[MARIS61]

Originally Posted by Talkhard

Why didn't Bush get warrants for the wiretapping? I don't know.

If evidence comes to light that he used the wiretaps against innocent citizens who had no record of contact with al Qaeda, and who could not in any way be considered security threats, then I will be the first to condemn him.

Of course you know. And so does the rest of the world. He didn't get them because he couldn't justify wiretapping 99% of the people whom he is wiretapping.

Peace activists, Medical Marijuana activists, Democratic Party members, Pro-Choice activists, Environmental activists, ACLU members, the NAACP, Independent Journalists and anyone else who could conceivably oppose any of his countless violations of law and crimes against humanity....in other words, Real Americans.

Quit playing dumb and condemn away.

[Stepping Razor]

Originally Posted by Talkhard

Why didn't Bush get warrants for the wiretapping? I don't know.

Thank you.

Stepping Razor

[Talkhard]

Of course you know. And so does the rest of the world. He didn't get them because he couldn't justify wiretapping 99% of the people whom he is wiretapping.

Peace activists, Medical Marijuana activists, Democratic Party members, Pro-Choice activists, Environmental activists, ACLU members, the NAACP, Independent Journalists and anyone else who could conceivably oppose any of his countless violations of law and crimes against humanity....in other words, Real Americans.

And you know this how?

[MARIS61]

Originally Posted by Talkhard

And you know this how?

I have 2 answers to that.

1. If they had terrorist links, no matter how slight, he would have absolutely no trouble at all getting warrants. Duh!

2. It conforms with all the other ways he has thumbed his nose at the Constitution, the civil liberties of Americans, and the American way of life in general.

[Ed O]

Originally Posted by SodaPopinski

2) That Bush is doing what's best to protect Americans, considering he's taken more vacation than any other president in U.S. history.

Can you give a link to anything supporting this? I don't have my John Adams biography in front of me, but I believe that he spent a massive amount of his presidency at home in Quincy.

And if I remember correctly presidents like Madison went home to Virginia in the summer to avoid getting sick in the city.

I'd hate to just think you're making something up or parroting something because you don't like Bush.

Edit: As I suspected, Adams/Madison and Jefferson were out of town a lot, too. And they didn't have anything better than letters to do their jobs, either. I somehow doubt this will stop the "more vacation than any other president in U.S. history" nonsense, though.

http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/8-7-2005-74403.asp

Ed O.

[Ed O]

For the record: I don't think we're blind to the terrorist threat. Eventually, something very, very bad will happen. I don't think that we should shut down the country because of it.

On the other hand, I never wore a seatbelt as a kid and when a law was passed I started wearing one. I don't even think about it now. Would an alternate Ed O. that grew up in a world without seatbelt laws be uncomfortable and maybe even disgusted? Probably.

Unless he was flung through a windshield because he didn't wear his seatbelt.

Ed O.

[MARIS61]

Originally Posted by Ed O

For the record: I don't think we're blind to the terrorist threat. Eventually, something very, very bad will happen. I don't think that we should shut down the country because of it.

On the other hand, I never wore a seatbelt as a kid and when a law was passed I started wearing one. I don't even think about it now. Would an alternate Ed O. that grew up in a world without seatbelt laws be uncomfortable and maybe even disgusted? Probably.

Unless he was flung through a windshield because he didn't wear his seatbelt.

Ed O.

You're not seriously attempting to compare Bush's illegal spying on American citizens to a seatbelt are you????

He's the kid on the overpass dropping boulders through people's windshields.

[Ed O]

Originally Posted by MARIS61

You're not seriously attempting to compare Bush's illegal spying on American citizens to a seatbelt are you????

It remains to be seen whether it's illegal, firstly.

Secondly, of course I'm not DIRECTLY comparing wiretapping--legal or not--to seatbelt laws. But the world and the country and the laws change to fit the times, and acting like the Constitution is going to be rendered null and void because of ANY sort of wiretapping is more chicken little-ish than anything Bush and Congress have done since 9/11.

George Bush is the most powerful man in the country. He heads the executive branch of the United States of America, and I believe that he should act in the country's best interests. He should not shy away from doing what he thinks is right merely because of potential political flak or because of potential gray areas in the law.

It might be illegal, and if it's not legal then Bush and his team will have to stop, and we will have to figure out what to do with the terrorists that appear not to be claiming innocence, but that they were unfairly discovered.

Ed O.

[SodaPopinski]

Originally Posted by Ed O

Can you give a link to anything supporting this? I don't have my John Adams biography in front of me, but I believe that he spent a massive amount of his presidency at home in Quincy.

And if I remember correctly presidents like Madison went home to Virginia in the summer to avoid getting sick in the city.

I'd hate to just think you're making something up or parroting something because you don't like Bush.

Edit: As I suspected, Adams/Madison and Jefferson were out of town a lot, too. And they didn't have anything better than letters to do their jobs, either. I somehow doubt this will stop the "more vacation than any other president in U.S. history" nonsense, though.

http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/8-7-2005-74403.asp

Ed O.

Maybe I should have said "taken more vacation than any president in the last 100 years." Either way - it still doesn't change my point. Talkhard implied that Bush is doing everything possible to protect the American people. My retort was that he clearly is not and cited his affinity for vacationing in Texas. Clearly the guy is entitled to vacation, and probably more than most of us deserve, but c'mon. Are you seriously arguing that the amount and length of the guy's time off is reasonable?

Need I remind anyone of the Katrina debacle when Bush refused to cut his vacation short to visit the Gulf Coast?

Get real, Ed O. The fact you even cited Adams and Madison is laughable.

-Pop

[hoojacks]

Originally Posted by Ed O

It remains to be seen whether it's illegal, firstly.

Wiretapping = illegal without a special warrant given by FISA courts. Bush didn't get the warrants. That's illegal.

This was already discussed at length earlier when Stepping Razor absolutely destroyed Talkhard's talking points. Go back and look.

[Talkhard]

So Bush is taking too much vacation time, eh? Not tending to affairs of state, I guess.

It might be useful to compare him to FDR, the patron saint of the Left. During World War II, FDR made frequent retreats to his home on the Hudson River. Late in the afternoon he’d tend to his stamp collection, after that it was the children’s hour, then time for a cocktail.

All this while Hitler was marching across Europe and threatening western civilization. Shocking!

[hoojacks]

Originally Posted by Talkhard

It might be useful to compare him to FDR

It's not. FDR isn't currently president.

[Stepping Razor]

Yet more evidence that any legitimate surveillance could have been conducted legally under FISA:

Several FISA judges said they also remain puzzled by Bush's assertion that the court was not "agile" or "nimble" enough to help catch terrorists. The court had routinely approved emergency wiretaps 72 hours after they had begun, as FISA allows, and the court's actions in the days after the Sept. 11 attacks suggested that its judges were hardly unsympathetic to the needs of their nation at war.

On Sept. 12, Bush asked new FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III in a Cabinet meeting whether it was safe for commercial air traffic to resume, according to senior government officials. Mueller had to acknowledge he could not give a reliable assessment.

Mueller and Justice officials went to Lamberth, who agreed that day to expedited procedures to issue FISA warrants for eavesdropping, a government official said.

The requirement for detailed paperwork was greatly eased, allowing the NSA to begin eavesdropping the next day on anyone suspected of a link to al Qaeda, every person who had ever been a member or supporter of militant Islamic groups, and everyone ever linked to a terrorist watch list in the United States or abroad, the official said.

In March 2002, the FBI and Pakistani police arrested Abu Zubaida, then the third-ranking al Qaeda operative, in Pakistan. When agents found Zubaida's laptop computer, a senior law enforcement source said, they discovered that the vast majority of people he had been communicating with were being monitored under FISA warrants or international spying efforts.

"Finally, we got some comfort" that surveillance efforts were working, said a government official familiar with Zubaida's arrest.

Stepping Razor