Posted on 12/03/2001 10:00:13 PM PST by Mercuria
Even in the worst of times, there's always something to be grateful for, a silver lining in the darkest cloud. For my part, I'm grateful the attacks and the events after it didn't happen while Bill Clinton was in office. Clinton was fundamentally in love with power. As he did after the bombing in Oklahoma City, and school shootings, he would have taken advantage of the deaths of other Americans for his own political advancement. In an example of extreme hypocrisy, his backers would call his grubby exploitation honoring the dead, and would accuse anyone who disagrees of having no concern for the loss of life. I've never understood the attitude that the way to memorialize the dead is by giving up freedom, the thing that makes us Americans. All I can say is, I'm glad Republicans don't have that attitude.
Picture what Clinton might have done, through crass political manipulation of the crisis. It would have been an excuse for a federal power grab. I'd imagine that he would get laws passed making it legal for his jack-booted thugs to search homes without even telling the person whose property is searched. He's the kind of dangerous politician to have done that, and more. He might have gone further, letting federal law enforcement track what content a person accesses over the internet, and, in his boundless desire to have unlimited authority over ordinary people, he might have required a lower standard of proof than probable cause. Maybe the only requirement would be that it's relevant to an investigation. I'm glad Bush is in office instead.
In 1998, the Clinton administration released plans to implement a set of regulations called "Know Your Customer", which would have required banks to determine the sources of customers' funds, track their transactions, and report anything considered unusual. The reports would be investigated by something called FinCEN, which would keep the records around for the feds to snoop through, regardless of whether there was any evidence of a crime. The whole idea was abandoned after a public outcry. Bill Clinton thus showed himself to be an enemy of financial privacy, and given what we know about his unscrupulousness he wouldn't have hesitated to exploit the situation to resume his attack. Maybe he would have revived Know Your Customer, or maybe he would have attacked privacy some other way. Maybe he would have made all retailers follow the rules banks already follow under the misnamed Bank Secrecy Act.
On that subject, that Democrats give their bills gimmicky, misleading names has always annoyed me. It's as if they know that political truth in advertising would undo them. If the Bank Secrecy Act had been called the Spy Bank Accounts Act, nobody would have voted for it. Clinton probably would've bundled all of it together in a single bill with a gimmick name like the "Patriot Act". I'm glad the honorable man in the White House now would never do something like that.
Beyond Clinton himself, there was his authoritarian Attorney General, Janet Reno. The Butcher of Waco would have plunged headlong into whatever tyranny she thought she could get away with. That was her nature, seeing no reason not to have a police state and every reason to have one, and thus subjugating ordinary people to official thuggery every time she could. By now she might have hundreds of people held incommunicado in jail, without charges, and in secret. The worst fears of the black helicopter crowd would be coming true. That woman, I tell you, had no respect whatsoever for our basic legal traditions. She might even have gotten the FBI to spy on political and religious organizations, creating the opportunity for purely political investigations like J. Edgar Hoover used to have.
But maybe I've taken it too far. Even if she wanted to, the public would never stand for that. War or not, there would be enough public complaint to stop that. And even if the public is too complacent, at least we now have good men in office, who would never take advantage of that kind of complacency.
It does if you can actually choose to let one person have it but not the next one, which is unlike the situation with presidents. You gave counter-examples, but none of them work, as we'll see.
You mean like letting one President have the line item veto, briefly, but then no other President got it?
That was, you might recall, struck down as unConstitutional by the Supreme Court. If it had been held Constitutional, Bush would have it now. Actually, that supports my case, because it was enacted to go into effect in 1997, after the inauguration. The republicans in Congress meant it for Dole, but only the intervention of the Court took it away from Clinton.
Or like initiating a prohibition on alcohol during one or two administrations and then repealing that power for other administrations?
You may or may not know that it took an amendment to repeal prohibition, and that this amendment was passed with the encouragement of the then president, FDR. Prohibition doesn't really fit, however, because it wasn't a discretionary power; the president was required by it to act in a particular way.
Or like reigning in Presidential powers with something like the War Powers Act so that other Presidents didn't have the power that one President in particular had?
It wasn't that one president in particular. Remember, Johnson had used the same powers Nixon had. If you'll look at what they did, it didn't apply just to Richard Nixon. They saw, rightly, that the problem was too much power vested in the president, and took some away. The only problem is, they didn't go far enough.
Maybe we should learn the lesson and limit, not expand, the powers of the president.
Let me ask you a serious question. Do you really think these new powers are going to just go away if a democrat takes office?
Logic, facts, and reason would actually be preferred
If you can avoid confusing sophistry for logic and repeated sophistry for reason, we might get somewhere.
In this discussion with Southack you are fairing badly. You don't realize it, nor does this pack of folks that forms this "mutual admiration society" (I haven't quite got my hands around who you all are or what you stand for yet), but you are...very badly. It reminds me of Mullah Omar's declarations throughout this engagement...or the Black Knight in Monty Python's "Holy Grail" having no arms and legs left shouting he will be victorious.
I will go back to the theme I started with early in this thread...too subtle perhaps so I will spell it out clearly...I you write these post to make yourself feel good that's fine. If you are trying to get people to see the world differently, to come over to your side, you need to give them facts to chew on. Simply responding back to their logic, which from what I've seen is accurate and excellent, with "quips" and circular logic will not win supporters.
And yet, power was taken away from future Presidents...
Yes, it does.
You know, even under the "Patriot" Act, they have to get a judge to get permission to read your content. They don't have to show probable cause, but they do need to go to a judge. Would they need that if it were public domain?
Either sniffers have a right to view your (and everyone else's) coincidental data packets while they are diagnosing technical problems AND other software on other machines have a similar right to examine data packets OR only the intended reciever of the data has the right to read packets (which would shut down the Internet because reading packets is REQUIRED for routing and technical diagnostics).
False choice. There are other options, specifically, only the intended HUMAN recipient has a right to read it without a warrant. How hard is that to understand? There's a difference between computers passing it over and even checking for technical problems, and another PERSON reading it. Are you even capable of understanding my point, or are you simply an idiot?
Flashback...
Don't be silly. Carnivore was in use for YEARS before the Patriot Act was even put on paper. President Bush and Congress only want the court order because they want to set good precedents for future government behavior. Just with packet radio alone I can conclusively show that both government and private machines have a right to listen in on all data traffic, and that's merely a layman's example.
How about not having them?
Show us you are as smart as you think you are. Some bulleted 30K foot concepts would be a good start. We can dig into the details from there.
I'm not going to write alternative proposals for tyranny.
In this discussion with Southack you are fairing badly.
I just reallized how right you are. The fact that's he's unwilling to even address what I'm saying, instead responding to what he wishes I'd say, means I'm wrong. How could I not see that? How could I be so blind?
It reminds me of Mullah Omar's declarations throughout this engagement...or the Black Knight in Monty Python's "Holy Grail" having no arms and legs left shouting he will be victorious.
How could I not see? The fact that he's too willfully obtuse to see a difference between a human and a computer makes me a loser!
Simply responding back to their logic, which from what I've seen is accurate and excellent
The word for it is sophistry.
Yes, that sometimes happens. What are you willing to stake on it happening this particular time? More, how much are you willing to stake on it happening with a major fight and significant abuses?
Your premise is fatally flawed. When you hook up a sniffer to view data traffic, the humans involved can see ALL of the data in those packets in plain text, and they are certainly not the intended recipients of those messages. Another flaw in your reasoning is the human versus machine difference. Once you let machines read or record data traffic, the genie is out of the bottle. An analogy to what you are claiming would be letting a machine tape record a phone conversation be legal so long as no person was allowed to listen to the tape. The flaw in that position is that there is no law preventing an American from listening to a tape. Once the tape is recorded, the genie is out of the bottle. The same holds true for letting other machines read data traffic. Once the machine has been permitted access, the genie is loose. You can't go stop a human from looking at the data on their own machine, after all.
I hope that helps.
The worst parts of the "Patriot" Act don't sunset, which means that if Bush loses in 2004, the democrat will have them. Then, the only way to take them away will be a major fight.
Or he simply has somewhat more repect for the Constitution than whoever set up Carnivore.
First, I want sources. Second, these aren't FBI investogators looking, so it's not the same thing.
Another flaw in your reasoning is the human versus machine difference.
LOL
Once you let machines read or record data traffic, the genie is out of the bottle. An analogy to what you are claiming would be letting a machine tape record a phone conversation be legal so long as no person was allowed to listen to the tape.
No, your argument is like saying that since the phone wires "listen" to conversations, humans in general and federal investigators in particular can too.
That's very true (and almost goes without saying). Hopefully I've been able to show you that even Carnivore is legal, however, due to the very nature of the internet (i.e., public funds to found it, public data to manage routing, et al).
AJ: How about not having them?
LBT: Show us you are as smart as you think you are. Some bulleted 30K foot concepts would be a good start. We can dig into the details from there.
AJ: I'm not going to write alternative proposals for tyranny.
OK thanks for helping me calibrate on your position. Educate me please...what position does this mindset represent? Is it libertarian? Anarchist? Green?
And as for you, A.J., whatever your reasoning, do not call me out of my name again.
Huh?
Did you or did you not send me email here at FR that read, "You're an idiot"?
Yes or no?
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