
I did say that Bush had enormous popularity and trust all the way towards the 2003 , right before the decision to invade Iraq.
Who gives a shit about hanging chads but some deranged minority lefties?
Well, by now I wouldn’t have to guess that a paranoid word salad could project so well. But, thanks, anyway.
Are you still checking to see if your phone’s tapped?
Sashal, don’t assume anything.
I don’t accept your premise of when Pres. Bush lost his enormous popularity. Do you have a link for that?
NO, Rob, I do not, I adopted through so many years of dealing with unrestricted executive different approach…
I don’t know, lee, if you need the link to the widely known fact, it only proves to me how far from the reality you Bush apologists are…
sashal:
I understand from where your perspective comes. You have earned your sometimes overwhelming distrust of authority–but please, take a moment to imagine that Bush was and continues to be right. It’s understandable that you might think otherwise, but not all people in positions of authority are out to shove us into some gulag.
Cowboy, that’s why USA is so uniquely beautiful and great country:- strong executive is balanced by legislature and Supreme court. So far….
And I can smell from 1000 miles away the attempts to destroy that balance
if you need the link to the widely known fact,
Again with the herd!
I prefer “true” facts, and if you don’t have them, become a climatologist.
And I can smell from 1000 miles away the attempts to destroy that balance
I understand, sashal, I just think sometimes your sniffer is a little overly sensitive. But that doesn’t mean–at least to me–that your warnings are not apt, even when they are, in my view, overly strident and premature.
And I can smell from 1000 miles away the attempts to destroy that balance
Like the dem congress trying to take away the executives right to monitor overseas calls?
And I can smell from 1000 miles away the attempts to destroy that balance
Otherwise known as a paranoid conspiracy theory, that is, one you will simply not let be disproven, and which you will not and feel no need to prove.
“Who are you gonna believe, me or a bunch of evil right-wing facts?”
– The Dems have shown on several occasions they lack the backbone to follow through on their platform of “Chickenshitedness cut and run” and will fold at the 11:59th hour.
– In over three years of using the phoney “American citizens privacy being trampled” card they’ve failed to come up with even one example in a country of 320 million plus. They have not even been able to manufacture the usual fake but accurate Plamegate type scam. Apperently no one in the moonbat gaggle is willing to lie quite that flagrently.
– I’m still trying to figure out which mental midget in the DNC thought a platform of panic driven retreat in the face of a rapacious dogged enemy was a smart move to base your entire political future on. Unbelievible.
And, sashal, it’s not as if you will not [try to] do some great damage along the way in your paranoid flailings about, looking The Bushitler which haunts you from within, while denying the real Islamofascist threat from without
But when the Congressional Democrats do not oblige your deranged devices – because I’m betting they mostly do not actually share your delusions or want to surrender to Islamofascists, get us 9-11 attacked, etc. – will you still “know” you are being assaulted by the Evil Demon Controller, Bushitler, or will you find another one. Because you are going to have to anyway after the next general election.
[I don’t think even Obama is that nuts. But I might be wrong and the Progressives and Islamofascists right.]
– BTW. Nancy “the trouble with” Pelosi must have an electrical wire jamed up her ass that leads directly from the nutroots to her anus, convieniently providing them a way to get instant idiotic declarations out of her by simply pushing the red “that was easy” button.
– Today she proclaimed loudly, before the cameras were even warmed up, that it was final gospel that BuscjMcChimpyButtons entire Iraq war policy was a total failure, all based on something that Patreaus never said.
– Does this woman have a clue as to how shes being gamed and made a fool of by her own Lefturd masters? Does she know when to breathe in and out?
this may cause him a nervous breakdown:- how come somebody finally dared to stand against the king
Yeah, his fragile little psyche won’t know how to act at someone finally disagreeing with him. That is some industrial grade delusion you are packing, there, sash old boy.
I am sure you all support him envying our soldiers in Afghanistan, how romantic and such, and his desire to be there with them.
And that is called a pep talk. It was done for the benefit of the troops. It says a lot about you and your fellow travelers that you would so quickly try to twist it for your own cheap little political gains.
Does this woman have a clue as to how shes being gamed and made a fool of by her own Lefturd masters? Does she know when to breathe in and out?
She knows where the checks are coming from, BBH. That is all she knows, all she has ever known, and all she needs to know.
Y’know, having had some slight acquaintance with the Staatssecuritatpolizei, I know where sashal is coming from. It’s a mistaken assumption which is shared by a lot of the nutroots.
Sashal, we don’t have a Second Principal Directorate, let alone a Fifth. Every officer of the Committee for State Security was, in our terms, a police officer with powers of arrest and prosecution, as was the case all the way back to the Okhrana. We don’t do it that way. Nobody in the intelligence agencies of the U.S. — NSA and CIA, plus subsidiary organizations — has police powers. Those members of the military-related intelligence agencies who are also commissioned officers have disciplinary authority over other members of themilitary, but even they have no, repeat no, powers of arrest or prosecution against civilians, and the (many) non-uniformed members of those agencies don’t even have any authority over the troops.
The Constitution protects us against Government; it does not protect us against one another. If an officer with police power arrests, accuses, or prosecutes someone, the Constitution governs their interactions. Between citizens we have what is called the “common law”, based on the concepts of tort (injury) and contract (mutual agreement). The Constitution specifies that the common law applies — then goes silent on the subject. You won’t be familiar with the notion, because there is nothing comparable in Russian law.
So there is no, repeat no, Constitutional question involved in the <sneer>eavesdropping</sneer> business because no information produced by it can be used as evidence in a court of law, especially not accusatory evidence. It has no provenance. The chain is most emphatically not preserved — in fact, one of the main secondary interests of the intelligence agencies is to corrupt the chain of evidence. Nobody is ever going to be arrested and tried on the basis of “evidence” from NSA or CIA. Serving military members may face courts-martial on the basis of intelligence collected by DIA or the individual-branch services, but even there the UCMJ — our military law — requires procedures which, though abbreviated, are essentially equivalent to those used in civilian trials; and, in the event a serving military person is “arrested” by one of those agencies, it is the arresting officer’s power as an officer which makes that possible, not his job at the Agency. (I dwell on the military stuff because it’s closest to what you’re familiar with, but it is vastly different in detail.)
Under our system, the intelligence agencies aren’t cops; they are, at most, stukachniy — informers. The most they can do is say to people with police powers, “this person is acting suspiciously.” The police must then proceed to gather evidence and produce accusations or arrests as indicated, with the full weight of the Constitution governing their actions. An informant may not be the nicest person on the planet, but he violates neither the Constitution or the law of contract by informing.
The lawsuits (already filed) against the telecom companies will ultimately be tossed out, because by definition no one was harmed, either under the Constitution or the concepts of tort, by their actions. Constitutionally, no one has been or will be arrested and tried, let alone imprisoned or fined, based on what NSA learned with the aid of the telecoms. And under the common law, a person who overhears a conversation commits a tort only if he uses that information to harm one of the parties, or passes it on to someone else who does so. Neither thing has happened. The first will not and cannot happen because nobody at NSA has the power to arrest or prosecute anyone. The second will not and cannot happen because NSA is a government agency — the only possible harm it can do is to cause unConstitutional Government action.
The lawsuits and the immunity “debate” are sideshows. The lawsuits themselves are simply harassment; the maximum they can accomplish is to enrich a few lawyers (on both sides) and raise telephone charges. And I don’t know who’s replaced the Dark Lord Rove, but whoever it is is a f*ing genius for building and stoking the outrage over immunity. Loss of immunity will, at most, cost the telecoms a grunch of money; meanwhile, under cover of the loudischpoppen und schpitzensparken the substantive issues are being quietly settled. Not, I might add, in any direction you or the nutroots would approve of, but you’re no longer paying any attention, which is the point.
My personal objection to FISA is precisely the mirror-image of your approval: it blurs the distinction, and by default confers a police power on the intelligence agencies. It is far more likely to turn around and bite you (and us) in the butt than any “wiretapping”.
Regards,
Ric
Excellent post, Ric.
I always know I will be enlightened on something (usually important) when I see one of yours.
Look, this is simple. Real Patriots want their phones tapped. Liberal facists want you to maybe think about like, community service or health care or something, which involves facsism, and Kos, and fascism, and more fadscim – also, the Nazis.
TEH CLASSICAL LIEBERALIBERALISM!
It is a horn, to trumpet.
Str, I’m sorry – Leo has me right now and you’ll have to wait your turn.
Yeah, ‘Posts, you should talk. For me, Str, you’re gonna have to take a number.
This is real simple. Phones aren’t tapped and thay haven’t been for years. It simply doesn’t work that way. And real patriots want enemy communcations intercepted. Moonbats don’t.
the sooner we dump the constitution and and toss out the nutroots the sooner we get the country we want.
It’s Hollywood’s fault. It was when they replaced John Wayne with Richard Gere. That’s when sashal, Str, and d.michael started thinking of themselves as men.
D. Michael, you’ll need to take a number as well – bear in mind that by this time we’re doing it entirely in terms of exponents, just to be able to fit it on the paper stub.
Comment by alppuccino on 3/15 @ 6:13 am #
It’s Hollywood’s fault. It was when they replaced John Wayne with Richard Gere. That’s when sashal, Str, and d.michael started thinking of themselves as men.
******
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA(thud)
Hmm…let’s try this again…
Comment by alppuccino on 3/15 @ 6:13 am #
It’s Hollywood’s fault. It was when they replaced John Wayne with Richard Gere. That’s when sashal, Str, and d.michael started thinking of themselves as men.
******
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA(thud….sound of the Bear falling out of his chair)
I love it…:)
Ric,
As usual, a very cogent explanation, but you lost me on that last bit:
“My personal objection to FISA is precisely the mirror-image of your approval: it blurs the distinction, and by default confers a police power on the intelligence agencies. It is far more likely to turn around and bite you (and us) in the butt than any “wiretappingâ€Â.”
This seems to contradict what you stated earlier, in that the intelligence agencies do not have any police powers. How does FISA confer police powers on them? Even though the FISA court (as I understand it) tells the NSA whether or not some bit of information gleaned by their monitoring can be used (by issuing a “warrant”), all they (the NSA) can do with it is pass the information on to the FBI or some other agency that does have police powers so that it can be acted on. Correct me if I’m wrong here.
str , dmichael, etal – Please explain Achmed de Syria’s Constitutional right to not have his communications monitored.
Those goalposts, they are a-movin’
Cave Bear,
A warrant is a police power. Absent FISA, the intelligence agencies have no, repeat no, material connection to police powers. The data they produce is simply irrelevant insofar as police actions are concerned. With FISA and the requirement for warrants the presumption is and must be that data collection without a warrant is an unConstitutional exercise of police powers, and therefore data collection with a warrant is a Constitutional exercise of police powers.
Either way, it is an implicit grant of police powers to the intelligence agencies.
There is no record, anywhere, of any Government agency under any form of Government which, when granted a power, did not seek to expand that power. If they have a warrant to “eavesdrop”, it is a small step to introduce the data thus collected as evidence. From there, one asks for warrants to collect evidence, and so on up. I, ummm, don’t like that idea, but as it stands I regard the progression as inevitable.
Regards,
Ric
thanks Rick for comprehensive response.
On some things we do see eye to eye(I admit that my warnings to some of you guys may seem as paranoia ).
I have one question so far :
…don’t like that idea, but as it stands I regard the progression as inevitable.
Why it should be inevitable?
Sashal, from my point of view your observations haven’t really qualified as “paranoia”; rather as the views of someone who has fully internalized how things work under one system, and is applying those lessons-learned to a situation where they aren’t relevant. You can’t help seeing “National Security Agency” and “Committee for State Security” as in some ways similar — but the basic assumptions upon which both operate are fundamentally different, and reasoning applied to either based on the other’s rationale will inevitably lead to wrong conclusions.
The Okhrana/NKVD/KGB/FSB is a police agency from top to bottom. It differs from U.S. police practice in being organized around military lines — a sergeant of American police is an “officer of the law”, where his Russian equivalent is not — but it is fully empowered under color of the relevant statutes to arrest people and kick in doors. American intelligence agencies have no such powers; in fact, they are specifically denied those powers by the legislation which created them. They are data collectors and informers, no more.
It goes deeper than that. Russian police, whether under the Tsar, the USSR, or the present regime, are extensions of the military. Western police, especially those tracing their development to British practice, are not military; they use military ranks and forms of organization because those are easy and convenient, but the philosophy informing their powers and practices is completely different. It’s complicated (what isn’t?) but think of it this way: a warehouse owner might hire a night watchman or a security guard. Civil police arise from a Government agency hiring night watchmen and security guards. The superficial features are similar, but the underlying assumptions are radically different.
You aren’t alone. There are many, many Americans who fail to understand the distinction(s) or have reason to blur them when they do understand, and you have fallen in with one of the most vocal groups of folks so inclined. The trouble is, American law has as its deep basis the Common Law of Britain, as elaborated. One of the features of that system is dependence on precedent — unless there is clear and obvious reason not to do so, it is better to do things the way they were done before than to innovate. FISA and this controversy treat the intelligence agencies as having police powers, however attenuated. That precedent is now firmly established, and will be used as guidance and basis for further decisions on the subject — and the net result is a grant of police powers to organizations which previously lacked them. I think that’s a mistake, but I see no one moving to correct it and vast numbers of people acting to reinforce it.
Regards,
Ric
Ric–
Still love to have a piece on FISA and the technical considerations.
thanks, Rick
– To ampliphy a bit on the excellant comments, per usual, from the Ric man, the entire process of nation protection vs individual privacy is a constant work in process. A natural tension always will exist between the needs/rights of the state and the needs/rights of the citizen, and the pendelum swings back and forth in any sytem to one dgree or another depending on many factors.
– The state will always reserve the right to protect itself, and in the case of the American Republic this is manifest in two principle areas. There is in fact, no constitutional rights outlined pertaining to the right to privacy. It simply is not there. In our form of representative governance, it is implicitly accepted, not codified, the idea being that we have in place more than sufficient legal redress and checks and balances through the courts.
– The key to our sucess versus say a police state structure lies in transparancy. But that visibility is a two edged sword which must stand up to the vast range of activities, from reasonable citizen activism to extreme espionage. It is not an easy balance to strike, and there will be times the system goes over the line in one direction or the other. The difference in our nation is that any excess is quickly exposed, due mainly to that same transparancy, and a seemingly endless supply of press and lawyers. You cannot barracade yourself in your abode. You do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in external communications. The idea that either of these things are in anyway an intended “right” is a false concept played upon by the antagonists of the US.
– NSA is an information gathering operation for the governmental branches charged with the protection and safety of American citizens. The right to gather any and all data of an international nature, or any data internally that is critical to that same safety is reserved absolutely. What is done with that data is where the debates take place, and it is never totally settled.
– Our enemies want, and desperately need, to know our means/tactics for defending ourselves. One way they learn things is by causing as much havoc, unrest, and paranoia amonst the citizenty of the target country as possible, hoping details of that countries infrastructure and operational details of its counter-espionage programs will leak in the press or from government officials.
– Kepping the electorate on constant sdge via propeganda and rumors is one way they do this. It is easy in an open society to hide all sorts of mischief behind the guise of citizen activism and protest.
– The bottom line is that as citizens we enjoy the greatest protections of any country in the world. Learn about our governmental structure, them decide if you trust it or not. If not theres always France.
Dan, I’ve started that essay twice on the computer and half a dozen times as mental exercises while doing something else. In the process I have decided, or discovered, that the technical details are of secondary relevance, if that, and tend if anything to obscure the real questions. I am deeply indebted to sashal, whose objections enabled me to clarify my thoughts on the subject.
Modern communications technology coupled with the business practices of the telecoms (both commercial and PTTs) are what brought the question to the fore, because they gave the intelligence agencies access to the data stream. The practices resulting from that are the question before us, not the bits and bytes.
Regards,
Ric
Beaukoos thanks, Rick. Great job.
Ric,
Understood. I don’t necessarily agree with all of it, but I get where you are coming from (only problem is, I think we are way past the point of worrying about expanding government power; the Democrats took care of that before either of us were born, unfortunately).
Also, I agree with your reasoning on writing that precis on how the telecom system works, and how it relates to the issue at hand. While I think it would be most informative, especially for those among us who have more than two brain cells to rub together, you are right in that it’s more important what is done with the system rather than where the bits and bytes go. (On the other hand, I’ve always felt it to be very useful to understand how and why things work in a given system, if you really want to understand what’s being done with it. YMMV…:)
Maybe in the next version of the ping pong, they could give little gold star stickers to companies that follow the law.
“The lawsuits (already filed) against the telecom companies will ultimately be tossed out, because by definition no one was harmed, either under the Constitution or the concepts of tort, by their actions”
There are statutes that regulate telecom companies and the privacy of the information — content and non-content — they have. Its not just a tort/common law system.
It doesn’t matter that the lawsuits will anywhere. The very possibility will discourage telecoms from cooperating
with NSA and other agencies. The charges against Miller and Felt, made any type of FBI surveilance, nearly prohibitive. The CIA under Colby/Turner as well as Webster/Deutsh were loath to be
proactive. The Gorelick protocols made it an almost insurmountable obstacle to try to communicate between the FBI and the CIA. Only someone as persistent as agent Ali Soufan even tried
mdavid, are you alledging a criminal breach? Which statute do you have in mind for this? And even if there were such a statute, you’ll also need to explain how it would superceed the President’s warmaking authority under Article II.
“mdavid, are you alledging a criminal breach? Which statute do you have in mind for this?”
The wiretap act and the Telecom’s act. Read the complaints in the lawsuits. They should be on the EFF website — the nonprofit that is litigating them.
“need to explain how it would superceed the President’s warmaking authority under Article II.”
The president’s warmaking authority doesnt cover telephone companies — Article II is about what the executive branch can do, not what telecoms can do.
Bush kept us safe without overreacting and diminishing civil liberties. That’s an amazing accomplishment I think. He also made them feel very very sorry for what they did, at least the ones that are still alive.
Totten v. United States, 92 U.S. 105, 106 (1876)
United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp., 299 U.S. 304, 319 (1936)
Chicago & S. Air Lines v. Waterman S.S. Corp., 333 U.S. 103, 111 (1948)
Johnson v. Eisentrager, 339 U.S. 763, 788 (1950)
If you wish to focus solely on “telephone companies” then I have to conclude that you are either completely ill informed or just unserious.
I’ve already read the complaint sin the lawsuits, they similiarly ignore the President’s inherent warmaking powers, asn as such will fail if they ever make it to court. Look at the precedents I list and you’ll see that these powers have long been considered and upheld.
[…] is tempting to simply dismiss the NYT’s editorial as preemptive whining over the likely outcome in this instance, which is bipartisan passage of a law acceptable to the Bush administration and […]
[…] FISA Update: Nutroots fall for Dems’ bait-and-switch scheme [Karl] […]
They are not in court. I contacted EFF, as an AT&T customer, and told them that I did not want them representing me and asked how to be severed from their suit. They replied that the only thing that has happed to date is filing and that when the time comes announcements will be made so claimants can be attached and severed.
mdavid, I’m sorry that you don’t get it. If you’d look at the precedent’s you might, but you’d have to want to first.
Where did the order to ask the telcos to cooperate come from?
And if the President has the authority to ask for this cooperation, how can they be held liable for complying with a legal request?
“And if the President has the authority to ask for this cooperation, how can they be held liable for complying with a legal request?”
What the president can ask, beg or cajole for is different than what these companies can give. The President may have article II powers to listen to you, but his powers end where executive branch ends. The phone companies are not in the executive branch and thus do not have article II powers to ignore the law.
Accident Claims make sure youre not legally-confused.com