What has America become?

[Insidious Rex]

Well if you call way overconsumption "doing the right thing" then yeah.

[Nurvingiel]

Originally Posted by inked

Well, Canada sure isn't letting us push 'em around anymore! They're building their own missiles for defense, right, Nurv?

Nope, you can keep your missiles.

Having missiles doesn't constitute pushing us around though.



Well, I was detecting a bit of sarcasm in Inked's post there IRex. (Not that us Canadians are all that great at minimizing consumption either.)

[Halbarad of the Dunedain]

Anarchy is the only true government. The only one that can 'work' for pitiful humans. You see, humans are animals... albiet advanced psychologicalyy but nevertheless still animals. And as we see in the wild there is a kind of controlled anarchy. Humans by nature do not wish to be controlled, to have another tell them what to do no matter if it is one king, or hundreds of congressmen.
Let me ask you, whoever is reading this, if a man walked into your home at this moment and told you not to read this, not to do this not to do that, to obey his laws... would you do it? If you're sane the answer is no. And you arguee but we vote for our leader... we choose who we want so we obey the laws because we in a sesne set them ourelves. Yet we all know this 'american' government is not seleceted by the people nor for the people.
you really only have to viable candidates for the us, democrats and republicans, their candidate is selected not by a vote of the people, but instead by buracrates and monopolizing business assh*ls, then once those assh*les selected their man yu have a choice of two of nowa'days the same thing, mor commonly refered to as the lesser of two evils. Then when you do vote for one of the two evils your vote never even counts, hence the bush administration... no one voted for the cock sucker... yet there he is, a dimwitted monkey obeying big business, pappa, and master cheny.
My point is, this government is flawed and always will be, because humans inherantly only want and will only ever want, the best for themselves... that includes the president. So he will have stakes in the oil business, and then he will send our people to die for his busniess gain! The government i flawed because humans do not wish to obey other humans! Anarchy is the only rule... and it will come soon enough...

[Gwaimir Windgem]

I'm with Giroth here. I still love America, but for the life of me, I can barely come up with a reason why.

[inked]

Anarchy is a dead end, Hal. Always has been. Always will be. Just paves the way for Lenin.........

[Insidious Rex]

It paves the way for anyone actually. The natural state of humanity is not anarchy. Humans are more like bees or ants then anything else. They arent solitary animals. They are highly social with a tendency toward filling specific roles. Thats why humans feel somewhat insecure without a leader and why humans can commit atrocious acts in the name of "just following orders". True anarchy is an impossibility or at least a contradiction in a long term functioning human society.

Now that being said that doesnt mean that humans dont have a tendency to even the playing field when necessary ala your French Revolution and such but thats more transitionary anarchy designed to move from one governing group to another.

[Blackheart]

Bow down and worship me, for I am your new overlord!

The stars have finally aligned!

After eons of un-sleep I arise!

The first item on our agenda is to eat all the stupid people.

Please have them lined up and waiting in an orderly fashion at a local shopping mall or sports arena.

This will solve the overpopulation problem and resource shortages and environmental decay. All on the first day of our million year reign....

[BeardofPants]

Awww, lookit who's here. It's the cute widdle diddle uckle-cums.
*quickly huggles the ... er... leg?

Originally Posted by Insidious Rex

It paves the way for anyone actually. The natural state of humanity is not anarchy. Humans are more like bees or ants then anything else. They arent solitary animals. They are highly social with a tendency toward filling specific roles. Thats why humans feel somewhat insecure without a leader and why humans can commit atrocious acts in the name of "just following orders". True anarchy is an impossibility or at least a contradiction in a long term functioning human society.

We also need to consider that whole competitive/cooperative thang as well. You make a really good point about the human 'need' to fit into a social hierarchy, and this ties back into that whole deal of cooperatively working towards a 'common goal' in order to 'advance' the species. (feels like a twit doin' that whole "air quote" thang *lolzers*)

[BeardofPants]

And I HUGELY disagree that animals 'in the wild' are adhering to the constraints of anarchy, btw. The social networks within the animal kingdom are hugely variant for a start.

Time for a definition of anarchy, methinks :

a state of disorder due to absence or nonrecognition of authority : he must ensure public order in a country threatened with anarchy. • absence of government and absolute freedom of the individual, regarded as a political ideal.

There now. The key being that it is regarded as a political ideal, and is therefore a nice lil' human construct. Now, the question is, can we apply that to the animal kingdom? My inclination is in the negative, c'pn! This is because amongst the more social animals, we can track behaviours that are clearly cooperative. Extended family networks look after offspring, an alpha- will guard the whole group in order to extend their genetic material further. This is not anarchy. Not in any sense of the word.



Anyone else reminded of NIN's Hurt when you read the title of this thread?

I hurt myself today
to see if I still feel
I focus on the pain
the only thing that's real
the needle tears a hole
the old familiar sting
try to kill it all away
but I remember everything
what have I become?
my sweetest friend
everyone I know
goes away in the end
and you could have it all
my empire of dirt

I will let you down
I will make you hurt

I wear this crown of thorns
upon my liar's chair
full of broken thoughts
I cannot repair
beneath the stains of time
the feelings disappear
you are someone else
I am still right here

what have I become?
my sweetest friend
everyone I know
goes away in the end
and you could have it all
my empire of dirt

I will let you down
I will make you hurt

if I could start again
a million miles away
I would keep myself
I would find a way

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by Count Comfect

The fact that presidents test the limits of power has no bearing on whether this specific program goes over those limits.

True. Yet you were asserting that he has gone further than other presidents have, and I was citing evidence that he is acting in the same way all other presidents have. Perhaps he is going farther and perhaps not, but your assertion that he is is nothing more than an assertion.

Originally Posted by Count Comfect

Besides, we are not at war. Alberto Gonzalez testified as much before the Judiciary Committee.

I'll need a citation for that.

Originally Posted by Count Comfect

Wrong. First, regardless of any power given by any other clause of the constitution, this is in violation of the Fourth Amendment.

The Fourth Amendment forbids unreasonable searches and seizures. If Congress gave President Bush the power to perform warrantless wiretapping, this is a reasonable form of search and seizure. FISA does not apply if Congress has declared a statute which allows the president to go beyond its laws.

Originally Posted by Count Comfect

Wiretapping without a warrant, even if the content of the call is not monitored, is unconstitutional. There was a case in the '40s.

That was before the War Powers Act.

Originally Posted by Count Comfect

Second, the power of the Commander-in-Chief is not unlimited. For a start, if you want to start parsing, he's only CinC of the "Army and Navy of the United States." The NSA is neither.

The use of the army and navy and any other "force" always is intrinsically bound to intelligence gathering. They are hand in hand, especially in modern times, when conventional warfare seems to largely have been exchanged for unconventional warfare. Intelligence gathering on terrorists is the use of force against them, and the military is bound to intelligence. Thus, to be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy is to be Commander in Chief of related intelligence gathering.

Furthermore, the surveillance always takes place when one person making the phone call is overseas. Overseas surveillance is largely the responsibility of the executive, according to the Congressional Research Service Memo I quoted before, though it requires Congressional oversight. The president is about to give full briefings to the Senate and House Intelligence Committees, so whether the oversight before was sufficient or not, it is now at least going to be certainly clarified to Congress. Also, the Senate Intelligence Committee already voted to approve the spying program, on the condition that it accept oversight from a seven-person committee.

Originally Posted by Count Comfect

Secondly, the constitution nowhere states that he may gather whatever information he wishes regardless of other guarantees.

And he hasn't. His Constitutional authority as Commander in Chief, as well as the Congressional authority offered in the AUMF, allow him to bypass FISA.

Originally Posted by Count Comfect

Third, armed forces are no more dependent on information now than they were then.

That is not true at all. According to former Clinton Administration Associate Attorney General Writes, "FISA does not anticipate a post-September 11 situation." In the past, our military was largely geared to dealing with conventional warfare. Twenty-first century warfare seems to be largely unconventional, however. Much of the US military is right now undergoing transformation to make it more capable of dealing with the new kind of threat we face. There was a BBC article posted a couple months or so ago which said that the US military is undergoing immense changes to become more capable of responding to terrorism.

Originally Posted by Count Comfect

Fourth, this program is a domestic spying program, and the military may not be used within the United States except to suppress rebellion or fend of invasion.

I'll research this one for a while before responding.

Originally Posted by Count Comfect

Fifth, it is CONGRESS that may "make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces."

And that is what they did, with the AUMF.

Originally Posted by Count Comfect

Putting into detention IS a use of force, as the detainee would not be detained if force were not either used or implied. Spying is NOT a use of force, nor did Congress authorize spying. "good intelligence is the key to success" does not mean that spying=force.

Surveillance is so bound to force that they are inextricable with one another. Often, military force will not stop an operation. Knowing about the operation's existence will automatically make the operation a failure, however. They are fused.

Originally Posted by Count Comfect

If you want to be able to spy, ask to be able to spy.

Here's a quote from Gonzales: "Well, we continue to go to the FISA court and obtain orders. It is a very important tool that we continue to utilize. ... The operators out at NSA tell me that we don't have the speed and the agility that we need, in all circumstances, to deal with this new kind of enemy. You have to remember that FISA was passed by the Congress in 1978. There have been tremendous advances in technology ... since then."

Originally Posted by Count Comfect

Gonzalez admitted last time he got caught authorizing illegal and unconstitutional actions that they didn't ask because they wouldn't have gotten it.

What I read was that they were concerned about a "public outcry." That was one of the reasons. Another is that secrecy is essential. There have been Congressional leaks in the past, and the fewer people were aware of the program, the more secure it was.

Originally Posted by Count Comfect

It is also key to military success that soldiers be paid, but the authorization of force is not a blank check to the military to pay as many soldiers as they want as much as they want. They need a SEPARATE law for that, and they'd need one for spying too.

Two things about this. First is that pay has always been a power Congress reserved for itself. Overseas surveillance is supposed to be done by the executive, with Congressional oversight. If President Bush gives adequate Congressional oversight, he is fulfilling the law.

Second is that paying soldiers is not a direct application of force. Spying on terrorists directly compromises them. Paying soldiers or agents indirectly may damage terrorists. Spying directly may damage terrorists, just like attacking may directly damage terrorists. This is a means of primary aggression rather than secondary. The word "force" isn't the same as the word "detention" either, yet detention was taken as one application of force. Surveillance is another such application.

Originally Posted by Count Comfect

Just because something is important to using force doesn't mean that an authorization of force is also an authorization of that. The authorization of force is just what it says it is. You may use force; under the confines of whatever else you're constrained by, like your budget, the Constitution, and FISA.

The FISA court still applies. And even if it didn't, the Fourth Amendment requires probable cause to search anyone's "effects," under which category phone records certainly fall; and there has been no showing of probable cause.

Originally Posted by Count Comfect

Besides which, it is illegal under various privacy statutes for the phone companies to hand this information over: in turn, the government ASKING for the information becomes an accessory to the crime of turning it over, which is also illegal.

I haven't examined the arguments concerning the phone companies. Just to let you know though, that is a different program than the warrantless spying program we've been talking about, according to a recently published CNN article.

[Blackheart]

Side note:

The main problem with having a military officer in charge of a civilian intelligence agency, is the often over looked function of the civilian intelligence agency to overwatch the military.

Traditionally they haven't had any major problems working with each other anyway, other than normal red-tape. The Military already has redundant intel capability, and I'd be loathe to see that removed in some kind of cost cutting approach.

I'd have no objections to the man whatsoever, as long as he resigns his commission first.

[Farimir Captain of Gondor]

Originally Posted by Blackheart

Bow down and worship me, for I am your new overlord!

The stars have finally aligned!

After eons of un-sleep I arise!

The first item on our agenda is to eat all the stupid people.

Please have them lined up and waiting in an orderly fashion at a local shopping mall or sports arena.

This will solve the overpopulation problem and resource shortages and environmental decay. All on the first day of our million year reign....

*throws popcorn at the guy standing up ranting in the first row*

*goes back to watching the game*

[Count Comfect]

Lief - I have exams now, so I'm not going to be able to reply to this for a while. But I want to emphasize that, while I strongly believe the earlier, partially overseas wiretapping was both illegal and unconstitutional, that is NOT the program under discussion. I posted a link to the USA Today story when I revived this thread; we're talking about the recently revealed release of domestic phone records to the NSA for analysis by various phone companies. It ain't overseas, and it ain't military.

The one note I'll make now is that your caveat about Bush giving sufficient Congressional oversight is not true, since he and his Cabinet did not inform Congress of (either) program.