Meanwhile there's a war on - Page 11

**CingularDuality** · 01-18-2006, 03:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Addict

And how does keeping it secret that you are breaking a law figure in to that system?(not an acusation, just a question) Doesn't that pose some unique challenges to this type of law/review etc?

Oh, I'm not saying that the President wanted to get caught so he could challenge the law. I think he wanted to catch bad guys. But my point is that every time a law is found to be unconstitutional, it's because someone thought they were "above the law".

Addict · 01-18-2006, 03:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CingularDuality

Oh, I'm not saying that the President wanted to get caught so he could challenge the law. I think he wanted to catch bad guys. But my point is that every time a law is found to be unconstitutional, it's because someone thought they were "above the law".

But how is the "system"(which is set up to set constitutional laws that we abide by) supposed to work in this case. Consider that if the secrecy had held, we would have continued to have a law on the books that president(the side it was supposed to govern) was ignoring as unconstitutional, and the public would assume is keeping a check on presidential power. This false sense of "security"(for lack of a better term.... sorry) seems at odds with our "system".

I guess I'm glad that there is talk of a congresional review / court case. I'd like to see either the law clarified/changed/dropped/ or the president told he was wrong. 'cause it seems broken at present, to me.

**leejo** · 01-18-2006, 03:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Beatnik

Ok I take back what I said about the lack of ad hominem arguments in this thread. I believe that's about a half dozen for you alone there leejo.

Invoking the name (or reference to) Clinton or Lincoln does nothing to advance the dialog in either direction.

Sure it does. It points to precedents of a President coming into conflict with the law and with other branches, and it calls bs on the people whose tender sensibilities are so offended by "Bush" but who managed to overlook the FBI's infiltrating domestic groups in the 90s, and the violence the federal government committed against those groups.

I believe that a lot of people truly believe that they are focused on the principles at stake, but in reality they are being expedient in seizing upon an event that calls President Bush's actions into question and the interpretation of those actions that best feeds their anti-Bush bias.

What about my bias? Well, I don't have one

Addict · 01-18-2006, 03:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by leejo

What about my bias? Well, I don't have one

Heh. I like the wink.

Diceman · 01-18-2006, 03:33 PM

*sigh*

Quote:

Originally Posted by CingularDuality

You failed to include the last paragraph of the EFF's summary, which led to the creation of FISA:

I was simply examining the case which you provided to substantiate your claim. The last paragraph does nothing more than to say that the case detailed has nothing to do with the surveillance of foreign power or their agents. That being the case, it was meaningless to cite any of the EFF's FAQ as justification.

The paragraph which apparently is critical to your argument just states that Congress may want to look into restraining executive power as it relates to the surveillance of foreign powers and their agents. Congress did just that with FISA.

Let's recap:

In United States v. U.S. District Court, 407 U.S. 297 (1972), the court found that, due to the 4th amendment, the government should be restrained from surveilling US Citizens without a warrant.
FISA prevents the government from surveilling foreign powers or their agents without a warrant.

Since everybody that the US government would want to surveil is either a US Citizen or an agent of a foreign power (or both), and either case requires a warrant, it seems to me that we've covered the waterfront in terms of needing warrants to conduct surveillance.

Why wasn't a warrant sought?

Quote:

Originally Posted by CingularDuality

And, again, the link: http://www.eff.org/Censorship/Terror.../fisa_faq.html

Thanks for the link. I found another useful link: http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=superfluous

ScratchMonkey · 01-18-2006, 04:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by leejo

Sure it does. It points to precedents of a President coming into conflict with the law and with other branches, and it calls bs on the people whose tender sensibilities are so offended by "Bush" but who managed to overlook the FBI's infiltrating domestic groups in the 90s, and the violence the federal government committed against those groups.

Both are reprehensible, and they're setting precedents for Hillary to follow in a couple years. Don't look on it as how bad Bush is, but rather how Hillary will misuse this stuff.

Beatnik · 01-18-2006, 04:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by leejo

Sure it does. It points to precedents of a President coming into conflict with the law and with other branches, and it calls bs on the people whose tender sensibilities are so offended by "Bush" but who managed to overlook the FBI's infiltrating domestic groups in the 90s, and the violence the federal government committed against those groups.

I believe that a lot of people truly believe that they are focused on the principles at stake, but in reality they are being expedient in seizing upon an event that calls President Bush's actions into question and the interpretation of those actions that best feeds their anti-Bush bias.

What about my bias? Well, I don't have one

Quote:

Originally Posted by Beatnik

It is interesting to see others' seemingly contradictory viewpoints discussed with some sense of debate, instead of spiraling into ad hominem attacks and broad generalizations. Are we in The Sandbox?

Congrats on using both rhetorical tactics I was happy to not see used in "furthering the discourse" in this thread. I think I may have seen a red herring or two in there as well.

I'm happy to debate the points of this already complex issue without resorting to tactics that obfuscate the dialog. I won't however rise to the bait of grouping me, the most outspoken critic of your points in the last few pages of this thread, with people who "are being expedient in seizing upon an event that calls President Bush's actions into question and the interpretation of those actions that best feeds their anti-Bush bias", which I read to include your perception of everyone who doesn't watch Fox News.

Beatnik · 01-18-2006, 04:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ScratchMonkey

Both are reprehensible, and they're setting precedents for Hillary to follow in a couple years. Don't look on it as how bad Bush is, but rather how Hillary will misuse this stuff.

And, ladies and gentleman, the old favorite: non sequitur!

Now I'm starting to remember why I don't normally "debate" issues on the internet...

Beatnik · 01-18-2006, 04:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CingularDuality

Oh, I'm not saying that the President wanted to get caught so he could challenge the law. I think he wanted to catch bad guys. But my point is that every time a law is found to be unconstitutional, it's because someone thought they were "above the law".

Or just decided to ignore the law(s) that they didn't agree with.

**leejo** · 01-18-2006, 04:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Diceman

Let's recap:[list=1][*]In United States v. U.S. District Court, 407 U.S. 297 (1972), the court found that, due to the 4th amendment, the government should be restrained from surveilling US Citizens without a warrant.

No, the Court did not find that. It found that a case of domestic surveilance violated the law. The actual opinion has some interesting and relevant discussion:
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/script...=407&invol=297

I encourage everyone to read the entire opinion, but here's a snippet:

Quote:

We emphasize, before concluding this opinion, the scope of our decision. As stated at the outset, this case involves only the domestic aspects of national security. We have not addressed, and express no opinion [407 U.S. 297, 322] as to, the issues which may be involved with respect to activities of foreign powers or their agents. 20 Nor does our decision rest on the language of 2511 (3) or any other section of Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968. That Act does not attempt to define or delineate the powers of the President to meet domestic threats to the national security.

**leejo** · 01-18-2006, 04:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Beatnik

Congrats on using both rhetorical tactics I was happy to not see used in "furthering the discourse" in this thread. I think I may have seen a red herring or two in there as well.

I'm happy to debate the points of this already complex issue without resorting to tactics that obfuscate the dialog. I won't however rise to the bait of grouping me, the most outspoken critic of your points in the last few pages of this thread, with people who "are being expedient in seizing upon an event that calls President Bush's actions into question and the interpretation of those actions that best feeds their anti-Bush bias", which I read to include your perception of everyone who doesn't watch Fox News.

You read incorrectly, Grasshopper, and I wasn't trying to personalize things or criticize you, although we do disagree on the technical points of this case, and I think it's pointless to have a political discussion and attempt to avoid ad hominem discussions if not outright attacks. Even if you are a godless hippy in the People's Republic of Austin, hippy.

Beatnik · 01-18-2006, 06:45 PM

LOL. Peace out, dude.

No more time for chatting here. I've got a frisbee class to get to.

munchkin · 01-18-2006, 08:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bommando

Why would anyone want to encourage mature debate by not engaging in the following?

Demeaning their counterpart with childish condescending references which have no relevance to the argument. "Dingus" and "Grasshopper" come to mind.
Deflecting arguments with insane analogies which have no bearing on the matter, but work very well as a diversion from a clumsy retort.
In order to reduce an argument to its simplest debatable form, one will degrade the subject into what amounts to a football match between the "sides". Rednecks vs. Pinkos deathmatch makes is much easier when you can just bundle any source or quote into one field or another. God forbid it would be any more complicated than that.

When one's only ambition is to get you steaming at the ears out of frustration at their baseless rhetoric, the argument is over.

Sweet lord in heaven, the man is a genius. See my sig for more details. Seriously guys, we need to really try and keep this thread in the realm of calm and intelligent discussion, fully acknowledging the intricacies of the issues being yelled about.

Wulfyn · 01-18-2006, 10:10 PM

My swimming pools have run out of children to kill if that helps at all?

Diceman · 01-19-2006, 01:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by leejo

It found that a case of domestic surveilance violated the law.

Your accompanying quotation focuses on the Court's stated scope of its decision, specifically how it is limited to domestic security concerns. I don't see how this does anything to contradict my point, nor strengthen yours. So, I read it to find a few quotes that I saw to be more to the point.

*As an aside, I found the EFF's paraphrasing to be faithful to the spirit and letter of the opinion. Not that this should add any weight, but I believe the same to be true of my paraphrasing of the EFF.

From the last paragraph of section III:

Quote:

Originally Posted by SCOTUS

Thus, we conclude that the Government's concerns do not justify departure in this case from the customary Fourth Amendment requirement of judicial approval prior to initiation of a search or surveillance. Although some added burden will be imposed upon the Attorney General, this inconvenience is justified in a free society to protect constitutional values. Nor do we think the Government's domestic surveillance powers will be impaired to any significant degree. A prior warrant establishes presumptive validity of the surveillance and will minimize the burden of justification in post-surveillance judicial review. By no means of least importance will be the reassurance of the public generally that indiscriminate wiretapping and bugging of law-abiding citizens cannot occur.

Then we have this quote as the final sentence of the section IV:

Quote:

Originally Posted by SCOTUS

We do [407 U.S. 297, 324] hold, however, that prior judicial approval is required for the type of domestic security surveillance involved in this case and that such approval may be made in accordance with such reasonable standards as the Congress may prescribe.

This seems to reaffirm my claim that:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Diceman

[T]he court found that, due to the 4th amendment, the government should be restrained from surveilling US Citizens without a warrant.

In fact, I'd be happy with strengthening that claim to:

...the government is restrained from...

01-18-2006, 06:45 PM	#162 (permalink)
Beatnik Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Austin, TX Age: 33 Posts: 4,337	Re: Meanwhile there's a war on LOL. Peace out, dude. No more time for chatting here. I've got a frisbee class to get to. __________________ -F- Beatnik Last edited by Beatnik; 01-18-2006 at 07:36 PM.

01-18-2006, 10:10 PM	#164 (permalink)
Wulfyn Join Date: May 2005 Location: Norwich, UK Age: 29 Posts: 4,236	Re: Meanwhile there's a war on My swimming pools have run out of children to kill if that helps at all? __________________

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