Nothing new, I`m pretty sure as most of the articles have pointed out, this is just setting the stage for a huge supreme court case Some say its legal, some its illegal, all I know is its politics and material for the presidential run of 2016.
Candidates may run for or against such pervasive surveillance (in 2014 too), so we may get to see real change. Kind of like how Karzai in Afghanistan is leaving our presence there up to what the candidates run on in their next election. Isn't that how all this is supposed to work?
Conservatives begin to worry when their love of a fascist state falls into the hands of the opposing party. Conservatives love being the fascist but not its victims. All this paranioa of the state will die down when the powers of the state are no longer in the hands of a foreign born black Muslim and safely back in the hands of a while conservative bigot.
It's about control. The Powers That Be will use NSA data to ensure that no non-Statist candidate will get elected to the Presidency.
You know, the fact that your only concern is partisan in nature speaks volumes. The NSA really isn't going to care if you voted for Obama or not when eroding your rights and violating your privacy now are they? Your very generalized statement and the way you spin the race card into it makes you just as terrible as that conservative that you seem to hate so much. So much so that you call your fellow countryman fascists.
This goes beyond politics, party or president.
If Mitt were president, or one of the Paul's, it wouldn't matter.
Even if every American marched and demanded a change, and even if they claimed to have changed, and even if laws were passed to enact a change, nothing would change.
This is bigger than what the public or the constitution demands.
Within the dark hidden and most likely sinister corners of human existence, spying is high tech beyond your wildest imagination. Who it involves is unimportant. It involves all of us. And it's here to stay.
Because we are not the only players in the game, and the game has deadly consequences where entire civilizations could be wiped out of existence. Thus the necessity.
It doesn't matter if or what the SCOTUS rules, they are like an ant, a tiny minuscule speck up against the giant. If the high court should rule in favor of personal privacy, and anyone believes that would make any difference, well.... The jokes on you.
Oh I am sure a NY District Judge is not where this will end.
The NSA chose their judge well.
Actually that's one of Bill Clinton's
If you like your Constitutional Rights, you can keep them. Period. If you like your 4th Amendment, you can keep it. Period.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said that while President Bush was told last summer that bin Laden's al Qaeda network might hijack planes, "until the attack took place, I think it's fair to say that no one envisioned that [using planes as suicide bombs] as a possibility."
However, a federal report issued exactly two years before the Sept. 11 attacks contrasts with that statement.
The report, entitled the "Sociology and Psychology of Terrorism: Who Becomes a Terrorist and Why?," warned the executive branch that bin Laden's terrorists might hijack an airliner and dive bomb it into the Pentagon or other government building.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/what-bush-knew-before-sept-11/
It described the suicide hijacking as one of several possible retribution attacks al Qaeda might seek for the 1998 U.S. airstrike against bin Laden's camps in Afghanistan.
In a series of recent public statements, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has again denied that the Clinton administration presented the incoming administration of President George W. Bush with a "comprehensive strategy" against al-Qaeda.
Rice's denials were prompted by a September 22 Fox News interview with Bill Clinton in which the former president asserted that he had "left a comprehensive anti-terror strategy" with the incoming Bush administration in January 2001.
In a September 25 interview, Rice told the New York Post, "We were not left a comprehensive strategy to fight al-Qaida," adding that, "Nobody organized this country or the international community to fight the terrorist threat that was upon us until 9/11."
I've been considering the "conservative mind" and have come to the conclusion that they can be republicans or democrats, self labeled liberals or conservatives. To me people who adhere to "the free market" or government contrived "solutions" as THE solution, then justify their position by molding the conditions which exist into that which they want to believe would qualify.
A person who wish to keep that which has endures and benefits and does good is not bad because he's "conservative". He's not. He's a thoughtful steward.
A person who wishes to carefully consider what is not working and wishes to wisely investigate and bring about an improvement in our condition is not "liberal" in the usually used sense. He's a thoughtful steward.
Who is the "conservative mind" as I mean it? He who cannot see. He chooses the free market because someone told him it's wonderful. He chooses government and legislation because someone told him it's wonderful.
In truth neither is. What is then? It's when people work together for a common goal to remedy a commonly recognized problem. What is not a "conservative"? It is one who looks at that need and seeks solutions not based on some faith, but by investigation of that need for a clear understanding of the concern, why it exists and what can be done to remedy or mitigate by means which may or may not exist. Those who say "this will fix that and who are you to question" ARE the "conservative minds" that plague the world. The ones who don't care about the person, the problem or the best solution. It's about winning. It's about insisting something will work because it's done elsewhere and completely disregarding the facts as they apply here. It's about dogma. Your party, your monetary philosophy. Oppose investigation. Oppose others. Pick your poison and make everyone eat. Defend, deny, decry. Do whatever it takes to uphold your philosophy and damn the results. You can spin that later. Never change. Never look for the best. Never put anything before that. Be "conservative"
Note this is my personal interpretation of what Moonbeam presents. Yours may be different. His ideas may be wholly out of sync with mine. He may not even mean more than to provoke thought and have someone do this. Maybe none of the above.
FWIW
It all changed after 9/11 and the fear it caused, it has to be able to be dialed back without putting us in danger. Hardened cockpit doors was all that was really needed in the wake of 9/11, along with maybe paying attention to those National Security Briefs when they say things like "Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US." And pay attention to other warnings.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/what-bush-knew-before-sept-11/
http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB147/
Nice and thanks.
Is the mind open or is it closed. Is the mind certain of completeness or open to question. Is the mind defensive or relaxed. Is the mind tolerant or not to difference. In all that we think or believe, how did we arrive there and what is our motivation.
I used to be a believer who began to doubt and the greater my need to be sure and to prove the more I tore up what I constructed until I was stripped of everything and found there only sad misery. I did not know then that my need for meaning was as meaningless as everything else. It was only when I finally gave up and surrendered to my fate that I awoke in the silence empty bliss of being. It was only in an room empty of ego that love would appear for me. I seek to empty rooms of things.
The world is hell bent of filling rooms with this and that, with the finest of intellectual structures. I polished the walls of my room so they reflect the universe....more or less, anyway, in that direction.
But the odd thing about being empty is how easy it is to see when people are full of things and if you tell them their things are worthless it makes them angry. I remember that anger well.
Everybody seems to want the answers to their problem to come from outside, some new world in which they would really be happy. But happiness is the natural state of the mind that has no ego. There are a million paths to the destruction of the ego, and we have turned them all into things to fill our rooms. The truth is the emptiness and we can't see it because of our things.
There is no hope out there. There are no answers. There is nothing to do or become. We were born perfect with everything we need, the love of life that comes from being human, the capacity to feel everything and be what we feel. But we don't play our song. We get stuck in the grooves.
There have been incidents in the past such as the Japanese shelling of California ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombardment_of_Ellwood ) that lead to citizens of Japanese descent being interned. There's no excuse for violating the Constitution. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_American_internment
If the Obama administration wants to change it they can do it the legal way, not by Imperial decree.
Nice and thanks.
Is the mind open or is it closed. Is the mind certain of completeness or open to question. Is the mind defensive or relaxed. Is the mind tolerant or not to difference. In all that we think or believe, how did we arrive there and what is our motivation.
I used to be a believer who began to doubt and the greater my need to be sure and to prove the more I tore up what I constructed until I was stripped of everything and found there only sad misery. I did not know then that my need for meaning was as meaningless as everything else. It was only when I finally gave up and surrendered to my fate that I awoke in the silence empty bliss of being. It was only in an room empty of ego that love would appear for me. I seek to empty rooms of things.
The world is hell bent of filling rooms with this and that, with the finest of intellectual structures. I polished the walls of my room so they reflect the universe....more or less, anyway, in that direction.
But the odd thing about being empty is how easy it is to see when people are full of things and if you tell them their things are worthless it makes them angry. I remember that anger well.
Everybody seems to want the answers to their problem to come from outside, some new world in which they would really be happy. But happiness is the natural state of the mind that has no ego. There are a million paths to the destruction of the ego, and we have turned them all into things to fill our rooms. The truth is the emptiness and we can't see it because of our things.
There is no hope out there. There are no answers. There is nothing to do or become. We were born perfect with everything we need, the love of life that comes from being human, the capacity to feel everything and be what we feel. But we don't play our song. We get stuck in the grooves.
Wow. That's going into my 'Inspirations' folder. I was fortunate enough to get a free ticket to see His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama when he came to southern California. He kept repeating, "Follow the emptiness."
I see all these 'sides' going at each other. There is angst here over 'ideological differences' as well as in the Middle East's civil wars. Basically we all have morals. There are about 6.5B different versions of them, and rationally our governments need to rise above them by governing via logic and inclusiveness. Isn't that what our founders were doing?
Behind all the ego wrangling is that ever present emptiness.
As I seek the core of my humanity behind my ego, opinions, reactions etc. I find the only true answer I can give to the question, "Who are you?" And that is, "Awareness." That's where I attempt to live with some success. Only from there can I understand all sides.