Awww... poor republicans Options

[pebkac]

http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2008/...-gop-stage.html

Wow... the democrats finally stand up to the republicans and now they're acting like children.

[rabble]

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.

[impala454]

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.

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???

[rabble]

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???

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.

It's not wiretapping without warrants. It's wiretapping suspected national security threats without warrants.

Bingo, so do you think if the government started knocking down an even remotely high number of doors, we wouldn't stand for it and would do something about it.

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.

[impala454]

way to completely ignore the rest of the post dumbass...

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.

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!

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?

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.

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.