[blackshoe]

It may well be that the Obama administration is using the "national security" excuse to hide "failures". It may also well be that there are legitimate national security issues involved when the administration declines to tell us all it knows for that stated reason. One can rail against the situation, but frankly, if the price of not hearing the "excuse" is loss of American lives, or even an increased potential therefor, well, I'm inclined to live with the situation. YMMV, of course.

[Winstonm]

PassedOut, on Nov 7 2009, 03:05 PM, said:

Winstonm, on Nov 7 2009, 01:58 PM, said:

Quote

Obama promised transparency and -- to my mind at least -- has been doing a very good job of that.

Except when it comes to national security issues - then it's the same old Bush-Cheney hide our failures and illegalites from the world mentality. It takes an Italian judge to convict 23 CIA employees of an illegal kidnapping and rendition.

Yes, I should probably have limited my comment in that respect.

However, national security issues raise many complicated transparency issues, and it seems reasonable for me to take that a lot slower. I hope to see progess in that area over the coming years, with a good deal of care taken. I don't mind legitimate security classifications, but I oppose the use of secrecy to hide simple mistakes and sheer incompetence.

My single largest complaint with the Obama administration has been the continuation and reinforcement of the "National security" claim, that no court can look into and thus no wronged can bring suit against the government if the government claims it was necessary for national security interests.

This one single claim above anything else eliminates the inherent checks and balances on power in our form of government, and it defies totally the concept of the rule of law and the U.S. as a nation of laws.

[PassedOut]

blackshoe, on Nov 7 2009, 03:47 PM, said:

It may well be that the Obama administration is using the "national security" excuse to hide "failures". It may also well be that there are legitimate national security issues involved when the administration declines to tell us all it knows for that stated reason. One can rail against the situation, but frankly, if the price of not hearing the "excuse" is loss of American lives, or even an increased potential therefor, well, I'm inclined to live with the situation. YMMV, of course.

If I understood your post correctly, we agree.

[Winstonm]

Quote

blackshoe - One can rail against the situation, but frankly, if the price of not hearing the "excuse" is loss of American lives, or even an increased potential therefor, well, I'm inclined to live with the situation. YMMV, of course.

Quote

PassedOut - If I understood your post correctly, we agree

I consider you both very bright and caring individuals - patriots - but I cannot grasp how you can so easily sweep aside the big picture for a small measure of unproven safety.

This issue has been well-documented by Glenn Greenwald in many different articles. For example, this:

Quote

As the plaintiffs' lawyers put it last July (emphasis in original), government officials:

seek to transform a limited, common law evidentiaryprivilege  into sweeping immunity for their own unlawful conduct. . . . [They] would sweep away these vital constitutional principles with the stroke of a declaration, arrogating to themselves the right to immunize any criminal or unconstitutional conduct in the name of national security. . . .

For that reason, as they pointedly noted the last time the Obama DOJ sought to compel dismissal based on this claim:  "defendants' motion is even more frightening than the conduct alleged in the Amended Complaint."  Think about that argument:  the Obama DOJ's secrecy and immunity theories are even more threatening than the illegal domestic spying programs they seek to protect. 

The Obama DOJ argument is that the Executive Branch can claim national secrets vital to national security and thus place any action the executive branch has either authorized or taken as off limits to scrutiny by the courts, effectively eliminating any checks and balances on the power of the president to commit and order crimes committed in the name of national security.

Do you really want people like Nixon, Haldeman, and Erlichman to have that kind of power?.

[Al_U_Card]

Of course, it could also apply to the allowing of Big pharma immunity to escape prosecution for the after-effects of any swine-flu vaccine.....talk about pre-existing conditions!

[PassedOut]

Winstonm, on Nov 7 2009, 04:24 PM, said:

The Obama DOJ argument is that the Executive Branch can claim national secrets vital to national security and thus place any action the executive branch has either authorized or taken as off limits to scrutiny by the courts, effectively eliminating any checks and balances on the power of the president to commit and order crimes committed in the name of national security.

Do you really want people like Nixon, Haldeman, and Erlichman to have that kind of power?.

Of course I don't want claims of national secrets to conceal crimes. But some information, if revealed, can put in danger the lives of real people. Obama now has the responsibility for protecting those lives, and it seems to me that he clearly takes that responsibility very seriously.

Obama can release all kinds of economic and governmental information without putting lives at risk, and so far he's doing just that. But I certainly think he'd be abdicating his responsibilities by releasing information that would risk the lives of those serving the US, so he needs to be very careful about what does get released. He certainly shouldn't release sensitive information to avoid political heat.

I do hope that more information will be released in the future, and released more quickly than it has been. But judges are not perfect either, and they do not have the same responsibilities that a president has.

As voters, we need to be sure to elect leaders we can trust. If it turns out that we can't trust Obama, he'll have to be turned out of office. That's very slow, and far from perfect, I realize. But I'd rather be kept in the dark about some matters than have other people lose their lives to satisfy my curiosity.

[blackshoe]

I do agree with PassedOut on this one. Some of you, no doubt, will consider this prima facie evidence that he's wrong.

[mike777]

blackshoe, on Nov 7 2009, 10:37 PM, said:

I do agree with PassedOut on this one. Some of you, no doubt, will consider this prima facie evidence that he's wrong.

Given we have decades of evidence that the CIA, NSA and DIA go around breaking the law, the laws of many countries. At the very least lets put those people in front of the Hague Court. Wiretapping, bribery, weapon running, etc etc etc.

As Winston has said if we are going to enforce the law, lets enforce all of them and not pick and choose.


BTW has anyone noticed how many people we are spying on inside the USA. Call it surveillance or whatever.

Just last night CNN reported how the FBI is spying on American muslims in NYC who thought the killings at Fort HOOD were a good thing.

[PassedOut]

mike777, on Nov 7 2009, 11:14 PM, said:

Just last night CNN reported how the FBI is spying on American muslims in NYC who thought the killings at Fort HOOD were a good thing.

Is that reprehensible?

[mike777]

PassedOut, on Nov 8 2009, 12:03 AM, said:

mike777, on Nov 7 2009, 11:14 PM, said:

Just last night CNN reported how the FBI is spying on American muslims in NYC who thought the killings at Fort HOOD were a good thing.

Is that reprehensible?

First off you do not quote 90% of my post or my main point which is about spying /breaking the law outside the USA.



CNN said these guys do not break any laws, so spying on Muslims is ok?

They have not been tried or arrested or convicted, but spying on them is ok?


Just not sure where this line is?

Ok to spy on you for what you think?


Ok to spy on you without a warrant or telling the American people the details is ok?, when?


BTW you do not quote 90% of my post which is about breaking the law outside the USA.

I mean this sounds just like Bush.

[Winstonm]

Quote

BTW has anyone noticed how many people we are spying on inside the USA. Call it surveillance or whatever.

As you know only too well, Mike, there is no "whatever" to it. What is done and how it is done is the essence of legality.

[PassedOut]

mike777, on Nov 8 2009, 12:34 AM, said:

PassedOut, on Nov 8 2009, 12:03 AM, said:

mike777, on Nov 7 2009, 11:14 PM, said:

Just last night CNN reported how the FBI is spying on American muslims in NYC who thought the killings at Fort HOOD were a good thing.

Is that reprehensible?

First off you do not quote 90% of my post or my main point which is about spying /breaking the law outside the USA.

CNN said these guys do not break any laws, so spying on Muslims is ok?

They have not been tried or arrested or convicted, but spying on them is ok?

I quoted only this line from your post because I pretty much agreed with the rest of your points. I don't hold with breaking laws outside the US and I don't believe in indiscriminate spying on citizens, whatever their religion.

In the one line I quoted though, it seemed plausible to me that those being watched had earned that distinction legitimately. This is the same FBI that came in for a lot of criticism for failing to follow up on leads about the eventual 9/11 hijackers.

[blackshoe]

Ah, but see, they get to have it both ways - if the FBI (or whoever) fails to spy on somebody or other, and they do something bad, well then, the FBI screwed up, and we should round 'em up and shoot 'em. And if the FBI does spy on somebody, well then, they're violating that somebody's rights, and we should round 'em up and shoot 'em.

Hell with it. Let's just purge the FBI, the CIA, and any other part of government we don't like. That'll fix it!

[Winstonm]

Quote

Ah, but see, they get to have it both ways - if the FBI (or whoever) fails to spy on somebody or other, and they do something bad, well then, the FBI screwed up, and we should round 'em up and shoot 'em. And if the FBI does spy on somebody, well then, they're violating that somebody's rights, and we should round 'em up and shoot 'em.

There are some (I won't mention Mike777) who have mastered the art of confusing the issue by using words and ideas that are similar but which in fact do not state the issues but only serve to mask the case.

The issues here are not spying, monitoring, or any other euphenism for investigative police work - the issues here are state-sponsored crimes, kidnapping, renditioning, systemic torture as national policy, and then not allowing any kind of investigation into wrongdoing due to claims of "state secrets priveledges".

Quote

Given we have decades of evidence that the CIA, NSA and DIA go around breaking the law, the laws of many countries.

We do not have many decades of evidence of systemic state-sponsored torture as official U.S. policy. That began with Bush-Cheney.
We do not have decades of evidence of systemic NSA wiretapping without warrants as a national policy. That began with Bush-Cheney.

[Winstonm]

blackshoe, on Nov 8 2009, 10:53 AM, said:

Ah, but see, they get to have it both ways - if the FBI (or whoever) fails to spy on somebody or other, and they do something bad, well then, the FBI screwed up, and we should round 'em up and shoot 'em. And if the FBI does spy on somebody, well then, they're violating that somebody's rights, and we should round 'em up and shoot 'em.

Hell with it. Let's just purge the FBI, the CIA, and any other part of government we don't like. That'll fix it!

Blackshoe,

I hope you don't take this personally as I think you are quite bright - but this post reminds me exactly of the type of thing my brother has often said that ends our discussions.

Like our last discussion when in one giant leap backwards for mankind's logic my brother went from a somewhat civil discussion of the effective potential and even legitimacy of a counterinsurgency effort in Afghanistan to his saying, "So we won't do anything, then, just wait until they blow up a suitcase nuke in Portland."

Huh? How does one answer that type of accusation/statement/claim/exaggeration/fictional belief/reason/hype?


"Hell with it. Let's just purge the FBI, the CIA, and any other part of government we don't like. That'll fix it!"

This is is not really argument - it is misdirection by oversimplification.

[mike777]

Winston, the CIA and NSA are in the business of state sponsored crimes. They are sponsored by the government and they go around the world doing illegal stuff. They have indeed done this for decades, forever, not just the last couple of years.

They wiretap, they bribe, they run weapons, they try and kill people and overthrow governments, etc etc.


Now if you are suggesting the CIA, FBI and NSA are breaking USA law, lets cut off their funding and have them investigated by each other or by Congress or by someone.


As far as I know the CIA has been investigated in the past, is being investigated today and will be investigated in the future. At the very least lets have Congress set up an oversight committee to, well, do oversight. Lets make the President also do oversight of these agencies. This would seem to be at least a first step. Lets have the FBI check out the CIA and NSA. Lets have the Justice Dept check out everyone.

IN fact FBI guys have been thrown in jail for crimes.

[Winstonm]

Quote

Winston, the CIA and NSA are in the business of state sponsored crimes.

They are not in the business of systemic torture as U.S. policy. At least they were not in that business until after 9-11. That is the very real and very big difference.

[blackshoe]

http://en.wikipedia....ional_oversight

FBI guys have been thrown in jail for crimes. They've also not been thrown in jail for crimes. I'm not sure where the line is drawn, to be honest. Perhaps it's moved from time to time.

Winston: next time they're handing out senses of humor, you should try to be there.

[mike777]

Winstonm, on Nov 8 2009, 03:29 PM, said:

Quote

Winston, the CIA and NSA are in the business of state sponsored crimes.

They are not in the business of systemic torture as U.S. policy. At least they were not in that business until after 9-11. That is the very real and very big difference.

Hopefully at some point the CIA will stop torturing people as state policy. I guess it remains state policy to still have the CIA kill people. I think I have read news reports that the CIA has killed directly or by proxy hundreds of people this year alone. If true I hope someone tells the CIA director and the President.

At some point the President and Congress will need to step in and put their feet down if the CIA keeps hurting people.

[luke warm]

from the nyt

Quote

For all the pain caused by the Great Recession, the job market still was not in as bad shape as it had been during the depths of the early 1980s recession — until now.

With the release of the jobs report on Friday, the broadest measure of unemployment and underemployment tracked by the Labor Department has reached its highest level in decades. If statistics went back so far, the measure would almost certainly be at its highest level since the Great Depression.

In all, more than one out of every six workers — 17.5 percent — were unemployed or underemployed in October. The previous recorded high was 17.1 percent, in December 1982.

from the birmingham news

just thought i'd get it back on topic