Secret Wire Tapping of U.S. Citizens...

[Rudey]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/17/op...uliani.html?hp

Taking Liberties With the Nation's Security

By RUDOLPH W. GIULIANI
Published: December 17, 2005
YESTERDAY the Senate failed to reauthorize the USA Patriot Act, as a Democratic-led filibuster prevented a vote. This action - which leaves the act, key elements of which are due to expire on Dec. 31, in limbo - represents a grave potential threat to the nation's security. I support the extension of the Patriot Act for one simple reason: Americans must use every legal and constitutional tool in their arsenal to fight terrorism and protect their lives and liberties.

The attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, made clear that the old rules no longer work. The terrorists who attacked us seek to kill innocent men, women and children of all races and creeds. They seek to destroy our liberties. They willingly kill themselves in their effort to bring death and suffering to as many innocents as they can, here in this country or anywhere in the world where freedom has a foothold.

In October 2001, after six weeks of intense scrutiny and debate, Congress passed the Patriot Act overwhelmingly (98 to 1 in the Senate and 356 to 66 in the House). We had already received clear signals about our enemies' intentions, in the first attacks against the World Trade Center in 1993, the bombings of our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 and the attack on the Navy destroyer Cole two years after that. Despite the abundance of warning signs, it took Sept. 11 to wake us to the dangers we face.

The central provisions of the Patriot Act allow law enforcement and the intelligence community to share information. This might seem elementary, but for years law enforcement had been stymied by a legal wall that prevented agencies from sharing information. For four years now, inter-agency collaboration, made possible by the Patriot Act, has played an important role in preventing another day like Sept. 11. The act's provisions helped make possible the investigations in Lackawanna, N.Y., and Portland, Ore., in which 12 people were ultimately convicted for attempts to aid Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

So what happened in Washington? The House voted on Wednesday to renew the act; it stalled in the Senate. If the Senate fails to approve the extension, the government will be forced to revert in many ways to our pre-Sept. 11 methods. Sixteen provisions of the Patriot Act are set to expire on Dec. 31, including the key information-sharing ones.

It is simply false to claim, as some of its critics do, that this bill does not respond to concerns about civil liberties. The four-year extension of the Patriot Act, as passed by the House, would not only reauthorize the expiring provisions - allowing our Joint Terrorism Task Force, National Counterterrorism Center and Terrorist Screening Center to continue their work uninterrupted - it would also make a number of common-sense clarifications and add dozens of additional civil liberties safeguards.

Concerns have been raised about the so-called library records provision; the bill adds safeguards. The same is true for roving wiretaps, "sneak and peek" searches and access to counsel and courts, as well as many others concerns raised by groups like the American Library Association and the American Civil Liberties Union.

Given these improvements, there is simply no compelling argument for going backward in the fight against terrorism. Perhaps a reminder is in order. The bipartisan 9/11 commission described a vivid example of how the old ways hurt us. In the summer of 2001, an F.B.I. agent investigating two individuals we now know were hijackers on Sept. 11 asked to share information with another team of agents. This request was refused because of the wall. The agent's response was tragically prescient: "Someday, someone will die - and wall or not - the public will not understand why we were not more effective."

How quickly we forget.

Rudolph W. Giuliani was mayor of New York from 1994 through2001.

[Rudey]

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/poli...rtner=homepage

Bush said the program was narrowly designed and used ''consistent with U.S. law and the Constitution.'' He said it is used only to intercept the international communications of people inside the United States who have been determined to have ''a clear link'' to al-Qaida or related terrorist organizations.

The program is reviewed every 45 days, using fresh threat assessments, legal reviews by the Justice Department, White House counsel and others, and information from previous activities under the program, the president said.

Without identifying specific lawmakers, Bush said congressional leaders have been briefed more than a dozen times on the program's activities.

The president also said the intelligence officials involved in the monitoring receive extensive training to make sure civil liberties are not violated.

The president contended the program has helped ''detect and prevent possible terrorist attacks in the U.S. and abroad,'' but did not provide specific examples.

He said it is designed in part to fix problems raised by the Sept. 11 commission, which found that two of the suicide hijackers were communicating from San Diego with al-Qaida operatives overseas.

''The activities I have authorized make it more likely that killers like these 9-11 hijackers will be identified and located in time,'' he said.

''As a result, our enemies have learned information they should not have,'' he said. ''The unauthorized disclosure of this effort damages our national security and puts our citizens at risk.''

-Rudey

[Rudey]

Originally posted by DeltAlum
Being of Cherokee Ancestry, I'm not much of a Jackson fan, but in the early years of our country, military leaders were held on pedestals.

Military leaders will always be held on a pedestal.

-Rudey
--Aside from Bush Jr. and Clinton.

[hoosier]

Dog Debate
You've gotta love this!!!!

G. W. Bush and Osama bin Laden decided to settle the war once and for all.
They sat down and decided to settle the whole worldwide dispute with one
dog fight. They would each have 5 years to breed the best fighting dog in the
world and whichever side's dog won would be entitled to dominate the world.

Osama found the biggest, meanest Doberman and Rottweiler female dogs in
the world and bred them with the meanest Siberian wolves. They selected
only the biggest and strongest puppy from the litter, and removed his
siblings, which gave him all the milk. After 5 years, they came up with
the biggest, meanest dog the world had ever seen. Its cage needed steel
bars that were 5 " thick and nobody could get near it.

When the day came for the dog fight, Bush showed up with a strange-
looking animal. It was a 9 foot long Dachshund. Everyone felt sorry for
Bush because there was no way that this dog could possibly last 10
seconds with the Afghanistani dog.

When the cages were opened up, the Dachshund came out of its cage, and
slowly waddled over towards Osama's dog. Osama's dog snarled and leaped
out of its cage and charged the American Dachshund --- but when it got
close enough to bite, the Dachshund opened its mouth and consumed
Osama's dog in one bite.
There was nothing left of his dog at all.

Osama came up to Bush, shaking his head in disbelief, "We don't
understand how this could have happened. We had our best people working
for 5 years with the meanest Doberman and Rottweiler female dogs in the
world and the biggest, meanest Siberian wolves."

"That's nothing," said Bush.

"We had Michael Jackson's plastic surgeons working for 5 years to make
that alligator look like a wiener dog."

[AnchorAlum]

Originally posted by Rudey
Military leaders will always be held on a pedestal.

-Rudey
--Aside from Bush Jr. and Clinton.

Hmm. If so, would you agree that General Custer's stay was on a temporary dais, rather than a real pedestal...?!
Chivington?
And as a Southerner here, I must oh so graciously disagree, Rudey - Sherman?

Oh, to explore a nice bottle of wine on a rainy Saturday evening...

[Rudey]

Originally posted by AnchorAlum
Hmm. If so, would you agree that General Custer's stay was on a temporary dais, rather than a real pedestal...?!
Chivington?
And as a Southerner here, I must oh so graciously disagree, Rudey - Sherman?

Oh, to explore a nice bottle of wine on a rainy Saturday evening...

Custer: At what point? After him and four members of his family died or before?

Chivington: He was not a soldier. Chivington was a disgusting lunatic and a war criminal. He used race baiting to get ahead in politics. He didn't just massacre the Cheyenne (who were unarmed - including women and children), he and his soldiers took body parts as souveniers. They cut off the genitals of children, fingers, and everything they could get their hands on. He couldn't be court martialed but he lost all respect and never could run for office. If Americans were to love Chivington, then they would have to start loving Hitler.

Sherman: I'm sure Southerns dislike Sherman because he was one of the main reasons the confederacy lost the "War of Northern Agression" (Civil War). Atlanta burned and so did everything else during the march to the sea. But that's the way wars are fought - you make the civilian population and their economy suffer. Sherman never took pleasure in it though - War is hell. So the South doesn't put him on a pedestal, so what? The North won the war because of him and he is now legend. Johnston surrendered to Sherman and he was also at Sherman's funeral (doesn't sound like the southern general hated him). The Republicans wanted Sherman to run for president but he refused. I can't remember why. Sounds pretty popular to me.

And these days, Iraq war veterans are running for office and getting impressive results. One ran in heavily Republican Ohio and got around 45% of the vote. There is a woman who served on a helicopter in the war and lost both legs and she is about to run in Illinois for the house. On the other side of the coin are those that didn't serve in the military and how the public saw them. Bush and Clinton suffered for it. They made Kerry suffer for it (as illegitimate as that was).

-Rudey

[KSig RC]

Originally posted by kstar
Back to the subject, I don't think the age of a quote alone should determine its relevancy. I think that this quote sums it up perrfectly.

Oh do you? That's fantastic!

Perhaps then you should provide some reasoning or rationale, rather than spouting off the quotation as quasi-factual?

[Betarulz!]

What bothers me the most, is that this is just another symptom of the overall pathology of this administration (yes, I'm in med school, this is how I am beginning to see things in every day life constantly...). It's not just about the warrants or the Patriot Act extension.

There is an arrogance that so permeates this administration that it almost seems like they do shit like this just to see if they'll get caught. As Rudey said earlier, the warrants almost always get approved and warrants are usually obtained eventually. Well if that's the case, then why not just go get them to begin with!?!

If the people under surveilance are known or suspected members of Al Queda, then that seems like probable cause enough to justify a warrant. Then you get the warrant, and you don't have to worry about these repurcusions. I just can't believe that something happens in a wire tap case with a terrorist so quickly that getting a warrant impedes our ability to stop the threat. I mean seriously, the Brooklyn Bridge with blowtorches? Doesn't sound like one of those things you think up on a Tuesday afternoon and are doing on wednesday morning.

[Betarulz!]

Oh, and also I think the appropriate quote for this situation is:

"It's easier to ask for forgiveness than it is to get permission." ~Grace Hopper

[Rudey]

Originally posted by Betarulz!
Oh, and also I think the appropriate quote for this situation is:

"It's easier to ask for forgiveness than it is to get permission." ~Grace Hopper

But what do they have to gain if the results are the same?

Bad publicity?

-Rudey

[Tom Earp]

Maybe Tromping on more and more Civil Libertys!

Once something like this is accepted, it will be spread more and more.

As each thing is accepted, then, it is onward to some other thing.

Pretty soon, there will be a Dictator State as Laws are set aside to accomadate more of the leaders who say it is for Mine and Yours Good!

[DeltAlum]

Amount of information mined from wiretaping not OK'd by court much deeper than White House had admitted.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/24/po...=th&oref=login

[hoosier]

Just another attack by the Bush haters and their media allies.

IF/when another 9/11 type event happens, the investigating committee afterwards would find:

1 - Bush and Karl Rove had the technology to intercept calls from Bin Laden to his US team

2 - Bush and Rove ignored US law and court decisions allowing them to use this technology

3 - The bombers who toppled the Sears Tower in Chicago could have been stopped easily, if the technology had been used.

NY Times headline: Bush negligent; didn't use easily available info


To summarize: Bush is the Commander in Chief - he has to use all available means to protect us, and to defeat bad guys.

The Dems are the opposition politically. If they think the only way they can regain power is to help Bin Laden succeed, the voters will again tell them "No".

[Tom Earp]

Didnt know The Sears Tower was gone?

Isnt this what Hitler did without the Technology We have today?

Isnt G W doing things withour the approval of the Legislature as it is Legal?

of Course, Our Duly Elected Legislatures have their own damn agenda and it isnt for the Betterment of The Citizenery! These Plicks have their own worrys, how to get more $$ in pocket.

It always amazed Me that some Legislatures did not Vote for Their Pay Raises and touted that point. Funny, when they abstained, it was a No Vote, but they still got it as a Pussy Way OUT and Some People Beleived them! Shame on Us as Voters to beleive this Crap!


Watch Out For Sam Brownback of Kansas, I will not Vote for Him!

[DeltAlum]

Originally posted by hoosier
To summarize: Bush is the Commander in Chief - he has to use all available means to protect us, and to defeat bad guys.

Even if it's illegal? I don't think so. The courts may end up deciding this one. Or Congress.