Bush is Spying on Millions of Americans !!!

[thewizeard]

They impeached Clinton because of a BJ.
and with a 29% approval rating (and it keeps going down) there are plenty of good reasons to impeach bush.

Clinton was impeached for perjuring himself to a grand jury.

The difference is so basic that to overlook it is stunning.

To overlook or ignore the difference over and over and over again is stunning cubed.

Bush, on the other hand, hasn't committed an impeachable offense until some investigatory body concludes he has, a la Clinton.

Pity that you feel low poll numbers alone constitute sufficient cause; were that true, we need not have suffered Jimmy Carter for a full term.

Mind, I am not defending Bush-not in the least; it is only that you are purely and simply wrong, on this point, anyway.

I have nearly always respected your opinion, j2k4, even though I would vote for the Democrats, if I were American... I just hope ..no pray... you will get off the Republican Bandwagon...and go on the attack, as this crew has disgraced the Republican Party, and you know it.

[Chewie]

I knew there was something odd about dubya - two right hands.

[vidcc]

I knew there was something odd about dubya - two right hands.

Truth is when Bush talks about "the creator" he is talking about Dr. Frankenstein.... there was a special on right hands down at the morgue that day

[j2k4]

Clinton was impeached for perjuring himself to a grand jury.

The difference is so basic that to overlook it is stunning.

To overlook or ignore the difference over and over and over again is stunning cubed.

Bush, on the other hand, hasn't committed an impeachable offense until some investigatory body concludes he has, a la Clinton.

Pity that you feel low poll numbers alone constitute sufficient cause; were that true, we need not have suffered Jimmy Carter for a full term.

Mind, I am not defending Bush-not in the least; it is only that you are purely and simply wrong, on this point, anyway.

I have nearly always respected your opinion, j2k4, even though I would vote for the Democrats, if I were American... I just hope ..no pray... you will get off the Republican Bandwagon...and go on the attack, as this crew has disgraced the Republican Party, and you know it.

Odd that when I try to communicate to all here precisely what bandwagon I'm travelling on, my words disappear as if into the ether.

Hippychick-

Bush is guilty of no crime until he has been found to be, and so bears no comparison to Clinton at this time.

Whether or not one agrees with the steps he has taken, allegedly or otherwise, this must be acknowledged.

Now-

Do I agree with the "tapping of" and "listening in on" phone calls between known foreign terrorists and domestic numbers?

You damn betcha.

Do I agree with the recording/tabulation of phone "traffic" in the form of a record of number-to-number contacts?

At first blush, it would seem to be an "iffy" proposition, but, if it is as it has been described (all domestic calls, on an intra-national basis), with no actual "listening-in", or transcription of communications, I fail to see the harm.

Think for just a second:

A computor-generated algorithm can, in a timely-enough fashion to be of genuine intelligence value, parse any relevant pattern(s) of domestic calls (again, intra-nationally) to create an overlay to compare with the aforementioned international traffic as a means of widening the net of domestic terrorist surveillance.

If technology allows this, and no "listening-in" is occurring, what's the actual harm?

It seems to me that any administration following this blueprint might rightfully incur the suspicion of a cautious populace, but the citizenry ought to object only after exercising it's own due-diligence on matters both constitutional as well as circumstantial.

A much greater variety of much more personal information than mere phone numbers is floating about for the perusal of any number of institutions other than government, depending on intent.

To this point, all we know is that numbers are being parsed for patterns, and, as a method of devining the nooks and crannies of a terrorist network, the worth of such activity cannot be denied-the rub only occurs when we are asked to trust that the government is doing what it says and no more.

If this could be communicated sincerely and believably to John Q. Public, he might rest a bit easier-the difficulty is, of course, that the Bush administration, for a variety of reasons (some more, some less credible than others) hasn't engendered a great deal of public trust.

In any case, nothing has been proven/disproven yet, and those who think they have legal or constitutional grounds for objecting to what may or may not be occurring best remember any recent thoughts they may have had about the Constitution being a "living" document.

Sometimes those types of beliefs can come back and bite you on the ass.

I'm content to wait it out, and you all should be, too, because if you get out and vote in '08 like you should, and if, as you all likewise believe, that liberals are God's gift to us all, and that everyone at heart shares that belief, Hillary Rodham Clinton will be President; for those of you who don't remember, she was one of the Watergate staff lawyers favoring the prosecutorial side.

I'm quite sure she'll be glad to barbeque any Republican wrong-doers who turn up.

[hippychick]

J2 I may not use the big words you use and not be as politically correct as you are, I just speak for how I feel. No insult intended.

Wire tapping is wrong and it goes against the Constitution and Freedom of speech.
Like I said before if you want to tap someone lines or listen in then get a warrant.
You don't think that the terrorist know about the wire tappings? that they wont use other methods of communication? If the US people know about the wire tappings then I'll bet the terrorist knew way before the US did.

The US was not founded on police action and "Big Brother" methods of control and that's what set the US apart from countries that do.
So what next marshal law? public executions of people he suspect don't like him?
The man is a joke and needs to be removed from office along with his monkey crew, before he destroys whats left of the US and takes the US into another WW or make the US go bankrupt.

Sure Clinton's personal life was a joke. But at least he didn't act like a dictator or God himself.

[j2k4]

J2 I may not use the big words you use and not be as politically correct as you are, I just speak for how I feel. No insult intended.

Please believe me, no offense taken; I do wonder at your calling me "politically-correct", though...I don't think I qualify.

Wire tapping is wrong and it goes against the Constitution and Freedom of speech.

Two things:

1. Wire-taps are acceptable from a Constitutional standpoint.

2. What is currently at dispute is not wire-taps; readily available information is being accessed by the government for ostensible purposes of chasing down terrorists.

Like I said before if you want to tap someone lines or listen in then get a warrant.
You don't think that the terrorist know about the wire tappings? that they wont use other methods of communication? If the US people know about the wire tappings then I'll bet the terrorist knew way before the US did.

Oh, surely the terrorists are aware of the existence of wire-taps, on that point you are absolutely correct; the only issue left then to our potential advantage is that of timeliness of interception, which is impacted by the issue of warrants, etc.

The only thing we know for sure is the terrorists don't have any technology we don't have, and any advantage to be derived from that is nothing apart from a matter of how the technology is manipulated, and we definitely want the advantage against terrorists, I think.

Don't you?

The US was not founded on police action and "Big Brother" methods of control and that's what set the US apart from countries that do.
So what next marshal law? public executions of people he suspect don't like him?

"Big Brother" has a different intent, I think you'll find.

As a side-issue, how do you feel about "profiling"?

The vast majority of terrorists (the ones we're worried about at the moment) have an abundance of skin pigmentation.

Should we overlook this fact when seeking to uncover terrorists?

The man is a joke and needs to be removed from office along with his monkey crew, before he destroys whats left of the US and takes the US into another WW or make the US go bankrupt.

Sure Clinton's personal life was a joke. But at least he didn't act like a dictator or God himself.

On these last few points we'll have to agree to disagree, at least as to any comparison of the two.

You've left out alot of Clinton's shortcomings, and ignored the fact he hadn't anything on his plate approaching the relative smorgasbord Bush is confronted with.

[ilw]

In some ways i have to agree with j2 on this one. The recording of who phoned who is pretty small potatoes compared to some of the other stuff going on.
I think the big issue here is the fact that the senior dudes let Bush do this kind of stuff, because it seems to me that at the moment they're completely shorting out your checks and balances. Bush shouldn't be taking all the flak, he's used to it and if you haven't kicked him out of office yet, you're never going to. The people in the background need to feel their jobs threatened

[hippychick]

What it seems to me is this is such a crucial time for the US.
I hope that the people start to realize that it's not the Republicans or Democrats, but the people behind the scenes that are bringing about this police state. They are able to do so by keeping Democrats fighting with the Republicans instead of finding a real solution to containing their power.

The US need a viable third party. They need to take control of the media in order to do so, or create a viable independent media. The Internet is making that happen, and those in control are trying to squelch it by reversing "Net Neutrality" laws.

I cant remember where I heard this.
But "The Government needs to be afraid of the people. Not the people afraid of the Government."

I still stand by my feelings that Bush is a big joke wether he is the puppet or the puppet master.

[j2k4]

What it seems to me is this is such a crucial time for the US.

I can't remember a non-crucial time, frankly.

I hope that the people start to realize that it's not the Republicans or Democrats, but the people behind the scenes that are bringing about this police state. They are able to do so by keeping Democrats fighting with the Republicans instead of finding a real solution to containing their power.

I think you should take pains to avoid sounding like a conspiracy theorist.

There are those, yes, who benefit from "ideological" head-butting, but it is not what you think-the true fight in this country is indeed ideological; the difficulty is brought about by the shared characteristics of the ideologies, rather than their differences.

The US need a viable third party. They need to take control of the media in order to do so, or create a viable independent media. The Internet is making that happen, and those in control are trying to squelch it by reversing "Net Neutrality" laws.

The U.S. could derive immense benefit from the existence of a "viable" third party.

On the other hand, the liberal influence on the extant media should tell us all we need to know about the thought of "controlling" it.

Any method of diseminating "information" needs to be exercised responsibly; the internet is effectively nothing but a huge forum for free-expression, and it's survival as a (to use your word) viable conduit for information depends on recognition of that fact by those who use it.

Since that is impossible, we have to settle for seining/vetting/parsing internet info as best we can on our own.

I cant remember where I heard this.
But "The Government needs to be afraid of the people. Not the people afraid of the Government."

Perhaps a better word than "afraid" might be "responsive".

A slight but important distinction.

I still stand by my feelings that Bush is a big joke wether he is the puppet or the puppet master.

Again, to finish, I note that a joke is in the ear of the listener.

[j2k4]

Bush vows to pursue spying on Americans...


http://www.theage.com.au/news/World/...032002287.html


and then he uses the terrorist excuse...

Surely this man should be impeached and removed from office?

After all of the intervening posts, I finally remembered to point out the obvious bias of the very first sentence of this entire thread.

It should be apparent to all, I think.