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to what level should the government


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#1
dsenette

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http://www.washingto...5121600021.html

Bush Authorized Domestic Spying
Post-9/11 Order Bypassed Special Court

By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 16, 2005; Page A01

President Bush signed a secret order in 2002 authorizing the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on U.S. citizens and foreign nationals in the United States, despite previous legal prohibitions against such domestic spying, sources with knowledge of the program said last night.

The super-secretive NSA, which has generally been barred from domestic spying except in narrow circumstances involving foreign nationals, has monitored the e-mail, telephone calls and other communications of hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of people under the program, the New York Times disclosed last night.


is this just a window allowing the American government to keep better tabs on terrorists? or a gaping whole designed to allow them to spy on everything we do?

thoughts...opinions?

Edited by dsenette, 20 December 2005 - 08:32 AM.

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#2
MasterJ

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I look at it this way. It will give us more protection, but we do lose some freedoms. That's the way it generally works. We want to be safe so we are willing to give up our freedoms for that protection.

After reading 1984 in my English class last year, my perspective really changed. I look at a lot of laws and see the protection they provide, but I also see the freedoms we lose.

It's an eye opening book and deals with this exact subject.

Edited by MasterJ, 20 December 2005 - 08:55 PM.

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#3
warriorscot

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Im not an American but i go there a fair bit, and as a tourist of sorts i dont like going there over other countries because while a citzein has a sufficeint level of protection anyone not an american has almost none, its a very dangerous place for foreigners and if you are suspected of being a terrorist the US goverment will hold you indefinately without trial and with no legal rights, also pretty shocking they only just this month outlawed torture.

If you think your freedoms are curtailed as a US citizen imagine how immigrants and some tourists feel when they visit the US.

They really have no need to start surveilance ilegaly either US law is similar to UK law in the respect that wire taps can only be ordered by judge or in our case the home office(by a senior civil servant or another judge), there should be no need to order taps without approval and if they are doing it to Americans imagine what they do to non americans both home and abroad.

Seems another fairly shocking abuse of power from an outside viewer its hard to believe why people put up with government after government in the US doing the same shady things without reproach.
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#4
gerryf

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I am honestly very frightened by all that has occured in the last 5+ years. My family and friends, for whatever reason, think I am a "liberal" because I am so adamant in my opposition to the path the Bush administration has taken, which is completely ridiculous and yet another example of the extreme polarization this president provokes.

I have voted both "conservative" and "liberal" candidates for president and grow more and more tired of these labels. There were a lot of conservatives who were dismayed at the arrival of W on the scene. If you scratch the surface of this administration it is not "conservative", but borders on totalitariansim.

I'm so tired of this group hijacking the word conservatism for what it is. Eisenhower is surely rolling over in his grave.

Conservatism used to stand for responsibility (this president takes responsibility for nothing), fiscal responsibility (fiscal responsibility means spending restraint at least, and if not possible, it certainly does not mean cutting taxes and spending more). Conservatism once was concerned about the middle class, but the middle class has eroded horrifically under this administration and the middle class is essential the what made the US great. Conservatives once made decisions carefully, weighing the outcomes. This administation rushes in blindly. Our best conservative presidents took a a leadership role in world, and worked with other world leaders to accomplish things...this adminstration is a bully on the playground.

Never in my life did I envision a US President acting like this. I am horrified.

This is a dangerous president with dangerous ideas, surrounded by dangerous people. I do not see how anyone who considers himself/herself a CONSERVATIVE can even support him.

Bush's abuses of presidential power are the most extensive in American history. He launched war on false pretenses if you are anti-bush or ignorence if you are pro-Bush. Neither is desirable

He has presided over a system of torture and sought to legitimize it by specious definitions of the word, and had to be bullyed by a real war hero into grudgingly accepting any limits

His administration locks up American citizens and others indefinitely without any legal showing or the right to see a lawyer or anyone else and opposes any attempt to have any scrutiny

His administration has kidnapped people in foreign countries and sent them to other countries, where they were tortured.

He has ignorently cut revenue and radically increased spending, ballooning debt beyond conceivability

He and his underlings claim unlimited, uncheckable and unreviewable powers.

He decries judiucial activism and then appoints judges with the intent of overturning judicial precedent -- which is blatant judicial activism.

We have reached a scary juncture in our history. I know a lot of people who think they must support Bush because he is the "republican/conservative" with little thought beyond that. They have a few issues that matter to them, but cannot see the whole picture.

There are a lot of good, conservative republicans, but they have been beaten into silence by a populist president who has used terrorism and fear to achieve personal/selfish goals that are ultimately contrary to the future of this country.

Edited by gerryf, 23 December 2005 - 08:38 AM.

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#5
warriorscot

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Wow right on, although i supported the war, the right thing for the wrong reasons is still the right thing in my opinion.

You are right about GW being a bit of a fanny, of all the US presidents the world as a whole views him rather more dimly, thouroghly hated by most of the british public and we loved bill clinton even when he diddled his seceratary.

Torture is never to be condoned, and if he was the leader of any other country he would be put under arrest for crimes against humanity a long time ago. He is very radical and is taking his country down those lines and that is never good. i dont know how he managed to get voted in again. I dont know how a country with no national health and a predominantly working class immigrant population can elect a donservative it goes against the trends.
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#6
The_KiD

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The UK isnt that far behind either:

http://www.techmonke...opic.php?t=1419

I hate the fact that these are the lengths we have to go to to protect ourselves and am completely against the blair/bush administration.

I think we are completely ruled by fear, scared people are easy to control people.
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#7
warriorscot

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We are alot better protected than they are in the US though, laws take alot to be passed and can easily be overruled by the law lords or the house of lords who often fight for the privacy and freedoms of uk citizens, Europe can go a bit far but we are detached from it for the large part so we are pretty secure, there is also no such thing as the Blair/bush administration there are to seperate governments of two different forms, a prime minister is also not a commander in chief either he cannot do anything with parlimentary approval from all levels, Blair is also heavily opposed to bush on several important points especially the environment which is the most important piece of policy.
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#8
Pete^2

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Is anyone else a bit worried about RFID tags? A little known or discussed potential invasion of privacy?

~ RFID Tags ~

:tazz:
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#9
warriorscot

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Im quite excited about them they should be pretty cool, they allrady have the iris scanning technology similar to the kind in the film minority report so if someone wants to follow you around its pretty easy, but we allready carry mobiles that can let you be tracked anywhere you go. Im not too bothered if someone knows i went to the pub for lunch before labs. You should only worry if your doing something wrong, otherwise it will be quite useful.
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#10
koonter

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hi, im the new kid on the blog. well not blog but reading this thread gave me some pj media flashbacks. anyhow, i see it like this:

first thing to agree is there is no viable alternative. (period)
democrats are fools and kerry was a pompous idiot, who sounds more intelligant then GW but in the real world without his wifes money, wouldnt last a second.

2) most of the negative publicity ie torture, wiretapping, lying about WMD, secret prisons...ETC ETC ETC were generated for that purpose, negative publicity. it should be no shock that the wiretaps were revealed the day before a vote on the patriot act. that means the media KNEW about the wiretapping and said NOTHING. they claim they were ordered to keep quiet...well...why speak up now? of all times why speak now???!!!

3. the wiretapping is constitutionaly legal. the president has the the power to order a warntless, courtless aproved tapping, on any citazin thought to have connection to a illigal (terrorist) FORIEGN entity.

DO NOT BELIEVE THE MEDIA!!!!!!

sen. ted kennedy who decried the invasion of privcy SITS on the com'tee that aproved it in the first place!!!

4. prez gWb has improved the economy by 3 percent. that might not sound alot but take a course in economics and be blown a way. ITS HUGE!!!

5) Bill Cliton (misspelled on purp) was a self indulging, no backbone, controversy fearing prez. thats why we all liked him. but if 9/11 happened under his watch.... well.....

6) im from israel and cant spell. sue me :tazz:
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#11
warriorscot

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Well from the way the news services said it all of them agreed and so did the lawyers that wiretaps were illegal after watergate if they were issued without a warrant by a president. A few new channels would be written off as propaganda(i never watch US news its so stupidly full of propoganda its not funny and people sem not to notice inside america).

3percent isnt alot when you look at the improvement other governments have managed.

Torture isnt just negative publicity its illegal and and is clearly evident,(and was no secret either, most military personell in most countries that work with the US alor knew about it, soldiers gossip like fishwifes what can you say)

Of course the media released the information when it was most suitable the bigger the audience the bigger he money they get.

It would seem to me all your comments on Kerry apply to bush, except replace wife with Father, the only difference appart from the party(which i still dont get how a nation with such a huge working class population will elect a conservative) is that Kerry was actually a real war hero which is apparently important in the US for the presidents to have been in the military, i dont get it myself we havent had a PM in the military for a long time in the UK, although out PMs arent supreme commanders either i suppose.
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#12
koonter

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well scot, im from israel and pretty much all of our PM's have been war heroes in the real sense of the word.

but to reply:

no lawyer has called the wiretapping illigal. and you know how to tell...watch UCLA. those fuk!$%'s (excuse my symbols) would file lawsuits so fast, the judge would be reading them before he got the paper that broke the story. but instead what do we see??? they file on behalf of a would be mass murderer whose arrest "was caused by the wiretapping of his phone" this tells us 3 things.
1) the UCLA are @$#@$'s for defending a man who wanted to kill as many americans as possible
2)they couldnt find a more ligit "victim" of these "illigal" wiretappes
3) if indeed he was arrested because his phone was tapped, then bush was right to do so in the first place, i mean, he saved untold numbes of lives.

also,

John kerry was no war hero. in fact while the lies told about bush and his army records prove unfounded and diliberate lies (dan rather...........) john kerry has yet to release his own records, though he has promised to do so for a year.

and finally,

anybody who dosent support his countrymen, risking their lives while he sits on his [bleep], and goes even further by redeculing them!!! dosent belong in a govmnt.

your own PM Benjamin D'israeli set guidlines for supporting national wars abroad, and one of them were, the opposition party ALWAYS supports the troops AND their generals.


ps just to ad another point... bill clinton also ordered warrentless wiretapping and nobodu said anything, they even praised him.

conservatevs vote for bush because he is religious, plus like i said before,, who are they going to vote for?? democrates??? that will be the day. in case you didnt know conservatevs HATE democrates and vice versa
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#13
warriorscot

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Well Bush isnt daft enough to trigger another watergate by wiretapping people that he shouldnt at all, the question is why didnt they go through the proper channels if a wiretap was appropriate it would have been given.

George Bush has no war record he served as a pilot in the national guard and never went to war. At least John Kerry to the best of my knowledge actually went to a warzone as a soldier, what he did there was questioned but not that he did go.

Just because someone doesnt support a war or the way a military is run doesnt mean they shouldnt be in government if nobody questioned the way things were done then no one would speak for the people who oppose such things and nothing would change or improve, speaking out against an unjust war led by fools is not wrong.

The question on wiretapping seemed to be one of principle more that actual rampant use a president should not have to or should be qualified to issue them above a board of well trained and experienced judges the same goes for any country and any head of state)

Bill Clinton was also more trusted and afluent than Bush he got away with more for that reason, his biggest controversies were because he couldnt keep off the secreatary. George Bush has a bad reputation for abusing his power as president and his government has a bad reputation for flaunting international law on many aspects.

People who commit crimes are still protected by the law because someone wants to break the law doesnt mean it doesnt fully apply to them they still have the same rights and the same rights to a competent defence. When you circumvent the law to stop people breaking it you become worse than the people you try to stop.
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#14
koonter

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he didnt go through the "proper" channels because it was SECRET and the "proper" channels, i.e. "the courts, congress" are notorious for not being able to keep a secret to the point where for that very fact the president is legally allowed to carry out wiretappings in secret. (of course there is a criteria, that the subject be contacting someone out of th US etc)

i thought i emphasized that its wrong to RIDICULE or raise UNCUNSTRUCTIVE critisism of the war abroad, and that fits kerrys remarks now, and back in vietnam.

the bottom line that you have to ask yourself is.... are the civil rights of individuals hellbent on causing chaos and mayhem, murder and destruction accros THE GLOBE!!!!, but for you i state IN THE US, are these "people" worthy of libertys like privacy, when they are trying to destroy those very libertys and all they were founded on,themselvs.

if someone wants to kill you, you kill them, and if you only invade their privacy, well they should be thankfull and YOU as a citazin of said country should be MAD. He wants to kill you, your family and loved ones, and all the government that has SWORN to protect you is doing is listining to their CALLS!!!???

the argument if you noticed, is centered on the theme of "but what if he abuses this power?" so from this you understand that its understood why we need to listin to terrorists calling one another, the fear is that he might go from there to listin to everybody. so think about this... if he has been wiretapping scince 2001, thats roughly 4 years ago, and the only "victim" that can claim this "illigal" method was used on him, wanted to blow a bridge. well i rest my tirade.

i see this everyday. in the israel palestinian conflict, you have mass opinions raised by mass idiots that have never been to israel, never seen a palestinian let alone talk to one and yet are fit too pass judgment. i say to them and thus indirectly to you, GET THE FACTS MAN!!! dont watch mainstream tv, dont listin to mainstream radio [bleep] DO it YOURSELF!!!!!!! research reality, not make up lala land.


whew im sorry dude just very passionate on the subject, ask me about sports and its a limp dick
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#15
warriorscot

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I believe in principles, its that simple, a victory won without honour is no victory at all. To live without without honour is no life at all, and if you break the law invade privacy and kill and torture people even to defend yourself you are worse than the people who wanted to kill you in the first place.

I dont watch TV or radio from the mainstream and our media is very different from the US and middle east much less biased.
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