SonicSpike writes "The Electronic Frontier Foundation has just said that 'In the warrantless wiretapping case, Obama DOJ's new arguments are worse than Bush's.'"
Without much more than a speculative sentence in the summary, what is slashdot going to talk about? We're not going to RTFA no matter how hard you try!!
The Obama administration is arguing that the Feds have sovereign immunity from any Federal Laws -- in other words, the Federal Government is not required to follow statutes or the constitution. We are apparently continuing fast down the Bush road to a completely independent, unaccountable, all-powerful presidency.
It seems that these days, if you speak ill against Obama (the chosen one), you will be smitten down and piled up upon by anyone that was a fervent disciple during the election or of a democratic leaning.
It is weird, but, while Bush was in office, people criticized him on a constant basis (IMHO, much of it deserved in the last years), but, you didn't risk the vitriol, public shunning and public crucifixion that you seem to get if you speak ill of the Obama administration today.
Please put your strawmen away before they get burned. The only side that seems to call obama the "chosen one" are republicans. *MOST* Democrats have no illusions that Obama's Wiretapping votes and stance on Afghanistan have been the weak points. It was a hell of a lot better than Stay the Course McCain. So please, worship the guy all you want, but the rest of us will be realistic about what a politician is.
while Bush was in office, people criticized him on a constant basis... you didn't risk the vitriol, public shunning and public crucifixion
That's the funniest part of your post. I believe Phil Donahue lost his job on TV because he wasn't pro-bush/war enough. There were reports of people with Anti-Bush shirts and bumper stickers being pulled over by police. Over the past few weeks, Obama's been called everything from the anti-christ to a fascist, and that's just on Fox news. They seem to be doing just fine.
Go watch Jon Stewarts shown on Tuesday night (apr 7) the middle section, it's a little history lesson for you.
I love how comedy news shows are becoming a more reliable source for news than the traditional. Then again, hasn't "news" always been sort of a joke in this country?
No. During the Vietnam war, newspapers were really a powerful influence in public policy due to their honesty about the cost of the war.
We're just wrapping up the longest war the US has been involved in since World War 2 and until recently it was illegal to publish pictures of dead soldiers to quell public outrage. Had we seen daily pictures of dead soldiers on TV for seven years, the public acceptance would have been far lower and diminished far faster than it did.
Now, yeah the news is a farce. They split us down the middle every 4 years to turn the nation against one another, simplifying our political decisions into an us versus them, red versus blue game.
Now, the only credible news are the comedians comfortable with criticizing the government by exposing their ridiculous actions.
Sadly, the comedy is in the absurdity of the truth they tell.
Your post is hilarious. Just look back at the slashdot comments from the left during the campaign. You're just as bad as Obama himself; say one thing during the campaign and a completely different thing once elected.
And "Stay the Course" McCain? You mean like staying in Iraq for years, continuing bailouts, acting above the law, etc? Glad we didn't get any of that!
It's also good to see that this time around, politics seems to be irrelevant to the core debate. The principal credible criticisms of Obama have been coming from ostensibly "liberal" sources (not surprising, since the most die-hard conservatives among us are still caught up in inane mid-decade partisanship - questions of whether the president is a Muslim, or has a valid US birth certificate, or will take away your guns and re-educate you as a socialist). The left wing seems content to substantively criticise "their own" leader, which I think entirely contradicts the GP's assertion that it's dangerous to criticise "the chosen one."
I haven't been optimistic for a while, but that speaks very well for the future of these debates. If the left had let this sort of thing slide and made the vacuous argument that it's OK as long as their own party does it, we'd be back in the bad old days of pointless partisan bickering. This is a far cry from the 2000 election when Republicans everywhere decided recounts of disputed close elections had become spontaneously illegal.
parent poster replied to a post that also dealt with (private citizen) response to somebody criticizing Obama; that poster arguing that criticizing Bush never led to e.g. the plethora of comments deriding a person's (negative) opinion of Obama (the person, his actions, ideas, or even the government under him). parent poster, in turn, pointed out that we all too soon forget that there were -plenty- of public derisions toward those who were critical of Bush - *especially* just before, during, and shortly after the invasion of Iraq. The Dixie Chicks thing being a prime example because it was in the media -far more- than just some 'nobody' disagreeing with the war and their neighbors labeling them a terrorist sympathizer and yelling at them "if you're not with us, you're against us", "UN-AMERICAN!", etc.
so yeah, no difference in terms of this particular comment thread branch.
It is my position that Bush was a horrible president because he weakened our constitution, was an ugly warmonger, and spent money like it was water.
It is my position that Obama is about the same with the only difference being who gets some of the wastefully spent money.
Both "sides" treat the populace like we're their own public goatse waiting patiently to get stretched just a bit wider by some Republican prick or a Democratic cock.
My problem is your characterization of it as "the Bush road". This particular "road" stretches back decades, across many administrations and both major political parties.
This "road" belongs to the people that continue to vote for Presidential candidates that follow it. And it really pisses me off that anyone thought Obama was going to be any different. Even his abbreviated voting record demonstrated exactly what he believed.
Obama's only redeeming quality is that he has a talent for reading speeches from a teleprompter. I seriously doubt that he even wrote any of them.
Don't forget the upcoming gun ban 'to protect Mexico'. From the worst Attorney General in a long time.
He has stated specifically that both the 1st and 2nd amendments should not apply. Way to uphold the law. How the guy was employed as a US Attorney with those motivations is inexplicable- putting him in charge of the DOJ is inexcusable.
The last four AGs I thought: well this is as bad as it gets, can't get any worse. Then look what happened:
Reno -> Ashcroft -> Gonzales -> Holder
Each one outdoing the last for destroying the constitution.
FTFA: "Sad as that is, it's the Department Of Justice's second argument that is the most pernicious. The DOJ claims that the U.S. Government is completely immune from litigation for illegal spying â" that the Government can never be sued for surveillance that violates federal privacy statutes. "
So yes, in a sense that's exactly what Obama and his team are arguing. Arguing that you cannot ever sue the government for breaking a given law sets a precedent that you can't ever sue them for breaking any laws.
It's gratifying to see this issue getting some exposure here. God knows this is not a story that the doting MSM would ever run on its own, without significant blogosphere activity forcing them to acknowledge it.
It's gratifying to see this issue getting some exposure here. God knows this is not a story that the doting MSM would ever run on its own, without significant blogosphere activity forcing them to acknowledge it.
Still, I don't expect even the blogosphere to treat Obama like it treated Bush. Where are the posts comparing Obama to Hitler? Would Stalin be a better comparison? Not that I would agree with either comparison, but I sure read from a whole bunch of people here that would apply Godwin to Bush at the drop of a hat.
Still, I don't expect even the blogosphere to treat Obama like it treated Bush. Where are the posts comparing Obama to Hitler?
Bush had years to build up a reputation. Obama is still in the process of tearing down his original reputation. Give him two years and if he's done anything near what Bush did two years into his first term I think you will see plenty of people making such comparisons.
Still, I don't expect even the blogosphere to treat Obama like it treated Bush. Where are the posts comparing Obama to Hitler?
Bush had years to build up a reputation. Obama is still in the process of tearing down his original reputation. Give him two years and if he's done anything near what Bush did two years into his first term I think you will see plenty of people making such comparisons.
Bush's motorcade was pelted with snowballs on the way to his inauguration [salon.com] while Obama got a party. With the except of a couple of months after 9-11, Bush was pretty much relentlessly attacked by the media, Hollywood elites and blogosphere for all eight years.
I suspect the popular vote result and widespread ignorance of how the electoral college works is what inflamed the majority of the wild-eyed Bush haters from the start.
I mean, it's not like he won 25 electoral votes by a margin of 537 votes out of 6 million in a state with rampant reports of election fraud.
Well, at least Guantanamo is being shut down, so we in the rest of the world can relax a little, while things stay the same for the actual US citizens..
This is kind of disturbing. I know politicians turn 180 at the drop of a hat but Obama's entire popularity -- and the benefits that come from it -- relies on being anti-Bush. This is a very hot issue. One of the most important ones in fact. For him to continue supporting it is almost political suicide. Yet he's doing it anyway. Which makes you think, what could possibly be so important to keep secret?
We know it has nothing to do with national defense. The crones in Washington have never had a problem with outing CIA agents in the field for political gain.
Do they have illegal records of Dick Cheney torturing kittens or something? Wait, that wouldn't surprise anyone.
Obama voted yes for the telecom immunity bill. He supported the wiretapping program in the Senate, why do you think he'd stop supporting it when he was elected President?
Obama voted yes for the telecom immunity bill. He supported the wiretapping program in the Senate, why do you think he'd stop supporting it when he was elected President?
Substance doesn't matter to "Hope And Change" zombies.
Not that it matters much to the "Saddam planned 9/11" crowd, but liberals are supposed to be Sooooo Muuuuch Smarter, Hipper And Rational than Bible-thumping Young Earth Creationist conservatives that you'd think they'd care a smidgen about reality.
So Bush tried to hide behind state secrets, and now the Dems. They must be both in on whatever it is.
After Bush madness, it seems that the Dems could go on a witch-hunt. Perhaps they don't because they're better than the Rs (think back to clinton's sex life). It seems much more plausible, however, that political MAD (mutually assured destruction) is keeping everything in check. I'm suggesting that the state-secrets would be hideously embarrassing for both Dems and Rs.
Why not? Should we post all of our military strategies on Facebook, just to ensure transparency? That would just make us vulnerable, and vulnerable democracies get conquered. And we've always had sovereign immunity. We inherited it from other democracies. Without it, we ALL get to pay every time somebody sues the government for damages, and the government would be crippled as the Congress and Executive would have to fight a wave of preliminary injunctions every time they took an action that some minority group doesn't agree with. Yes, both can be abused, and we should hold our elected politicians to the fire when they do so. But the democracy you envision is crippled, weak, and ineffective. A crippled, weak, and ineffective democracy will fail, just as surely as an over-reaching, oppressive, dictatorial democracy.
The Obama administration has roughly the same goals as the Bush administration, so it's no surprise that they're continuing to pursue them.
The change, and it is a change, is that they are pursuing them in a smarter way. 1) By making this extreme argument, they give judges wiggle-room to reject it and then accept the state secrets argument, while still allowing the judge to make token gestures in favor of the rule of law, even write a long, pious opinion dismissing the second argument while accepting the first. I can see that it would be very easy for any judge to delude himself into believing he was making a Solomonic compromise. Very smart on their part.
2) If the second argument *does* somehow fly, they have carte blanche to do what they want. I suspect that the Bush administration would've argued for the same thing, except that they weren't smart enough to come up with a line of argument that would've passed the laugh test (IANAL, maybe this one doesn't either.)
Begin broken record mode: The only way to get real improvement from Obama (or from Bush, for that matter,) is to mobilize the public to control the government. No elected leader is going to do this for us as a gift, we have to maintain the pressure constantly.
Personally, I'm much more disappointed with his ongoing embrace of "public-private partnerships" in education (crooked self-dealing and cronyism do not focus group so well, so they rebranded them as "public-private partnerships" in which the government partners with a private entity to give it money with minimal oversight and much righteous rhetoric.) My saintly mother blogs about it: http://chemtchr.dailykos.com/ [dailykos.com]
And I'm sure Obama has not delivered from progressives on a dozen other fronts. Only way he will is *if we make him*. In the case of progressive causes that are popular with the public, this should be relatively easy, and ought to benefit the election prospects of the Democratic party anyway, so let's get going.
Read up on it [worldnetdaily.com] if you don't understand it. Just like it took Nixon to go to China, it will take Obama to get this through. Those of you who voted for Obama and really believed that he stood for "hope and change" were every bit as big of morons as the people in the Republican Party who thought that McCain was some maverick conservative.
I distinctly remember, way back when during the Reagan years, people were crowing about how we in the U.S. had it so much better than the Soviets. We didn't have to worry about providing papers to travel (Red October anyone?), we didn't have to worry about our neighbors spying on us and reporting "unpatriotic" deeds, we didn't have to worry about government agents bursting into our homes without a warrant and we especially didn't have to worry about the government listening in on our phone calls.
Now we have two different parts of the government trying to justify why they can, whenever, they feel like it, listen to our phone conversations all in the name of stopping "them" from causing us harm. The worst part about it, the same people who 25 years ago were crowing about how free we were compared to the Soviets are now the same people (assuming they're still alive) who are defending these blatant infringements on our freedoms, all in the name of securing our freedom.
Is that like, "It became necessary to destroy the village in order to save it."?
So it's starting to sound like one of several things is going on here:
Obama is ultimately cut from the same power-hungry mold as Bush, even if he often seeks a different sort of power from his predecessor. This particular case just happens to serve both of their ends, so meet the new boss, same as the old boss. OR...
Bush actually had good reasons to do what he did, and Obama continues these odious policies as a distasteful but very real necessity.
I'm not sure which of these possibilities would worse.
It would help, however, if Obama would be more forthcoming as to the reasons behind the continuation, though; surely some more substantial explanation than "it's all a state secret" can be given without damaging national security.
I'm a bit cynical about the Obama Administration willingly giving up powers it has been given in the long run. But I'm not ready to say this motion represents the will of the Administration yet.
The author of the piece, ACTING Assistant Attorney General Michael F. Hertz, is a leftover from the Bush administration and is due to be replaced once his successor is confirmed.
It's important to note that the DOJ references the PATRIOT Act as justification for this argument. It's a little awkward for the EFF to say
No one -- not the White House, not the Justice Department, not any member of Congress, and not the Bush Administration -- has ever interpreted the law this way.
when we're talking only about a single administration.
Yes, the Obama administration's stance is intolerable. But the problem, I believe, is not the administration -- it is the law. Repeal the PATRIOT Act. Pass a law requiring stricter oversight of government surveillance.
THAT is the answer. Not some mindless, useless "Obama is teh suxxor" bullshit.
Concepts like probable cause, innocent until proven guilty, checks and balances on government power, government for the people and by the people, restriction on governmental power --- are best described as "quaint"?
I wish the people who want to destroy America would take up arms and revolt -- that's easy enough to put down. Insidiously destructive notions such as yours that fundamental rights for individuals and limits on government power are "quaint", ensures that American principles of government will die out. America may keep the name, but that's it.
Under the rules they already had, they can actually apply for a warrant up to (I think) 48 hours after they perform the wire tap. And the success rate in asking for a warrant is somewhere around 100%. Warrantless wiretapping is about being terrified of ever letting even a Federal judge know what's going on, even after the wiretap has been performed.
Sorry man, but your argument flies in the face of what this country was built around: the US Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.
Violating our constitutionally guarenteed rights is unacceptable, period.
Here's a refresher for you. I've bolded the important bits: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
You might argue that the Constitution is outdated or wrong, but that's the beauty of it. If it's wrong, we can amend it. (Just like we did for prohibition). To ignore it because it doesn't currently fit in with our needs is a very dangerous road to be on, and not one that my fellow citizens should tolerate in any way.
Your claims that we should accept this and just move on are, frankly, unamerican. In America, we're subject first and foremost to the constitution. We believe that our government gets its power from us, as granted explicitly by the Constitution. Your proposal is utterly unacceptable.
Oh, and since you didn't rtfa, let me spell out the scariest bit of Obama's position on this issue: his adminsitration has taken the position that the federal government is immune from prosecution because of sovereign doctrine. Therefore, they're claiming that you can't sue the government. If that's not opaqueness, I'm not sure what is.
And I voted for Obama. Clearly I should've voted for Mickey Mouse.
This has nothing to do with Obama (other than that his DOJ is making the argument), and it is not a bullshit argument from a legal standpoint.
It's called sovereign immunity [wikipedia.org], and we brought it over to our legal system from the British system when we declared independence. To put it shortly, it's exactly what you quoted: Congress has to waive its immunity in order for you to sue the federal government. There are a few laws on the books outlining cases in which they automatically waive that right. I don't know if this would be one of them, except to say that the DOJ obviously feels there's at least an argument to be made that it isn't.
I agree with what somebody else said in another thread earlier: Sovereign immunity has no place in a democratic society. That said, though, it's here and as frightening as it may be, it's far from a bullshit legal argument to have a lawsuit dismissed. It's a good one.
You can ship out the neocons just as soon as your buddies who said they would leave the country if Bush got (re)elected actually leave the country and renounce their citizenship.
RTFS?? (Score:5, Funny)
*WE SHALL WE SHALL NOT BE MOVED!!*
Re:RTFS?? (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:RTFS?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:RTFS?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmm....I fear now for the EFF.
It seems that these days, if you speak ill against Obama (the chosen one), you will be smitten down and piled up upon by anyone that was a fervent disciple during the election or of a democratic leaning.
It is weird, but, while Bush was in office, people criticized him on a constant basis (IMHO, much of it deserved in the last years), but, you didn't risk the vitriol, public shunning and public crucifixion that you seem to get if you speak ill of the Obama administration today.
Parent
Re:RTFS?? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's the funniest part of your post. I believe Phil Donahue lost his job on TV because he wasn't pro-bush/war enough. There were reports of people with Anti-Bush shirts and bumper stickers being pulled over by police. Over the past few weeks, Obama's been called everything from the anti-christ to a fascist, and that's just on Fox news. They seem to be doing just fine.
Go watch Jon Stewarts shown on Tuesday night (apr 7) the middle section, it's a little history lesson for you.
Parent
Re:RTFS?? (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:RTFS?? (Score:5, Insightful)
No. During the Vietnam war, newspapers were really a powerful influence in public policy due to their honesty about the cost of the war.
We're just wrapping up the longest war the US has been involved in since World War 2 and until recently it was illegal to publish pictures of dead soldiers to quell public outrage. Had we seen daily pictures of dead soldiers on TV for seven years, the public acceptance would have been far lower and diminished far faster than it did.
Now, yeah the news is a farce. They split us down the middle every 4 years to turn the nation against one another, simplifying our political decisions into an us versus them, red versus blue game.
Now, the only credible news are the comedians comfortable with criticizing the government by exposing their ridiculous actions.
Sadly, the comedy is in the absurdity of the truth they tell.
Parent
Re:RTFS?? (Score:5, Informative)
Your post is hilarious. Just look back at the slashdot comments from the left during the campaign. You're just as bad as Obama himself; say one thing during the campaign and a completely different thing once elected.
And "Stay the Course" McCain? You mean like staying in Iraq for years, continuing bailouts, acting above the law, etc? Glad we didn't get any of that!
Parent
Re:RTFS?? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's also good to see that this time around, politics seems to be irrelevant to the core debate. The principal credible criticisms of Obama have been coming from ostensibly "liberal" sources (not surprising, since the most die-hard conservatives among us are still caught up in inane mid-decade partisanship - questions of whether the president is a Muslim, or has a valid US birth certificate, or will take away your guns and re-educate you as a socialist). The left wing seems content to substantively criticise "their own" leader, which I think entirely contradicts the GP's assertion that it's dangerous to criticise "the chosen one."
I haven't been optimistic for a while, but that speaks very well for the future of these debates. If the left had let this sort of thing slide and made the vacuous argument that it's OK as long as their own party does it, we'd be back in the bad old days of pointless partisan bickering. This is a far cry from the 2000 election when Republicans everywhere decided recounts of disputed close elections had become spontaneously illegal.
Parent
Re:RTFS?? (Score:5, Insightful)
What the Dixie Chicks experienced came from private citizens, not the Bush administration. Big difference.
Parent
Re:RTFS?? (Score:5, Insightful)
no, no difference.
parent poster replied to a post that also dealt with (private citizen) response to somebody criticizing Obama; that poster arguing that criticizing Bush never led to e.g. the plethora of comments deriding a person's (negative) opinion of Obama (the person, his actions, ideas, or even the government under him).
parent poster, in turn, pointed out that we all too soon forget that there were -plenty- of public derisions toward those who were critical of Bush - *especially* just before, during, and shortly after the invasion of Iraq. The Dixie Chicks thing being a prime example because it was in the media -far more- than just some 'nobody' disagreeing with the war and their neighbors labeling them a terrorist sympathizer and yelling at them "if you're not with us, you're against us", "UN-AMERICAN!", etc.
so yeah, no difference in terms of this particular comment thread branch.
Parent
Re:RTFS?? (Score:5, Funny)
So, when Bush does it, Bush is bad. When Obama does it, Bush is bad.
Parent
Re:RTFS?? (Score:5, Insightful)
It is my position that Bush was a horrible president because he weakened our constitution, was an ugly warmonger, and spent money like it was water.
It is my position that Obama is about the same with the only difference being who gets some of the wastefully spent money.
Both "sides" treat the populace like we're their own public goatse waiting patiently to get stretched just a bit wider by some Republican prick or a Democratic cock.
Parent
Re:RTFS?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Thank you, we can agree on all those points.
My problem is your characterization of it as "the Bush road". This particular "road" stretches back decades, across many administrations and both major political parties.
This "road" belongs to the people that continue to vote for Presidential candidates that follow it. And it really pisses me off that anyone thought Obama was going to be any different. Even his abbreviated voting record demonstrated exactly what he believed.
Obama's only redeeming quality is that he has a talent for reading speeches from a teleprompter. I seriously doubt that he even wrote any of them.
Parent
Re:RTFS?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't forget the upcoming gun ban 'to protect Mexico'. From the worst Attorney General in a long time.
He has stated specifically that both the 1st and 2nd amendments should not apply. Way to uphold the law. How the guy was employed as a US Attorney with those motivations is inexplicable- putting him in charge of the DOJ is inexcusable.
The last four AGs I thought: well this is as bad as it gets, can't get any worse. Then look what happened:
Reno -> Ashcroft -> Gonzales -> Holder
Each one outdoing the last for destroying the constitution.
Parent
Re:RTFS?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, and it's working out so well for the folks that thought we'd have a return to civil liberties, a responsible budget, and an end to the Iraq war.
Parent
Re:RTFS?? (Score:5, Informative)
FTFA: "Sad as that is, it's the Department Of Justice's second argument that is the most pernicious. The DOJ claims that the U.S. Government is completely immune from litigation for illegal spying â" that the Government can never be sued for surveillance that violates federal privacy statutes. "
So yes, in a sense that's exactly what Obama and his team are arguing. Arguing that you cannot ever sue the government for breaking a given law sets a precedent that you can't ever sue them for breaking any laws.
Parent
This needs to get press. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This needs to get press. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's gratifying to see this issue getting some exposure here. God knows this is not a story that the doting MSM would ever run on its own, without significant blogosphere activity forcing them to acknowledge it.
Still, I don't expect even the blogosphere to treat Obama like it treated Bush. Where are the posts comparing Obama to Hitler? Would Stalin be a better comparison? Not that I would agree with either comparison, but I sure read from a whole bunch of people here that would apply Godwin to Bush at the drop of a hat.
Parent
Re:This needs to get press. (Score:5, Insightful)
Still, I don't expect even the blogosphere to treat Obama like it treated Bush. Where are the posts comparing Obama to Hitler?
Bush had years to build up a reputation. Obama is still in the process of tearing down his original reputation. Give him two years and if he's done anything near what Bush did two years into his first term I think you will see plenty of people making such comparisons.
Parent
Re:This needs to get press. (Score:5, Informative)
Still, I don't expect even the blogosphere to treat Obama like it treated Bush. Where are the posts comparing Obama to Hitler?
Bush had years to build up a reputation. Obama is still in the process of tearing down his original reputation. Give him two years and if he's done anything near what Bush did two years into his first term I think you will see plenty of people making such comparisons.
Bush's motorcade was pelted with snowballs on the way to his inauguration [salon.com] while Obama got a party. With the except of a couple of months after 9-11, Bush was pretty much relentlessly attacked by the media, Hollywood elites and blogosphere for all eight years.
Parent
Re:This needs to get press. (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:This needs to get press. (Score:5, Insightful)
Where are the posts comparing Obama to Hitler? Would Stalin be a better comparison?
The posts are comparing Obama to Bush. That's practically the same thing, nowadays.
Parent
Re:This needs to get press. (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean, it's not like he won 25 electoral votes by a margin of 537 votes out of 6 million in a state with rampant reports of election fraud.
Parent
Change We Can Listen in On! (Score:5, Funny)
Change (Score:5, Insightful)
Was one hell of a marketing slogan, don't you think?
Re:Change (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, at least Guantanamo is being shut down, so we in the rest of the world can relax a little, while things stay the same for the actual US citizens..
Parent
Re:Change (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Change (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Change (Score:5, Insightful)
Can you get the terrorists to stop violating human rights?
Wow. Way to play the "if terrorists do it, it's OK for us to do it, too" card.
Parent
Re:Change (Score:5, Funny)
Well.... he said change, and the EFF says his arguments are worse than Bush's, so I suppose that qualifies.
Parent
Careful what you ask for... (Score:5, Funny)
Hey, you asked for a government that would listen to the people...
Now that you've got one, you're all mad and stuff. Man, this democracy stuff is weird. There's just no pleasing you people!
What secrets could these possibly be? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is kind of disturbing. I know politicians turn 180 at the drop of a hat but Obama's entire popularity -- and the benefits that come from it -- relies on being anti-Bush. This is a very hot issue. One of the most important ones in fact. For him to continue supporting it is almost political suicide. Yet he's doing it anyway. Which makes you think, what could possibly be so important to keep secret?
We know it has nothing to do with national defense. The crones in Washington have never had a problem with outing CIA agents in the field for political gain.
Do they have illegal records of Dick Cheney torturing kittens or something? Wait, that wouldn't surprise anyone.
This isn't a 180 (Score:5, Informative)
Obama voted yes for the telecom immunity bill. He supported the wiretapping program in the Senate, why do you think he'd stop supporting it when he was elected President?
Parent
Re:This isn't a 180 (Score:5, Interesting)
Obama voted yes for the telecom immunity bill. He supported the wiretapping program in the Senate, why do you think he'd stop supporting it when he was elected President?
Substance doesn't matter to "Hope And Change" zombies.
Not that it matters much to the "Saddam planned 9/11" crowd, but liberals are supposed to be Sooooo Muuuuch Smarter, Hipper And Rational than Bible-thumping Young Earth Creationist conservatives that you'd think they'd care a smidgen about reality.
Parent
They're both in on it (Score:5, Insightful)
After Bush madness, it seems that the Dems could go on a witch-hunt. Perhaps they don't because they're better than the Rs (think back to clinton's sex life). It seems much more plausible, however, that political MAD (mutually assured destruction) is keeping everything in check. I'm suggesting that the state-secrets would be hideously embarrassing for both Dems and Rs.
Parent
Flaws in our democracy (Score:5, Insightful)
"State secrets" and "sovereign immunity" are two concepts that have no place in any democratic country.
Re:Flaws in our democracy (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
This is probably smarter (Score:5, Interesting)
The Obama administration has roughly the same goals as the Bush administration, so it's no surprise that they're continuing to pursue them.
The change, and it is a change, is that they are pursuing them in a smarter way.
1) By making this extreme argument, they give judges wiggle-room to reject it and then accept the state secrets argument, while still allowing the judge to make token gestures in favor of the rule of law, even write a long, pious opinion dismissing the second argument while accepting the first. I can see that it would be very easy for any judge to delude himself into believing he was making a Solomonic compromise. Very smart on their part.
2) If the second argument *does* somehow fly, they have carte blanche to do what they want. I suspect that the Bush administration would've argued for the same thing, except that they weren't smart enough to come up with a line of argument that would've passed the laugh test (IANAL, maybe this one doesn't either.)
Begin broken record mode: The only way to get real improvement from Obama (or from Bush, for that matter,) is to mobilize the public to control the government. No elected leader is going to do this for us as a gift, we have to maintain the pressure constantly.
Personally, I'm much more disappointed with his ongoing embrace of "public-private partnerships" in education (crooked self-dealing and cronyism do not focus group so well, so they rebranded them as "public-private partnerships" in which the government partners with a private entity to give it money with minimal oversight and much righteous rhetoric.) My saintly mother blogs about it: http://chemtchr.dailykos.com/ [dailykos.com]
And I'm sure Obama has not delivered from progressives on a dozen other fronts. Only way he will is *if we make him*. In the case of progressive causes that are popular with the public, this should be relatively easy, and ought to benefit the election prospects of the Democratic party anyway, so let's get going.
It's called "Counterpush" (Score:5, Interesting)
Ya know... (Score:5, Insightful)
I distinctly remember, way back when during the Reagan years, people were crowing about how we in the U.S. had it so much better than the Soviets. We didn't have to worry about providing papers to travel (Red October anyone?), we didn't have to worry about our neighbors spying on us and reporting "unpatriotic" deeds, we didn't have to worry about government agents bursting into our homes without a warrant and we especially didn't have to worry about the government listening in on our phone calls.
Now we have two different parts of the government trying to justify why they can, whenever, they feel like it, listen to our phone conversations all in the name of stopping "them" from causing us harm. The worst part about it, the same people who 25 years ago were crowing about how free we were compared to the Soviets are now the same people (assuming they're still alive) who are defending these blatant infringements on our freedoms, all in the name of securing our freedom.
Is that like, "It became necessary to destroy the village in order to save it."?
I see two possibilities here... (Score:5, Insightful)
So it's starting to sound like one of several things is going on here:
I'm not sure which of these possibilities would worse.
It would help, however, if Obama would be more forthcoming as to the reasons behind the continuation, though; surely some more substantial explanation than "it's all a state secret" can be given without damaging national security.
Author of the Motion (Score:5, Informative)
I'm a bit cynical about the Obama Administration willingly giving up powers it has been given in the long run. But I'm not ready to say this motion represents the will of the Administration yet.
The author of the piece, ACTING Assistant Attorney General Michael F. Hertz, is a leftover from the Bush administration and is due to be replaced once his successor is confirmed.
Re:FTFA (Score:5, Insightful)
when we're talking only about a single administration.
Yes, the Obama administration's stance is intolerable. But the problem, I believe, is not the administration -- it is the law. Repeal the PATRIOT Act. Pass a law requiring stricter oversight of government surveillance.
THAT is the answer. Not some mindless, useless "Obama is teh suxxor" bullshit.
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Re:well and good to criticize warrantless wiretaps (Score:5, Insightful)
Concepts like probable cause, innocent until proven guilty, checks and balances on government power, government for the people and by the people, restriction on governmental power --- are best described as "quaint"?
I wish the people who want to destroy America would take up arms and revolt -- that's easy enough to put down. Insidiously destructive notions such as yours that fundamental rights for individuals and limits on government power are "quaint", ensures that American principles of government will die out. America may keep the name, but that's it.
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Re:well and good to criticize warrantless wiretaps (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:well and good to criticize warrantless wiretaps (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry man, but your argument flies in the face of what this country was built around: the US Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.
Violating our constitutionally guarenteed rights is unacceptable, period.
Here's a refresher for you. I've bolded the important bits: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
You might argue that the Constitution is outdated or wrong, but that's the beauty of it. If it's wrong, we can amend it. (Just like we did for prohibition). To ignore it because it doesn't currently fit in with our needs is a very dangerous road to be on, and not one that my fellow citizens should tolerate in any way.
Your claims that we should accept this and just move on are, frankly, unamerican. In America, we're subject first and foremost to the constitution. We believe that our government gets its power from us, as granted explicitly by the Constitution. Your proposal is utterly unacceptable.
Oh, and since you didn't rtfa, let me spell out the scariest bit of Obama's position on this issue: his adminsitration has taken the position that the federal government is immune from prosecution because of sovereign doctrine. Therefore, they're claiming that you can't sue the government. If that's not opaqueness, I'm not sure what is.
And I voted for Obama. Clearly I should've voted for Mickey Mouse.
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Re:And Krugman says his bank bail out... (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Obamunism in action (Score:5, Interesting)
This has nothing to do with Obama (other than that his DOJ is making the argument), and it is not a bullshit argument from a legal standpoint.
It's called sovereign immunity [wikipedia.org], and we brought it over to our legal system from the British system when we declared independence. To put it shortly, it's exactly what you quoted: Congress has to waive its immunity in order for you to sue the federal government. There are a few laws on the books outlining cases in which they automatically waive that right. I don't know if this would be one of them, except to say that the DOJ obviously feels there's at least an argument to be made that it isn't.
I agree with what somebody else said in another thread earlier: Sovereign immunity has no place in a democratic society. That said, though, it's here and as frightening as it may be, it's far from a bullshit legal argument to have a lawsuit dismissed. It's a good one.
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Re:We have to root out the neocons (Score:5, Insightful)
You can ship out the neocons just as soon as your buddies who said they would leave the country if Bush got (re)elected actually leave the country and renounce their citizenship.
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