U.S. Presidential Election 2008

Amnesty International is a recgonised organisation for human rights, oder?

When the innocents get out of Gitmo, where should they go?

Conquistador, of all the arguments you make regarding why we should just roll over and let the government spy on whomever they want, however they want, as long as they don't actually "harm" any innocents in the process, the one about telecoms having lots of employees whose jobs might fall victim to the lawyers' fees is the weakest.

How big d'you suppose a corporation would have to be to whine about how they can't be sued because then they'll have to give the axe to Little Timmy Bluecollar?

Hasn't it been proved time and time and time again that we can't trust governments anyway when they say they will only spy on the "bad guys" ?

Tell me where they are from, MT. You seem to assume that they cannot go back to their home countries, so I ask for their nationalities. IMHO, once captured they should have been held in the place they were taken into custody until released or a determination was made to keep them in custody.

Amnesty International doesn't decide where they would go, MT. There is a US law that might apply to some of them, depending on their nationality. You might be interested to know that at least one former detainee has carried out a suicide bombing, BTW.

cinzia, I have previously pointed out to you that the FISA updates do not in fact erode the rights of US citizens- the one from 2008 actually requires a warrant to wiretap US citizens who are outside of the US, a requirement that was not previously part of FISA. Thus, the crux of your anger is directed at telecom companies who cooperated once they received assurances that it was proper under the law to do so- there was no mens rea to break the law on their part. Also, I have shown that information collected via wiretap that should have been collected only with a warrant having been issued by the FISA Court would automatically get thrown out by a federal judge during discovery- meaning that the Feds would almost certainly not try to use any information tainted by a lack of a warrant (or any subsquent information derived from an illegal wiretap.

So you think the telecom companies should be punished for what exactly? Name one person who was subjected to prosecution as a result of their Fourth Amendment rights being violated by a wiretap that should have gotten a FISA warrant during the relevant time period? I remind you that this is something the government would have to admit to, and it would be government misconduct.

It's clearly not a matter of letting the government do what they want, MT and cinzia- read the FISA law for comprehension (or at least a synopsis of it) and, additonally, take note of the fact I have pointed out how the Fourth Amendment continues protects the rights of US citizens from unreasonable search and seizure.

General acceptance though that individuals can't deported against their will to countries where they face torture or execution.

Or do you think that individuals should be deported against their will to countries where thy face torture or execution?

I can't even begin to tell you if there is a chance that they would face torture back in their home countries without knowing what those home countries are.

Just curious, MT, but do you believe that the detainees in question were tortured at Guantanamo?

Since MT isn't civil enough to provide a list of nationalities, here's one from the Washington Post (NOT Salon, gasp!)

Short version of nationalities without numbers from each country (follow link for list of names and nationalities):

Afghanistan | Algeria | Australia | Azerbaijan | Bahrain | Bangladesh | Belgium | Canada | Chad | China | Denmark | Egypt | Ethiopia | France | Indonesia | Iran | Iraq | Jordan | Kazakhstan | Kuwait | Lebanon | Libya | Malaysia | Maldives | Mauritania | Morocco | Pakistan | Palestine | Qatar | Russia | Saudi Arabia | Somalia | Spain | Sudan | Sweden | Syria | Tajikistan | Tanzania | Tunisia | Turkey | Turkmenistan | Uganda | United Arab Emirates | United Kingdom | Uzbekistan | West Bank | Yemen

I think it is proven and widely accepted that torture has occurred at Gitmo.
And before you start, yes, the British state has been involved in torture too.

Should innocents in Gitmo be deported to countries like Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Morroco etc where they would be subject to a state apparatus that does not shy away from torture or execution?

Jayus Cinzia, you gave me but a minute.

Total Bullshit. You want to say, an Iraqi terrorist or a Taliban terrorist or one of Bin Laden's guys, who attacks US targets or US soldiers on the battlefield, cannot be returned to his country because he might be tortured or executed? These guys weren't asking for political asylum in the US - FFS! In any event they don't come under deportation laws because they were never in the US. They can be repatriated though, with or against their will. Either way.

Sorry, guys, but I'm a little dim on this question, and have wondered for awhile: is there any reason to believe that these people, if sent back to their home countries, would be tortured by the authorities there? Why would they be, exactly? In America they'd get a Congressional Medal of Honor and a parade. (Not these exact prisoners, but American prisoners held unlawfully overseas and then returned to the US.)

Bit new to the World Wide Web, MT?

It's not a question of my opinion or your oinion BB, but an accepted level of human decency.
By God's grace if you will.
Does it square with your Christian compassion to send a man to a land where he faces persecution and death for his opinion?

Seens you have a bit of a difference with the Ratbag in Rome even.
Why not talk to your priest about this conflict?

So you don't want to release the detainees in question to their home countries because they might be tortured there (in spite of your claim of innocence on their part) yet you say they were tortured while in US custody and you want to see them released to the US? A bit inconsistent there, MT. Is it reasonable to think that they might be tortured in the US if they have allegedly been tortured while in US custody? Surely doesn't seem to make sense to to the US if you assume that they have already been tortured by US personnel.

BTW, your sources for the claims of torture at Guantanamo?

From the WP link provided by cinzia, we find a list of men deemed to be "no longer enemy combatants" who have been sent back to home countries such as China and Saudi Arabia. Any idea what befell them there? The very fact that they were sent home belies the assumption that they would be tortured there.
http://projects.washingtonpost.com/guantanamo/nlec/

Calling someone an "innocent" is probably an inference too far without knowing more about their case. I also would not make a blanket assumption that they would be tortured back in their home countries- has any released Guantanamo detainee been proven to have been subjected to torture as a result of their time at Guantanamo?

"He who lives by the sword will die by the sword." These terrorists chose to pick up arms and attack. They are not legitimate soldiers of the State, which ever one it might be. Hence, they are no better than common criminals, gang members with AK-47's. Ask them, why don't you? I am sure they are all willing to become "martyrs" for Allah and get their 72 virgins in hell. Hell, I got no conflict with that.

BB, there is no evidence that all prisoners held at Gitmo were "terrorists." The ones captured in Iraq and Afghanistan, for example, can certainly be said to have had a legitimate reason to pick up arms against American soldiers (you know, defending their country.)

Ho hum. Need I have bothered to point that out, or is everyone else clear on that?

BTW, BB, does your little parable about living by the sword also apply to American servicepeople? Or just terrorists?

Weren't you a soldier, BB?

Yes.

Live by the sword much?

Atari doesn't count moran!

Anywho, MT seems to have quit the field for the moment.

Conquistador, would you say Wen Ho Lee was harmed by probable FISA abuses? I know this is an old case, but if any American citizen at any time has ever been harmed by FISA abuses, surely there's no excuse to relax the law?

EDIT: Other than coming up with a high-profile case like that one, it's pretty hard to say with any authority whether or not anyone has been harmed under illegal wiretapping recently. The government won't say who they've tapped.

If they picked up a gun, they have to face the consequences. It was their decision...their consequences.

At the time there was no army in either country. They are nevertheless entitled to resist invasion and occupation.

Wouldn't you agree, BB, that calling anyone who picked up a gun a "terrorist" is weakening the impact of that designation just a wee bit?

Cinzia, if they were "defending their country" (don't see how, say, a Moroccan could be viewed as defending his country in a war between the US and Afghan allies on one side and Taliban on the other in Afghanistan) and were "unjustly imprisoned" I think it's very doubtful that they would be tortured back home.

Sounds like Wheel is concurring with their designation as enemy combatants.

Cinzia specifically mentioned Afghanistan and Iraq.

Prisoners of war, numbnuts.

Then it's fair to ask what third party nationals were doing there. If they were fighting against the US, it certainly makes no sense for anyone to insíst the US give them asylum in the US.

Wheel, they did not fit the definition of POWs. Furthermore, the fighting is still ongoing.

Get clear on this...American servicemen are soldiers by definition and entitled to protections under the Geneva Conventions. Terrorists are not entitled to these protections. Every soldier knows that when he picks up a gun, he may be sent to combat, and may have to use it. Those are the consequences. We have an all volunteer military. A soldier knows he might get shot. Consequences. Why don't the terrorist you are supporting "play by the rules?" Do you realize who you are defending? - The enemy and that makes you what? A traitor.

Cinzia mentioned Afghani and Iraqi citizens captured in Afghanistan and Iraq respectively. For the second time.


In your opinion.

Wheel, in case you wish to ignore the nationals of all other states except Afghanistan and Iraq, why shouldn't Iraqis and Afghans be sent home? Some already have been.

Why do you think they were POWs and not enemy combatants? Either way, there is no reason to send them anywhere but home (in this case, the Afghanis and Iraqis).

BB, raising questions does not mean one is "supporting" any particular position, no matter what the Bush Administration says. Holding an opinion in opposition to US policy does not mean one is supporting terrorists or make one a traitor.

Please apologize.

When you libs figure out who the good guys are and who the bad guys are you'll be making progress. Until then, I stated my position. If you're too stupid to understand the difference, that's your problem.

Conkers, cinzia's question to BB specifically referred to citizens of Afghanistan and Iraq defending their countries from invasion. Here it is, again:


It's clear from the context who she's referring to.

Once again, I see no evidence of any FISA involvement whatsoever in the Lee case:


How was Lee harmed by any FISA abuse, cinzia? He wasn't- his case had nothing whatsoever to do with FISA.

Once again: if a person was prosecuted as a result of the aforementioned illegal wiretapping, it would come out in the discovery process and the information illegally obtained would be thrown out. Is there any such case out there that confirms your fear, cinzia?

Finally, I have pointed it out more than once that the FISA law has not in fact been relaxed, rather the rights of Americans have, AFAIK, been strengthened since it now takes a warrant to tap us overseas.

Just curious, but if European countries known to use a lot of wiretapping, e.g., Holland, Italy, and the UK tapped your calls to or from the US without a warrant, do you think you should be able to sue those governments or the local telcos there?

Wheel, a person can be an enemy combatant without necessarily being a terrorist. Also, the non-Afghan Taliban could not have been said to be defending their country. I also wouldn't ncessarily assume a detainee from Iraq was "defending their home".

Wheel, the Iraqi Army at the time of the invasion were soldiers of the State - fair enough. But after they lost and the army was disbanded, they were no longer soldiers. If they continued to fight, they did it at there own risk. And after the legitimate elected government was set up in Iraq, and the Iraqi Army reestablished, and their own Constitution requires militias to be disarmed...well, now they are in direct opposition to the government, their own government. If they take up arms, the legitimate Iraqi government has a right to defend itself.

In Afghanistan, the Taliban was running the place. After the invasion, the election of a president...same story. They (the terrorists) are no longer legitimate combatants for the State.

No longer soldiers doesn't automatically mean they were terrorists though. Otherwise the French (Greek, Norwegian, Dutch etc. etc) partisans in WWII were terrorists when they fought the Germans.

Wait! Wait! This is too good...



What? Another flip-flop! I thought NObama wanted to bring all the soldiers home? NObama was pretty clear about his plans to bring everybody home during the primaries. Now he wants to "refine" his position. Stay tuned!

What did the Germans do to members of the resistance? That is what I mean by consequences.

The Germans committed war crimes...

I am not insisting that the USA take in some people released from Gitmo, that's what Amnesty International is lobbying for - or that they come to countries like Germany.
I can't really imagine released inmates wanting to stay in a country that illegally kidnapped, imprisoned and in some cases tortured them to be honest so i reckon they'll end up in Europe.

I don't thnk it is right to deport people against their will to face torture or excecution.
Call me a wishy washy liberal but I'm glad that's the acccepted practice at least in Europe.

Not all of the Gitmo inmates are innocent by any means but a number clearly are.

Obama, Obama, Obama! Im Hofbräuhaus!

I was wondering if the government collected any information on Lee via illegal wiretapping. As it turns out, the original FISA law apparently did its job in Lee's case:



That's the old law. Looks like it worked in that case.


Well, according to (Dem. Senator) Russ Feingold, that is about to change if the new law passes the Senate:



Well, no, Feingold again:



I am not aware that the FISA law ever allowed foreigners to sue the US government or telecommunications companies for illegal wiretapping. At any rate, I can't do anything about the laws of other countries. Not clear on why you're asking this question?

As for the broad question of who has been "harmed" by the illegal wiretapping ordered by the US government, the broad answer is, we all have. The whole concept that a company should be able to violate a very clear law, such as the original FISA law, because the President asked it to, is repugnant. Again, Greenwald just says it better than I could:

Wrong:


http://www.usdoj.gov/ag/readingroom/bellows11a.pdf

Additionally, now you have to agree with me that FISA had nothing to do with the government misconduct in the Lee case- the FBI followed the law in making the FISA request. Note also that if it is possible for the Justice Department to misinterpret the FISA law, so can other parties. Furthermore, the FISA law is additionally irrelevant to the Lee case because no request was made to the FISA Court for approval for a wiretap since the US Attorney General does not grant the FISA wiretap warrants- the FISA Court does. What Reno apparently did was refuse to even alow the request to be made to the FISA Court (which, as the Bellows panel found, was a decision made in error) thus FISA was not even applied in the Lee case and could not have prevented the actual government misconduct- leaks that violated Lee's privacy rights.


In order to file a civil suit and to receive damages, a plaintiff has to prove that they, not "everyone" was "damaged". The Bill of Rights and the FISA legislation protect individual rights. Again, how have you or any one individual been harmed?


To the extent FISA was violated, it was the government that actually violated it. Sue the government- it and its employees don't have immunity. The telecom involvement was tangential.

Every telecom company has in-house lawyers to deal with legal issues such as wiretap requests. No company that cooperated did so "just because Bush asked it to"- its counsel must have deemed the government request(s) legal, and we all know that there are varying opinions on virtually all legal matters anyway, so, no, it's not so clear.

As for Feingold's worries that there is no explict ban on bulk collection of communications to and from the US, has there ever been such an explicit ban in any FISA legislation, including the original? Almost certainly not, not only because it is implicitly banned in the FISA legislation with regards conditions spelled out as to when wiretapping can occur and by the Fourth Amendment.

Two salient examples:

-A US citizen overseas cannot be wiretapped without a FISA warrant (new to the 2008 update)
-The 2008 update expressly prohibits targeting non-US citizens in order to wiretap a US citizen without a warrant

Furthermore, in the original FISA act, no communication to which a US person is "substantially likely" to be a party can be wiretapped without a warrant.

Unless you think the government is going to get a warrant to wiretap everyone's communications to and from the US (obviously too broad to ever be approved) I'd say it's clear that FISA does not permit bulk collection. The requirement of probable cause belies "bulk" collection. How could all communications contain a "probable cause"?
As for doing so without a warrant, obviously you would have to be targeting foreign powers and foreign agents, and it's obvious that not all communications to and from the US involve a foreign power or foreign agents.

Also, cinzia, I point out once again the FISA minimization requirements:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/usc...----000-.html#h

Never mind that it also makes no sense to even try to collect and sift through that much data.

As for the use of data collected in violation of FISA, I state once again that it would be a Fourth Amendment violation, and no, the government could not then use the illegally collected data or and derived from it to prosecute someone. If that information is used to stop a terrorist attack, do you still have a problem with its use? Of course, there has also been the interpretation by the Justice Department that FISA is not to be used for prosecutorial purposes.

BTW, here is the fourth minimization requirement:


The section 1802 to which the fourth minimization requirement refers is the statute that deals with electronic surveillance without a court order:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/usc...02----000-.html

Note that section 1801 strictly limits the use of data gathered under section 1802 (and that is for data gathered legally- that gathered illegally would tossed out as a Fourth Amendment violation in any criminal prosecution). Note also that section 1802 clearly says that a requirement for the gathering of data under that section is that "there is no substantial likelihood that the surveillance will acquire the contents of any communication to which a United States person is a party". And the minimization requirements apply. And so on.

Here's the federal statute on civil liability for a FISA violation:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/usc...10----000-.html

Cinzia, TBH, I think you read Greenwald too much and need to consider sources on the other side of the debate. Beyond the nuts and bolts of the FISA requirements and protections, remember that no legislation supsersedes the Fourth Amendment.

I don't have time to get a law degree and then evaluate the entire history of FISA before the Senate vote tomorrow. I have to do what every American should do and go to sources I trust, including Senator Feingold, to help me to evaluate the merits and necessity of what is a 170-page document. There are a lot of people writing about this, and I have read many of them. I think it's fair to say that I have read more than the vast majority of Americans, even if you don't approve of my sources.

I'll concede that Wen Ho Lee's case has nothing to do with FISA. It was only a guess anyway. The original FISA law was set up to protect wiretapping that was occurring against people like Martin Luther King. I guess whether or not he was "harmed" as a result of government spying on him depends on what the meaning of "harm" is to you.

As for whether people should sue the government rather than the telecoms, I did find this:

.
(This is a federal court decision issued just last week.) Whether or not that statement is true is something I have no resources to evaluate independently.

In general, I am heartened that there is debate going on at all about this issue, even though it's not on the mainstream news channels. Americans need to keep a close eye on their civil rights these days. I saw my sister-in-law, who is Chinese, over the weekend. Someone (rather tactlessly in context) asked her about free speech rights in China, and she had this to say in China's defense: "We have free speech in China. You only get in trouble if you abuse it."

I realize that America is a long way from China on civil rights, but I don't think concerns about erosion of civil rights under this Administration are unjustified.

Conquistador, you and I will continue to disagree on whether the new FISA legislation is dangerous or not. But I think that considering the volumes that have been written about the proposed law, both supporting and detracting, it's legitimate to come to personal conclusions on either side.

heh

crumbs that man on the right has even pissed himself . . . .

hey, that's bad bob!

McCain's sense of humor belies a lack of professionalism. I don't think he is funny at all. In fact I think he's probably a senseless asshole when it comes to presenting an image and dealing with international powers. Apparently for him, like with Bush, politics is just a big, sick fucking joke. Elect this old choad as president of the US? Couldn't the republicans do any better than this??

LA Times

krositzer, although what McCain said was dumb and certainly better left unsaid, have you ever noticed what Iranian politicians sometimes say about the US? I know you support Obama and thus don't like McCain, but surely his joke is far from the most serious issue our country is confronted with.

are there any Iranian politicians standing for the US presidency?

The only relevant comparison for McCain's offensive joke making is with other candidates such as Obama.