Well Impala asked



And I responded with cases in American history where Civil Liberties were grossly curtailed to provide security. I don't see how this is irrelevant and if anything makes rabble "less paranoid" because there has been occasions where this has happened (to use Impalas defense when rabble claimed Impala was paranoid about another attack Impala states:, I surely think that rabble can make the same argument).

I also was intrigued about Impala's response and I think is the main difference between rabble and Impala:


It's easy to see during the present why these intrusions are necessary for security, but in hindsight, misjudgments do occur and measures are needed to be corrected (the reason why Japanese Americans have all the rights as any other citizen nowadays).

I guess Impala thinks that in the future we won't label wiretapping as a governmental misjudgment while rabble does.

Oh and about the line in the stand argument. I think everyone does, regardless of how extreme. If something similar to the internment happened today, I would like to think that everyone (Impala included) would stand up to this injustice, shrug*

Hopefully I won't get every sentence I wrote (and sometimes clause) parsed and commented with some sort of sarcastic/borderline condescending phrase with an appropriate smilee (usually of the type or ).
<fingers crossed>

I'm on my phone so I can't do the quote stuff but I need to respond to this point in perticular, i know it won't change your mind because it is already set, but I feel it highlights where you are wrong.

You posted something to this effect: "its not wiretapping without warrants, its wiretapping suspected national security threats without warrants"

The key word here is suspect, why does the national security part modify the fact that its still wiretapping a suspect without a warrant, and if he IS a suspect then it should be easy enough to get a warrant. In fact, The FISA act allows for leeway for immediate wiretapping when a warrant is still in the process of being issued. So imediate action can be taken as long as a warrant is secured within a reasonable time.

The only logical explanation for the need for warrantless wiretaps is so that the government can wiretap everyone, run it through a computer looking for keywords (which I beleive they already do) and then be able to take that information and use it in a court of law against citizens. They cannot do this now because the unwarranted wiretaps would be thrown out, so they are trying to change the law. Stopping a terrorist is one thing, because they are more than likely not a citizen and therefore considered enemy combatants and sent to Cuba, but this sounds too much like trying to quell dissent in the citizen population by being able to charge joe blow in a court of law with whatever he talks about on the phone, and I am not comfortable with that.

dude, they CAN do that. Haven't you seen "The Bourne Supremacy"!

No I haven't seen that movie. I guess that in itself is a little extreme, but the potential for abuse is still there and I don't like it. I guess I'm paranoid afterall, but just because its paranoia doesn't make it less true.

here's your membership card. we are having the monthly meeting at Maxi park, BBQ and hotdogs. Cupcake is bringing the shotguns, i'm bringing the canned food, Lance is bringing the TinFoil Party Hats!


you're in charge of ice!

What can I bring?!?!







































(And I swear to god, if you say "titties" or similar, I will personally hunt you down and castrate you. )

This post has been edited by Spectatrix: Feb 19 2008, 04:20 PM

"boobies!"

Hmm, bring the paper plates and the football.

And this is where the tinfoil hat party starts. Not to mention paranoia that defies all logic. I told you already, you can't have a conspiracy without a motive. What's the motive for the government to do something like this? What does it accomplish for them? Does George Bush make more money or something by wrongfully accusing & arresting some burkha wearing exchange student? I don't jump on the conspiracy bandwagon easily, but I will consider them if, and only if there is a motive. There simply isn't one in this discussion.

Second, this is physically impossible. It cannot happen. There is not a computer on this planet that can do what you're talking about. You could take over all of google and yahoo and every other giant server farm out there, and it's not possible. You could take over all the telecoms and every piece of equipment people use to communicate, and it still wouldn't be possible. I have worked in the telecom industry for nearly four years now, in working with everything from old switches to VoIP and everything in between, not to mention actual call recording software. We've set up call recording for centers as small as 100 stations, taking approx. 40,000 calls/day and they eat up 10TB hd arrays in less than a month. That's 100 phones. Do you have any clue how many people in our country are talking on the phone right this second, or the amount of storage space and processing power you'd have to have to analyze every word???

as ira said. paper plates and football.


















and your titties

that YOU know about.....

way to completely ignore the rest of the post dumbass... Ignoring the bullshit paranoia crap you keep spewing to completely ignore the rest of the valid argument, it IS possible that in order to do an end run around the legal system, prosecutors could simply label ordinary citizens as national security risks and not have to worry about pesky things like evidence or probably cause. Hey, this guy has a koran in his car, lets wiretap him even though we have no other credible evidence that he is doing anything wrong!

you cannot argue this point without saying "they wouldn't do this, it isn't right, it isn't legal, they would never do it to me!" And the reason you can't use your "they wouldn't do this" argument is because thats exactly what this bill does, it makes warrantless wiretaps legal, it makes them right, it lets them snoop on anyone they want to by giving them a label.



Apparently not when they are given a label, I hope you stay on the right side of politics in the future, you wouldn't want to get the wrong kind of label.

I didn't ignore the rest of your post, I just didn't quote all of it. And adding "dumbass" to the end of each sentence doesn't help your debate.


I didn't say it wasn't possible for this to happen. I said it's unlikely, because there is no motive. I've asked you several times now what you thought the government would gain from doing things like this. What's their motive in doing such a thing?


Again, same thing. I know that the government could do what you're saying. They could also bring in the army and declare martial law and abolish all rights, but have they? No. The point here isn't what's possible, it's what's probable. For the umpteenth time, for a conspiracy theory to be true, there absolutely must be a motive of some sort. And in all this ranting and calling me a dumbass, you still have not given me any motive for such a conspiracy to exist.

And so because there isn't a motive today means there will never be an opportunity for this to be used on ordinary citizens in the future.

You are right, there isn't a rational reason why anyone would ever need to tap my phone or log my computer as of today, but the possibility that, if anyone felt like it, they could is what worries me. I'm not exactly sure how it is bullshit paranoia to objectively look at a situation and say " the potential of abuse is too great, therefore I do not like it and feel it is a violation of my rights." In fact, by your own admission you agree that they could do such a thing.

So the argument boils down to the fact that we both agree that they could wiretap anyone if they wanted and my argument is that there is too much risk of abuse while your argument is that they have mo reason to abuse it. Right, so I'm paranoid and you're living in a fantasy land where the government has never abused its power, I guess we are both totally nuts

mo' reason mo' problems as Biggie would say...

I'm not saying I completely trust the government. I just don't see a problem with letting them do what they say they're going to do, and don't really feel my rights are curtailed because [A] government person decides its ok vs [B] government person. [A] being some CIA investigator vs [B] being some judge. It's possible for them to abuse it any way you slice it. But I just can't get worked up over them abusing it if they don't really have much to gain out of it.