Date: Thu Dec 29 21:15:45 2005
From: bruen at coldrain.net (bruen@...drain.net)
Subject: complaints about the governemnt spying!

On Thu, 29 Dec 2005, Paul Schmehl wrote:

> Yes, because 1) the program isn't illegal

   Well, about five years ago a lwa was passed forbidding *any* government 
employee including the president from such spying seems to make it 
illegal. This is will be determined by the legal and political process 
during the next year or so.

> and 2) the program was top secret. 
> In order for the Times to print the story, they had to encourage people who 
> had sworn a secrecy oath to break the law.  Then, knowing that what they were 
> publishing would tip off the terrorists to what the government was doing to 
> capture them, they published it anyway.

    Your logic is out of sequence. For the Times to convince people to talk 
about it implies that the Times knew about it first. How could that be the 
case if it was top secret? Someone who knew had to have initiated it, not 
the Times.


> And the funniest thing of all is that they got stupid Americans all riled 
> about about civil and privacy rights in the process, completely losing track 
> of what's really important - preventing another attack on our soil.

   I resent being called stupid because I believe in our constitution, 
individual liberty and freedom. My civil rights make my country what it 
is. None of this diminishes the need to protect our country or my 
recognition of this. The only stupidity is thinking it's okay to eliminate 
the values that make this country great. When we give it all up we become 
like any other dictatorship.


> Or have you already forgetten that terrorists have been killing us (and many 
> others around the world) since the 1970's without pause?  Do I really need to 
> publish the litany of people that have died - people like Leon Klinghoeffer, 
> a wheelchair-bound elderly Jew who was pushed off a boat to drown in the 
> ocean simply because he was a Jew?  People like Petty Officer Stethem who was 
> beaten, shot in the head and dumped on the airport tarmac for the crime of 
> being a member of the US military?  Do we really need to review the bloody 
> history of Islamic terrorism for you to get the point?

   No need to review the atrocities, but if you want smething to review, 
just look at how Hitler started to remove civil rights in Germany after he 
was *elected* to office.

> Thousands had died before 9/11, yet the world slept.  Now the world is going 
> back to sleep, insisting that the *real* problem is repressive governments, 
> not people who slaughter innocent men, women and children of every race, 
> creed, nationality and sex without discrimination and without mercy.

   This is not a binary choice, unless your brain only sees black and 
white. It's all shades of grey and lots of colors. We can still defeat 
enemies of our country without sacrificing our values. This is the knid of 
thinking that leads to repressive governments. The US is the only super 
power left and it has more responsibility because of the status - which it 
mostly meets. That does not require that incompetent people use easy and 
possibly illegal means to do their job.

>
>> It seems so many have forgotten who the true enemy is.
>> 
> Yes, they have.  Especially the anti-war bozos who think they can tame a 
> Zarqawi by giving in to his demands.  And apparently many more who think 
> terrorism is no menace at all.

   You have a whole bunch of unfounded assumptions here. I believe in our 
civil rights and I believe Al Qaeda should be crushed. I also know that 
the invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, except as an excuse.

>> "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
>> safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." (Jefferson, 1759).
>> 
> Note the modifiers "essential" and "temporary".  You give up liberties all 
> the time for the better of society.  Or have you forgotten that you can get a 
> ticket for speeding, be arrested for getting drunk or go to jail for burning 
> down your own house?

    Liberties are defined a little bit better than this. Try reading the 
Consitution...  I don't understand how you can compare a speeding ticket 
to something like freedom to assemble or freedom of the press.

Here's Article IV:

   The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers,
   and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be
   violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause,
   supported  by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place
   to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

  You have demeaned the the US and the real values for which it stands in 
your efforts to justify acts which appear to go against the Constitution. 
No amount of cries that the sky is falling is enough to excuse the 
undermining of our rights and freedoms.

> Society has rules for a reason.  Sometimes those rules impose limits on what 
> you can and can't do.

   Yes and sometimes those reasons are wrong (eg: slavery, women don't get 
to vote, no one can drink and personal gain). The rules are always subject 
the to the will of the people.

> We could remove the ID checks for airports and just let the terrorists 
> blow planes up willy-nilly.  I suppose there are some people who 
> wouldn't be too bothered by that, so long as it isn't the plane they are 
> on that's being blown up.

   That sounds good, but you forgot to mention that all the 9/11 hijackers 
had ID - legitimate IDs. Checking IDs did not stop the hijackers. There 
are other, better ways to handle it. I have seen 83 year great-mothers 
forced to take off their shoes - oops no bomb there. What about the diaper 
pins being removed from the baby - oops no bomb there either.

  You simply do not know what you are talking about. And because of that, 
people like you and W are failing us.

                 cheers, bob

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