Listening In

Retroactive Immununity....hmmm. Is that comparable to a younger half-sibling refusing accountability for violating "some stranger's" individual rights because their "Big Brother" told them to do it? I'm no lawyer (or politician), but it seems an appropriate term would be "Accessory to the Act". If the Congress doesn't rubber stamp it, the President will Pardon the parties involved. As someone who HAS HAD their family/business phone line tapped, expect complicit indifference from authorities whether they be local, state, or federal regardless of which branch of gov't they may hail from. Ahh, experience.......CU

Robert
I might be worried about someone getting my brownie recipe though! Oops...watch list again...lol

Dave,
Your right and most of the people are repeating Cnn and msnbc talking points. JFK was the last democrat that had backbone. The rest of the of them all aspire to European Socialism and appeasement.

Kier 42 Defending Clintons policy you will quickly will find out is a morally bankrupt arguement. I don't hate the guy, but he was a obvious sleazeball. The talking points of large leftist corporate media outlets allow
you to mimic their arguements, without thinking on your own. Do a google search on Clinton foreign policy.
The one the leftist media is trying to sell you. I'am not worries about someone getting my cake receipe.

From what I'm reading, Republicans keep us safe from terrorists and Democrats want to let them kill us all? Am I missing something here?? Determined terrorists WILL strike again. The first attack on th WTC was in 1993, The next was 2001. It seems to me they have time on their side. Bush and this country have been lucky so far. It seems they think in longer terms than our election cycles. So, be afraid...Bush will protect us?
Buck up people. Illegal wiretapping will not prevent some nut who is determined to kill innocent strangers. If there are legitimate concerns then there are legal paths to be followed. Remember the fourth amemdment requiring warrants for searches. The FISA court has virtually never denied issuing them, even retroactively, so what is the problem? What is the need for immunity for telecom companies (past and future) if they have not broken the law or violated our constitution?Thank God for the few Senators with backbones.

My suggestion is to Google ECHELON and learn more on communication surveillance (also John Poindexter, Reagans nat, security advisor)). This program has been around since the 1940's. The only apparent difference now is that the Bush administration insists on thumbing its nose at the constitutional requirement for warrants, and the telecom lobby is very afraid!!

So I'm thinking I might take my copy of the constitution and use it as a Big Bamboo rolling paper and Smoke it...oops, now i'm on the watch list...

From what I'm reading, Republicans keep us safe from terrorists and Democrats want to let them kill us all? Am I missing something here?? Determined terrorists WILL strike again. The first attack on th WTC was in 1993, The next was 2001. It seems to me they have time on their side. Bush and this country have been lucky so far. It seems they think in longer terms than our election cycles. So, be afraid...Bush will protect us?
Buck up people. Illegal wiretapping will not prevent some nut who is determined to kill innocent strangers. If there are legitimate concerns then there are legal paths to be followed. Remember the fourth amemdment requiring warrants for searches. The FISA court has virtually never denied issuing them, even retroactively, so what is the problem? What is the need for immunity for telecom companies (past and future) if they have not broken the law or violated our constitution?Thank God for the few Senators with backbones.

My suggestion is to Google ECHELON and learn more on communication surveillance (also John Poindexter, Reagans nat, security advisor)). This program has been around since the 1940's. The only apparent difference now is that the Bush administration insists on thumbing its nose at the constitutional requirement for warrants, and the telecom lobby is very afraid!!

So I'm thinking I might take my copy of the constitution and use it as a Big Bamboo rolling paper and Smoke it...oops, now i'm on the watch list...

Well, Robert, Clinton managed to find, arrest, put on trial and throw in prision the people responsible for the first WTC bombing without having to spy on Americans w/o warrants.

Your holding Clinton responsible for the situation we are in is blind ignorance. Clinton tried to kill Osama, tried to capture him and was even ready to invade Afghanastan after the U.S.S. Cole incident, but the CIA could not confirm that it ws Al Qaeda that was responsible for it until AFTER he left office.

Clinton warned the Bush administration that Osama bin Laden was the number one threat facing this country and the Bush administration did nothing. The were warned, and did nothing.

This enemy was nearly defeated, until we invaded Iraq and let them grow in strength again. Now they pose nearly as much of a threat, if not more, than before the WTC bombing. Add on to that the occupation of Iraq is a Al Qaeda recruiter's wet dream. American forces of occupation in the holy land, what more could they ask for?

this administration time and time again has mislead the america peaple. i fear more from the goverment wihtin . than enemys.yes i know they are there.yet we as a peaple who the bush administration say the enemys are going to be rid of our way of life. something ww1,ww11,the soviet union have not been able to do.fear a rag tag group is able to all they could not. make this a law enfrocement matter and we get our man.not at the expense of our own freedom

I'am more concerned about marketing companies spying to sell, tracking buying and purchasing. The NSA
can spy on all the towel head, head choppers it wants. Their evil, beyond criminal and they need to be
eradicated like cockroachs. I can't buy the arguement that we are losing freedoms, if we lose the war
we lose all freedoms.

gcbfred, exactly! If they have a real reason to spy, let them go to a judge and get a warrant. The FISA has only rejected 3 or 4 warrants out of the more than 16,000 that have been requested and if it is time sensitive, they have up to 72 hours to go to the court after spying to tell them what they did and why.

Kier42 Clinton tried dealing with terrorists as criminals, first WTC BOMBING, Randy Yuseff who had ties
to Iraq, Clinton did nothing, African embassy Bombings, Clinton treated it like a criminal matter, but outside
US, Sudan Offered Bin Laden to U.S. Didn't think it was legal, he got away. The Clintons policy lead us
to a emboldened enemy, that now are nearly defeated. I not worried about some getting my cake receipe.

The government HAS done something wrong, it has spied on it's citizens w/o warrants! That is a crime.

If they want to spy, there are provisions for them to get a warrant, even after the fact. I want a paper trail, I want accountability and they want none of that. If they have nothing to hide, they why would they want to hide what they are doing?

they are trying to deny us oversight. Add on to that that they can now detain and imprision anybody they want for as long as they want, all they have to do is call them a terrorist and they'll never see the light of day again.

I can think of a few other countries that did things like this. Russia and East Germany are 2 that come to mind right away.

Any bias in the news is very slanted to the right in favor of this administration. I dare you to name one major news outlet that has any liberal bias? Yes, MSNBC has a couple of people that may be liberal, but it is by no means a liberal news outlet.

All I can say is that I'm more afraid of my own government and police coming in on me, siezing my property and violating my civil rights than I am of a terrorist blowing me up or anything like that. Get a clue. People in some countries do have to worry about this on a daily basis. That's not one of my top concerns. I'd rather keep my liberties. Screw that if you don't have anything to hide you shouldn't mind our government spying on us. I was arressted if you want to call it that a year ago on what came to find out was a lie. I was put in handcuffs, never shown a warrent, not told why I was being put in handcuff and taken to jail, never had my rights read to me.(appearently that's just for tv shows) I didn't know why intill after I was bailed out and that wasn't what was on the warrent. I filally found out I was charged with shopping at Walgreens and buying something they don't even sell. I've been dealing with this for a year now. Even my attorney tried to get me to plea bargin for something I didn't do. Did I say it was a fellony arrest. Makes it kinda hard to work in most places. I talked to two other attorneys and got told the same thing the police can do and say whatever they want. So any kind ot control we can get on our government and police needs to happen now before we all live in a police. Not what I want!

Hang tough Congress. Hang Tough. I beleive that if there is a real need to eves drop on anyone, then let them get a Warrant and do it according to the Rule of Law and the constitution.

Kier42 I'am not saying iam a fan of monitoring Int'l telephone calls, but i would be more worried about
the NSA giving information to a spam marketing company, than losing freedoms. The government has
done nothing wrong, My Uncle died in wwII to defending us against occupation. The best way to safeguard
the many rights we have is to have oversight and accurate information, not buying into bias news outlets.

Comment: The analogy is neither country had anything to do with 9/11.

You may think you don't use Amendment IV of the US constitution but you do. You also probably don't notice a loss of part of amendment IV when the NSA is illegally monitory your emails and phone calls. But ignorance of your loss doesn't mean you didn't loose it. And if more of Amendment IV is taken away you will notice it.

Also, though I was quite young, I don't recall Jimmy Carter invading and couppying any countries?

Further reading: http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/bill_of_rights_transcript.html

Robert, we can not be at WAR against terrorists. Terrorists are criminals and the way you deal w/ them is through good police work.

During the revolutionary war 2/3 of the population were loyal to the British, yet we did not stoop to this level. Have you read the "Protect Bush and his Friends Act"? It's designed to give the president the power to spy on anybody he wants whenever he wants. What they've done is against the law.

Nixon tried to do what Bush is doing and only to political enemies, and look what happened to him.

As an American and a Patriot I feel that the constitution is far more important and should be defended and upheld. Without the constitution America is nothing.

Kier42 JFK had FBI spy on King during cold war, I don't agree he should have, but their was a cold war
and many KGB agents were in the U.S.