Pres. Bush

[Tasty]

Bush allows eavesdropping. What's next? Checking our mailboxes, intercepting email (oh wait, Carnivore did that), hell just come search our houses without warrants too. Anyone who thinks that this guy is protecting Americans by doing this type of stuff needs to wake up. I find this infringement on our rights to be quite frightening, and the fact that most Americans don't know it's going on is quite alarming as well. I can't wait til his tenure is up, and I don't think history will look kindly upon his presidency. Iraq is a lost cause, and we are wasting valuable resources on a country that will most likely be in major unrest when we leave no matter what we do to prevent it. Pardon my political rant.

[SpoiledMan]

I couldn't agree more!

[truzoom]

I'm really afraid of what else could happen in the next 2 years.

[JBM]

This is where 911 has ended us.

With the Patriot Act, the gov. can do whatever it wants.

BTW, the Patriot Act was written well before 911, interesting isnt it?

[Pontman43]

Um, I think this site should have a no politics rule. No offense, but this is one of those things you shouldn't talk about with mixed company, it could effect relationships.

Just a thought.

[White95Max]

Originally Posted by Pontman43

Um, I think this site should have a no politics rule. No offense, but this is one of those things you shouldn't talk about with mixed company, it could effect relationships.

Just a thought.

Many political threads have come and gone here, and usually they remain civil, but if they get out of hand, they are closed or deleted.

C'mon now, you shouldn't base who you like/dislike on their political beliefs. Whether someone likes or hates Bush shouldn't decide your thoughts on that person.

[Spilchy]

I'm curious if the President could do this based on the The War Powers Act. Anyway, President Bush authorized secret monitoring of communications of a handful of people (out of the 280 million US population) with known links to al-Qaeda and related terrorist organizations after 9/11.

Don't forget that CONGRESSIONAL LEADERS WERE BRIEFED 12 TIMES ABOUT THIS in closed sessions. The President DIDN’T do this without informing those on the intelligence committees. News flash people - American law allows this type of surveillance on its citizens. Presidents Lincoln and Roosevelt did this during times of war. However a warrant is required from a secret court, known as a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court which gives permission before intelligence officers can conduct surveillance on US soil. These warrants are almost always granted; basically a rubber stamping. However, these warrants can take weeks to materialize thus losing the element of speed to track down terrorists within the United States. President Bush side stepped this rubber stamping procedure in the name of national security in the wake of 9/11 to aid in thwarting an attack.

The NSA was not going through your average persons' trash picking out skid marked underwear, checking library records, or monitoring e-mail porn site confirmations. Relax, the boogey man isn't coming for you.

Revealing this classified information especially to the press is illegal and the person needs to be punished. Everyone (Democrats if you want to be political) got into a tizzy when that woman CIA agent was allegedly exposed by a White House source despite zero indictments on that specific charge even after weeks of a grand jury hearing. Hopefully we'll have a similar investigation and this source will be found and tried in a court.

People who are against the Patriot Act probably couldn't even describe the basic contents of the Act and its successes - http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...toryId=4756706 Many of its statutes were used for years against mobsters in federal RICO cases and international drug cartel leaders. Old laws have been modernized to deal with cell phones, voice mail and the Internet as well as provide better legal tools to law enforcement agencies for wiretapping and executing search warrants against those who wish to do us harm. It does NOT give the government carte blanche to do whatever they want. That’s an ill-informed, uneducated statement based on one’s own neuroses.

With these secret wiretaps put in place in an expeditious manner, the Federal government won't be slow to thwart another attack. Imagine if we had another terrorist attack and the government failed to move on crucial, timely intelligence like it did on 9/11? The same people complaining now would complain then too. You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. This will speed up the puzzle piecing process to connect the dots quicker to defeat the attempt on US citizens.

[Sherman8r44]

Great post Spilchy, I couldn't have said it better myself!

[Pontman43]

Originally Posted by White95Max

Many political threads have come and gone here, and usually they remain civil, but if they get out of hand, they are closed or deleted.

C'mon now, you shouldn't base who you like/dislike on their political beliefs. Whether someone likes or hates Bush shouldn't decide your thoughts on that person.

Its not really that its based on their political beliefs its just the argumenting will lead to dislike, most of the time. I happen to agree with Spilchy on this and I know democrats wont like him (and now I, just less so) as much for posting info proving theirs wrong. Nobody likes to be proven wrong , wether democratic or repulican, it just so happens that republicans prove democrats wrong more often.

[Picus]

You know it's a funny thing about the U.S. I lived there for ten years and people often asked me if it was very different from Canada - I always said it was but could never really pinpoint *what* was different (aside from all the really obvious small things). Shortly before I left I read an interesting article/thesis/study written by faculty/students in a joint effort from Boston University and Oxford - without getting into too much detail they determined that blood pressure and "stress levels" in Americans were much higher generally than anywhere else in the world - they didn't prioritize what they thought were the reasons but the first one they mentioned was that they felt based on their research that Americans, while no more opinionated than the average person from any other country, have an overwhelming desire to convince other people their opinion is the only right one, and this leads to confrontation and stress. I'm paraphrasing of course, it was a very detailed and interesting article. I just remember that part of it because when I read it I thought "that's the difference".

Sometimes it's ok for other people to have different opinions. It doesn't mean either of you is wrong, and sometimes it's really in each other best interests to accept that not everyone will agree with you all the time. Thinking you're opinion is the only right one is often very shortsighted.

Cheers.

[Setec Astronomy]

Isn't the problem the slippery slope? Where is the line drawn between who is a potential threat and who isn't? Is there going to be revisionist history, claiming that the Watergate break-in was really overblown, because they were really terrorist suspects that Nixon's guys were just checking up on? We defame Saddam Hussein for torturing his own people, then we invade his country and WE torture his people, and it takes a high profile agreement between W. and John McCain to keep the CIA from having carte blanche to do it any time they want to.

All I know is I can't cash my paycheck at the bank it's drawn on now, because I don't have an account there. I was told this was a Patriot Act effect. How me cashing my paycheck is threatening our security escapes me.

(Before you guys flame me, I CAN cash my check there if my employer writes a letter to the bank confirming that I am an employee, and I would only be able to cash it inside, not at the drive-thru. No thanks, I'll just (inconveniently) go to my own bank.)

As Frank Burns said, "I wouldn't be so paranoid if everyone wasn't out to get me". There is a balance with this...I know it's not 9/10 anymore...but it's not 9/12 anymore either.

[skipperw]

I echo the views of Spilchy. Now you guys that are upset and hate Bush no matter what he does know how I felt about Clinton. Just remember, Bush is President for 3 more years. Hope you don't get ulcers and high blood pressure over that, but I know you will.