Robert Steinback weighs in on War on Terror

Do you know what probable cause is? Well, if there is probable cause, a warrant can be issued. If the person whose phone they want to tap is a "known terrorist," a warrant could be easily issued. Why is that such a difficult concept? Why is this president above the laws of the United States? Why does he not care about the system of checks and balances? Why does he continuously thumb his nose at the Constitution?

P.S. It is not just Democrats "whining" about the wiretaps.

K, actually he broke the FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE SURVEILLANCE ACT

TITLE 50 > CHAPTER 36 > SUBCHAPTER I > § 1811 Prev | Next

§ 1811. Authorization during time of war



Notwithstanding any other law, the President, through the Attorney General, may authorize electronic surveillance without a court order under this subchapter to acquire foreign intelligence information for a period not to exceed fifteen calendar days following a declaration of war by the Congress.

Which you can read here.


IF you buy that this really is wartime,
and IF you believe that the patriot act is the equivilent of congress declaring said war,
he still broke the law.



dumb.

Another reminder - please do not personally attack those whose beliefs are different than you own. The Second Life Forums exist to provide a location for discussion and further education about Second Life. Continued personal attacks will cause this thread to be closed and those who are attacking to be disciplined.

heh, legal, illegal, stupid president, smart president. Who cares, 4+ years after the spark that ignited all this we've made no progress that I can see. If nothing else, that tells me "the best of his abilities" aint that great.

No progress? I guess it's kind of hard to notice the many many captures of Al Qaeda terrorists when it's barely talked about. We have gotten quite a few of them, and prevented quite a few attacks. I guess for some people if the attacks don't actually happen then they don't matter. Weird.

This is one of my favorite quotes. One of my New Year's resolutions (now that I am living on the E. coast) is to read more of Franklin's works and visit some of the historical sites.

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. "
-Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759
US author, diplomat, inventor, physicist, politician, & printer (1706 - 1790)

Uh oh, the Ben Franklin quote is out!

Ben Franklin also said this: "Nuclear bomb? I don't think that has been invented yet."

/me scrolls up
/me looks for a statement like "whoops I hadn't read that law, he really DID break it"
/me finds nothing like that
/me leaves

Another excellent quote by my 2nd favorite founding father.

"It is not by the consolidation, or concentration of powers, but by their distribution, that good government is effected."

--Thomas Jefferson: Autobiography, 1821. ME 1:122

/me looks at Taco
/me wonders why he thinks he can look at one law and what he thinks Bush did and declare that it's illegal

Here's another quote from Thomas Jefferson: "Having wiretaps on telephone calls, which aren't going to be invented for like 100 years, is not cool. Seriously. Also, if a Republican becomes President, we should change all of the rules because he is probably trying to become a dictator. When a Democrat does the same and worse, though, let's not say anything because Democrats are cool."

While looking up the exact wording and attribution on the Jefferson quote, I ran across more food for thought.

"We are now vibrating between too much and too little government, and the pendulum will rest finally in the middle."

--Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Smith, 1788. FE 5:3

Does anyone else feel like we've been swinging back and forth way too much. I wish to live in neither a socialist state nor a fascist state. Is it the human condition to veer from one extreme to the other instead of taking a steady middle course?

I've been watching the European's reactions to all this, mostly because I have lived abroad during terror campaigns. I was in London for the IRA, France for the Algerians, and Germany for the Libyans. For the most part, Europeans seem to have more pragmatic responses to domestic terror than we have. I don't know if it's because they have been dealing with it longer, or they have had time to learn from their previous mistakes. I would love to hear some input on this from the Brits or Spanish (to name two of the most recently attacked).

I know that some European countries are considering changes to their laws in response, but these changes seem more reasoned and less reactive, or designed to appeal to emotion. I have always admired the Londoner's response to terror, starting with the Blitz and continuing to this day. Now it's more difficult to assess what's going on over there from this side of the pond, so any first-hand opinions would be welcome.

How many lives have we lost in the process. How many allies are not so friendly anymore. How many terrorists have we created by making the terrorists own propaganda true. How many people have a little less faith in this government, it's motives and morals. Progress is positive net change.

how is it possible to type words but not be able to read them?

That is what's been making my brain hurt so badly.

How many lives have we lost in which process, converting 2 countries that were a total mess into democracies? Under 3000 US military personnel to free more than 40 million people and make them all much less likely to want to become suicide airplane pilots. We aren't creating terrorists. We are helping people in the middle east get free of living under piece of crap dictators.

Which allies don't like us anymore? France and Germany? Haha, they have hated us for a long time. They expect everyone in the world to become socialists with them, so things are "fair". They hate us because the invasion exposed their tremendous corruption of the Oil for Food program. Aww, our poor allies are upset at us because they can't get cheap oil anymore to prop up their socialisty governments. Boo hoo.

Who has less faith in the US government? Democrats because they aren't in power anymore? Oh well, maybe they shouldn't lie so much about everything. Then they might win some elections.

It's like being able to understand a language but not speak it, only backwards

Saying we were spying on people "with known links" to Al Qaeda doesn't mean anything without showing some evidence of probable cause (otherwise it turns into another WMD situation where nobody has to take responsibility). It is possible that we really were spying on the "evildoers," but the President has a loophole wherein he can bypass the law by claiming he thought people were communicating with terrorists- thanks to the FISA Act. It hasn't been shown whether or not the wiretaps were limited to those conversations since a warrant wasn't obtained, so the conversation can't move forward until we see some proof of the people being spied on (which won't happen because they can make it a national security issue).

Really, I guess all we can intelligently discuss on that issue (refer back to discussion with Champie Jack) is whether or not the FISA Act needs to be changed because it provides potential for violation of our rights without any kind of checks and balances, under the pretext of "terrorism."

Your right, it should have been process' plural. As far as freeing 40 million people... Can't argue that we've taken down some bad guys, but we are creating terrorists. Even though I think the majority of the population we've set "free" appreciate it (or at least don't resent it much), there is certainly a piece that resents it. A very tiny fraction was originally ready to take up arms against us convinced we are evil, decadant, ungodly, corrupt, condescending. We've now converted every person who had sympathy with that view but was not ready back it up with force.

And under 3000 military personnel... and how many of that 40 million we've set free has died as well? We try to train their police to take some of the burden off our troops, but as soon as they're trained we have to train more because the first batch is dead.

Anyway, it's not a good idea to use "the ends justify the means" argument. If we can't think of a better way than what we've been doing for the last 4 years, then we have no business interfering. We haven't freed those people. We've removed some terrorists and a dictator for our own ends and coopted what little infrastructure they have to maintain our enforced freedom. The reason we are still there is that if we leave, they will fall right back into a situation similar to the one they started out in. We haven't set those people free, we've set ourselves up as keepers.

No kidding.


But as far as terrorism goes, he's got a point. Preventing terrorism should not be our country's highest goal, especially when the statistical possibility of being killed in a terrorist attack is so marginal. There have always, are now, and will always be a minority of highly organized rogue elements in any society. To allocate massive resources to such a small enemy is like lancing a boil with a hand grenade.

That's not to say something shouldn't be done, it should, but keep it in perspective. The people who most fear terrorist attacks in the U.S. are the majority of people who were aggressively unaware of foreign affairs before 9/11 knocked on their door.

Yes!!

Meh.

lol, come on, no dodging bullets. Tell us what you think. Stick your head up so we can shoot you down .

PS~ I'm kidding, nothing wrong with a general statement of opinion while thinking things over.

What should we be doing differently? What have we done wrong? You're very sure that things are going horribly, why do you think that? What were the mistakes?

"Our enforced freedom"? Are you saying that these people would rather have a dictator? They don't.

Everything everyone ever does is for their own ends.

Yes, we are staying in those countries until their government is strong enough to take care of itself. Just like we did in Japan and Germany. We stayed too long in Germany, though. Now we're "stuck" there. Are you sad about that, too?

It's sad that you don't think it's worth it, but it's what we're doing. As these countries get themselves together, even more of them are going to be very thankful to the US for what we did for them. If any of them ever thank you, be sure to tell them that you didn't think they deserved our help.

The idea that to recognize the wrong way you have to know the right way is false. Right can be slightly fuzzy because there is no standard moral code, the UN tried to put one down on paper a few years ago and failed miserably. Essentially right is the way that makes progress quickest.

According to my moral gauge though, what we've done has cost more than it's returned. Not progress. In addition to moral right and wrong there is functional right and wrong. Right in that sense is defined by achieving goals in a timely fashion. I don't think we're more secure than we were 4 years ago, I don't think we have a better grip on oil from the middle east than we did 4 years ago. We didn't find any WMDs. Not progress.

So, I may not know what the right way is, but that's how I know this isn't it. Personally, I would have spent all that money on finding and developing non oil based fuel sources. I would have spent money on better radar coverage and automated track checking for airplanes. I would have given universities research grants in various fields in an attempt to develop better background checking methods while avoiding racism and invasion of privacy. Also I'd start funding research into middle eastern cultures and groups. No, these aren't solutions, and they're not as gratifying in the short term as retaliation. Like I said, i don't know the right way.

No I'm not saying that they want a dictator any more than I would. I'm saying democracy isn't the only valid form of government though I personally like it. I'm saying that we may have killed their current dictator but we can't teach them how to avoid a new one. I'm saying that for a people to gain freedom it has to be their accomplishment. You can't give people freedom.

True, everything anyone ever does is for their own ends. I believe I made that statment in response to the implication that we were working towards their ends.

In Germany's case they recovered a government they already had, not learned a new form of government. I don't know enough about japan's circumstances. We did not have to kill Hitler. They did it themselves. See above point. Germany was also a serious threat to our allies way of life. I do not see Al Quida or Sadam as a serious threat to our or our allies way of life. Oil and a gas powered society? I think we can find alternatives. Do you think the US isn't smart at all but only strong? That would be sad.

"Deserver our help". I think I've covered that I don't think we're helping.

"It's what we're doing". yes, yes it is. I don't think it's what we should be doing. If we believe what we are doing should dictate what we continue to do, simply because of... inertia? heh, we won't be a superpower for much longer.