Concur. This thread is really stupid (insomuch as it was previously "discussed" in the Steinback thread) - but not as stupid as some of the lengths people are willing to go to support their "team"... Consequently, I'm unable to refrain from chiming in - *sigh*. I'm a big fan of scientific journals simply because of the citations. I wish more political essays cited where the information and/or quotes were gathered - I might be a little less of a cynical b*stard.
A message from 1975 and a similarly illegal program, COINTELPRO: CIA powers and 1975 Church Committee Report by Paul Wolf Published here: 22/09/01 The cry for expanded CIA assassination powers is being supported by a lot of inaccurate references to the 1975 Church Committee investigation. “Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans,” as their final report was called, was the most in-depth investigation into the American intelligence establishment ever made. Reporters are claiming that the Church Committee tied the hands of the CIA, and now it’s time to restore their power to use whatever ruthless and inhumane means may be necessary to implement our foreign policies. In fact, although the Church Committee exposed a closet full of nightmarish operations carried out against American citizens, and some of the CIA’s activities in Chile, it was by no means an accounting of CIA atrocities around the world, and had no legal implications whatsoever. Its function was simply to inform the public of the widespread abuses that were being committed in their midst. Among other things, the Church Committee revealed that: * a CIA program to open mail to or from selected American citizens generated 1.5 million names stored in the Agency’s computer bank. * intelligence units within the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) created files on over one million Americans. * the FBI carried out five hundred thousand investigations of so-called subversives from 1960 to 1974, without a single court conviction. * computers in the National Security Agency (NSA) monitored every cable sent overseas, or received, by Americans from 1947 to 1975. * Army intelligence units conducted investigations against one hundred thousand American citizens during the Vietnam War era. * the CIA engaged in drug experiments (the MK/ULTRA Project) against unsuspecting subjects (two of whom died from side effects). * at least two foreign leaders were the direct targets of CIA assassination plots (none successful). * letters written anonymously by FBI agents were designed to incite violence among blacks. * the FBI COINTELPRO (Counterintelligence Program) targeted civil rights activists and Vietnam War dissidents. * the FBI attempted to blackmail civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., and encouraged him to commit suicide. * the CIA manipulated elections in democratic regimes (Chile was but one of several). * the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) allowed tax information to be misused by intelligence agencies for political purposes. * intelligence agencies carried out burglaries in the homes and offices of suspected “subversives”. * the CIA infiltrated religious, media, and academic organizations. (Source: America’s Secret War: The CIA in a Democratic Society, by Loch K. Johnson, Oxford University Press,1989) Among the worst CIA paramilitary operations was the Phoenix Program in Vietnam. According to former CIA Director William Colby, some 20,000 members of the Viet Cong Infrastructure (VCI) were murdered. “Infrastructure” referred to civilians suspected of supporting North Vietnamese and Vietcong soldiers. An accounting of lethal CIA operations overseas lies far beyond the scope of this email, or of the Church Committee, for that matter. Indonesia, Guatemala, etc, etc. I’m not going to try to make a list. It seems like it should be easy to demonstrate what kind of horrors we can expect if we give the CIA a mandate to assassinate foreign “terrorists” since there are so many examples in history to choose from. Originally intended to be the “eyes and ears” of goverment, the CIA has often been used as a third world hit squad, and some are calling for this again. But the “unconventional” model for counter- insurgency war that targets civilians, developed in the late 20th century and typified by the Phoenix Program, has been remarkably unsuccessful in Latin America and elsewhere. In Vietnam, the death squads only inspired villagers to fight for their lives, in some cases down to the last man, woman and child. Paul
Ah! The Clinton defense! How could I not have seen it coming? Not sure how Gore's quote applies to the conversation at hand, but in Jr's case there is "controlling legal authority." Two actually; the constitution and the FISA.
But no court cases to flesh out whether or not this specific program is illegal. Until that happens, everything else is just specualation.
This part goes to the heart of the matter. Clearly, if Bush actually believes the NSA spying is "constitutional," why then did he seek to enumerate that power in the 9/11 resolution? The fact that the specific language was rejected by the bills' authors also goes against Bush's assertion that his incomplete briefing of certain members of Congress constituets Congressional consent to his actions. You're right. Technically speaking, of course no political controversy involving balance of power issues is concrete until we have an impeachment hearing or the Supreme Court hears an actual case against Bush. However, as citizens it is our duty to keep track of these developments and push our legislators to act. We cannot just all sit back and say, "Oh, Congress will sort this out, what's on ESPN?" But you are correct that none of us can concretely say what Bush did was wrong. We don't know the whole situation yet (but IMHO the truth is probably even worse than Bush is letting on).
Thats more then damning, thats the actual facts and proof that Bush indeed superceeded the constitution and new before hand that domestic spying would indeed be illegal otherwise. I say, its time to break out the impeachment robes.
Yeah, what we really need is more op-ed pieces by bitter, defeated democrats, and for good measure, quotes of other op-ed pieces by other bitter, defeated democrats contained within the piece. I'd like to know Dan Rostenkowski's opinion on this subject. Or is Tom Foley available to chime in? Honestly, these guys could really just save a lot of time and effort by just putting in giant font "BUSH BAD" in the space under their picture, and just run that week after week. It would mean about as much.
I just thought I'd point out that we were in a declared war, a world war involving combatants in the tens of millions. Today, we are not in a declared war (why not??), and we are fighting terrorists, as well as an insurgency in a country we invaded. Keep D&D Civil.
While the 1944 Korematsu Case initially supported the internment the USSC in 1984 overturned that ruling and concluded that there were errors in the original case. http://www.answers.com/topic/japanese-american-internment
Did our government apologize saying it was based on "race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership" (hey...sound familiar?) ? Did we pay reparations? Did we change laws?
I thought we've clarified this with you guys even with TJ.. until now do you still think the issue is just simply about spying in general and not about warrants/court orders?
