All Hank, all the time.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Funny how the NYT likes to expose secret government programs - harming the many - while going to the wall to protect its secret sources - protecting only the one.

It's even funnier when you stop to think that the secret sources it's protecting are senior government officials.

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by Spanky
Is this a serious question? I think the benefits for not having the government, at its discretion, within the United States, listen to your phone calls or search your house are obvious. On the flip side, the US trying to enforce the constitution, or thinking that US. Constitutional protections should apply outside the US is, to me, also obviously absurd. Do you disagree? Do I really need to explain the benefits to one and the drawbacks of the other?

As for your need to explain the benefits of the 4th Amendment, given your opposition to the Exclusionary Rule and your lack of a reasonable alternative to enforcement of the 4th Amendment, I think the question is a rasonable one.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore

2) But um, Bush White House? It's clearly disaffected jerkoffs at State or the Pentagon.

I see. The white house leaks only information that's not relevant to what the government is doing.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
It's even funnier when you stop to think that the secret sources it's protecting are senior government officials.

Wasn't the former Dep. AG, James Comey, adamantly opposed to the NSA program?

[Adder]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
Indeed. We have seen the light of the rest of the uncivilized world. It is far more efficient to lock up people we think are suspicious and detain them until they rot away, rather than try to determine whether they are in fact engaged in illegal conduct. Ask John McCain for a primer on the advantages of this approach.

You can ask the IRA too.

[Adder]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Do these "domestic" calls involve known terrorist supporters located outside of the country?

Do the "international" ones? What processes are in place to ensure that they do?

edited to add: And if they always do, what is the budern to getting a warrant?

[Adder]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
What you suggest here would be more plausible -- not actually plausible, but farther from sheer lunacy -- if it were the Democrats who were following the party line on Iraq lately and the Republicans who were openly disagreeing with each other.

The democrats have a party line on Iraq?

And yes, I know that was your point.

[Not Bob]

Originally posted by Spanky
The 4th Amendment doesn't apply at the border. Once you leave the country the constitution does not apply any more. If you carry money into the United States, Customs can search it at the discretion. If you carry a message with you, customs can check it. Why should an incoming phone call or bank transaction be any different?

Who cares? As noted by Dahlia Lithwick, "the administration isn't really asking for constitutional blank checks. Why should it, when the president thinks he has his own constitutional Swiss bank account?"

It seems to me that the whole Bush Administration attitude toward the Constitution and what the Supreme Court thinks of it is similar to that reflected in that great quote of Andrew Jackson's when he was told that the Supreme Court had ruled in favor of the Cherokees -- "John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it!"

It's all worms, Roxanne.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally posted by Spanky
Is this a serious question? I think the benefits for not having the government, at its discretion, within the United States, listen to your phone calls or search your house are obvious. On the flip side, the US trying to enforce the constitution, or thinking that US. Constitutional protections should apply outside the US is, to me, also obviously absurd. Do you disagree? Do I really need to explain the benefits to one and the drawbacks of the other?

Some of us are fans of limited government. I'm not sure you'd understand.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy
Some of us are fans of limited government.

Are you the original GGG? The taxocrat from taxachusetts?

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
Are you the original GGG? The taxocrat from taxachusetts?

Are you having trouble with the Irony part? The Rhetoric and Reality of each party's approach to government has now been reversed for almost 20 years, yet the conservatives just don't get it. This is another case where they're looking for broad, unrestricted powers to be granted to a huge government bureaucracy.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy
Are you having trouble with the Irony part?

No, I'm having trouble with the kettle part.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
Yes, I do disagree. Your argument is an odd form of utiliatarianism. You believe that government surveillance of people is good, because it can thwart terrorist activity. The value of detecting or deterring such activity is greater than the harm to the privacy* of those being surveilled, as well as the perceived threat to privacy suffered by all others.

Yet, for some reason the same argument does not apply within the United States. Here, the value of detecting terrorism is outweighed by the privacy interests of the citizens.

Let me sharpen the point: If torture is a legitimate means to obtain information from people, why is it legitimate against foreigners, but not U.S. citizens?

Or, in a different way, if markets are the best way to protect democracy in the U.S., should we not be able to assume the same in foreign countries?




*I'm using the term "privacy" here in the narrow sense, and shorthand for, protection from search, seizure, and other government surveillance without some articulable suspicion.

The most simple answer to all this is the government of the United States is there to serve US citizens, not to serve foreign nationals or other nations. The US government exists to what is best for us.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by taxwonk
As for your need to explain the benefits of the 4th Amendment, given your opposition to the Exclusionary Rule and your lack of a reasonable alternative to enforcement of the 4th Amendment, I think the question is a rasonable one.

1) We are the only western nation that employs the exclusionary rule. If you believe that our country is the only country that effectively protects individual rights (and effectively protects our citizens from unreasonable searches) then you could take this position. But if you don't, then clearly there are other nations that use other methods besides the exclusioniary rule to effectively protect their citizens from an over intrusive government. In my opinion the exclusionary rule does not do a good job of protecting us. It penalizes the wrong people (the victim of another crime instead of the perpetraitor of the crime in question) so it is not an effective tool.

2) So during a war, do you think our troops need to get a warrant before they search a house in a war zone? Should the NSA get a warrant before it monitors communications in Pakistan? Do you think that the CIA should be given the power to deal with counter-espionage in the United States (instead of the FBI) like the KGB had in the Soviet Union. If the constitution applies to all humans anywhere on the globe, why would you need two different organizations to deal with domestic intelligence and foreign intelligence? The answer to these questions are so obvious, I can't even believe that I have to bring it up, especially among a bunch of lawyers.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy
Some of us are fans of limited government. I'm not sure you'd understand.

So you think our troops should afford all the citizens of the world the same constitutional protections that are afforded US citizens by the domestic police force? And if I don't agree with that I am not for limited government?