Wire tap probe killed

This article is especially disturbing considering recent revelations about the NSA's huge database of domestic phone calls. With all of this wire-taping and data mining of American citizens how can any of us really trust this government again?

Are we really supposed to just turn our backs and trust our government so deeply, trust that these scoundrels and thieves will use all of the power and information we've let them gain wisely and in our best interest?

Big brother is watching us, and we don't even seem to give a damn, we're all to afraid or to stupid to realize that this country's own government poses a much larger threat to it's citizens then some cave-dwelling religious fanatics ever could.

 

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"The lawsuit, brought by an Internet privacy group, does not name the government as a defendant, but the Department of Justice has sought to quash the lawsuit, saying it threatens to expose government and military secrets."

Mystech, don't you think it's too late to complain now?

I don't think the government needs telephone information for its personal interests and I'd bet any individual motivated enough could get anyone's personal information without his/her knowing. The same for the US government.

What do you suppose the government is doing with this database that is objectionable?

 

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I don't know, they could do any number of things, and we've no way to know if there's any accountability at all, and have no reason to trust them with that information. This is on par with having federal agents going through your trash - who knows what they might find that someone might have an interest in - they could put together a profile of your habits, build a chart of your social network - sell the information off to the highest bidder.

What would have happened if we simply trusted Nixon to have men breaking into private property to steal paperwork, these days it seems that Bush could get away with such a move if he said it was all for national security in some round-about way and then sicked his rabid pundits on us.

The fact is that this is not the sort of thing our government should be doing to us, even on the off chance that this secret program is totally on the up-and-up and being used only by very responsible people despite the lack of any accountability what so ever (as is the nature of a secret program) we've still lost the freedom to this measure of privacy, and as these things tend to go we can very well expect that we shall never get that freedom back.

 

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What's happening now is, in my view, worse than if Nixon had merely gotten away with such a move.
If the response to Nixon's crimes had been the same as the current response to Bush's, first Nixon would have denied that his actions were illegal, then he would have nominated one of the burglars he hired to be director of the CIA. Debate in congress during the confirmation hearing would have centered around the burglars opinion as to whether they should rewrite the laws to explicitly allow presidential burglary, or accept Nixon's claim that it should just be assumed legal because he said that it was. He would then, in order to ensure a smooth confirmation, grudgingly accept that laws should be quickly rewritten when the president finds them inconvenient, over his previous position that laws simply do not apply to the president.(see below)
http://www.salon.com/wire/ap/archive.html?wire=D8HH2RO89.html

 

Hey, don't worry, I'm sure the current administration still has G. Gordon Liddy strangling people with piano wires in dark alley ways in between appearances on Fox News. In political terms that guy is an OG.

 

Let's just see a supporter of the Bush administration even try to rationalize this.

*waits*

 

Nice to see that the Justice Department has no real power.

Is it just me, or should the "Justice" Department be trumped over everyone? How can they investigate any crimes if they do not have any real power?

- N

 

Good question, Neildo. . . and if not the Justice Department, then who will police the police?

And what am I supposed to do when a subject has me so flustered I can speak only in rhetorical questions?

 

do you really believe that the operation of the government is going to be obvious?
you do realize that the government has enemies don't you?
just because you do not see accountability thats no sign it isn't there.

 

But in that case, why not present the evidence for accountability, and say "Look, theres nothing to be worried about"?

 

we have had a good discussion about this here
http://sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=50895

 

Yes, I do. Call me an idealist, but I thought we lived in a democracy of by and for the people, and this sort of thing just doesn't fly under that sort of system.

Don't give me your "Oh just because you don't see it doesn't mean it's not there" B.S., if it were there then the process should be transparent and the whole thing should be directly accountable back to us, the American people. Secretly spying on us is definitely a breach of our good faith, and a sign that our government is turning on us, treating us like our master rather than our servant.

You should be ashamed of yourself if these recent developments don't alarm you. You're a betrayer of the ideals of a free society, and frankly a very bad American.

 

read the other thread mystech and get enlightened
the US government has been spying on it's citizens for the last 30 years

 

I've looked through the other thread, you ramble on about military satellite technology and the like, but it doesn't really amount to anything. There's not a single valid point in there.

You come off sounding like some sort of over-weight bearded arm-chair quarterback who's impressed with his own rather limited knowledge of military history and technology.

Okay reading farther into the thread it seems clear that you're some sort of nut-job bordering on being a conspiracy theorist, but I think that for you rambling on endlessly about the stupidest ideas is more about stroking your own ego than anything else.

You are now dead to me in this thread unless you can come up with some sort of valid point that is reasoned and relevant to the topic.

 

it isn't relevant that the military can read your license plate at will?
it isn't relevant that the military can watch your every move from orbit?
it isn't relevant that the military isn't bound by fisa?

instead of attacking me the person please explain how any of those questions is not relevant.

 

No, it's not relevant at all, and questionably truthful. I can do essentially the same thing with Google Earth and it's completely meaningless.

This is not a thread about the government or private citizen’s ability to monitor public space from a remote location - everyone is free to see that my roof is free of Frisbees and I have a few loose tiles, I don't care enough about that to bother starting a thread about it.

The Military is not a law-enforcement agency, nor do they operate in any official capacity in the US except when called in to shoot black people in a disaster area (excepting the coast-guard and National guard, but they are both part of the DHS and don't have the same mission as Army/marines/airforce/Navy/etc).

To put it frankly, the Military is not in the intelligence gathering game, it's not a part of what they do, and were they to start their own domestic surveillance project, spying on individual citizens, then it would definitely be a huge scandal as well.

Now, don’t say another topic-derailing word about the subject. I’m sure you’re just bubbling over with the need to pick some sort of semantic argument and then behave as if you’re scoring points with your fantasy football team or something, but please, for everyone’s sake just keep it to yourself.

 

you've got to be shitting me mystech.
you actually believe that the military does not have the capabilities that i described? you bitch and moan about illegal wiretaps while our beloved military kills unsuspecting innocent people for the sake of research?
you say it is not relevant that the military isn't bound by fisa but yet are concerned because a couple of judges do not know the few people the president is watching without a court order?

if you want to beleive that what i described is questionably truthfull then go right ahead fool. it must be nice to be young and dumb

 

qoute the passage that leads you to this conclusion mystech

 

here's the questionable truth mystech
http://www.levity.com/aciddreams/timeline.html
http://www.spacetoday.org/Satellites/YugoWarSats.html

 

Again, please stick to relevent conversation or just get the hell out of this thread. I know about LSD tests - big fucking deal, how does that matter in the slightest?