Colonel suspended for bad-mouthing Bush

[Velociryx]

GP that hurts!

As to second-guessing the president....he knew he was going to be living in a glass house when he got elected...part of the package AND a national obsession.

-=Vel=-
(of course, a good argument can be made that he's doing his level best to darken the glass his house is made of, what with the squashing of the FBI investigations into the matter....)

[chequita guevara]

If Ashcroft took the warning seriously enough to stop using commerical flights, then they considered it a real possibility. And, it was the Bush Administration itself that said they thought they were only going to be normal hijackings. No one forced them to say that. They could, instead, have said that they discounted the threat, which would be a lie since, at least, Ashcroft took them seriously. If he thought it was serious enough not to risk his own butt, why didn't he increase FBI anti-terrorism resources?

[TCO]

Please show me some prrof that Ashcroft stopped flying commercial because of OBL warnings. My experience is that kind of guys hate flying commercial, but it doesn't have anything to do with threat issues. (They are safer in commercial flights than in a Gulfstream.)

[chequita guevara]

Didn't Bush's father force all Admin officials (with the exception of the P and VP) to use commerical flights? I thought that was a cost cutting rule.

Give me a little bit of time to look up the accusation against Ashcroft as I don't remember off the top of my head where I read it.

[Dis]

impeach him I say and keep the colonel

Maybe we can get Pat buchanan to be president

[Velociryx]

I think I'd vote for "Colonel Sanders" before I'd vote Buchanan...UGH....

The Shrub is the other side's revenge for Clinton...I shudder to think what comes next....

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

No Problem With New FBI Surveillance Guidelines, Scholar Says

WASHINGTON--The Justice Department is expected to announce today new guidelines giving greater latitude to FBI agents to monitor Internet sites, libraries, and religious institutions without first having to offer evidence of potential criminal activity. Roger Pilon, vice president for legal affairs at the Cato Institute and a former Justice Department official, had the following remarks:

"As reported in the press, the new FBI surveillance guidelines present no serious problems. Especially under post-September 11 circumstances, law enforcement monitoring of public places is simply good, pro-active police work that violates the rights of no one. The same is true for topical research not directly related to a specific crime, which the new guidelines will permit.

"Depending on how the work is conducted, there is always the potential for abuse, of course. But unless the new latitude leads to significant abuse, that potential should not preclude officials from taking an active role not simply in prosecuting but in preventing crime as well."

*****

Isn't the Cato Institute a Libertarian thing??? And yet, they see no problem with this?



-=Vel=-

[nationalist]

Originally posted by Dissident

Maybe we can get Pat buchanan to be president

[chequita guevara]

Abuses of the past we five minutes ago. This is now. We've moved beyond abusing our authority.

[Carver]

Originally posted by frankychan
Another theory a classmate has hypothesized is that post 9/11, the governmental institutions are being granted overwhelming powers and my friends theory is that the current administration is using the war on terror to gain more powers to the government.....He says that they are turning into "Big Brother" by using the War On Terror as a smoke screen.

Just like Senator (Chancellor) Palpatine is doing with the republic. Stir up some trouble so the leader is granted "emergency" powers. Shameful.

[nationalist]

Originally posted by Carver


Just like Senator (Chancellor) Palpatine is doing with the republic. Stir up some trouble so the leader is granted "emergency" powers. Shameful.

LOL. Get out more. Besides, the U.S. Pres. doesn't have official emergency powers. The president can only do what the other branches of government (especially the Surpreme Court) allows him to do.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by Guynemer
There might be a free speech issue here, DD. He is being punished by the government for speaking his mind...

In this case, I don't think his constitutional rights were infringed. FS allows individuals/orgs the ability to express their ideas and not be detained/imprisoned for them. It does not guarantee employment. Ideas expressed counter to the employers purpose are valid reasons for dismissal.

I have no arguement if it turns that way that there have been times when free speech was infringed vis-a-vis the sedition laws of WW1, I just don't thinkthis is one of them.

Realistically it comes down to using some common sense. I don't like a lot of what my employer past and present did (or for that matter some of things Bush does) but I would certainly know better than to go on public record stating so. Whats surprising to me is a career officer hadn't already learned those lessons or just chose to go ahead knowing full well the consequences. Whatsmore, if he knew the consequences, at least he could of come off a little more credible rather than sounding like a paranoid delusional.

OTOH, whistle blowing is another matter and hence the whistle blowing proviso used by the FBI field agent. Her complaints were couched within examples of mismanagement and were to be used for a lessons learned.

[Andrew1999]

Originally posted by nationalist


LOL. Get out more. Besides, the U.S. Pres. doesn't have official emergency powers. The president can only do what the other branches of government (especially the Surpreme Court) allows him to do.

And we all know Congress would never be stampeded into giving the executive broad new powers without even considering them. Oh, wait, they did that last fall with the "USA Patriot Act."

[Jac de Molay]

I think most congressmen passed that act as sort of a knee-jerk reaction without due consideration of the infringements on civil liberties- it was so soon after 9/11. In fact, it was a Michigan congressman, John Conyers, who cast one of few dissenting votes against it Hopefully , over time, the higher courts will start shooting down some of the provisions. In fact, it's starting to happen already in the case of immigrants being illegally detained.

Dave

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Carver
Just like Senator (Chancellor) Palpatine is doing with the republic. Stir up some trouble so the leader is granted "emergency" powers. Shameful

So you are saying that the UK is the Empire?