after 2 years in office it was pretty clear he wasn't going to stop anything related to the patriot act. There was no bombast or rhetoric from him during its renewal either
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NYT Editorial: Obama Administration "Has Lost All Credibility" (Re: NSA monitoring)
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after 2 years in office it was pretty clear he wasn't going to stop anything related to the patriot act. There was no bombast or rhetoric from him during its renewal either
Particle Physicist
between a quark and a baryon
The American government's obsession with war and national security is just creepy. Hardly a problem with just Obama though it is disappointing to see his continued policies with it. Shooshoo President Hussein Obamacareooo
The fuck is that supposed to mean?
Liberty4all
Banned
People deserve a proper trial instead of kangaroo military courts sentencing them to death?
Even pieces of shit like him.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
Okay no. The Patriot act is terrible. What the NSA is doing here is terrible. Don't get me wrong. But I am going to continue to call out this quote as really really dumb every time someone uses it. Balancing the freedoms afforded by security and the freedoms supported by lack of restrictions is central to society and civilization and it is a balance
POWERSPHERE
Member
Are there any interviews or debates where Obama is questioned on this stuff?
Pretty much. It's the entire idea behind "laws".
How about Thomas Jefferson:
"A government big enough to give you everything you want, is a government big enough to take away everything that you have."
Our founding fathers weren't idiots. They understood Tyranny.
Actions speak louder than words. This is what creeps me out about him. He can sound so sincere and authentic and then he'll turn around and act like a completely different person.
Mammoth Jones
Member
I think the keyword is "essential". I don't think that quote means giving up any and all freedoms for meaningful security is terrible and we should live in some Mad Max world.
Most people in the US today believe tyranny is something that happened back during the olden days and can't ever occur again.
Those founding fathers also pass some laws like the Alien and Seditions Act.
True. Doesn't discredit everything they accomplished though. They were geniuses. The sad thing is Fox News and the Tea Party have turned 'founding fathers' into a nauseating buzzword and unfortunately it has turned many people off to the their ideals and fundamentals; They are viewed more as a cliche if anything.
The god damn patriot act needs to be scrapped, and something much less over reaching should be put in it's place. Obama needs to come out in support of the immediate rejection of the patriot act policies, and point the public toward congress to revise or eliminate the patriot act. If he doesn't do this, even though he didn't sign the patriot act into law, he is the primary person to blame at this moment. Especially after being against it during the 2007 election season.
I'm not seeing anywhere in that article where he may face prosecution.
Might as well have titled it "Glenn Greenwald may get hit by a drone strike for his role in leaking the NSA scandal"
I guess he's following the Glenn Greenwald school of hyperbole.
But he's not the leaker, he wouldn't be the one prosecuted. The leaker is the one that gave him the information.
thank the political climate. Same reason why no one gives a shit about "scandals". You cry wolf you get ignored. When you attach tyranny to someone taking a shit in a different bathroom it loses its effectiveness as a word
Hari Seldon
Member
I see more and more comments on even liberal websites (not just tea partiers) for an American spring. Between this shit and the banks and everything else, I don't think America has ever been more unstable. How many more years of absolute dogshit government can this country take before something insane happens? Elections are not changing anything, same shit over and over.
ElectricBlue187
Member
Unstable? The average person does not care about any of this. If they didn't riot over the bailouts, mass shootings and do nothing congress they ain't gonna do shit over this.
I genuinely wonder how an "American spring" could possibly work when the majority of people simply don't care.
-COOLIO-
The Everyman
It's fair to think this but then it should be the case regardless of the victim's citizenship.
Here is the thing. If this happened in the early 60's or early 70's, people would be out in force.
Today, not so much. You can sit at home, on your ass, use the Internet, watch TV, contact your friends, and do loads of other things without moving a muscle. If you want to talk about the news, you don't have to leave home (hell, we are on GAF right now). If you want to read the news, you point and click.
Back then, you had to get involved to have good discussion about the world and what is happening. By getting involved you met like minded people, and started to take action on your feelings. There was nothing else to do. You coud not sit at home and act fake mad on the Internet.
This will never happen anymore, Americans are lazy, not involved with anything, and care more about the next episode of the Kardasians than this. Go to work and ask your co-workers I would bet more than 50 percent have no idea this is even happening.
Finn of Ooo
Member
We're still holding innocent people in guantanamo so your argument is moot.
Mammoth Jones
Member
Agreed. I've heard tyranny used about everything political that people don't agree with.
Occupy and Tea Party flareups says otherwise. It just so happens one movement couldn't get pass the being angry and ranting stage and fizzled out, while the other has had an impact on American politics but one that I personally don't prefer.
if the TSA doesn't get people riled up enough to do anything about, something non intrusive like this isn't even going to register
Deified Data
Banned
Definitely. His 16-year-old son was a piece of shit, too. Good thing they both posed an imminent threat to our national security.
Mammoth Jones
Member
Unfortunately I have to agree again. I'd like to imagine millions in the street screaming no more but more Americans were more upset at the last episode of Game of Thrones than they are about this type of shit.
ElectricBlue187
Member
Uhhhh no. Treason is not punishable by summary execution no matter how you much you want to justify it. In this country we have due process for every citizen, treasonous or otherwise. Maybe you would rather try to justify it as he was an enemy combatant but that's a tenuous charge at best, which is probably why they would rather just drop a missle on him and his (innocent, American) son
PanicFreak
Member
It's a fucking disaster. I constantly wonder what the US government could do with its money if we didn't have a military industrial complex.
Maybe the infrastructure in this country wouldn't be such shit. High speed trains? Internet as a public utility? We will never know.
PanicFreak
Member
The United States isn't unstable, it's led by buffoons who are more concerned about getting re-elected than passing meaningful legislation.
We have so many problems and no one is willing to stick their neck on the line. Thus we are left with this:
Hari Seldon
Member
Well yeah lol. Not since the red scare I should say.
Dude Abides
Banned
So much hyperbole in this thread.
Am I the only one who doesn't think this is a big deal? This year is the safest I've felt from foreign-born terrorism. I will gladly give the NSA the metadata of (federally regulated) cell phones, if it allows the NSA to see every phone call that the marathon bombers made.
Full stop.
Am I the only one who doesn't think this is a big deal? This year is the safest I've felt from foreign-born terrorism. I will gladly give the NSA the metadata of (federally regulated) cell phones, if it allows the NSA to see every phone call that the marathon bombers made.
Full stop.
Mammoth Jones
Member
It's a disproportionate response. People defending this act like the choice is either monitory all citizens -OR- the terrorists win and will blow up America with nuclear weapons tomorrow.
There's a way to fight terrorism without giving up the very things that supposedly make America what it is.
Have we become so cowardly that we're willing to accept government reading our emails, monitoring our cell phone records for the illusion of stopping terrorism?
How about we just repeal Congress instead? Useless shits.
Hari Seldon
Member
The problem is that they are also collecting all of your internet communications as well. Who knows what else is secret? The government feeding participating corps insider information about competitors? Low level people with access to the queries collecting private sexting info from people? Politicians on the committee exchanging support for the program for insider information about opponents in the next election? We have no clue because there is no oversite, no transparency.
I laughed then. I laugh now. Blame game is funny.
It doesn't matter the administration. Both want more control at the expense of citizen freedom. The paranoid justify. The upset play blame game.
empty vessel
Member
Nope. But even if it were true, that's about the lowest bar for acceptable behavior anybody could set. It's playground level ethics.
It should not surprise you that the American government has greater responsibilities towards American citizens (from whom it derives its power to exist and act). And he was wrongfully assassinated. He was summarily executed based on government allegations of wrongdoing without a trial and absent any imminent threat to public safety.
People commit capital murder, the punishment for which can be death in many states. It doesn't mean we summarily execute those accused by the government of it without a trial. And you are wrong that the punishment for treason by definition is death. Indeed, mandatory death sentences are unconstitutional. Even more, what you propose--summary execution without trial for those merely accused by the government of treason--is explicitly barred by the constitution itself. "No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court." Article III, Section 3.
Talk about hyperbole. Being killed by a terrorist in any given year is like being struck by lightning. If you want to feel safer from terrorism (which is kind of silly to begin with), then getting the fuck out of the Middle East and West Asia would be the way to go.
Read 1984 Or Fahrenheit 451
While this is true, blame the exact same advances in technology that live at the core of this story. Every single President will be under more scrutiny than every one that has preceded them, and it's been that way for most of our lives.
More like SOP for sleep deprivation.
Mammoth Jones
Member
For me it comes down to a basic question:
Is the threat of terrorism so great as to justify the Government taking a huge piss all over the 4th Amendment? Is that reasonable? For every single cell phone and data plan in the nation of 300 million+ people?
My answer is fuck no.
Is the threat of terrorism so great as to justify the Government taking a huge piss all over the 4th Amendment? Is that reasonable? For every single cell phone and data plan in the nation of 300 million+ people?
My answer is fuck no.
I understand your position but as you are a civilian with no knowledge of what or how many planned attacks happen on U.S soil. You really are not qualified to make an informed decision of whether it's worth it or not. And I'm just being honest here.
Not cowardly, defeatist. The people hold no reins on their government and haven't for some time now. The wiretapping cat is out of the proverbial bag and has been for more than a decade.
Way to support terrorism, you son of a bitch! Might as well turn all your flags upside down and post MOLON LABE on every website comment section.
Metaphoreus
This is semantics, and nothing more
This is a joke, right?
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