The real impact of warrantless domestic wiretapping.
By on Jan 16th, 2006 at 10:45 pm
The real impact of warrantless domestic wiretapping.
“[T]he National Security Agency began sending a steady stream of telephone numbers, e-mail addresses and names to the F.B.I. in search of terrorists. The stream soon became a flood, requiring hundreds of agents to check out thousands of tips a month. But virtually all of them, current and former officials say, led to dead ends or innocent Americans,” the NYT reports.
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This is outrageous. I thought Bush said this program was “limited.” Sounds like a big waste of time and resources to me.
January 16th, 2006 at 10:55 pmRemember how all the chickenhawks and zombies belittled “law enforcement” methods of combating terrorists? Think of how much further we’d be if our insecure fratboy admin. didn’t have to see AC130’s blasting shit up to feel manly, or didn’t have to invent new enemies. Well, at least they’re using the methods on Greenpeace and PETA. Maybe once they’ve had some practice with nuns and such, they can apply it to Al Qaeda. Hope springs eternal.
January 16th, 2006 at 11:01 pmI immediately thought of the guy that Michael Moore talks to in F911 who was visited by FBI agents at the gym…
January 16th, 2006 at 11:04 pmAnother story comes out every week –It just gets more outrageous.
January 16th, 2006 at 11:07 pmThe Bushies are out of control.
I understand that among others, the ACLU is filing a lawsuit and one of the plaintiffs is Christopher Hitchens of all people! I think we are headed down the rabbit hole with Alice.
I can’t imagine trying to sift through all of that information on the slim chance that something useful would appear. Think of all the hours and hours wasted that Agents could be using to actually track down suspects.
January 16th, 2006 at 11:10 pmOf course it lead to dead ends.
January 16th, 2006 at 11:11 pmDon’t you think us bloggers weren’t targets?
That’s naivety.
They are looking for dissenters.
Nixonian X 100%.
It’s evil. Our “leader” is making our good men and women do these things against their better judgement. I KNOW they hate it. It’s unfair, unjust, unamerican.
“We’d chase a number, find it’s a schoolteacher with no indication they’ve ever been involved in international terrorism - case closed,” said one former F.B.I. official, who was aware of the program and the data it generated for the bureau.
This could be me! I am a school teacher and a couple of years ago I was on an international advocacy competition team and did a lot of research into the transportation of nuclear waste. Nice to know my case has been closed…or has it???
January 16th, 2006 at 11:23 pmBig surprise.
January 16th, 2006 at 11:34 pmSo the data miners send their data to the data gophers who come up with nothing but empty holes.
Mmm…saves thousands of lives. Them darn schoolteachers are scary.
January 16th, 2006 at 11:35 pmAll things considered, swamping the FBI with bogus leads would be a perfect strategy if, say, you really didn’t want them to pursue some of the more glaring coincidences, oddities and implausibilities of 9/11.
Not that anyone would do that. Just sayin’.
January 16th, 2006 at 11:37 pmCan you believe this crap? Shrub is only doing this as a part of his power grab. He just wants to expand his powers and right now is the time to do it because no one is holding him accountable. And like with all his other power grabs innocent people get hurt. And I don’t think it will get any better if Alito gets confirmed. This will be the year of living dangerously.
January 17th, 2006 at 12:36 amNew Zogby Poll Shows Majority of Americans Support Impeaching bush for Wiretapping
By a margin of 52% to 43%, Americans want Congress to consider impeaching bush if he wiretapped American citizens without a judge’s approval, according to a new poll by a grassroots coalition that supports a Congressional investigation of bushy’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003.
The poll was conducted by Zogby International, the highly-regarded non-partisan polling company. The poll interviewed 1,216 U.S. adults from January 9-12.
The poll found that 52% agreed with the statement:
“If bush wiretapped American citizens without the approval of a judge, do you agree or disagree that Congress should consider holding him accountable through impeachment.”
43% disagreed, and 6% said they didn’t know or declined to answer. The poll has a +/- 2.9% margin of error.
“The American people are not buying bushy’s outrageous claim that he has the power to wiretap American citizens without a warrant.
January 17th, 2006 at 12:46 amFor the most part it seem that it is generally assumed and accepted that the Shrubspy program applies to only calls into or out of the United States from or to known terrorists. I have several problems with those baseless assumptions. The most glaring problem is one of credibility. It is perfectly legal for the Bushco to spy on KNOWN terrorists and KNOWN TERRORIST SUPPORTERS physically in the United States PROVIDED within 72 hours a warrant is obtained. Not a problem if the two criteria above are met. HOWEVER COMMA, for example, if Laura wants to know what Hillary is wearing to the next ball and the same technology is utilized to obtain a little advance information, a FISA judge might not be so willing to offer penance after the fact so we forgo the warrant request. Secondly, Grandma, over the years has sold her dolls to beautiful ladies in numerous Countries throughout the world. All of these transactions have been accomplished through E-mail or telephone communications. How many of those communications, surely cryptic to a computer that has never loved a beautiful, lifelike, porcelain doll, have triggered the ire of DUHbyas secret police? Not enough so far, I would venture, because I am still typing. The point of this dissertation is that the SOB (King George) broke the law and then lied about it. I would suspect that today alone several thousand perpetrators, no different than DUHbya in any respect except one lives in the White House (yes, they are all criminals), have broken the law and are in custody now. Why has DUHbya not been confronted, impeached, tried, sentenced, and incarcerated? Why is
January 17th, 2006 at 12:50 amsuch blatant disregard for OUR Country’s laws tolerated? My Granddaddy didn’t tolerate it in WWI, My Daddy didn’t tolerate it in WW2, I didn’t tolerate it in Vietnam. Our son didn’t tolerate it in the first Bush League war. Why must our Grandsons tolerate BLW2. Answer the questions or impeach the bastard!
i saw this on atrios blog:
“Here’s a point that should be inserted into the warrantless wiretap debate:
If this is allowed, what’s going to stop some NSA shift supervisor from eavesdropping on some corporate CFO and getting some hot stock takeover tips and enriching himself? What’s to stop some NSA’er from listening in on a celebrity and engaging in some lucrative blackmail?
They wouldn’t? They couldn’t? Why not?
Without scrupulous oversight–scrupulous external oversight–who’s going to know? The President? As long as his wiretaps get done, what’s to stop the lower-downs from listening to anyone else they damn well please? Does Geprge have an internal policing structure in place?
Look ast the Soviet example: in addition to state terror caused be secret monitoring, you had untold and pervasive corruption. Members of the KGB would shake down and intimidate ordinary citizens–shake them down on their own, extort whatever favor they wanted to extort.
All the folks out there in favor of warrantless wiretapping are asking us to trust the president, sure–and we have a problem with that–but they’re also asking us to trust everybody in this big shadowy organization with all our secrets. Some underpaid underling, some sweaty-palmed represso who might run an extra couple of taps on his own time, and make a couple of calls…
You really want to live in that country?”
– pbg
http://tinyurl.com/9m5zl
’tis something i never thought of….
January 17th, 2006 at 1:43 amYou know something has gone awry when Quaker meetings and demonstrations are included in a list of “suspicious incidents”:
A group of Quakers who were protesting military recruitment efforts at a Florida high school recently learned their meeting was included on a secret Pentagon database of “suspicious incidents.” When that news broke last month, it had a familiar ring for many American Quakers.
January 17th, 2006 at 2:13 amThe Pacifist `Threat’
Just curious. Did anybody here actually read the article before posting? It clearly says that “virtually all” of the information led to dead ends. This means some did not. How many have to pan out to consider it a success? One in a hundred? A thousand? A million? It only a took a few people to conduct the 9/11 attacks or the Bali bombing or the Madrid bombings. You have to decide. Is eavesdropping on, lets say, a million people worth the lives of a thousand? If one attack has been or will be stopped then it is worth it to me. Maybe some value their phone calls more than others lives. I for one am not too worried about having my international calls electronically scanned for keywords or monitored. They are pretty boring stuff to family and friends. But maybe yours are embarrassing or criminal. Maybe they are innocent but will be misinterpreted and get you in trouble erroneously. I don’t know and neither do you. Everything is a trade-off.
January 17th, 2006 at 2:19 amThe FBI agents admitted that they didn’t usually know exactly why they were following up on something and never knew the full picture. They also said that they would be unlikely to know if the information gathered led to further leads or arrests overseas. Maybe they should know a little more about a subject but they probably could not have all the info. A number of people in positions to know say the information is very useful. They certainly could be lying but that scale of lie can’t be kept long and is unlikely. The article also mentions the criticism of the NSA for not looking inward at the U.S. prior to 9/11. Now they get yelled at for doing it. The FBI wasn’t “swamped with bogus leads”. That implies a deliberate misleading. Swamped with leads could be correct. It probably is true however that they are not accustomed to the volume or type of electronic traffic the NSA deals with regularly. The NSA is also not likely aware of just how many manhours were chewed up by these investigations since they deal primarily with radios and computers rather than interviews and stake-outs. This sounds like bureaucratic issues and service rivalry rather than evil intent.
The FBI agents said that sometimes they would follow a lead only to discover that the person was innocent whereupon they promptly dropped it. How would you like them to investigate? Know someone is guilty and only then start looking at them? How do you intend to determine this guilt without looking first? Talk about a Catch-22!
The legality of the wiretaps seems shaky but not obviously illegal. People who dislike the president obviously want it to be illegal but that doesn’t necessarily make it fact. Hopefully that will get sorted out and stopped if in fact they are illegal. One thing I don’t quite get is the furor over not going to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Seems everybody agrees they are a rubber stamp so why didn’t the administration get that stamp of approval? Also, since the court seems to always give approval what kind of oversight could they possibly be providing? Why bother having the court if it doesn’t do anything? Why get mad about not using a court that doesn’t do anything anyway?
The hard part is trying to find (and keep) a balance between protection of our rights and physical protection of our bodies. Going too far in either direction costs either freedom or lives. We don’t know enough about the program to know if that balance is being maintained and overzealous partisans on both sides are doing their best to play up what they want us to know and hide what the other sides partisans want to show us.
“Everything is a trade-off. TheRef”
I saw this quoted earlier today. I thought of it when I read your ‘work’.
Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both. Benjamin Franklin
I know you’re ’scared’, but put this into perspective. You’re more likely to die from McDonalds and RJReynolds than from a suicide attack. Unless you’re going to be like a child who keeps yourself locked inside, then grow up and face the world like an adult, instead of acting in fear as you’re currently doing. Are you willing to give up all of your other civil liberties in order to protect you from death? More people are killed by handguns every year than terrorism has ever killed - are you willing to protect those ‘thousands’ dead by banning handguns? How far does this logic of yours go? Or is it restricted to just ‘talking points’ of the week for you?
Think it through some more, clearly your ‘tradeoffs’ are kneejerk and fear oriented over reactions. I’m sure you ‘believe’ you’re defending america, but if you defend america only to lose it’s values - you’ve defeated nothing except american values.
January 17th, 2006 at 3:12 am“I for one am not too worried about having my international calls electronically scanned for keywords or monitored. TheRef”
Not the point. Warrantless searches are illegal because of the constitution, and this is an american value that’s not up for negotiation. Just because you don’t value the constitution, its provisions, its protections or its values - you, your political party and the government doesn’t have the right to take those freedoms and rights from americans.
Just because you don’t mind a criminal action, it doesn’t mean anything except that you have criminal tendencies. Perhaps you and Abramoff can start a lobbying firm together to promote your anti-american values when he gets out of prison?
January 17th, 2006 at 3:18 amHere are some statistics that will put this in perspective for you ‘TheRef’, assuming you have an open mind, and aren’t just being a partisan hack.
- 8 children a day die in murders, suicides and accidents involving guns
- since John F. Kennedy was assinated more Americans have died from gunshot wounds at home than died in all the wars of the 20th century
- Osama bin Laden would need at least nine twin towers like attacks each year to equal what Americans do to themselves every year with guns.
- Murder rates in LA, NY and Chigago were approaching the hightest in the world (30 per 100,000) until moves were made in late 20th century to restrict access to guns to teenagers. (The NRA wants these moves reversed)
If Osama bin Laden had had more sense, instead of launching a terrorist attack, he would simply have provided financial backing to the Republican party and the NRA.
January 17th, 2006 at 3:45 am#10
January 17th, 2006 at 4:24 amYou’re right on the money. Swamping the FBI with bogus leads would effectively cripple any real investigation of the events leading up to 9/11. Pure Rovian genius.
#16 “The Ref”
January 17th, 2006 at 4:30 amYou are the most dangerous kind of fool there is. You try to “reasonably” argue for the dismantling of our Constitutional rights but your only rationale is naked fear. Pathetic.
Purvis Ames
Well said.
And the problem before 9-11 was not that our “intelligence” agencies didn’t have the information. The problem was they had it and either ignored it, supressed it, or did pass it on to the WH, which, in turn ignored it.
We already had the means of discovering who these people were, where they were, and what they were doing.
(Remember the whistle blower form the MN office of the FBI). The problem was the Bushiots just decided to ignore the information. Most likely because they considered Bin Laden Clinton’s bogeyman, and anything Clinton to them was to be ignored.
This spying on Americans without warrant (even after the fact) smacks of Nixonian paranoia. The Bushiots are spying on THEIR enemies, not America’s.
January 17th, 2006 at 5:30 amIt is odd that these goofy folks who continue to support the Liar in Chief do not seem to understand that all of those that they defend wouldn’t even bother to piss on them if they were on fire. They do NOTHING for the benefit of the american people. They ARE the scary monster in the closet. Why don’t they see that this administration only wants to keep them afraid, NOT SAFE! It is through fear that all of these crimes are able to be committed, and they even have the victims covering for them! GAWD! It is enough to make any sane person…. a republican. Ooops, meant to say insane, well, same difference. Truth will destroy them, eventually. I hope we can hold on that long.
January 17th, 2006 at 6:03 am…and most importantly kept agents from MORE PRODUCTIVE counterterrorism work…
NOTHING this administration doe turns out right, yet the inbreds keep swallowing the swill…
January 17th, 2006 at 8:08 am# 16: FYI
President Bush has characterized the eavesdropping program, which focused on the international communications of some Americans and others in the United States, as a “vital tool” against terrorism; Vice President Dick Cheney has said it has saved “thousands of lives.”
But the results of the program looked very different to some officials charged with tracking terrorism in the United States. More than a dozen current and former law enforcement and counterterrorism officials, including some in the small circle who knew of the secret eavesdropping program and how it played out at the F.B.I., said the torrent of tips led them to few potential terrorists inside the country they did not know of from other sources and diverted agents from counterterrorism work they viewed as more productive.
“We’d chase a number, find it’s a school teacher with no indication they’ve ever been involved in international terrorism - case closed,” said one former FBI official, who was aware of the program and the data it generated for the bureau. “After you get a thousand numbers and not one is turning up anything, you get some frustration.”
The law enforcement and counterterrorism officials said the program had uncovered no active Qaeda networks inside the United States planning attacks. “There were no imminent plots - not inside the United States,” the former F.B.I. official said.
Get your info straight next time.
January 17th, 2006 at 8:11 amIt clearly says that “virtually all†of the information led to dead ends. This means some did not. How many have to pan out to consider it a success? One in a hundred? A thousand? A million? It only a took a few people to conduct the 9/11 attacks or the Bali bombing or the Madrid bombings.
Comment by TheRef #16
Hey Ref’use,
“The politics of fear leads to the politics of destruction.”
Wake your scary as* up inbred…
January 17th, 2006 at 8:14 am#19
Here’s some statistics for you…
Every year–
Tobacco kills 435,000 people.
Poor diet and physical inactivity kills 365,000
Alcohol kills 85,000
Motor vehicle crashes kill 26,347
Adverse reactions to prescription drugs kill 32,000
Incidents involving firearms kill 29,000
How convenient for you to take a swipe at the NRA and ignore the real killers in our society. To follow your twisted line of reason, it would make much more sense for Osama to invest in breweries and provide financial backing to the party of Ted ‘hic’ Kennedy.
January 17th, 2006 at 9:33 amRef and Michael,
January 17th, 2006 at 10:30 amYou are the type of people that let Hitler grab all his power. I can’t believe how blind you are. You are of the people that inspire my handle. People like you make me see how screwed we are in America. It’s becoming ever so much more disheartening as every new injustice this Admin has instigated is exposed and people like you continue to find anyway you can to try and justify it. Why are you so afraid to understand the truth? It’s an ominous situation and it threatens to swallow us all whole if we don’t recognize it and do something about it. This country needs to be great again and be a leader in moving this world forward.
Losing Faith,
You should be losing faith in the left in this country.
January 17th, 2006 at 11:36 amAll they do is attack, attack, attack. They are still bitter over losing the last two elections, and have been on their relentless attack Bush campaign ever since. They offer nothing in the way of improving anything in this country, only objections to whatever Bush is doing. They throw a bunch of charges at the wall and hope they can make something stick, and you seem to believe all of it. If Bush is guilty of even half of what the left accuse him of, then he’s the worst monster that ever walked the face of the earth. I’m sorry but that just doesn’t fit. If he’s guilty of something then fine, let’s make him accountable–the same goes for any politician Republican or Democrat. My interest is in the truth, and not in any blind devotion to a party or a politician like your interest seems to be. If you really want to have faith in something, then have faith in God, not man or country. He’s the only one who won’t let you down.
“You should be losing faith in the left in this country. All they do is attack, attack, attack. They are still bitter over losing the last two elections, and have been on their relentless attack Bush campaign ever since. Michael”
I guess you haven’t been listening to Coulter, Limbaugh, Hannity and OReilly - or heck even Delay for the last 10 years. No one hates, attacks and lies like the republican right. I feel sorry for you that you have so much hate and project that hate onto others.
“My interest is in the truth, and not in any blind devotion to a party or a politician like your interest seems to be. If you really want to have faith in something, then have faith in God, not man or country. He’s the only one who won’t let you down. Michael”
Then act like it. Clearly you’re blind politically and religiously. Tell the people of New Orleans that God won’t let them down. Religious and dependence on a God to ’save you’ is a fantasy, grow up little boy, and stop believing in talking donkies, and realize your party is run by real ones.
January 17th, 2006 at 12:21 pm#30
You said–
Then act like it. Clearly you’re blind politically and religiously. Tell the people of New Orleans that God won’t let them down. Religious and dependence on a God to ’save you’ is a fantasy, grow up little boy, and stop believing in talking donkies, and realize your party is run by real ones.
You clearly have no understanding of who God is, nor do you have a proper view of those who believe in Him. You can’t see that He is all around you, yet you call me blind. It’s funny how people like you insist that if bad things happen in the world, then God doesn’t exist. You are so filled with pride and conceit that you simply cannot allow for anything to be bigger than yourself. You wrongly equate religious beliefs with ignorance, while assuming some imagined position of superiority, you actually think you have the right to tell me how to act. People like you are the first ones to say don’t judge me, but I guess its ok for you to judge me. The humanistic doctrine you subscribe to makes you repulsive.
January 17th, 2006 at 1:36 pm#29 “If Bush is guilty of even half of what the left accuse him of, then he’s the worst monster that ever walked the face of the earth.”
Bingo.
#31 “You clearly have no understanding of who God is”
Neither do you. Neither did Augustine. Neither did Thomas Aquinas. Neither does Bush. Neither does the Pope. Neither does Israel. Neither Iran.
NOBODY does. So STFU and stop acting like you have some sort of special insight.
January 17th, 2006 at 1:45 pmWhether congress can deal with Bushco’s usurpation of our Constitution remains to be seen. Given Rethuglican control of the House of Unrepentant and the Seenot it is doubtful.
I therefore have an idea for you: We know that the NSA is conducting an illegal operation to spy on Americans using sophisticated “recognition” software to lock onto calls or emails containing certain key words. Data mining.
The only way any citizen can combat an illegal program such as this is by civil disobedience, SO IMAGINE WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF ALL AMERICANS, COUNTRY-WIDE, BEGAN USING TRIGGER WORDS IN EVERY TELEPHONE CALL THEY MAKE OR RECEIVE? The system would soon be overwhelmed by far too many “hits” for them all (or perhaps ANY) of them to be further investigated, potentially destroying the usefulness of the illegal program.
So what if every liberal blog, or any others believing Bushco has gone too far, asked ALL THE VISITORS to their site to include certain trigger words IN EVERY CONVERSATION THEY HAVE WITH ANYONE.
You know, words like: Osama bin Laden, jihad, dirty bomb, nuclear material, anthrax, chemical weapons, Zarqawi, Allah akbar, infidels, Iran mullahs, and everything else the readers could come up with. Perhaps even run a contest for your readers to add to the probable list that would “flag” their number for further investigation. The sheer numbers, if we could pull this off, would render it impossible or impractical for the program to continue.
I am sick of our Imperial President and his constant violations of the law and the erosion of my civil rights. It is time, in my opinion, to demonstrate to Bushco that this IS a government by, for, and of the People. This could perhaps be engineered into the greatest single act of civil disobedience in history.
What do you think? Do we stand by and gripe, or do we take action?
January 17th, 2006 at 2:12 pm#32 excellent comeback to the know it all.
January 17th, 2006 at 2:58 pmWhen God commanded men to not take his name in vain, he was not referring to “Jeezuz Christ!!” He was referring to those pompous and self righteous who believe they have direct communication from on high, and they mistakenly have the “right” to tell everyone else that they know God.
34- I am alwasy reminded of the scene in “Kingdom of Heaven,” where the Knights Templar procalim, “God wills it,” re going out and killing a good number of Muslims, and getting a good number of themselves slaughtered.
9/11
National Security
God wills it
Yeah, I got your GOP platform.
January 17th, 2006 at 3:09 pm#32
January 17th, 2006 at 4:19 pmrunningdog
Next time lift your leg when you pee–you went all over yourself. Am I supposed to be impressed because you dropped a couple of names in church history? Where in any of my comments did you see me say that I had COMPLETE understanding of who God is? Where did I say, that I alone have some understanding of who HE is? How could you even think that none of His followers could possibly know anything about Him? Do you have to work at mis-handling information this badly–or is this some special gift you have? Don’t answer…you’ve already revealed your intellectual dishonesty with your “Bingo” comment.
#34
January 17th, 2006 at 4:27 pmIf you thought #32 was an excellent comeback, you’re as equally intellectualy dishonest as he is. By the way…where did you get that warped understanding of taking Gods name in vain?
Do you have some special insight or is that the gospel acoording to Marie? Stop being such a cheerleader for the hard left–it makes you look like a flake.
#37
January 17th, 2006 at 4:43 pmTheologians.
I was pretty sure, okay certain, I would be attacked for posting a very reasonable comment that at least partially covers the trade-offs of doing too much or not enough. I also asked what people consider a reasonable risk and brought up some of the issues faced by investigative services. Not one of you bothered to post a rational response or rebut a single line. Just inane or irrelevant comments and smears. I give you exhibits A, B & C:
RightPunch - Where did the guns and murder stuff come from? It has nothing to do with the article or thread. Your post equates to the sky is blue because cars use gas. Totally incoherent! Good quote from Franklin though. I disagree with his conclusion since with a lack of security you have a lack of freedom but good job posting it.
purvis ames - I expressed no fear (naked or otherwise) and did not argue for dismantling the Constitution. The legality of the wiretaps is most definitely unclear and I definitely stated that. What is pathetic is your tortured conclusion that I did based apparently on your poor reading skills.
Losing Faith - You bring up Hitler? With that bad a view I hope you keep losing faith until you move elsewhere. We don’t need you.
Experiment over, Keep responding badly so I can go back to teasing and poking fun at the hysterical (in both senses of the word) posts. It keeps me laughing and after all, that’s the best medicine. Comic relief is why I come here.
January 18th, 2006 at 12:37 amRef,
January 18th, 2006 at 12:40 pmIf you think asking people to accept the criminal activity of this “President” is “reasonable”, it’s no wonder you don’t see how it relates to Hitler. You say Hitler and most people think of the ethnic scapegoating and genocide, but it’s also about government abuse, corruption and misleading masses of people within a country. All things I believe very strongly this admin has had a hand in. Yet, regardless of the overwhleming mounds of evidence to support these “accusations”, people like you continue to see NOTHING wrong with how this admin operates. I’m not saying Bush is Hitler or will become Hitler, I’m just saying this path can lead there. It’s destroying our country. If these people that were spied on were ANY real threat, FISA would have granted warrants. Why weren’t they requested?
Losing Faith - Uhm, did you miss the part where I asked that very same question? Were you so anxious to condemn me that you didn’t bother to read my post? I neither accepted criminal activity nor asked anyone else to do so. What I did was mention that while I personally find the legality questionable it is a fact that many other perfectly rational people feel differently. Isn’t there supposed to be a “presumtion of innocence”? No charges have been filed, no trial has been held and no convictions handed out, therefore your certainty of “criminal activity” in what all experts agree is a murky area is, shall we say, extremely biased. I welcome an investigation so that the vast moderate majority (who according to polls slightly approve of the wiretaps) can have a resolution one way or the other. Extremists and partisans won’t be convinced no matter the result so I don’t really care what they say.
January 19th, 2006 at 12:06 am#39
January 19th, 2006 at 7:59 amAmen brother.
The trouble with the people here is they are absolutely convinced that they are right. They actually believe that if a person were truly open minded and thought for themselves, then they would arrive at the same conclusions that they do. It’s simply inconceivable to them, that someone can be intelligent, fair-minded, handle information accurately and honestly, and have a different opinion than theirs. They just can’t deal with that. In a nutshell–if you disagree with them, then you’re stupid. If you believe in God and disagree with them, then you’re evil and stupid.
I quit trying to seriously engage them on any of the issues. The people here won’t open their minds enough to even consider another point of view–all the while accusing you of the same. I come here for a good laugh as well, and to poke fun at their arrogance. Some of these people are completely unhinged–where else can you see that? Certainly not in my corner of the world.
[…] As I was reading, I’m reminded of the stories of F.B.I. being overwhelmed by wild goose chases, as a result of the illegal eavesdropping, and how this fits in with the G.W.O.T.? Do you feel safer?? I sure don’t… UPDATE: According to TPMuckraker.com, they tried to trick Mrs. Anderson into giving them up, not the custodian of the documents, who is the son and lawyer mentioned above. What the papers didn’t report was the truly ugly extent to which the bureau has gone to achieve their goal — such as manipulating Anderson’s elderly widow to sign a document she apparently didn’t understand. [snip] Agent Martell and her partner came twice to meet with Olivia Anderson; on both occasions, Olivia’s daughter was present, although she was in and out of the meeting, caring for her children. Through Kevin, his sister says that at no time was she present when any consent form was discussed or signed, which leads the family to conclude the agents waited until they were alone with Olivia before presenting the document. […]
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