I don't know if many people have read this piece by Clarice Feldman over on the American Thinker, but they should.
The NY Times senior editor and publisher are in deep legal trouble.
"Because executive editor Bill Keller and publisher Arthur “Pinch” Sulzberger may well have been involved in the story and know the identity of the sources, and have refused to answer questions from their own ombudsmen, public editor Byron Calame, they too could be subpoenaed and compelled to testify or else endure jail time."
I hope they both spend time in the same cell Judith Miller was in.
The NSA is a far, far greater threat to our liberties than a few imbecilic terrorists. It's a medium to long term threat, but it's quite large. People who support it are usually under the illusion that they or their agents will be able to control it and how it is used. This illusion will eventually be their undoing.
I dont recall the NSA blowing up any buildings recently. And for those few unfortunate sould that just happened to have their birthday wishes to their terrorist cousin in Pakistan intercepted, im sure we'll learn to live with the terrible burden.
Let's all keep in mind that the program is supervised and that if any fixes are needed, then that is the area that needs work. As is usual in our government, a part of this supervision is distributed to the other two branches of government. That is what makes us so much stronger and resilient than single branch governments.
There is no evidence that this system is not working, in the main. There will always be personal abuses, and beaurocratic problems. The FBI's communist surveillance program comes to mind in its end stages. That was wrapped up with alacrity. With respect to the use of RICOH laws, I'm sure that family and friends of mobsters came under suspsion and were investigated. I'm sure that some of these people became aware of the investigation. Possibly harmed peripheraly. Were any thrown in jail? Dismissed from jobs? Killed in dark alleys? No, because this time around, supervision was distributed.
Because your car has some well documented association with fatalities does you must give up personal transportation.
Misprision of a felony is a felony.
TJ -- this is why Liberals always fail. They don't engage in rational discussions of risk.
They see the real risk as another COINTELPRO (but only when Republicans occupy the White House). Ignoring the risk of mass casualty terrorist attack.
Hijacking a Fed Ex plane and crashing it into a sports stadium could produce on the order of 20,000 casualties. At the low end random suicide bomb and gun attacks could kill hundreds, particularly of innocent targets like elementary schools ala Beslan. The High End would be the 1.6 million casualties predicted by an exercise in Manhattan to respond to a Midtown nuke of Hiroshima size. Given Iran's nuclear ambitions and progress this is not the realmm of foolish thrillers.
Let me remind you that the idea on 9/10 that terrorists would hijack 4 planes and use them to crash into buildings was the stuff of ludicrous Tom Clancy thrillers. We sadly live in a comic book villain world, with bin Laden and Zarqawi and Zawahari actually existing (but no superheroes sadly).
If three nukes went off in major American cities and produced on the order of 4.8 million US dead I guarantee you that there would not be a Muslim living in the US within a few weeks, nor a Mosque standing. That's just human nature.
Our society depends on balancing reasonable, rational measures to prevent mass terror and killings (aimed at undermining the legitimacy of the state) with protection of essential liberties. Sending all Muslims to concentration camps is a clear violation of our essential liberties. Listening in to whoever Al Qaeda is calling in the US would NOT be such a violation.
By forgoing a discussion of reasonable, rational limits Dems put themselves as unrealistic and foolish utopians who can't be trusted; it's as if they argued that police should never be armed because they might accidentally shoot someone.
This is particularly bad for Dems since the private sector and DEM State Legislators ALREADY do far worse: Choicepoint and TRW will sell the most intimate details of your life to anyone with the money; and Dems in Oregon are mandating GPS trackers always on for all cars, to make tickets for speeding or other traffic violations mandatory, impose mileage fees, and do various other tracking.
We warned you that l'Affaire Plame would result in very bad things for Journalists and leakers; and now you're seeing that fruit. Of course Punch and others should go to jail. They leaked national security secrets that very predictably will get people killed.
It's possible for both TJ and Yehudit to be right on this one.
If the Plame brouhaha was worth investigations and hjail time, then so is this.
On the other hand, Gary Farber notes that the nature of the surveillance in question deserves to be looked at very seriously even if it's legal. The NSA may not have guns, but keeping freedom viable means thinking very seriously about what its tools are used for.
It is funny how low-IQ leftists like TJ are so opposed to something that may protect THEMSELVES from getting killed. Eager for self-destruction, eh?
I guess that through the Darwinian evolutionary process, Nature produces some genetic waste matter. In order to dispose of this waste matter, some members of the human species have to act as vehicles to dispose of this excrement.
Since there is no predatory species to prey on humans like in the animal kingdom, nature has evolved. Nature has devised a way in which 10% of the population serve as vehicles to dispose of this waste, BY TAKING ACTIONS THAT HASTEN THEIR OWN REMOVAL FROM THE GENE POOL.
Depending on which society they live in, they take the form of suicide bombers, people who seek partial birth abortions, people pushing gay marriage, people who oppose the Patriot Act/NSA, people who excuse suicide bombing as long as it is against a capitalist, free, evolutionarily advanced system, people who support socialism (in order to erase meritocracy so that they who are on the bottom of the merit ladder can avoid embarassment), people who insist women should be covered from head to toe in cloth (to suppress heterosexuality), etc.
What other explanation could there be for why 10% of the human population goes to great lengths to increase the odds of their own removal from the gene pool?
What other explanation could there be for why Western Leftists and Islamic fundamentalists are so similar in psychology, tendency for homosexuality (a trait wholly incompatible with reproduction-hased evolution), etc. despite no history of interacting with each other?
Jim Rockford,
What you said is just too logical and reasonable, and therefore too complex for a leftist to grasp.
You assume that leftists care about saving their own life (let along the lives of others). They do not. They hate the US and all free-market societies, and want to tear them down at any cost, including by tacit support of terrorism.
Judge leftists by their actions, not their words. If you assume that they do want to tear down the US, then their actions do in fact appear consistent with that goal.
Don't assume that they value their own life above their goal. They do not.
It is going to be fun to watch in a few short years when people like GK will suddenly decide they were wrong regarding presidential power and oversight. Right about the same time a democrat is sworn in as President.
A Democrat like Lieberman would be totally fine. But a socialist leftist has no chance in hell. Americans are not dumb enough to vote for someone so suicidal and sordid.
Plus, Max, you didn't explain why Leftists are so eager to take actions to weed themselves out of the gene pool. Is it an innate urge in your genetic programming?
To quote the late great Grand Moff Tarkin, "This bickering is pointless". Why dont we knock off the 'im smarter than you' nonsense and debate the subject at hand, which is important.
Here's the problem i have with this contraversy: this is a war issue, not a civil issue. As far as we know there isnt anyone in the country with the standing to challenge this in a court of law. No victim, no case. Now if there were actual examples of US individuals being unfairly or illegally targetted by this practice, particularly for illegimitimate reasons, it would possibly be worth leaking. As far as im concerned, at this point this is like leaking a secret military project because it could potentially be misused. That which kills terrorists can kill citizens. Well that which overhears terrorists talking to citizens can overhear any of us if used wrongly. Our system is predicated on a certain amount of trust residing in our CIC in times of war. If and when that trust is broken, there will be hell to pay, but without that trust we cant fight effectively.
Folks,
Just so ya know...
T.J. isn't a leftist or a liberal at all. He's something like an uber-libertarian. He did call himself an anarco-captialist once, if that helps.
Nor is he remotely unintelligent.
I don't know anything about TJ. I am talking about the common traits between Leftists/Communists/Islamists in general.
There is a major difference between surveillance of "foreign communications" - those to or from other countries, and of "domestic communications" - those from one place in the U.S. to another place in the U.S.
FISA was written in 1978 so as to not affect the NSA's existing surveillance of foreign communication. The whole point of FISA was to require warrants for surveillance of domestic communications. I was engaged in the private practice of law then and familiar with these issues and the debate on them in Congress and the nation as a whole. My father was then the administrative assistant for a Congressman serving on the House Intelligence Committee at the time FISA was being enacted, and I discussed these subjects with my father at that time.
These issues are also discussed at length in James Bambord's two books on the subject - The Puzzle Palace and Body of Secrets. My statements concerning the 1978 FISA debate can be confirmed by reading either of these books.
T.J. Madison's statements are flat out false. The NSA's surveillance of foreign communications has been going on since 1967, became public knowledge in the early 1970's, and was immediately subjected to challenge in lawsuits, all of which were rejected. FISA then expressly permitted the NSA's foreign surveillance.
Congress did act on this subject. Congress approved of the foreign surveillance. I was there at the time and aware of what was happening.
There is a whole lot of lying going on by Democrats and other lefties. I call it what it is.
LIES.
There are two distinct issues in the violation of FISA question: whether the President acted within his powers and whether such actions should be within his powers. Taking Tom Holsinger's comment above at face value it would seem that the President was acting within his powers. Every discussion I've seen so far on whether the President should have such powers relies on a “slippery slope” argument. Has anyone seen anything else? Isn't there some statute of limitations on slippery slope arguments? After 30 or 40 years without actual descent down the slippery slope, it would appear to me that the burden of proof has shifted from those proposing such powers to those opposing them.
Dave,
The impression I have is that, while 50 USC 1801(f) authorizes the NSA to monitor all electronic communications to and from the U.S., it had been used prior to 2001-2003 (sometime in there) only or mostly to monitor incoming communications, and that many if not almost all monitoring of out-going communications was done pursuant to warrants. It didn't have to be that way, but that was how it worked in practice. And the NSA changed that to begin warrantless surveillance of all incoming traffic after 9/11, or sometime in 2003, etc.
It might also be that the NSA did 2-way surveillance from FISA's enactment to sometime during the Clinton administration, and then began often going the warrant route to monitor out-going traffic, and reverted to the pre-Clinton pattern after 9/11, etc.
It is hard to tell where on the continuum the true facts lie, but it does seem that the NSA's surveillance practices changed somehow in the period 2001-2003.
In my legal opinion, having recently studied 50 UCS 1801(f)'s rather interesting definition of "electronic surveillance", the NSA does not need warrants period for outgoing or incoming foreign commmunications. This is in accordance with my understanding from following the 1978 debate over FISA.
"Threat to our liberties ..." Hmmm.
Who is pushing for ever-more stringent gun control, or even confiscation? Left or Right?
Who is trying to control when and where people smoke, to the point of trying to make it illegal to smoke in a home with children? Left or Right?
Who supports the ability of government to take private property and give it to a developer?
Who wants to prevent property owners from deciding how to use their property?
Who is running all over America looking for Ten Commandments plaques in small towns?
Who regularly attempts to limit freedom of speech, whether it is political advertising by free associations of citizens or imposing speech codes in academia?
Who has wanted to prohibit the production and sale of SUVs?
Who wants to put personal health care decisions into the hands of government bureaucrats?
Who wants to force non-unionized workers to pay union dues?
Who has repeatedly sought to overturn the people's will clearly expressed in the results of popular referenda, initiatives, and direct legislation?
Who wants to keep impoverished students trapped in failing schools?
Who ordered the attack on the Branch Davidians?
Tried to disqualify military absentee ballots?
Etc. Etc. ad nausum
The practical, significant and ongoing threats to American liberty have consistently and persistently come from the Left, not the Right. People who miss this are either not paying attention, or are at least somewhat delusional.
I want to be clear. I don't mind a discussion of what is the best course of action, trade-offs, as long as it's honest.
Democrats are in the postion of "wanting it all."
There is simply no way you can have absolute civil liberties and not pay the price of constant Beslans, Balis, Madrids, and so forth and eventually, the Mob.
There is simply no way you can have a restrictive, non-oversight police state and not have severe impacts on social, economic, and personal freedom.
I don't think rushing all Muslims off to concentration camps, or deciding you can't listen in to the unknown person in the US that Osama's top lieutenants are calling. Or think either is a likely political course.
I am not averse to some formalization of oversight; with after-the-fact remedies for abuse of intel intercepts. TJ is IMHO RIGHT to be concerned; but wrong to offer no reasonable remedies. Simply saying we are not going to change our policies and stick to civil liberties absolute tells ordinary people that Dems are willing to sacrifice the last worker, schoolkid, and ordinary person in the fight against terror. Even if by some unlikely miracle of politics this could happen on the Federal level; you'd see the abdication of public safety by the Feds result in action by the States.
What's to prevent the State of Texas or Oklahoma in the complete absence of federal will to intercept known Islamic terror to have round-the-clock, 24/7 surveillance and very intrusive policing of all Muslims?
The question is not IMHO if we are going to have civil liberties absolutes or a police state but how we proceed with the need to intercept a few limited people talking to known terrorists with the potential for abuses.
My recommendation would be an Inspector General who would make a public report, redacted of course, of any potential abuses after the fact and the Admin's response. Allowing the people and Congress (in closed session) oversight without tying the hands of the Executive and responding to the need to act FAST to avert a terror strike.
My question to TJ is if surveillance would avoid a Beslan or another 9/11 (with the above mentioned after-the-fact reports), would he support that or strike still absolutism in the defense of civil liberties? Is he prepared like Kos to see schools turned into slaughterhouses?
>>They see the real risk as another COINTELPRO (but only when Republicans occupy the White House). Ignoring the risk of mass casualty terrorist attack.
First of all, I don't trust Bill Clinton or Jimmy Carter any more than I trust George Bush, especially with the kind of power an organization like the NSA represents.
Second, the threat of mass casualty terrorist attack is quite pathetic when compared to the historical threat of tyrannical governments. Stalin, Mao, Hitler -- these people and the governments they controlled killed tens of millions of people. Even tin-pot dictators like Saddam and Kim Il have killed many more people than even a hypothetical worse-case scenario terrorist nuke.
Tyranny survives and grows to the extent that it can resist attempts to depose it or evade its effects. The ability of a tyranny to crush opposition is contingent on its ability to monitor the extent of conspiracies operating against it. When the tyranny can effectively read AND ANALYSE everyone's communications all of the time, resistance is effectively impossible. The amount of brute force required to subdue even a very large population under such conditions can be rather small.
This makes powerful surveilance organizations like the NSA inherently very dangerous. The secrecy associated with them makes them unaccountable, and places them effectively above whatever laws are written to contain them. One of the few remaining checks on the NSA is the ability of its employees to "leak" information to the public/Congress when they believe certain lines have been crossed. If all of the leakers are found out and made an example of, the general public then has no way of knowing if the NSA conforms to any moral or legal standards.
Joe,
That's just the thing - the NSA doesn't have any guns.
I'm not a data mining expert but I know a little something; yeah, it's scary what they can do, and it all may be legal.
But tyranny requires an enforcement arm, and all of those yet remain subject to some substantial oversight. I'm not advocating complacence, just saying the threat to liberty is more complicated than just having an agency which knows everything.
Nothing is simple in this one. The nature of the war and the state of technology are truly sui generis. Even the existence of the war itself is often disputed. There is huge disagreement on the grounding terms, and so we don't have arguments but just kaleidoscopic collisions of "narrative".
And there is no a priori reason why any of these narratives must be admissible. Perhaps the nature of this war is such that any exercise of executive power consistent with Article II will in turn violate the 4th amendment. Perhaps technology has evolved so much that activities and capabilities which are perfectly legal and reasonable, and necessary to bring known terrorists to justice under the strictest and narrowest "law enforcement" response to terrorism, are nonetheless sufficient to undermine our democracy. It's been a busy four years on all fronts.
There are too many hypotheticals in the air right now and not enough data. So let me float my own conjecture - the single biggest predictor of tyranny in our future as a nation is... prosperity. If the economy keeps chugging along with only the occasional mild recession, and the dislocations from globalization happen gradually enough, then no single entity within or without government will substantially alter "business as usual", even if the NSA burns all the statutes and commandeers half the world's hard disk production.
On the other hand, if GDP falls by 50% (say, via the terrorists nuking a city), then no system of checks and balances and statutes and oversight and media watchdogs and bloggie goodness will withstand the coming tyranny, which will be enacted without reliance on data mining or surveillance.
It will be voted in.
"This makes powerful surveilance organizations like the NSA inherently very dangerous."
A standing army is inherently very dangerous, and was abhorant to the Founders. But two things changed, first it became readily apparent that not having one in the modern world was a suicide pact, second it slowly became apparent that a nation of law and liberty could bear the strain with little problem.
"The secrecy associated with them makes them unaccountable, and places them effectively above whatever laws are written to contain them"
This program was not unaccountable. There was and is congressional oversite, and if the high ranking congress members had the political will they could have any of the information on this program they wished, and cut off funding if they felt it necessary. You cant legislate against political cowardice. Furthermore, like many of the CIC decisions, the balance is a longterm political balance. If American citizens start getting charged criminally with evidence provided by this program, either the courts will throw it out or the public will get fed up and throw the administration out. Nothing like that has happened. This is a program designed to monitor our foriegn enemies. To allow them free reign to communications so long as the include someone on US soil is madness. This is a new era with no technologies to account for.
>>On the other hand, if GDP falls by 50% (say, via the terrorists nuking a city), then no system of checks and balances and statutes and oversight and media watchdogs and bloggie goodness will withstand the coming tyranny, which will be enacted without reliance on data mining or surveillance.
>>It will be voted in.
You are correct that this is the most likely mechanism for the establishment of tyranny -- it's worked well in the past. Organizations like the NSA make the maintenance of the tyranny much easier, possibly making the tyranny irreversible. Any tyranny with NSA-like capabilities could keep its population in line with a much smaller "police" force than has been possible in the past.
It will be interesting to see how effective China is in this regard. If the (manifestly evil) government of China is unsuccessful at using surveillance to keep a lid on its population over the next 20 years, then perhaps I'm overstating the NSA threat.
Wait, if its the NSA capabilities that are unacceptably dangerous, this isnt an argument about warrants and procedures at all, is it? Simply abiding by the FISA court doesnt change the capabilities of the NSA to impinge on our liberties. Should we tear down the NSA brick by brick to kill this potential threat?
>>A standing army is inherently very dangerous, and was abhorant to the Founders. But two things changed, first it became readily apparent that not having one in the modern world was a suicide pact,
A suicide pact for whom? Which attack on the US exactly made it clear that the US would be overrun and occupied without a permanent standing army? What current threat against US territorial integrity requires an permanent standing army to repel? Your options are, as usual:
1. The sinister Canadians
2. The rampaging Mexicans
3. Massive amphibious attack
4. Lone maniacs with sniper rifles
5. Nutjobs with explosives
The only credible threats are 4 and 5. An armed population can deal with 4, and the army offers essentially no defense against 5.
>>second it slowly became apparent that a nation of law and liberty could bear the strain with little problem.
I'd call $400 billion a year more than a "little problem", especially given how little of it is applicable to the current Threat-of-the-Month.
>>There was and is congressional oversite, and if the high ranking congress members had the political will they could have any of the information on this program they wished, and cut off funding if they felt it necessary.
Who's going to give them this information? Are these members of Congress personally going to go around Ft. Meade and (more importantly) the NSA installations overseas to find out what's happening there? My guess is that they are going to ask the NSA to police itself and "brief Congress regularly on their activities." What's really funny is that the officials assigned to brief Congress likely actually believe what they're telling them.
Let's say that a few Congressmen on the relevant committees get access to classified information that indicates that the NSA may be doing something fishy. Now these Congressmen are expected to somehow strongarm the NSA into compliance by threatening its budget. Do I really need to explain how difficult this would be?
"A suicide pact for whom? Which attack on the US exactly made it clear that the US would be overrun and occupied without a permanent standing army?"
You forget the world we live in. Would we have survived the Cold War without a standing army to deter the Soviets? How much worse would WW2 have gone for us if our military was any more starved than it was? Also, there are other critical threats than invasion and occupation. What if our oil supplies were cut off? Or the sea lanes overrun. What if China decides to grab the whole of Asia, or Russia is resurgent? To argue that a standing army is not vital to our security in our interconnected world is just daffy imo.
"What current threat against US territorial integrity requires an permanent standing army to repel? Your options are, as usual:"
There are 2 flaws to this question- first the term current threat. Rome might have asked herself if standing armies were worth it or necessary circa Augustus' reign, but certainly felt quite differently a few hundred years later. Secondly and as stated before, you cannot tie everything to our shores. Look at how useless Europe has become by abandoning thier militaries, how toothless in the face of rivals and agressors. Waiting to get sucker punched by an enemy and than expecting to start from scratch to build a war machine and win is a wreckless strategy at best.
"I'd call $400 billion a year more than a "little problem", especially given how little of it is applicable to the current Threat-of-the-Month."
Well, that all depends how you look at it. How much is our control and security of our trade routes worth? How much the integrity and security of our allies and trade partners? How much of our economy is tied up between South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan- not to mention China? I cant tell you how much a war in the far east would cost our economy but 400 billion isnt even a downpayment. We are talking a new Great Depression for starters.
"Who's going to give them this information? Are these members of Congress personally going to go around Ft. Meade and (more importantly) the NSA installations overseas to find out what's happening there?"
No need. They subpoena the head of the NSA or any other officer necessary just as they do for every government project they are responsible for.
"My guess is that they are going to ask the NSA to police itself and "brief Congress regularly on their activities." What's really funny is that the officials assigned to brief Congress likely actually believe what they're telling them."
Er, thats how basically every oversite committe works. Does the Arms Services Committee travel to Fort Hood to make sure our soldiers arent being ordered to drag citizens out of their homes and shoot them?
"Let's say that a few Congressmen on the relevant committees get access to classified information that indicates that the NSA may be doing something fishy. Now these Congressmen are expected to somehow strongarm the NSA into compliance by threatening its budget. Do I really need to explain how difficult this would be?"
Is their job to only do things that are easy? Its very simple, you go to Harry Reid and say something horribly illegal is going on and we need this budget item held up. This is a party willing to fillibuster judges if they read the Wall Street Journal, you really think if a ranking Democrat from the Intelligence Committee makes a stink about somethine, even without revealing specifics, he would be ignored? The Dems had no problem going into secret session to badmouth the Iraq intelligence after the fact, one would think they could muster the political courage to take on a true threat to liberty, if it existed. Again, you cant legislate political courage.
Without support from the courts and some kind of enforcement arm, the civil threat from the NSA seems to be mostly the theft of commercial secrets and blackmail. I'm not sure what to do about the first, but the second one may actually benefit society. You can't blackmail the virtuous afterall.
People who would toss out this idiotic line in a public forum probably shouldn't be discussing the IQ of anyone.
Seriously.
"What current threat against US territorial integrity requires an permanent standing army to repel?"
Sometimes there is nothing like a good laugh.
You've got the question backwards. If we did not have a permanent standing army to repel attack, what current threats to US territorial integrity would we have?
Are you suggesting that the US has no enemies? Quite the contrary, the US has many enemies. What the US does not have is many peer level foes capable of projecting force sufficient to pass through the military forces with which we encircle ourselves. There are any number of small and large tyrants that would make power grabs if they thought they could get away with it.
Not only do these standing forces protect our territorial integrity, but they protect our rights to engage in international commerce - a right which was central to the complaint against our former colonial master and a right which lay behind virtually every military action taken during the infancy of the Republic. The US has depended heavily on free international commerce since before we existed as a nation. We have always been a merchantile people. In today's interwoven global economy we are tied to the freedom and commerse of foriegn nations more than ever. That is not a social or political decision. You cannot change that without rolling back the technology which created it.
Not only that, but the US is a cosmopolitan nation. Not only do millions of non-citizens live amongst us, but millions of US citizens live abroad. The US has engaged in relatively few true wars in its history - perhaps a dozen. But the US military has been called upon more than 100 times dating all the way back to the 18th century to intervene to protect the lives and property of US citizens living or travelling abroad. That is a social or political decision, but to change it and to go into isolation is no longer an option unless we wish to become a larger and nastier version of North Korea.
You are mistaken in your basic assumptions. You think that the world has changed because of a flawed social or political decision. In fact, the world has changed because of advancing technology. The world is not as large as it once was, nor does it move at such a leisurely pace. You cannot effect the changes you wish to make by a social or political decision. You can only effect these changes by rolling back technology on a global scale. Technology is like pandora's box. It's not easy to put it back in the box. As long as the knowledge existed, people will use it. The only way to destroy technology is to destroy knowledge, and I don't think I have to explain to you why that is not a viable option.
"You can only effect these changes by rolling back technology on a global scale. Technology is like pandora's box. It's not easy to put it back in the box."
Well said. And moreover the only way to attempt to roll back this reality basically ensures all the evils T.J. is concerned with. Without an army beyond challenge, a nation like Mexico would likley develop into a threat. Without international trade, we couldnt put anything like the kind of technological and qualitatively superior force in the field. We would essentially be another Russia relying on fading technology and raw numbers. It is our perceived dominance of the globe that keeps our enemies far away (or once did). The world saw what the Taliban got for messing with us. If we hadnt responded or hadnt been able to, we'd have 20 nations working to forment discord and destruction here. And the American people would certainly respond by handing over far more liberties than we have dreamed of to date. There is no picking up your ball and going home in the world. The world follows.
>>Wait, if its the NSA capabilities that are unacceptably dangerous, this isnt an argument about warrants and procedures at all, is it?
That's right. I consider the "legal" issues here to be rather amusing. As a purely practical matter, IIRC the NSA and CIA usually handle the matter of domestic datamining and espionage by outsourcing the actual collection to other nations with which the US has intelligence-gathering treaties. The NSA and CIA return the favor by spying on those nations' citizens. It's like rendition for the outsourcing of torture, only with espionage. Evidence that the NSA was violating some regulation or other by collecting the information directly would indicate an increase in brazenness, but would otherwise be unremarkable.
>>Simply abiding by the FISA court doesnt change the capabilities of the NSA to impinge on our liberties. Should we tear down the NSA brick by brick to kill this potential threat?
It wouldn't be a bad idea, but it is unfortunately beyond our ability. The institutional pressures supporting it are too great. I favor the development and deployment of anti-surveilance technology by private citizens and companies -- strong crypto, decent computer security, anonymous networking protocols, etc. It's easier and has the added advantage of providing defense against other groups of thieves and scum.
TJ, I respect you opinion, but i am sure 99% of the American people would find your disdain for the terrorist threat incredible. Intelligence is our best method for finding and neutralizing terrorism before it strikes, no question. Recall that a few years ago a handful of men with a few hundred thousand dollars in resources rocked this country to its core. Fighter jets were in the air with the authority to shoot down passenger planes, hows that for Due Process? Our economy took its biggest hit since the 1920s. Our people demanded (and got) war. Your argument ends up being self-defeating. The civil liberties we are arguably sacrificing right now are a direct result of the events you claim are relatively trivial. The best way to preserve our liberties is to keep the homeland safe, and the best way to do that is to listen in to what nasty people overseas are planning with nasty people here in the US.
>>You cannot effect the changes you wish to make by a social or political decision. You can only effect these changes by rolling back technology on a global scale.
Actually, there is one other altenative. I can effect the changes I want by helping to roll technology forward.
My goal is to develop tools and tactics that will allow people to defend themselves from their own government. People who can defend themselves from their own government will have no problem defending themselves from the "away" team.
>>Er, thats how basically every oversite committe works. Does the Arms Services Committee travel to Fort Hood to make sure our soldiers arent being ordered to drag citizens out of their homes and shoot them?
If soldiers started dragging US citizens out of their homes and shooting them, the Arms Services Committee would learn about it through the 6PM news. If the NSA started intercepting every cell-phone conversation in the hemisphere, the Intel Committee might only learn about it if someone on the inside ratted them out. Which won't happen if leakers are regularly crucified in the name of "national security".
>>The Dems had no problem going into secret session to badmouth the Iraq intelligence after the fact, one would think they could muster the political courage to take on a true threat to liberty, if it existed. Again, you cant legislate political courage.
For sure, the Dems are worse than useless in this regard. Their main goal is to get more political power -- why would they undermine the capabilities of the government they seek to control?
>>Are you suggesting that the US has no enemies?
US civilians do have enemies, but most of them are in Washington.
International piracy is certainly a concern. I'm sure shipping companies would need to purchase the services of an efficient naval defense corporation were the USG to stop providing this service. More powerful state-level pirates might emerge, but most states have already discovered that such piracy is most efficiently conducted by "customs" agencies.
>>But the US military has been called upon more than 100 times dating all the way back to the 18th century to intervene to protect the lives and property of US citizens living or travelling abroad. That is a social or political decision, but to change it and to go into isolation is no longer an option unless we wish to become a larger and nastier version of North Korea.
Switzerland, IIRC, does not go to war to protect the lives and property of Swiss citizens outside of its territory. Switzerland is not a larger and nastier version of North Korea. I suspect that if the USG stopped subsidizing the defense of US citizens and corporations not on US territory, those people would make other arrangements, ones that didn't involve taxing ME for their silly assumption of risk.
>>The best way to preserve our liberties is to keep the homeland safe, and the best way to do that is to listen in to what nasty people overseas are planning with nasty people here in the US.
This is backwards. The best way to preserve the safety of our homeland is to preserve our liberties. It is always a mistake to "sacrifice liberty for security" because liberty is a prerequisite for security. People without liberty are far more vulnerable to attack.
The airplane hijacking problem is a classic example. The cheapest, easiest, and most effective solution to the hijacking problem is to abolish DHS and remove all security scanners, metal detectors, etc. from the airport security system. Let people bring all the guns, knives, etc. they want aboard airplanes. Now any hijackers have to contend with a large number of angry, ARMED, passengers. Savings: several billion dollars per year, plus a massive increase in real security and a large decrease in hassle.
The only problem with my plan is that is requires that Americans have BALLS and a SPINE.
>>Intelligence is our best method for finding and neutralizing terrorism before it strikes, no question. Recall that a few years ago a handful of men with a few hundred thousand dollars in resources rocked this country to its core. Fighter jets were in the air with the authority to shoot down passenger planes, hows that for Due Process?
Also recall that those fighter planes were unarmed. Had the intercepts been successful, the pilots of those fighter jets would have had to resort to ramming. The same massive system of bureaucracies responsible for that little oversight is now being asked to engage in an indefinite invisible struggle against shadowy enemies, in which nearly all of the evidence regarding the effort's success or failure is hidden from me because of "national security".
No thanks, I think I'll keep my money. Except, OOPS, I can't, because the same organization which claims to be doing all this for my "protection" seems to also be extorting at least 25% of my income.
Yes, it would be nice to know about what the Islamic nutjobs who want to kill me are up to. If an organization with a proven track record for dealing with such problems knocked on my door and asked for a donation, I might give them some of my money. But they would have to compete for my charity dollar with Norman Borlaug and Stanislav Petrov. And since Norman's track record is something like 1 billion lives saved for maybe a few tens of millons of dollars in research, it'd be a hard sell.
>>TJ, I respect you opinion, but i am sure 99% of the American people would find your disdain for the terrorist threat incredible.
99% of the population is very easily manipulated by irrational fear. Now if only we could get those 99% worked up about something REALLY dangerous, something that's actually very likely to kill them, something they personally could do something about -- heart disease, cancer, car wrecks, etc. -- then that would be useful!
For the record, I was unimpressed by 9/11. I remember watching the event on television at the time and thinking, "Well, I expected something like this to happen sooner." I was surprised that the casualties were so low -- equivalent to a day's worth of war in the Congo or a slow day on the Eastern Front.
The attack wasn't particularly clever strategically, either. A smart attacker would have flown the planes into Congress during the State of the Union speech. But now they can never launch that attack. Sloppy, very sloppy.
One lone IRS agent can reak more havoc on the everyday lives of americans than the entire NSA department gone amuck! How can an "unsecure" phone conversation infringe on my civil liberties? They been listening for alot longer than George W's stint.
"My goal is to develop tools and tactics that will allow people to defend themselves from their own government. People who can defend themselves from their own government will have no problem defending themselves from the "away" team."
You are wrong. On several levels. Defending yourself from your own government is both harder and easier than defending yourself from 'the away team'. Being able to do one is no gaurantee of being able to do the other. Again, you are locked into the past. The age of rifled militia is either over or else rapidly coming to a close. Defence is catching up with offense, and in ages where the defensive technology exceeds the offensive technology a professional military class is generally required. Conscripts don't cut it, and your average citizen doesn't have the time to learn how to fly and F-22 even if they could afford one.
Consider the difference in defending yourself from your roommate and defending yourself from a burgler. Defending yourself from your roommate is harder than defending yourself from a burgler. You have to live with the roommate. You can't help but let the roommate inside your gaurd. On the other hand, defending yourself from your roommate is much easier than defending yourself from a burgler. The roommate presumably doesn't want to destroy stuff because he has partial ownership of the property. The roommate presumably doesn't want to kill you. But the burgler neither cares whether you live or die particularly, nor does he care if the house burns down so long as he gets what he wants from it.
"The only problem with my plan is that is requires that Americans have BALLS and a SPINE."
No, the problem with your plan is that it is stupid. You continue to confuse the differences between defending yourself from someone you live with and defending yourself from an enemy that doesn't care if the house goes up in flames. Allowing everyone to have weapons abourd a plane makes it easier to avoid having the plane stolen, but it doesn't make it easier to avoid having people killed and the plane knocked out of the sky. You think the problem with unruly passengers on planes is a problem now, just wait until they are all carrying high powered firearms in pressured cabins.
I'm a huge supporter of the 2nd ammendment, but even I don't think we will be safer if we come to live in a society which has become an armed camp. It's a myth that modern murder rates are higher than those in pre-modern armed societies. And that is to say nothing of the fact that in your conception of the perfect world, everyone is apparantly maintaining private stockpiles of military weaponry. I agree that a large percentage of the population is very easily manipulated by irrational fear, but consider what would happen if that population were all carrying automatic weapons at all times.
"International piracy is certainly a concern. I'm sure shipping companies would need to purchase the services of an efficient naval defense corporation were the USG to stop providing this service. More powerful state-level pirates might emerge, but most states have already discovered that such piracy is most efficiently conducted by "customs" agencies."
Has it never occured to you that a world filled with armed corporations in a world without an armed government is just as capable of trampling on your rights as any government would be? You've changed the names but not the system, and you've actually made the problem worse because the corporation is potentially even less accountable to you than the government is.
"Switzerland, IIRC, does not go to war to protect the lives and property of Swiss citizens outside of its territory. Switzerland is not a larger and nastier version of North Korea. I suspect that if the USG stopped subsidizing the defense of US citizens and corporations not on US territory, those people would make other arrangements, ones that didn't involve taxing ME for their silly assumption of risk."
Switzerland exists solely by being too small and pliant to be worth the trouble. To maintain its existance, Switzerland basically agrees to cooperate with anyone and turn and look the other way on anything. Switzerland cannot exist as a country the size of the US, any more than the whole of the US could turn itself into Las Vegas and increase its productivity.
I wonder how much North Korea property is held in Swiss banks.
"something that's actually very likely to kill them, something they personally could do something about -- heart disease, cancer, car wrecks, etc. -- then that would be useful!"
I think part of the point is that things like heart disease, cancer, car wrecks and such are problems that are actually pretty hard to do anything about. There is no sense in fearing things which are largely outside your control. For example, what steps would you take to reduce the number of auto fatalities on the road? Do those steps actually sit well with your libertarian stance? You'd be better off arguing that we are better off worrying about asteroid impacts than terrorists, but you'd not be able to outline a plan of action for dealing with that which stood firmly inside your libertarian principles.
"The attack wasn't particularly clever strategically, either. A smart attacker would have flown the planes into Congress during the State of the Union speech. But now they can never launch that attack. Sloppy, very sloppy."
Fortunately, the attackers are as stupid as your are, but I'll leave it at that because I never talk about correct targeting in public. And, neither should you just on the off chance that you accidently say something intelligent.
This country was founded on libertarian principles, but its idiotarians like you that give libertarians a bad name.
Celebrim #36,
Hear, hear. Especially your last point.
#6 linked to an interesting article, that also links to interesting article by david brin here.
He argues that technology may actually be a blessing against goverment corruption, but that we need to accept technology, and not ban it. The future is inevitable, the key is to create technology that aides data tracking AND oversight.
1 example: The move to computer election booths is inevitable. As the world population grows, it may even be neccessary for time and space(imagine recounting ballots in China). The problem with current systems is that there is no oversight. As a result, there is no way to tell if the machine is cheating, skimming votes or has been 'bugged'.
Now imagine instead that the votes were kept on a database, and anytime you wanted you could look up your vote on a computer, and double check that it was correct. (Of course, a receipt would be necessary to validate claims.) With oversight, this system now works (theoretically anyway).
My fear has always been that a 'Nixon' figure won't need to break into your house if he has electronic keys; but I'm trying to look at the problem differently....
"My goal is to develop tools and tactics that will allow people to defend themselves from their own government. People who can defend themselves from their own government will have no problem defending themselves from the "away" team."
Im not sure which tools will help me defend myself from 3 Iranians in a van detonating an atomic bomb at 233 South Wacker. I suppose some lucky corporation can get the clean up job, and maybe you would expect Sears Roebuck (well, whoever owns the building now) to have the Loop cordoned off with radiation detectors, but I dont see how that makes us any better off. Like celebrim said, meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
Basically everything you've suggested is certain to lead to greater tyranny.
alchemist: I wrote a paper back in college on electronic voting. Basically, I think that its a a bad idea. Paper is a really high tech solution for preventing fraud.
The suggestion you make of a voting database is not a good idea - or rather its not a perfect one. If you can track your own vote in the database, then so can anyone else, most especially the government itself. This you do not want. It's all well and good so long as the country is basically evenly divided on issues, but if you end up in the fringe minority on an issue your voting record is not something you want public. There is a reason that we vote anonymously.
Not only that, but the system you describe only ensures the accuracy of the votes that have been cast. It does not ensure that fraudalant votes have not been added to the count.
Computerization of the voting process is inevitable, but I would resist ever recording votes solely electronicly. Even timestamps are somewhat dangerous, but they are the least of what is necessary to secure a votes integrity electronicly. I hope that we don't reach a point where we have to chose between anonymity and the integrity of the process. I would chose to forgo the former only if it was the only way to ensure the latter.
Yes, that's true, and I agree. I was trying to give an example... but I knew there were flaws going into it.
My point (well, David Brin's point) is that the techonology to create a 'big brother' system is coming (and may be neccessary) sooner that we'd like, however if we also create the techonology to oversee big brother, we may be ok.
TJ -- mass casualty attacks are VERY dangerous and VERY real.
Nuclear technology is more than sixty years old. Think about it. SIXTY. The requirements are such that even a mostly failed state such as Pakistan, Iran, or North Korea can produce them with twenty years effort. There are difficult technical issues (plutonium once alloyed undergoes 12 different change states physically) but these are not impossible.
You project the Cold War stasis to the current situation; MAD worked because each side was conservative and faced mutual destruction. Not present with Ahmadinejad who looks forward to destroying the West and Israel despite massive Iranian casualties. To usher in the 12 Imam and the new age of Persian dominated Caliphate. He operates from religious certainty based on doomsday religious frenzy.
And we should hand over our security and lives to this man? One who openly praises terrorists, conspires with Hugo Chavez (himself an anti-Semite), and threatens to "burn" America with nuclear fire?
These things are unalterably true: 1. 9/11 and all foiled Islamic terror plots in this country were conducted by Muslims. 2. Islamic terror plots conducted against Americans to produce mass casualties (such as Iyman Farris, a US Citizen talking with 9/11 Architect Khalid Sheik Mohammed) are conducted by Muslims. 3. Failure by the US Government to take reasonable, moderate steps to prevent mass terror attacks due to PC, Multi-Culti, and civil liberties absolutism will result in the average person realizing ... 4. The way to be absolutely safe (and preserve your family's lives) is to get rid of all Muslims, in whatever means required, from the US.
Failure to take reasonable steps is just a guarantee of the Mob. Because people simply won't tolerate a US city vanishing in a nuclear blast, or a Beslan committed here. Not only their own lives but that of their families will be at stake and they WILL act if government fails completely. You discount the probability of a mass casualty attack despite the record of Beslan, Bali (twice), Jakarta, Istanbul, Amman, Sharm el Sheik, Bangladesh (over 100 bombs), New Delhi Stock Exchange bombing, Southern Thailand, Tunisia, Madrid, London (twice). That's by my count 14 MAJOR terrorist operations; note Osama bin Laden has gotten his FATWA justifying nuclear attacks on the United States. And Iran harbors senior Al Qaeda including Saad bin Laden.
Somehow I take FOURTEEN major attacks against some of the BEST counter-terror (UK, Indians, Jordanians, and Turks are no fools) folks who knew they were targetted and failed to stop them as serious.
You are just not serious.
Davebo -- the common line between Leftists/Islamists is that they BOTH despise the ability under modern life for people to live mostly as they please. To do as they please. Live life unveiled, or drive SUVs. Thus the one carries out horrific violence and the other cheerleads the horror. I refer you to Norman Mailer, Lion of the Left, who encapsulates this hatred of the common person. Mailer campaigned to free murderer Jack Henry Abbott on the basis of his writing; when Abbott predictably stabbed a waiter to death Mailer testified for Abbott in his trial that Abbott should be released because the person he killed had no writing talent. Just as predictably Mailer (to the applause of Sontag, Moore, Churchill, etc) called the wreckage of the 9/11 attacks "more beautiful" than the WTC.
Leftists are distinguished by their upper class status, either as Malibu millionaires or some other privileged elite in constant cultural warfare with the common man (academia, news media, etc) and the comman man's refusal to do as he's told by his natural betters. This is why you won't find Leftists in places where working men and women are to be found; and vice versa. None at all Moveon.org folks among NYC firefighters, cops, construction workers, etc. who rushed to the scene, many who paid with their lives, others sifting rubble with their bare hands. Not a working man among the Hollywood screenwriters, directors, or actors, academics, or reporters (Judy Miller made $250,000 a year or shouting distance of that figure).
When King George goes to jail please follow him.
The FISA courts have rejected him anumber of times. Only then did he go around the law because clearly he went looking at and for people whose relationship to AQ ws nebulous at best.
You claim he was doing the best he could just have him turnover the records of whom the NSA was looking at and it will be clear.
To those whom wish to support the technology case it is another false canard. King George could have gone to congress and the committee's and asked for the law to be changed, amended or made new. He would not do it. He went around it.
The secrets of fishing using defined words patterns are well known and knowldege of asking for laws to reflect this would have been received overwhelming at the time the program was intiatied in 2001.
The simple answer is to hide his incompetence and gross negligence. Starting at too few troops for the invasion force, none for Tora Bora, rerouting the ones whom couldn't come through Turkey, rosy expectations and wingnut posters whom pumped the nuclear weapons aspect of WMD.
The issue is LIES. Those of the President
The lies are the continual conflating of foreign and domestic surveillance. Intercepting calls of foreign origination or destination is NOT domestic surveillance.
"The FISA courts have rejected him anumber of times. Only then did he go around the law because clearly he went looking at and for people whose relationship to AQ ws nebulous at best."
Nope. This program started in 2001. FISA rejections didnt begin until 2003.
"You claim he was doing the best he could just have him turnover the records of whom the NSA was looking at and it will be clear."
Sure. And through the blueprints to the B-2 bomber on there too.
"King George could have gone to congress and the committee's and asked for the law to be changed, amended or made new. He would not do it. He went around it."
Sure. Cant imagine why he wouldnt, i mean the Patriot Act is just flying throu.... oh, bad example i guess.
"Starting at too few troops for the invasion force, none for Tora Bora, rerouting the ones whom couldn't come through Turkey, rosy expectations and wingnut posters whom pumped the nuclear weapons aspect of WMD."
I wont even attempt to wade through that confused sea. Robert I dont know if you are aware but Iraq and Aghanistan are two seperate countries. Maybe you forgot in your little foaming hissy fit there.
Takes one to know one on hissy fitting. Incompetence is incompetence.
NSA intercepts have B-2 bomber plans on them; wingnut.
Acting AG comey wouldn't certify this nonsense. They got Ashcroft to do it out of surgery. I'll bet he was still under the influence
Robert M,
Not only is the "King George" comment silly and vapid, but you've gotten the chronology wrong. Once again, the facts do not match your assertions. The NSA program predates the bulk of the FISA court rejections.
And the acting AG did certify the program after raising a concern which was addressed.
You need to straighten up, Robert.
Robert, the really long URLs screw up the page... need you to use the "Live URL" instructions under "comments".
Oh, and King George is dead. Happened a couple hundred years back, apparently. Sorry nobody informed you. Apparently they've got another lady named Elizabeth these days, and she's pretty good too.
God save the Queen!
#44 lurker,
I'm curious how you know what kinds of communications or data transfers were being monitored? Do tell.
If you actually read all the articles, it says that all the intercepted communications either originate or terminate outside the US. These tedious details are typically buried so as not to cause any cognitive dissonance among those who only read all the "Domestic Spying" headlines.
Also, the President has stated clearly that it is these foreign communications that the program was set up to deal with.
Of course there's no analysis available from the NYT of the President's position and why he thinks he's setup the program within the law, with appropriate congressional oversight. Doesn't seem a little odd, if this really was a rogue operation, that ALL of the governing congressional committees were given regular briefings and reviews about its various activities?
The sad thing is that there's a serious discussion that we could be having civil rights and the limits to surveillance, but we can't. Because everyone apparently thinks the President is violating the Constitution or breaking the law, and he isn't. An honest debate would be about changing the law, not about impeaching Bush. Apparently, Clinton gets a pass for running similar operations.
Please don't get me started about the leaks. I consider this as serious as had someone leaked the facts that we could read the Nazi and Japanese codes from WW2. Yes, it could be that serious.
"If you actually read all the articles, it says that all the intercepted communications either originate or terminate outside the US. These tedious details are typically buried so as not to cause any cognitive dissonance among those who only read all the "Domestic Spying" headlines."
Gee, that just pushes my question back one level, doesn't it? Who told the reporters this information do you think?
"Also, the President has stated clearly that it is these foreign communications that the program was set up to deal with."
Bingo. Thanks for playing.
You're saying we should simply take it on good faith that the President is telling us the truth here?
For the record, I cannot understand why the President doesn't seem to think that existing US laws are good enough for him to "protect us from harm" (echoes of Big Brother here)...especially one as ill-defined as "terror".
This stinks to high hell. I don't care if the Dems agreed with him or not, it seems to me that this situation needs to be treated like the Constitutional crisis and threat to our Democracy that it is.
I can clearly see the political fear from the Right that if this were treated as seriously as it should be, that the Dems might gain an advantage and gain some or even total control of the government. Perhaps this fear is all it takes for many or most on the Right to simply turn away from the harsh reality that the direction we're heading threatens core Conservative and Libertarian principles as much as any other.
At this point, we absolutely need one of the houses of congress to be Democratic. There is simply no balance in government, and as a consequence we are teetering on the brink of a Totalitarian era in America.
Andy -- I'm sure the President would like to be impeached for doing whatever he can to stop terror attacks on the US while the Dems offer to the American people they will take as many casualties in the US as possible to protect terrorists rights.
And Dems wonder why people question their patriotism and commitment to defending America. Whenever terrorists rights vs. saving lives comes up; Dems choose terrorists rights.
OF COURSE Bush could act just like Clinton and Carter and do nothing but the most rigorous legal standards. THAT would cost lives and it's stupid to pretend otherwise. No you can't eat chocolate cake all day and not get fat. You can't turn away means to catch terrorists trying to kill Americans and not lose (possibly millions) of US lives. Simple as that.
So go ahead and offer impeachment for trying to save American Lives.
Why existing laws fail is that they don't respond to the reality and means to stop said terrorists. Khalid Sheik Mohammed calls up a person in the US (to advise the BEST way to kill the most people) and you want us to drop the info because we don't know who the person is, what his status is, and what his telephone number will be (uses a disposable cell phone every time)?
Dems are not serious. President should have the freedom to act but be required to report on his actions afterwards. Instead Dems are arguing we should protect civil liberties so rigidly we lose lives we could save. They fear Bush more than the people who really kill Americans.
Funny, I'd say we've been teetering on the brink of a totalitarian state for as long as I've been alive. To that extent, I agree with T. J. Madison.
But we have a little bit of altitude to lose first.
Members of both political parties are to blame. Beyond blame, what is to be done? Who's your man on horseback? :)
I'm not sure what the heck is going on these days, but I always try to remember to ask "why is this person telling me this?" -- be it a leaker or the people who spin the leak or the people who spin the spin. And if I can't think of at least three reasonable possibilities, I know I haven't thought hard enough about it.
It gets complicated. Some people prefer certainty. I would, if I thought I could get it.
Folks, for those of you who are looking to understand more of the facts, and are too lazy or cheap or bitter to read Risen's book (I'm all three), I've found Orin Kerr's posts to be informative.
>>But we have a little bit of altitude to lose first.
"The quest stands upon the edge of a knife. Stray but a little and it will fail to the ruin of all. Yet hope remains while the company is true."
-- Lady Galadriel
>>Beyond blame, what is to be done? Who's your man on horseback? :)
It's time to take personal responsiblilty for one's own defense and not trust the USG to have your back. Because it doesn't -- the state is not your friend. I think the solution will likely be technical, but I might be wrong. I'm sure those who think I'm a Democrat won't complain when civilian countersurveilance technology is used to interfere with Iranian or Chinese tyranny.
>>I'm not sure what the heck is going on these days, but I always try to remember to ask "why is this person telling me this?" -- be it a leaker or the people who spin the leak or the people who spin the spin.
Indeed.
RE: Risen's book, as reported by CNN:
This last referring to his discussions of operations re: Iran, among others. This doesn't mean that anything he says is necessarily wrong - but it may be wise not to rely on the contents of said book as gospel truth either.
As for that last bit, why shouldn't he? If he faces no punishment for doing so, and significant career advancement if he does, guess which choice will be made by journalists rather frequently?
The Tim Russerts of this world who can separate partisan loyalty from national interest, and protection of officials from protection of the nation, are a lot less common than they used to be.
alchemist (#38)
Actually, my imagination is easily up to the task. The size of the problem scales almost linearly with the population. Why do you think this would be especially difficult?
"You're saying we should simply take it on good faith that the President is telling us the truth here?"
We take it on good faith the president doesnt send special forces death squads out to murder innocent civilians. Or use the NSA to pick up stock tips in Japan. Or swat the nuclear button one morning in a fit of anger at the Russians and end the world. We're at war. We trust the executive with the survival of the world. Why in heavens name wouldnt we trust him in listening in on enemy communications? We trust him to find and kill them.
And lets quit pretending there hasnt been Congressional oversite.
And TJ, interesting ideas. But I think the overwelming concensus is we dont intend to entrust Walmart to keep Iranian nuclear weapons out of our cities. They cant even seem to keep my cereal in stock.
What a cute little gotcha game you've got going!
The thing is, as near as I can tell, neither the NYT nor these anonymous leakers have shown, or even said, that the President is lying. Some of the furthest left of the Democrats have said it, but no one in the MSM seems to want to go that far. They'll imply it and dance around it, but they never assert it. They do strongly imply that foreign surveillance is equivalent to domestic spying. Why do you think that is?
Domestic spying laws do not apply to the gathering of foreign intelligence. That is the President's point. It is unfortunate that there's no analysis coming from any of the MSM outlets of why this position might be right or wrong WRT the current NSA program. It's all reduced to the same gotcha games that you like to play.Jim, Mark.
Jim: So go ahead and offer impeachment for trying to save American Lives.
Mark: We trust him to find and kill them.
Talk about being "unserious", these two comments couldn't illustrate that point any better.
But against my better judgement, I will attempt to reply.
First, let me get something straight: You believe we're at war againt a mortal enemy that can wipe America off the face of the earth, are we? And because the danger and threat is so extreme, we must make great sacrifices, including allowing our Leaders, who are sworn to Protect Us From Evil, to work outside of the limiting confines of our Constitution and our Laws.
And those who don't recognize this are "unserious".
Mahablog addresses this nicely I think:
"What has actually been asked of us? With the exception of the sacrifices made by our soldiers and Marines … nothing. We go on with our lives just as before. We are not buying liberty bonds, growing victory gardens, knitting socks or rolling bandages for the troops. As illustrated by the World War I-era posters, in past wars citizens were asked to at least give up some extravagances for the war. Today the president and the Republicans in Congress won’t even consider raising taxes to pay for their war. Instead, they’ll shift the burden to the future. Our children will thank them, Im sure.
So what is Bush asking of us, except to trust him?"
And to finish:
"What must be emphasized is that one can protect against the threat of terrorism with courage, calm and resolve – the attributes which have always defined our nation as it has confronted other threats. Hysteria and fear-mongering are the opposite of strength. The strong remain rational and unafraid."
THAT is the American way, which I am more than proud to support wholeheartedly.
" Hysteria and fear-mongering are the opposite of strength. The strong remain rational and unafraid."
That might apply to paranoid dellusions of President Bush holed up in the White House basement with Cheney listening in on your conversations with Grandma. The people freaking out about the NSA listening to conversations between terrorists are the hysterical, imo. The polls show most Americans agree. The sentiment seems to be of course we should be listening in on terrorists, particularly when they are talking to parties already in the United States. Those are the dangerous ones. The fact that this obvious notion has gotten lost in the sea of Big Brother demagogery is amazing.
lurker;
I thought you might enjoy that....but don't quit playing now...you're so close to winning the Grand Prize (a year's subscription to the NY Times with home delivery)!
You are dancing around my question.
For the record, please clarify one point for me: Do you think it is a) likely or b) certain that Bush is being honest about the "limited" nature of the NSA domestic spying efforts?
Because your comments imply a degree of certainty about this.
But remember, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
If being certain our government is not engaged in wrong doing is the standard, we are doomed wouldnt you say? There is congressional oversite. Thats about all you can ask for, particularly in national defense issues. Are we certain Bush isnt using CIA operatives to assassinate ACLU members?
You should direct this question to the NYT. They could then talk to the members of the bipartisan Intelligence Oversight Committee which received the regular briefings, which BTW is where the leakers should have taken their concerns. Cute turn of a phrase. It looks like the foundational principle of conspiracy theorists everywhere.
lurker;
Thanks, it's been attributed to the late, great Carl Sagan.
And I think you are mis-interpreting it in exactly the opposite way that it is intended. It is rather an answer to "conspiracy theories".
Where the hyped threat of terrorism destroying America seems to fit nicely.
And thanks for playing again! That brings us to 30-love for this round! ;-)
--
Mark;
Thanks for at least answering the question. So you're saying that this (your) phrase...
"The people freaking out about the NSA listening to conversations between terrorists are the hysterical, imo. "
....shouldn't be (over-) interpreted to mean that you actually know what the NSA is doing?
"There is congressional oversite..."
You're leaving out the third pillar of our system, Mark...the courts.
Congress and the president cannot conspire to break the laws, can they?
I'm not sure how the domains of astrophysics and politics overlap, but I'm dense. If you aren't saying that the lack of evidence doesn't mean Bush isn't evil, can you explain what you are trying to say be repeating this quote? I don't think any reasonable person has argue that the terrorists could destroy America. This is a straw-man that you keep standing up.
Forestalling an attack on the scale of 9/11 is enough justification to do what we have been doing. And this remains the biggest separation between the two main camps, yours still wants to believe that the law enforcement model will work, and mine believes that we really are at war. That's why we can't even agree on whether the interception of enemy communications (sigint) is a crime or not. My perspective has been shifted (I'm a Clinton and Gore voting Democrat) and yours hasn't.
And I'm sick of the partisan gotcha games from both sides of the isle, while you appear to actively support them from one side. That's why I think the NYT article isn't useful. It distracts us from the real discussion about civil rights, foreign surveilence, and appropriate oversite with obvious partisan attacks on Bush, without even noting that Clinton authorized the exact same type of programs. Clinton good, Bush bad. That's partisanship.
This game is over unless you can bring something substantive or enlightening to talk about, otherwise, you are free to declare game, set, and match and then go away.
"You're leaving out the third pillar of our system, Mark...the courts.
Congress and the president cannot conspire to break the laws, can they?"
Theoretically, but the courts cant intervene until someone brings a case to them, and someone has to actually be victimized before they have any standing. Since we have zero evidence of anyone being victimized, the courts cant intercede anyway, and this would be true for any such program.
Now you may argue that there are silent victims out there being held in government safehouses, but again, we are back to conspiracy stuff. I suppose if Congress and the White House were conspiring to keep Americans secret prisoners in violation of Habeas Corpus, we would indeed have a problem. But there isnt a whif of this anywhere despite all the leaks and it would require a bi-partisan effort that is probably harder to believe than all the rest put together. The bottom line is that this program isnt running any different than many other such programs, so you have to be careful when attacking it on procedural grounds that may be common place. If there is lawbreaking here it is technical, at least according to most of the lawyers i've been listening to including some very good ones at Volekh. Essentially the way the law has been interpretted is a Presidental Finding, and at worst the courts will correct it, the program will be altered, and thats the end of it. This is not a case of the president giving a finger to the law as is being suggested.
lurker;
Actually, while I think you sort of ignored why I applied the term (whose applicability is not confined to cosmology, BTW), you're interpretation is accurate as well WRT conspiracy theories in general.
So, 30-15...only because it annoys you.
The point: you are arguing that "no evidence exists that the NSA spying is not limited to exactly what the president says it is" is flawed because that doesn't mean it isn't much broader than we've been led to believe. Of course.
But if you'd like to discuss the war on terror and the domestic "sacrifices" we are being asked to make (see my post above for a questioning of this point), then let's begin by asking whether the "cost" is proportional to the risk.
Once again, from the same source as quoted above:
"In a rational world, the basic principle of risk is that it equals impact times probability: "In professional risk assessments, risk combines the probability of a negative event occurring with how harmful that event would be." But the Administration has spent four years urging Americans to ignore that way of thinking and instead assent to any Government measure, no matter the costs or comparative harms, as long as they are pursued in the name of fighting this Ultimate Evil."
One branch of your reply to this has already been offered in your comment's, above: folks who think this way are "over-interpreting" the administration's comments on the magnitude of this threat and in doing so are erecting a "straw-man".
My answer to this is "perhaps", but not to an unreasonable or irrational degree. Please don't make me collect the multitude of comments coming from the administration on this starting before the invasion ("Mushroom Clouds over American Cities") and continuing up to very recently (see comments from Cheney's speech part-way through the link above).
I use hyperbole for effect, but tell me honestly that you aren't already convinced that terrorism is such a great threat (among the very greatest risks we face to our lives in America) that we need to discard our current laws and political system, checks and balances and bi-partisanship, and put so many lives and the economic well-being of our country at risk to fight effectively?
I see this brings us right back to the first comment made on this thread by TJ, which I agree with completely at this point.
>>We trust the executive with the survival of the world.
No one person or organization should be trusted with that much power. The executive's use of extortion is evidence against its benevolence. I certainly don't trust it. Note that even if George Bush is benevolent the rest of the bureaucracy might not be, and even a little incompetence can lead to a huge mess.
I don't hate Bush, or even dislike him. I pity him. He has a terrible job, one that is literally impossible to do even remotely correctly. The problem isn't the man, it's the job. I'm actually more worried about the CIA/NSA/FBI manipulating the President into doing wickedness by feeding him bad information than I am about George Bush Jr.'s personal ethics. The true horror lies in the realization that whether or not Bush means well might not affect the result.
The fundamental question here is that of the One Ring: Is the Ruling Ring evil because of the nature of its maker, or because of the nature of its power? Boromir believed the Ring could be used effectively by righteous people against the forces of evil. Is Boromir right? If he is, we can safely build Panopticon-like systems of surveilance and control, so long as good people are in charge of it. Then we just have to solve the "who watches the watchers" question properly to make sure that happens.
But if Gandalf is right, what then?
'We cannot use the Ruling Ring. That we now know too well. It belongs to Sauron and was made by him alone, and is altogether evil. Its strength, Boromir, is too great for anyone to wield at will, save only those who have already a great power of their own. But for them it holds an even deadlier peril. The very desire of it corrupts the heart. Consider Saruman. If any of the Wise should with this Ring overthrow the Lord of Mordor, using his own arts, he would then set himself on Sauron's throne, and yet another Dark Lord would appear. And that is another reason why the Ring should be destroyed: as long as it is in the world it will be a danger even to the Wise. For nothing is evil in the beginning. Even Sauron was not so. I fear to take the Ring to hide it. I will not take the Ring to wield it.'
It's time I start a poll. I'll keep it running through any relevant threads that come along. Which is true:
1. The ring was evil because of its maker.
2. The ring was evil because of its power.
Nice point, T.J. It illustrates the notion that the sought-after changes to the System (US legal/political) are more worrisome than the actions of a single man, regardless of his personal motives.
Republicans should ask themselves how the would feel if a Democrat was elected president next time and had unfettered access to information and communications of US citizens, including political opponents. Would they trust him/her (!) to avoid using them for personal political gain? If it were allowed to occur in secret, moreover (as has the NSA program for the past 4 years), they could never verify whether it was being used for good or ill.
Is that what they really want, and actually think we need, to fight terrorism?
And I'm on Gandalf's side, of course. As was Tolkien.
The problem TJ is that rarely is anything in our world absolutely good or evil. We live in a fallen world. Sometimes the choice isn't very clear between Gandalf and Boromir. Sometimes we have to make hard choices and trade-offs. That's why I have a hard time accepting your extreme (not to say lunatic) version of libertarianism. Nothing is as pure as you seem to believe your categories are.
"Republicans should ask themselves how the would feel if a Democrat was elected president next time and had unfettered access to information and communications of US citizens, including political opponents. Would they trust him/her (!) to avoid using them for personal political gain?"
I can ask myself already, because Clinton had the identical capability. Remember, you guys keep talking about the potential for abuse. That potential has been in place for 50 years and every year it gets more thorough. Yet i dont recall any neighbors being rounded up by the brownshirts for talking Nische with their cousin over the phone. It comes back to this, the genie is out of the bottle. The potential exists, and nothing we can do can guarantee it wont be abused by the powers that be. Most of the wacky ideas you guys are bandying will assuredly increase the likelihood of everything you fear. Dont like it? Go off the grid, pull a unibomber sans the carnage. Encode all your communications. Whatever. But the simple reality is that so long as the technology exists, the potential threat exists, and ironically it is our technology that gives us the power in the world to have such an open society. So there it is. Nobody is stopping you from unplugging.
Mark...
What are you talking about? It is my understanding that it is illegal to tap into voice or data communications within the US without a court order...for any reason except imminent and direct threats to national security.
The FISA court exists for this reason. So why didn't Bush use it, like Clinton did (and he only used it for international communications)? This at least generates a legal record of the snooping (and its limits), so in case it is improperly applied there is a clear basis for prosecution. Perhaps this is why the administration failed to apply for the easily-obtained FISA warrants in the first place?
Are you saying we should discard this law because it is un-enforceable? Or throw our hands in the air (or “get off the grid”, neo) because the technology is too daunting?
Bullcrap.
Once again, I fail to see why our existing laws are not good enough for Bush, and I am not persuaded at all that they need to be modified for our "security". Modification (weakening, really) only serves the purpose TJ is worried about.
And furthermore, I would like to express extreme skepticism that this kind of widespread data mining approach is going to prove useful to “catching” terrorists, either. Note Joe Katzman’s link to Gary Farber re: this point in comment #6. It is a much better tool for catching political dissenters or monitoring opponents.
On this point, I'm following with interest the rumor (at this point) that Christiane Amanpour may have been spied upon.
Andy,
Well that is theoretically true, but we live in a nation of laws. Would you have it that we should start with the assumption that everyone is breaking the law and work backwards from there?Why do you think you're annoying me? Boring me would be a better characterization.
You, me, and even President Bush are considered innocent until proven guilty. He has demonstrated a willingness to work with Congress on this issue. He's followed all he right procedures to approve, monitor, and report to Congress on the surveillance program. This looks like a good faith effort to me.
It seems that your argument is more with the idea of the NSA than whether it is legal or not. Perhaps you could persuade your Congressman to draft a bill banning foreign surveillance? Or do you still think there's a constitutional crisis in here somewhere?
You do not have to tell me about risk assessments. I'm an engineer by trade. It's not the Administration's fault that I weigh the various risks differently than you do; and regardless of your implications, I've never once felt personally afraid of a terrorist attack. Does this mean Bush's fear mongering just hasn't reached me yet or is my tin-foil hat really working?Let's get a little more specific... Using your risk assessment and cost benefit analysis, what rate of repetition of 9/11 scale events should be of concern? The calculated rate should be that rate below which any expressed government concern for said attacks would be considered fear mongering and above which would constitute an honest assessment. Can you also share your acceptable rates for "dirty bomb", biological, and nuclear attacks?
This is simply Bush Derangement Syndrome (BDS). Is this really where you are coming from or is it an example of your hyperbole? I don't think straw-man means what you think it means. You refuse to believe that reasonable people can weigh the risks differently than you. You then make the further assumption that a large reason for this is Bush's fear mongering. You really should give people a little credit for the necessary brain power to form their own conclusions. Well, at least the ones you are arguing with anyway. It sounds like you think you know what I'm thinking, or at least what I would be thinking if it really wasn't a bunch of false consciousness. I'll answer even though you probably won't believe me...I think some laws needed to be changed so intelligence wasn't bottled up within one agency for example. The PATRIOT act seems to be as far as we need to go. There will perhaps be other prudent changes required. This doesn't mean that we "need to discard our current laws and political system, checks and balances". In fact I've pointed out that this NSA program was running with very specific checks and balances.
I'm not sure what you mean by bi-partisanship. Bi-partisanship is one of those nebulous concepts like brotherhood. Yeah, I'm for bi-partisanship and brotherhood. Sign me up.You can't do a balance statement on lives saved vs. lives lost. There's no way to quantify it. It's easy for people to point out the deaths, but it's impossible to point to lives saved. It's the ultimate Rorschach Blot.
WRT to the economy, can you point to an economic sector that is hurting because of our efforts against terrorism?
>>Sometimes we have to make hard choices and trade-offs. That's why I have a hard time accepting your extreme (not to say lunatic) version of libertarianism. Nothing is as pure as you seem to believe your categories are.
Is it lunacy to distrust extortionists? It might be necessary to go along with them in the short term, and some extortionists are certainly be better than others. Vote for the lesser evil and all that. Maybe pitting one group of extortionists (say, the USG) against another worse group (say, Saddam or the Iranians) is a smart move. I personally find it improbable, but I can understand the arguments. I really do relate to Boromir's position.
What bothers me is that most people act as if the US government, this vast engine of extortion, works for them and is on their side while it's stealing their money by the trillions and generating reams and reams of absurd regulation. They rely on this engine of extortion to protect them, and uncritically advocate giving the engine more power when they can't meaningfully control how that power will be used. To me, that IS lunacy.
T.J., Just a quick note...
Thanks for showinf us the asymptote if nothing else!
"What are you talking about? It is my understanding that it is illegal to tap into voice or data communications within the US without a court order...for any reason except imminent and direct threats to national security."
You are incorrect. First, US government has been actively pushing for years for foriegn telecommunications networks to route through the US. This is to allow the NSA to monitor all communications taking place outside the US but routed through US soil. Secondly, the FBI has the power under certain circumstances to perform warrantless wiretapping. Finally, the president claims (and the DOJ agrees, including a former Clinton Assistant AG who is a democrat) that it is inherint in his Article II constitutional powers to be able to monitor enemy communications originating or terminating overseas no matter where the other end is connected. In fact particularly when in the US, as a terrorist speaking with a person already on US soil is a clear and present danger. It is no different than a Japanese submarine radioing a sabetuer in San Diego during WW2, of course the adminstration can intercept enemy communications.
"The FISA court exists for this reason. So why didn't Bush use it, like Clinton did (and he only used it for international communications)? "
This is still unclear due to the secrecy of the project but the growing thought is because of the technology being employed. This was a realtime monitoring of a huge amount of data. You cant take 1000 cases to the FISA court every day.
"And furthermore, I would like to express extreme skepticism that this kind of widespread data mining approach is going to prove useful to “catching” terrorists, either."
Fortunately that decision is not in your hands because the adminstration claims it has been extremely useful in directly catching people and stopping attacks.
>>You can't do a balance statement on lives saved vs. lives lost. There's no way to quantify it. It's easy for people to point out the deaths, but it's impossible to point to lives saved. It's the ultimate Rorschach Blot.
Indeed.
This is why principles matter.
TJ: If you are going to get into a debate or quotation war with me over Tolkien, you are going to lose. I am one of the good Professor's biggest fans. If there is one thing I am a legitimate expert in, its in Tolkien.
"1. The ring was evil because of its maker.
2. The ring was evil because of its power."
You are creating a false dichotomy. I could go into what all is wrong with your understanding of Tolkien's 'Lord of the Rings', but there is a much more important point to make.
Poets aren't always right. Citing a poet as proof of your point might make sense if this was ancient Greece and we believed that poets got thier wisdom from the gods. It does not make sense in a rational world. I love Tolkien, but I do not believe his every word is infallible and God's own gospel.
For every thing that you could quote, there is a counter-quote from someone else. Here I'll hold with Emerson, "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know."
And as an analogy, you are using the analogy in a manner that writer himself would be very skeptical of. JRR Tolkien did not like argument through analogy. He was not a fan of metaphor. He believed that unless there was a one to one and onto correspondence between the thing and the thing it stands for, that such analogies merely obscure the truth rather than reveal it.
I believe that that is exactly what you are doing now. You've failed to say anything convincing about the thing, so now you seek to distract your audience with an argument about something that you want to stand for the thing. But if you can't make your argument about the thing itself - which is concrete and which can and therefor should be discussed in concrete terms - why do you think that your argument about the symbolic thing will work any better? There is not a one to one and onto correspondance between the One Ring and the NSA. There isn't even a one to one and onto correspondance between the One Ring and the Palantirs. So any argument that you make about the One Ring is going to be far less illustrative than any more direct argument you could make about the actual thing at hand. And if you in fact think that there is a one to one and onto relationship between the One Ring and the NSA or any other thing in the federal government, it says alot more about you than it does about the matter at hand.
The reason that the Lord of the Rings works as a spiritual story is that it talks about things which are abstract in terms of things which are more concrete. Doing the reverse, as you are doing, is only going to led to trouble and confusion. The sort of confusion that leads you to suggest that the Federal Government is nothing more than 'extortionists'. You are treating real life as if it was some sort of game, which is the appalling sort of behavior that led to the good Professor's deconstruction of his own creation late in his life. You're as bad as a communist. I strongly suggest you pack up and go out and live in the larger world for a while. I swear, you have absolutely no idea at all just what sort of community you actually live in, and won't until you go outside of it for a while. I suggest finding some place where the services of our government are actually owned by the rich and powerful and seeing if it lives up to the utopian ideal you've created in your head.
Taking some of celebrim's objections into account, here's a new, improved assessment:
Within the context of LOTR, the Ruling Ring was an evil artifact. Several theories as to the nature of its evil were mentioned in the book; these theories can be applied to sources of power in general. They are as follows:
1. The Ring was evil because of its owner. This was Boromir's position. According to him, the Ring was just a tool, like a sword or a hammer. In the wrong hands, the Ring was a terrible threat, but Boromir hypothesised that in the right hands it could be a powerful weapon for good.
In the real world, there are clearly many powerful things for which Boromir's reasoning is sound. Cars can be used to move people around OR run people over. It's quite obvious that the car isn't the source of the evil in the latter case -- it's the motive of the driver that matters.
The next two possibilites are different interpretations of Gandalf's assessment of the Ring. It's not clear to me in which sense Tolkein himself considered the Ring to be problematic:
2. The ring was evil because of its maker. In this interpretation, the Ring was cursed because it was designed with malice in mind. Special magics doomed anyone other than Sauron who tried to use it.
Obvious real-life examples of these sorts of things and institutions include spambots, biowarfare agents, street gangs, death squads, butterfly mines, ammonia-boosted cigarettes, etc. These things were designed to make trouble. No moral individual would have any use for such things or willingly belong to such institutions.
3. The Ring was evil because of its power. In this interpretation, the very nature of the Ring's colossal power to dominate others was certain to corrupt all who used it, even those with the purest of motives.
Real-world examples of these kinds of systems include very high yield nuclear devices, heroin, totalitarian communist states, etc. These things create havok and destruction despite any good intentions their developers may have had.
In my mind, the debate here concerns which kind of thing the NSA is:
Some people here, like Jim Rockford and GK, view the NSA as just another tool to fight terrorism, and a good one at that. In their minds, people who would attempt to block the use of such a tool can't be anything other than traitors or madmen.
Others here, like lurker, Mark, and presumably celebrim acknowledge that evil intelligence organizations like the KGB and Mukhabarat wrecked great havok, but that this was because such institutions were constructed and built for evil purposes. They believe that effective safeguards against abuse have been designed into the institution of the NSA, and furthermore that the man with ultimate authority over the NSA -- the President -- is fundamentally trustworthy. These people believe that opponents of the NSA are either paranoids or simply don't understand the subject well enough.
My position is that the very nature of institutions like the NSA will eventually lead to them becoming corrupt and will thrwart efforts to keep them accountable and contain their power. Most reliable forms of institutional accountablilty require both noncoercive funding and transparency to "shareholders", but the NSA and CIA by their very nature have neither.
So that's where we are at. For me to make any further headway, I would need to convince you that my understanding of public choice theory and institutional logic are both sound and relevant to the situation at hand.
>>The sort of confusion that leads you to suggest that the Federal Government is nothing more than 'extortionists'.
Of course the Federal Government consists of more than extortionists. Each of the individuals in it are unique and have many complex motives. This doesn't make them NOT extortionists.
Let's take my favorite branch of the Federal Government, the US Marine Corps. The Marines have many things going for them: good discipline, bravery, training, doctrine, etc. Unfortunately, they are still always thieves. The standard claim is that such thievery (through taxation) is necessary for the Marines to have enough resources to carry out vitally important missions.
I don't buy this claim. Clearly the hardship and risk associated with being a Marine are borne voluntarily by the Marines themselves. If the Marines' purpose is so important, surely we should be able to fund the Marine Corps through voluntary donations (perhaps from wealthy exWformerWretired Marines)? Given the very good reputation the Marines enjoy here in the US, this shouldn't be particularly difficult.
I'm not going to claim that the extortion aspect of the Marines necessarily negates any good work they do, but if the extortion is unnecessary/counterproductive, should we not try to eliminate it?
>>I suggest finding some place where the services of our government are actually owned by the rich and powerful and seeing if it lives up to the utopian ideal you've created. I already live in the US, thank you very much. Your statement describes the current system of state corporatism almost perfectly.
I wish to transition to a system where the services now provided by the goverment are paid for voluntarily. Is that really so unreasonable?
Mark;
I wouldn't get too comfortable with the idea that it is a settled matter that what Bush has secretly authorized the NSA to do is legal just yet:
See this:
"Dozens of federal agencies are tracking visits to U.S. government Web sites in violation of long-standing rules designed to protect online privacy,"
And this:
"The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee said on Wednesday that the limited Congressional briefings the Bush administration has provided on a National Security Agency eavesdropping program violated the law.
In a letter to President Bush, the representative, Jane Harman of California, said the briefings did not comply with the National Security Act of 1947. That law requires the House and Senate Intelligence Committees to be "kept fully and currently informed" about the spy agencies' activities."
And this:
"A surveillance program approved by President Bush to conduct eavesdropping without warrants has captured what are purely domestic communications in some cases, despite a requirement by the White House that one end of the intercepted conversations take place on foreign soil, officials say."
Your position on this matter can only be interpreted as a political stance, since clearly the issue is far from settled. And you will note that I myself have not stated flatly that Bush etc. are lying, but rather that enough evidence exists to investigate this possibility further. Especially since the administration seems to be pushing for new or expanded interpretations of existing law that concentrate more power in the Executive branch.
To think that a high level of legal and public scrutiny should not be applied to such a position is ludicrous, and calls into serious question the motives of those who are arguing against this.
Perhaps for you (and lurker) it is simply that you feel that you already know enough about the secret activities of the Bush administration that you aren’t worried about what’s going on. You trust them.
I do not.
So unless you have any more insight into the source of your trust and certainty in the inner workings of the NSA program (a question I’ve asked both you and lurker, above, but which has gone unanswered), I’ll leave it at that. I am very uninterested in getting into a political shouting match with anyone here or elsewhere regarding this, to say the least. No actual problems can be solved using such an approach.
TJ: I told you not to get into this with me.
Your wrong. There is a fourth alternative you are failing to consider. The ring was not evil because of its owner. Not everyone who owned it was evil. The ring was not evil because of who made it. Not everything Sauron made was evil. The ring was not evil because it was powerful. Not everything that is powerful is evil.
Mostly however, you are showing your ignorance with regard to the nature of the ring. I'll give you a hint though. The ring was in some sense the body of Sauron, which is why when it was destroyed it 'unknit the sinews of his will'.
You are totally missing the subtlety of the work. Tolkien is not putting out some trite homily like 'Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely'. Tolkien doesn't believe that in the slightest. Answer the question, why is it that the ring is an inherently corrupt thing, so that even Gandalf or Galadriel dare not take it? It's not alone because of who made it, or alone because it is powerful, or because they are unvirtuous and dare not trust themselves with the thing. Why is it that the hobbits are more immune to the Ring than any other race. Say if you know, and otherwise stop making these stupid and ill-formed analogies.
"I don't buy this claim. Clearly the hardship and risk associated with being a Marine are borne voluntarily by the Marines themselves. If the Marines' purpose is so important, surely we should be able to fund the Marine Corps through voluntary donations (perhaps from wealthy exWformerWretired Marines)? Given the very good reputation the Marines enjoy here in the US, this shouldn't be particularly difficult."
TJ, you are clearly a very intelligent person. You carry all the marks of it. You have a logical organized mind and you mentally structure the world around you in order to make sense of it.
But you have more in common with Karl Marx than you know. You have more in common with Noam Chomsky than you know. They also have logical and organized minds, and cataloging the world around them and seeking first principles. You are making the same mistake that they did and have. You underlying assumptions about the nature of community and human behavior are incorrect, and it leads to you to completely logical but equally incorrect diagnosis and prediction. You are like Plato, sitting in your chair solving the problems of the world via the power of your imagination, and never once going out and collecting any data on your hypothesis because you are already certain that the internal workings of your mind are better than the chaos that exists out there and never once noticing the irony of that.
If you're system worked, communism would work. Both are predicated on the same assumptions, you are just coming at the problem from different ends of the spectrum and you'd both find yourself ending up in the exact same place - not with greater liberty for the masses but with less.
"I wish to transition to a system where the services now provided by the goverment are paid for voluntarily. Is that really so unreasonable?"
Yes. Completely. And it has been tried. Such a system doesn't work out the way you think it does. There are many reasons. Apply a bit of game theory to the problem, but begin with the assumption that most people are what Fredrick Bastiat calls 'bad economists'. Then understand that the problem is even worse than that. It's not that most people are 'bad economists', it's that they all are. You, even you, included.
celebrim,
But before you stop I gotta know:I enjoy your posts. But dude, LOL, your aspergers is showing with all this LOTR stuff!
>>TJ: I told you not to get into this with me.
Why not? How else am I going to improve my knowledge.
>>Mostly however, you are showing your ignorance with regard to the nature of the ring. I'll give you a hint though. The ring was in some sense the body of Sauron, which is why when it was destroyed it 'unknit the sinews of his will'.
This is the notion that the Ring IS Sauron in some essential way. People who use the Ring eventually become possessed by Sauron. Hobbits are less of a risk because they are so inexperienced at and ill-suited for the exercise of power in general -- they aren't strong enough to access the Ring's full capabilities, which in this case is really handy. This theory is functionally identical to option 2 above.
>>You have more in common with Noam Chomsky than you know.
In the past I actually spent a fair bit of time conversing with Noam over at ZNet. Noam's big contribution IMHO is his loud, obnoxious, and repetitive restatement of the Principle of Universality, thus making obvious the utter hypocrisy and base tribal motives of most of those in power. Noam is, of course, not himself immune to judgement on this point. His other contribution is Chomsky's Laser: the claim that all systems of authority must be challenged and reformed if they do not stand up to scrutiny. For the record, Noam's assessment of people like me is oddly similar to yours:
"Anarcho-capitalism, in my opinion, is a doctrinal system which, if ever implemented, would lead to forms of tyranny and oppression that have few counterparts in human history. There isn't the slightest possibility that its (in my view, horrendous) ideas would be implemented, because they would quickly destroy any society that made this colossal error. The idea of "free contract" between the potentate and his starving subject is a sick joke, perhaps worth some moments in an academic seminar exploring the consequences of (in my view, absurd) ideas, but nowhere else.
I should add, however, that I find myself in substantial agreement with people who consider themselves anarcho-capitalists on a whole range of issues; and for some years, was able to write only in their journals. And I also admire their commitment to rationality -- which is rare -- though I do not think they see the consequences of the doctrines they espouse, or their profound moral failings."
>>You underlying assumptions about the nature of community and human behavior are incorrect, and it leads to you to completely logical but equally incorrect diagnosis and prediction.
Let's run a Level 1 diagnostic on those assumptions:
My basic operating assumption is that most people have "weak minds". The general population has very little concept of philosophy or economics beyond that essential to their immediate existence (and often not even that). Most people are very vulnerable to manipulation by percieved experts and authority. Most people are very vulnerable to manipulation by advertising and propaganda. Most people exist in a state of rational ignorance with respect to voting in that the amount of time it would take to learn enough to make a rational decision greatly exceeds their leverage over the political process. Most people are tribal despite what they claim in public and are quite willing to support large sacrifices of "foreigners" for even ephemeral increases in percieved local security. Most people have very poor memories, especially with respect to political issues, and don't do a particularly good job of planning for their own future. In short, most people are cattle.
There are exceptions to all of the above, but no political strategy for constructive change that either ignores the above or assumes that large changes to the above can be made quickly and cheaply will succeed.
"Your position on this matter can only be interpreted as a political stance, since clearly the issue is far from settled."
I never claimed this was settled law. Particularly since there is no such thing as truly settled law. I have said that Bush had a firm claim that was backed by top DOJ officials and confirmed by former Clinton officials. This could end up in court tomorrow and be made illegal. But at this time the administration has done nothing illegal as far as we know. You will note Congress is calling for hearings, not special prosecutors.
"This is the notion that the Ring IS Sauron in some essential way."
This isn't a notion. Both Gandalf in the story and JRRT outside of the story state repeatedly that the Ring is Sauron in some essential way. Maia don't naturally have bodies. Sauron has embodied himself, incarnated yourself if you will, in large part into the One Ring. But this isn't why the Ring is evil. To imagine that the Ring is evil because it is Sauron is to ignore what it is that makes Sauron evil in the first place.
You are right that, Boromir is wrong about the ring because he thinks of it as a peice of technology. Technology is neutral; even a romantic quasi-Luddite like Tolkien pretty much agrees with that. Boromir fails to understand that since Sauron has poured a large part of himself into the ring, that the ring has a will of its own. The ring has a purpose which it is fulfilling and which it manipulates those around it to fulfill. And it is the purpose and the will of the ring which is evil.
Sauron made the ring for the [b]purpose[/b] of subjegating the will of others. It is the purpose of technology which is important, not its power. High yield nuclear weapons aren't inherently evil things. In fact, they - like all knowledge - are in fact good things. It's the purpose to which they are employed that determines whether they are good or evil.
The Ring grants its wielder the power to control other people's wills (particularly the wills of those wearing other rings of power, and in particular those rings that Sauron had a part in making). That is its primary purpose. Everything else that it does is practically an unintended consequence of this terrible purpose. Boromir comes to understand what the Ring does when he says, "The ring would give me the power of Command.", but he doesn't understand the implications. Boromir is used to people following him as a matter of choice, because his people love him for his bravery and strength. This is the sort of 'command' Boromir is thinking of, but the 'command' that the ring offers is not that but the power to bend other wills to his own involutarily. The One Ring is a mind control device, and its this particular purpose which Tolkien is suggesting is inherently corrupt and evil.
But even that is somewhat of a simplification. Gandalf himself wears a ring which has as its primary purpose 'controlling minds'. The Ring of Fire is designed to instill in others the emotions of courage, hope, compassion and vigor. Gandalf seems quite willing to employ those powers without people's consent. What's different about that? Sure, the One Ring is a mind control device that employs terror and despair to control people. It plays on thier inner weaknesses and beats them down and destroys thier individuality, but isn't all interference with other people's liberty the same regardless of motivation? Shouldn't Gandalf ask Theoden whether he wants to be healed first?
Where TJ is going wrong is that he imagines the Federal Government as some sort of giant mind control device. He thinks it's institutions exist to coherse you into doing things you don't want to do. He's left out the whole 'We the People...' thing, or else imagines it to be a fraud. He imagines that the best form of government would be something like the Shire, which has a Sheriff who prosecutes no crimes (because they don't have any) and mainly serves to settle disputes when someone's livestock gets loose, and a Post Office, and that's it. And he imagines that Shire like, if there is an outside threat, all that is required is to raise the militia and the enemy will be routed. This is because he shares with JRRT a sense of romanticism. And, he might even be right, if in fact people were hobbits - but we aren't.
So, TJ is saying that he believes it is a given that the NSA program is being used to subjegate people's free wills, because TJ equates all government as 'The One Ring'. I suppose in a wierd sense he's right, since it was an exercise in free will that lead certain pilots to fly aircraft into the side of buildings. I for one however don't want to find my desire to have the plane land in LA someday in conflict with some nuts desire to fly it into building, and frankly, I consider that example of conflict between my will and some nuts to be the least of my worries.
The reason that hobbits are relatively immune to the temptations of the ring, is that they have no desire to use it because they pretty much have no desire to rule over others. They have no pride. They have no ego. There natural weakness protects them. Even when Sam is tempted to use the ring to dominate others, the thought of little Sam ruling over everyone else causes the whole mental picture to collapse with the absurdity of the image.
The hobbits are natural communists. They don't mind sharing. They don't shirk work. They don't mind living simple humble lives. They don't mind being poor. They have a strong sense of community. Some of them are poor, but apparantly they never rob anyone, or when they do the robbed ones never feel the need for reparations. Some of them are landed aristocrats with extensive holdings, but apparantly none of the poor ones ever get jealous and rent is apparently never demanded or paid. They have feuds, but apparantly such feuds never erupt into violence no matter how much provication either side gives them. When a public work is needed, no one demands a salary, everyone is happy to donate time and materials for the good of the community. And because they are all such industrious little creatures, no one ever goes hungry even those that can't work. Only one leader is needed for the whole country, and he never gives orders just speeches. No one ever attempts to accumulate power and influence (and even when one does convienently the bad guys do away with him and there is no need for a revolution.) In short, the Hobbits though a fallen race, qualify as a barely fallen race. They don't need a government, because they don't really have any evils that they wish to keep at a bay. If people were hobbits, either Noam Chomsky's idealized communism or TJ's idealized anarchy would work just fine. In fact, to a large extent, they are the same thing. The communists assume that everyone would willing pull together for the good of the community, and TJ is assuming the very same thing.
It's romantic and wonderful, and its all so much bullshit.
But even the Hobbits are abit deluded in thinking that they don't need a government. They only imagine that they don't have any evils that they need to keep at bay. They have this institution of 'the Thain', but they've pretty much forgotten why they have it. What they don't know is that their little land has been encircled by a standing army, which anonymously at great peril keeps the evils of the outside world at bay. When that army is removed, the Hobbits find that they need a standing army and revive the institution.
Incidently, TJ, Chomsky's only important contributions are in the field of linguistic theory. His political contributions are either neglible or else contributions only if sabotage can be considered a contribution. He is however correct in his assessment of you, but that only makes it that much more ironic that he can't see that in practice his own preferred solutions lead to the same place from the opposite direction. The real world requires a balance between individualism and communalism.
>>The communists assume that everyone would willing pull together for the good of the community, and TJ is assuming the very same thing.
>>It's romantic and wonderful, and its all so much bullshit.
I'm afraid you've vastly underestimated my level of cynicism, but in this case it doesn't matter. If a majority of the population isn't willing to "do the right thing" and "pull together for the common good", why should I trust them with voting? If a majority are willing to all pitch in, then the coercion is unnecessary.
Attempting to solve a public goods problem with government creates a worse public goods problem.
"If a majority of the population isn't willing to "do the right thing" and "pull together for the common good", why should I trust them with voting? "
And now the fascism inherent at the bottom of this rabbit hole is laid bare.
How is there fascism inherent in this? It merely means I don't trust the general population to allocate money they've collectively stolen from me in a rational and ethical way, nor do I trust them in the appointment of temporary benevolent overlords. I'm uninterested in replacing the current "democratic" extortion scheme with a monarchist extortion scheme or any other extortion scheme. I'm interested in eliminating the extortion, or at least reducing it as much as possible.
"And now the fascism inherent at the bottom of this rabbit hole is laid bare."
Yes. And we didn't even have to fall very far down the rabbit hole. We were getting mucked up long before this. Which ever way he goes, the problem of shirkers are going to crop up. Which ever way he jumps, he'll end up in a situation where the non-shirkers monopolize power (or try to) at the expense of the 'shirkers'. Within a generation, he'll end up with something as totalitarian as the USSR because at some point 'shirking' and 'dissent' become inseparable from each other. After all, pitching in implies everyone agree on what needs to be done.
I love the link. I love it when people make these internally consistant logical observations and then are aghast that I don't see it the same way. Note among other things that the essay makes the exact same fundamental assertion that I noted was TJ's problem when I first commented on him. It assumes that defending yourself from the other and defending from your neighbor are exactly the same in every way. It assumes that if you can do one that you can do the other, that the consequences of failing to do one are equally as bad as the other, and that the same ammount of force is required to restrain one as restrain the other. None of these things has to be true, and I would argue that the fact that humans don't generally act as if they are true ought to be pretty compelling evidence that they are not in fact true.
He wants me to think that the government monopolization of legitimate use of force is a bad thing. In fact its a very good thing. The problem with government is not its monopolization of the legitimate use of force. The problem of government is its lack of accountability. So TJ - and the author of the eassy - treating the wrong disease. They propose to do away with the government's monopolization of the legitimate use of force (!!!), and leave the tools and services of government in the hands of the very same people (lets call them the 'wealthy non-shirkers', those the 'ambitious' would serve as well) whose activities act as a buffer to government accountability in the current system.
He proposes elsewhere to create tribal corporations accountable to wealthy ex-tribe members and profit motivated in order to sustain themselves, possessing the tools of force, and who he wants to be loyal to an idea which has no manifest insitutions. How does he think that is going to last? How long before the US Marines give their loyalty to the tribal leaders from whense come thier paychecks instead of the United States - an idea without an institution? He's retained all the problems but he's removed all the checks and balances, and all the mythic force that holds a community together.
And the thing that gets me through all this is that he really thinks that this - the most accountable large government in the history of the world - is a tyranny. As soon as two of your bodies of sovereign citizens want to pull in different directions, you are going to have to have some means of conflict resolution and at that point you'll have a war or a government. We have a government, and I happen to value my franchise and don't care to have you take it away.
Frankly, Celebrim, I have a hard time believing that TJ actually believes half the stuff he writes on this site. I have no idea how old TJ is, but he reminds me of me when I was a teenager. My politics were the opposite of TJ's, but I still said all kinds of dumb things many of which I didn't believe in the slightest because they seemed consistent with what I thought was the ideology to believe in. I also said lots of things I didn't really believe just to shock people, and I get some sense of that also from TJ.
Trent:
Although I've enjoyed following at least one of the paths (toward Mordor) that this thread has taken, it has seemingly strayed very far from Trent's original intent...to claim that the NYT is (not could be) guilty of treason for "leaking" information about Bush's secret NSA spying.
Just to help me understand this position a little better, I would like to pose a follow-up question to Trent:
Should the Times now be held liable for leaking info about the failure to provide troops in Iraq with sufficient body armor?
This story was also based on leaked classified info.
Applying the same logic (or illogic, as it were) to this issue that I've seen used to argue against the righteousness of publicizing the NSA story, I might image that an analogous argument could be made here, i.e., now the insurgents KNOW American troops lack upper body armor, and it's the fault of the press for making this widely known.
Would you agree with this argument, Trent?
Andy: I believe you have mischaracterized the article in the Times. It doesn't say that that there was a failure to provide troops in Iraq with sufficient body armor, even if that is how it is being spun. It says that of the Marines who were shot in the torso, a fair percentage might have been saved if the armor plates were larger. But, this is not a failure. The size of the armor plates is limited by the ability of the troops to carry them. Larger armor plates mean heavier armored suits, which means less mobile troops and increasingly tired troops. Additional advantages in armored protection at the expense of mobility don't necessarily lead to fewer deaths and injuries. Likewise, the leading cause of death on the battlefield is exhaustion. Tired troops make mental mistakes. It's the mental lapses that kill you as much as anything else.
American troops certainly do not lack upper body armor. They have more upper body armor than any other infantry forces in the world. This isn't a case of the armor existing but no one was getting it to them. This is a case of there being no such thing as a perfect solution with existing technology. I dare say its unlikely that there will ever be a perfect suit of armor.
And yes, it was unethical to leak classified operational studies like this. It doesn't help anyone.