New York Times: Traitors to the Republic

[chequita guevara]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: New York Times: Traitors to the Republic

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
Sorry to have to hit you upside the head with the Baseball Bat of Reality^TM,

Swing and a miss.

but if that's the intent, period, no less, then why is the statute largely silent as to the nationality of surveillance targets?

I was ignoring them damn furriners. The Congressman who wrote the bill was pretty clear on why the bill was created, because the government was spying on Americans without warrents.

The FISA warrant does not need to meet the probable cause standards of a Fourth Amendment warrant with respect to criminal activity, or particularity requirements of the scope of the warrant.

It sure as **** does. The IVth Amendment makes no distinction.

Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

There's nothing in there about criminal activity. It's to stop the government from waltzing in to our homes and businesses except with a judge's permission

And the rest isn't relevent. I would note that FISA was ammended in the 90s after the Ames affair to include physical searches as well.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Elok
There was a fun story in the WaPo a bit over a month ago about farm subsidies. Well, not really subsidies, but whatever you call those lovely payments the gov't. makes to keep farmers from growing too much food and thus hurting the market. It seems massive numbers of people in the midwest have been getting ludicrous amounts of money for years simply because they live on land which had been used to grow crops in the past. The people in question often had no knowledge of farming, no intention of ever learning, and typically were employed in business or something, but they still got something like $1K a month. One guy protested that he didn't need the cash and it was a blatant waste of government funds, but the agency just replied that if he didn't take it the cash would just be redistributed among his equally non-farming neighbors. So he used it to establish a scholarship or something like that.

I read that article - that's what I was thinking of.

[Toby Rowe]

Originally posted by Q Cubed
Since you admit that this will never go away, you seem perfectly okay with the curtailing of a few rights.

Some thoughts about governments and people. Give a little, and they'll take a mile.

Or, raise the temperature of the pot a bit, and the frog won't notice it's being boiled alive.

I don't want to give the government that little bit. I might not mind, if the government could be trusted--but the problem is that it's run by people. Stupid people, mostly, but a few smart ones, too. Often times, too smart for their own good--and since they have to work in committees, they're really just dumb ****s as well.

Just because a problem is here to stay doesn't mean I want my rights to be abridged in the name of "security". If I were that cowardly and ignorant of what once made this American country great, perhaps I'd go along with these abridgements.

Because really, if you want to be perfectly safe, you may as well live in a padded room with a straitjacket on.

Cubed,

Nobody is suggesting we sleepwalk into a police state- the Police themselves wouldn't except it as it goes aginst our British sense of ingrained freedoms, even they know right from wrong.

Wiretapping has however existed since telephones have, but before, in order to get a vital tap they had to go before an emergency magistrate to obtain one.

I think that if the lives of hundreds of people are at risk against the civil liberties of one individual I know which option I prefer.

The EU (including the UK) crafted the Human Rights act about 5 years too early, had it been crafted now I think greater emphasis would have been given to the rights of the masses and not the individual.

Toby