Bush Authorized Domestic Spying

How do we get rid of this authoritarian pro-torture regime?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/16/AR2005121600021.html

~Ulrika~

Amazingly, the Washington Post left this bit out of the story...



http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10488458/

Yeah...how dare we spy on terrorists working in our own country...

The ends justify the means, Niccolò Machiavelli said so himself. Its been my life's dream to live under the dominion of a Machiavellian state. Er, not dream, what's that other word... "nightmare"?

Ahhhh....the good old days of the Clinton Administration. When we did nothing about terrorism & liked it.

'The ends justify the means' is the motto of any police state.

There are plenty of repressive police-states out there, Bill. Oddly, they still suffer from terrorist activity. A great deal of it (more than in the US) home-grown. Repressive measures breed terrorism. Catch one, create five. Not an equation I personally am partial to. Feel free to promote loss of civil rights and free speech, though, until of course they're gone... then you can simply sing the praises of the jackbooted thugs dragging you or your wife or your children away because someone said that someone in your household may or may not have expressed sympathy with a cause the administration does not like. And yes, that's a much more extreme example than what we're discussing, but have you ever heard the term 'slippery slope'?

Bill, I'm going to take the risk of suggesting that you might have missed at least some of the points here. Particularly as relatec the notions of 'the end justifies the means' We all agree that stopping terrorist activity is good. The question is, what intrusions does that end justify?

Bill, is there a line? Where is the line? In order to stop terrorists is it OK for:

Espionage agencies to spy on foreign nationals without court order

Espionage agencies to spy on US citizens without court order

Law enforcement to track people in real time without judicial review

Foreign nationals suspected of terrorist tendencies to be detained indefinitely without charge

Citizens suspected of terrorist tendencies to be detained indefinitely without charge

Citizens who criticize government policies to be tracked and have data collected on them

Citizens to be required to notify law enfocement of their travel plans

Suspected terrorists to be summarily executed

Family and associates of terror suspects to be detained as a preventative measure

Several of these things have happened, if not in the US, in other places. I find many of them troubling.

Let me put it this way. Is there anything the government should not be allowed to do it it's efforts to stop terrorism?

To put the focus more on the US, and to stress how I personally feel about it... it is now okay to yank people off the street without charging them with a crime. It is now okay to torture people that we are pretty sure are terrorists.

We are justifying the actions of the terrorists.

--And creating sympathy at home for antigovernment and illegal antigovernment activities.

I'm gonna say a vote and looking the other way.

http://www.drudgereport.com/flash9nyt.htm

From: someone

NYT 'SPYING' SPLASH TIED TO BOOK RELEASE
Fri Dec 16 200 11:27:16 ET

**Exclusive**

Newspaper fails to inform readers "news break" is tied to book publication

On the front page of today's NEW YORK TIMES, national security reporter James Risen claims that "months after the September 11 attacks, President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States... without the court approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying, according to government officials."

Risen claims the White House asked the paper not to publish the article, saying that it could jeopardize continuing investigations and alert would-be terrorists that they might be under scrutiny.

Risen claims the TIMES delayed publication of the article for a year to conduct additional reporting.

But now comes word James Risen's article is only one of many "explosive newsbreaking" stories that can be found -- in his upcoming book -- which he turned in 3 months ago!

The paper failed to reveal the urgent story was tied to a book release and sale.

"STATE OF WAR: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration" is to be published by FREE PRESS in the coming weeks, sources tell the DRUDGE REPORT.

Carisa Hays, VP, Director of Publicity FREE PRESS, confirms the book is being published.

The book editor of Bush critic Richard Clarke [AGAINST ALL ENEMIES] signed Risen to FREE PRESS.

I'm suggesting that the timing of the story is interesting....

Yawn..... Privacy is more important than giving Boy George the ability to Crow over fake news stories.

Gee, the Drudge Report isn't a biased source or anything. And clearly the best way to defeat terrorists is to become just like them. Remember our justifications for fighting against the "red menace?" It was because they were doing the same shit to their citizens the right wing is now condoning.

That article is moronic. I've no doubt this info was leaked to the press by people in the administration who don't want to see the patriot act made permanent. That must be too obvious for the Drudge report to comprehend.

Incidentally, the Patriot act is now dead unless they can come to a compromise by December 31st when it's set to expire. The Senate majority failed to get enough votes to overturn the threatened filabuster in the vote held this morning.

I wish President WIlliam Clinton had gotten to serve two more terms. And all the Fundamentalist had gotten voted out of office. We would not be in the mess we are in now.

Does this mean I can put a camera in Ulrika's shower?

There's always Hillary "Video Games are Destroying our Youth" Clinton to vote for on the next go around.

...and neither is the New YorK Times...

I think we would have been screwed in different ways if the current administration was liberal. Politicians in our society have a limitless capacity to institutionalize new forms of anal abuse. If it wasn't terr, we would've been paving the way for the Lieberman-Gore camp of magical mystery to censor free speech in the name of family values, or we would've been raped with taxes to pay for the emotional enrichment and play therapy of the children in the county of wherever, etc. Nothing but the method of butt rape is going to change as long as we have a form of government that allows our leaders to serve two masters (corporate interests and the people's interests).

I'm just looking forward to the days when there is no such thing as privacy, except for your thoughts.
Camera's everywhere, NO ONE exempt, that includes Government.

I don't have anything to hide, even the mistakes I've made.

I want to wear a chip in my skin that will log all my comings and goings, so that I will never be accused of a crime I didn't commit or was no where near.

I realize it will take time to get there, but the solution to all of this is a transparent society.

I look forward to your utopian future and wholeheartedly embrace it with jellybeans from the sky. I look forward to launching covert attacks against the Ticktock man or changing my name to V and quoting Shakespeare while I do it.

Yes, I get that a lot, it comes from fear. People feel they need to keep secrets...stuff they are ashamed of...they fear big brother...I do too, it's not gonna be easy, but it's possible.

Yipes! It looks like Republicans have been angered by the Executive order to allow eavesdropping without search warrants. It appears that our pro-torture authoritarian regime is starting to unravel.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/12/16/bush.nsa.ap/index.html

~Ulrika~