Some more on the NSA
Dec. 27th, 2005 09:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumJust doing a fly by as Maia and I stop at home on our way to Los Angeles from Sebastapol.
The NSA Spying is important, so important that damn near everything else ought to be filtered through it?
Why? Because knowledge is power, and power tends to corrupt.
Do I wax hyperbolic? I hope so. I fear not, but I hope so.
But this needs to be avoided.
This administration has made sweeping cliams of power. It has said there are no limits to presidential power during war. It says that Congress authorizing force against the Taliban in Afghanistan was a declaration of war, and that until such time as the White House decides the war is over, the war goes on.
Oceania has always been at war.
We are, I am afraid, on the verge of a police state.
The Limbaughs, the Malkins, the O'Reillys, the Hannitys, and all the myriads in freeperdom are calling for the heads of those who disagree. They will claim it's metaphoric, they don't really want to kill "liberals" (a wonderfully fuzzy term) and the "liberal hunting permits" (no season, no limit, and no restrictions) are just humor, which the humor-impaired "PC" "liberals" don't get, but that, as Orcinus points out is a destructive humor.
It's seed corn for pogroms.
The folks who preach these things (Malkin on interment, Limbaugh on the glories of the [Republican] State, Coulter on the need to put Liberals down like rabid dogs, &c) also think there ought to be class. One set of rules for the proles, another for the elite (and we all know where people who divides the world into upper and lower classes put themselves).
After all, Limbaugh said, on 22 Dec, 2005, the NSA snooping everything is just fine “Liberals and Democrats,” Limbaugh claimed, “are only opposed to this because they don’t want anyone finding out what they’ve been up to. … What have you folks been doing that you so desperately want to keep hidden?”
On the other hand his lawyer was defending his rights to privacy in the drug case against him, not a week before with Wolf Blitzer
BLITZER: If Rush Limbaugh has nothing to hide and has done nothing wrong, what’s the problem with letting the prosecutor speak to the doctors and go through all the records?
BLACK: Well, Wolf, that’s an excellent question. A lot of people ask this all the time. You know what? We have a right of privacy in this country that I think is important for us to hold onto. I mean, we could let prosecutors and police into our bedrooms, search our computers, watch us having sex. We could let them do all these things, but then we would have a police state. We would no longer have a democracy. I think it’s very important to fight these privacy battles—and Rush Limbaugh has taken on this battle of privacy with your doctor, and I think it has really been a public service for him. Not only for himself but everybody else who wants their medical records and medical treatment kept private and not to be disclosed in the press or with the police or prosecutors or anyone else who has no business being there.
The core of this is, still, the reasoning by John Yoo, the reasoning which says Congress abdicated all power (but that of the purse) when it authorised force.
That's scary. All oversight, all restraint and all control are ceded to the president, the moment the Congress authorized force.
Not even declares war, merely authorizes force. I'm sure Rush would have been all for Clinton exercising this sort of power.
This is rambling, I apologise. I've not had breakfast, we're late and I want to get this out.
Forget abortion, right to die, gay marriage; or marriage being anything special in the law, and civil unions for all; marriage for churches, school vouchers, voting rights, voting machines, and every other thing you worry about (no matter which side of the aisle).
This trumps them all.
Can Bush run again? No, the 22nd amendment says so.
But he can set aside other constitutional provisions, under the Yoo doctrine. The Legislative, and (mostly) the Judiciary have let him (putting aside a treaty is ignoring the Constitution, Article VI,
So why trifle at some silly little thing which might allow someone else to come in and end the war he sees needful. Since Yoo has said the power of the Executive trumps the will of Congress, and the prosecution of a war makes the President, de facto, a Consul and Tribune, absolute monarch until the war is done, what is to stop a President (any president, that's the test on power, how would you feel if someone you didn't trust was in office with it) from doing such a thing?
That, I think is a trifle beyond even my worst fears. Easier to rig an election (and the GAO report on the results in Ohio, combined with the flap the White House made in Ukraine [where the election tallies didn't match the exit polls, and that was grounds for a revote, but in Ohio; well that was because of a flaw in the polling method. Never mind that a host of statisticians said just one poll being off was unlikely, but three was tantamount to impossible).
When did we become so trusting of the Gov't? We are founded on a deep distrust of central authority. We fought a war because of the abuses of such an exectutive. We formed a nation, under the Articles of Confederation, which had no central authority. We only got the present Constitution because a Bill of Rights was promised.
At what point did we start to let fear (of the "other" of crime, of random forces from outside) take over? FDR was right, the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. Why? Becase fear makes us irrational, and that abandonment of reason gives people a chance to exploit our weaknesess and convince us to give up some essential liberty in the name of security (yep, I'm trying to make a meme)
Who would you trust with every secret you've got?
Who would you give keys to your diaries? Passwords to your computers; and all the passwords to your bank, e-mail, amazon account, library card... the lists are as varied as you want to make them)? Who would you also give the keys to your house, and the path of everywhere you drive (got OnStar?).
Why should you give them to the Gov't? (which is why Roberts, and Alito bother me, both of them favor the Gov't, in the form of the Executive, having this sort of power).
I'll close with the grievances of the Declaration of Independence, the reasons for the stirring language at the front of the document, slightly edited.
See which one's might apply to the present.
The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.
He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.
He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature.
For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:
He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:
For imposing taxes on us without our consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:
For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:
For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule in these colonies:
For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:
For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.
The NSA Spying is important, so important that damn near everything else ought to be filtered through it?
Why? Because knowledge is power, and power tends to corrupt.
Do I wax hyperbolic? I hope so. I fear not, but I hope so.
But this needs to be avoided.
This administration has made sweeping cliams of power. It has said there are no limits to presidential power during war. It says that Congress authorizing force against the Taliban in Afghanistan was a declaration of war, and that until such time as the White House decides the war is over, the war goes on.
Oceania has always been at war.
We are, I am afraid, on the verge of a police state.
The Limbaughs, the Malkins, the O'Reillys, the Hannitys, and all the myriads in freeperdom are calling for the heads of those who disagree. They will claim it's metaphoric, they don't really want to kill "liberals" (a wonderfully fuzzy term) and the "liberal hunting permits" (no season, no limit, and no restrictions) are just humor, which the humor-impaired "PC" "liberals" don't get, but that, as Orcinus points out is a destructive humor.
It's seed corn for pogroms.
The folks who preach these things (Malkin on interment, Limbaugh on the glories of the [Republican] State, Coulter on the need to put Liberals down like rabid dogs, &c) also think there ought to be class. One set of rules for the proles, another for the elite (and we all know where people who divides the world into upper and lower classes put themselves).
After all, Limbaugh said, on 22 Dec, 2005, the NSA snooping everything is just fine “Liberals and Democrats,” Limbaugh claimed, “are only opposed to this because they don’t want anyone finding out what they’ve been up to. … What have you folks been doing that you so desperately want to keep hidden?”
On the other hand his lawyer was defending his rights to privacy in the drug case against him, not a week before with Wolf Blitzer
BLITZER: If Rush Limbaugh has nothing to hide and has done nothing wrong, what’s the problem with letting the prosecutor speak to the doctors and go through all the records?
BLACK: Well, Wolf, that’s an excellent question. A lot of people ask this all the time. You know what? We have a right of privacy in this country that I think is important for us to hold onto. I mean, we could let prosecutors and police into our bedrooms, search our computers, watch us having sex. We could let them do all these things, but then we would have a police state. We would no longer have a democracy. I think it’s very important to fight these privacy battles—and Rush Limbaugh has taken on this battle of privacy with your doctor, and I think it has really been a public service for him. Not only for himself but everybody else who wants their medical records and medical treatment kept private and not to be disclosed in the press or with the police or prosecutors or anyone else who has no business being there.
The core of this is, still, the reasoning by John Yoo, the reasoning which says Congress abdicated all power (but that of the purse) when it authorised force.
That's scary. All oversight, all restraint and all control are ceded to the president, the moment the Congress authorized force.
Not even declares war, merely authorizes force. I'm sure Rush would have been all for Clinton exercising this sort of power.
This is rambling, I apologise. I've not had breakfast, we're late and I want to get this out.
Forget abortion, right to die, gay marriage; or marriage being anything special in the law, and civil unions for all; marriage for churches, school vouchers, voting rights, voting machines, and every other thing you worry about (no matter which side of the aisle).
This trumps them all.
Can Bush run again? No, the 22nd amendment says so.
But he can set aside other constitutional provisions, under the Yoo doctrine. The Legislative, and (mostly) the Judiciary have let him (putting aside a treaty is ignoring the Constitution, Article VI,
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in
Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the
Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the
Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or
Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the
several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of
the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or
Affirmation, to support this Constitution)
So why trifle at some silly little thing which might allow someone else to come in and end the war he sees needful. Since Yoo has said the power of the Executive trumps the will of Congress, and the prosecution of a war makes the President, de facto, a Consul and Tribune, absolute monarch until the war is done, what is to stop a President (any president, that's the test on power, how would you feel if someone you didn't trust was in office with it) from doing such a thing?
That, I think is a trifle beyond even my worst fears. Easier to rig an election (and the GAO report on the results in Ohio, combined with the flap the White House made in Ukraine [where the election tallies didn't match the exit polls, and that was grounds for a revote, but in Ohio; well that was because of a flaw in the polling method. Never mind that a host of statisticians said just one poll being off was unlikely, but three was tantamount to impossible).
When did we become so trusting of the Gov't? We are founded on a deep distrust of central authority. We fought a war because of the abuses of such an exectutive. We formed a nation, under the Articles of Confederation, which had no central authority. We only got the present Constitution because a Bill of Rights was promised.
At what point did we start to let fear (of the "other" of crime, of random forces from outside) take over? FDR was right, the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. Why? Becase fear makes us irrational, and that abandonment of reason gives people a chance to exploit our weaknesess and convince us to give up some essential liberty in the name of security (yep, I'm trying to make a meme)
Who would you trust with every secret you've got?
Who would you give keys to your diaries? Passwords to your computers; and all the passwords to your bank, e-mail, amazon account, library card... the lists are as varied as you want to make them)? Who would you also give the keys to your house, and the path of everywhere you drive (got OnStar?).
Why should you give them to the Gov't? (which is why Roberts, and Alito bother me, both of them favor the Gov't, in the form of the Executive, having this sort of power).
I'll close with the grievances of the Declaration of Independence, the reasons for the stirring language at the front of the document, slightly edited.
See which one's might apply to the present.
The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.
He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.
He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature.
For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:
He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:
For imposing taxes on us without our consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:
For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:
For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule in these colonies:
For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:
For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.
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no subject
Date: 2005-12-27 08:36 pm (UTC)