(03-02-2009 06:56 PM)emmiesix Wrote:  

(02-27-2009 01:19 PM)Hambone10 Wrote:  

(02-27-2009 12:05 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  One of the big problems in this area is that we approached it as a criminal justice matter rather than a national defense matter. We have to observe all the procedural niceties in order to be able to use the information later in a criminal trial. We do not have to observe those niceties, and I for one am not particularly concerned if we don't, where the objective is PREVENTION of the activity in the first place rather than prosecuting the perpetrators later.

Did Bletchley Park need a court order to intercept and decode German military communications in WWII?
Did Joe Rochefort and his boys need a court order to intercept and decode Japanese communications regarding the pending attack on Midway?
The answer in both cases is obviously no. But Churchill didn't want to bring the Germans to trial, nor did Halsey want to put the Japanese on trial. The objectives in both cases were military victories.

At this point, my own opinion is that the Bushie neocons made such a hash of things that it's really no longer possible to discern WHERE we stand legally on a lot of these issues. I think that happened because the Rummy/Cheney mentality was that the ends justified the means, so that we could do whatever we wanted, and Shrub himself seemed content to fiddle while Rome burned on this one. Obama has been handed a mess, and I am going to be inclined to give him a pass whatever he does because there simply is no way out for a lot of the situations that exist.

I would not have unilaterally conferred status under the Geneva Conventions as either uniformed enemy combatants or innocent civilians to the people we captured, because they were entitled to neither.
I would not have created Gitmo, but would have kept them incarcerated in the country in which they were captured.
I would have gotten what information I could out of them, and then except in cases where they were nationals of a nation that sought to intervene, I would have summarily executed them.
Where their native countries did seek to intervene, I would have suspended the executions and worked diligently to resolve the matters in a short time (18 months to 2 years, absolute max).
That would have fulfilled every obligation we had to them under the Geneva Conventions (not applicable) or any other principle of international law.
We might have come off as brutal or bloodthirsty in the eyes of the world. That is not necessarily a bad result.

I don't disagree... unfortunately the Geneva COnvention, and most rules of engagement and prosecution when it comes to war assume that there is a sovereign foreign government behind the actions of the militants... not a loosely formed fraction around a religious sect... and not even really closely associated with that...
It's like global gang warfare... or the Mafia... with all its derivatives... and the rules for fighting THOSE groups have to do with our own internal laws and prosecuting the individuals.

Like most things... make a rule, and those interested in breaking them will find a way to accomplish that.

You both seem to be implying that this is ok by citing previous actions in times of war (of course, that still doesn't make everything ok*, but this is not my central beef). Last I checked, we never actually declared war in Iraq. [deletia]

Actually, a report on the various instances of the War Powers Resolution being followed makes for fascinating reading (okay, I scanned it) or possibly just boredom. But this report for Congress indicates that the declaration on Iraq may be the most classic application of the War Powers Resolution.

Now, we can argue ad infinitum about the constitutionality of that arrangement, but it is currently the law of the land when it comes to foreign involvement of our troops. And by its guidelines, all of the legal t's were crossed and i's were dotted.

What's very interesting to see is how the number of reports under the War Powers Resolution exploded under Clinton and continued under Bush II. I don't think our involvement increased that much, but rather how some of the language wound up being interpreted on both sides of Pennsylvania Avenue in order to provide the legal cover for most military operations. And apparently, we didn't report under War Powers during the...

Quote:Korean DMZ tree-cutting incident of 1976

It was a serious incident, but with the naming of it. Wikipedia gives it a more serious name.

(03-02-2009 06:56 PM)emmiesix Wrote:  

(02-27-2009 01:19 PM)Hambone10 Wrote:  

(02-27-2009 12:05 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  One of the big problems in this area is that we approached it as a criminal justice matter rather than a national defense matter. We have to observe all the procedural niceties in order to be able to use the information later in a criminal trial. We do not have to observe those niceties, and I for one am not particularly concerned if we don't, where the objective is PREVENTION of the activity in the first place rather than prosecuting the perpetrators later.

Did Bletchley Park need a court order to intercept and decode German military communications in WWII?
Did Joe Rochefort and his boys need a court order to intercept and decode Japanese communications regarding the pending attack on Midway?
The answer in both cases is obviously no. But Churchill didn't want to bring the Germans to trial, nor did Halsey want to put the Japanese on trial. The objectives in both cases were military victories.

At this point, my own opinion is that the Bushie neocons made such a hash of things that it's really no longer possible to discern WHERE we stand legally on a lot of these issues. I think that happened because the Rummy/Cheney mentality was that the ends justified the means, so that we could do whatever we wanted, and Shrub himself seemed content to fiddle while Rome burned on this one. Obama has been handed a mess, and I am going to be inclined to give him a pass whatever he does because there simply is no way out for a lot of the situations that exist.

I would not have unilaterally conferred status under the Geneva Conventions as either uniformed enemy combatants or innocent civilians to the people we captured, because they were entitled to neither.
I would not have created Gitmo, but would have kept them incarcerated in the country in which they were captured.
I would have gotten what information I could out of them, and then except in cases where they were nationals of a nation that sought to intervene, I would have summarily executed them.
Where their native countries did seek to intervene, I would have suspended the executions and worked diligently to resolve the matters in a short time (18 months to 2 years, absolute max).
That would have fulfilled every obligation we had to them under the Geneva Conventions (not applicable) or any other principle of international law.
We might have come off as brutal or bloodthirsty in the eyes of the world. That is not necessarily a bad result.

I don't disagree... unfortunately the Geneva COnvention, and most rules of engagement and prosecution when it comes to war assume that there is a sovereign foreign government behind the actions of the militants... not a loosely formed fraction around a religious sect... and not even really closely associated with that...
It's like global gang warfare... or the Mafia... with all its derivatives... and the rules for fighting THOSE groups have to do with our own internal laws and prosecuting the individuals.

Like most things... make a rule, and those interested in breaking them will find a way to accomplish that.

You both seem to be implying that this is ok by citing previous actions in times of war (of course, that still doesn't make everything ok*, but this is not my central beef). Last I checked, we never actually declared war in Iraq. Intercepting the communications of a country you are actively at war with is vastly different than wholesale spying on anyone that bothers to call a friend overseas. Yes there is the pseudo-protection of "reasonable suspicion" but this kind of criminal justice language is why it is being treated as a criminal justice issue. I am already uncomfortable with a vast wire-tapping system in the first place (especially one that is under fire in the courts right now for wholesale wiretapping), but when you couple with it a complete lack of oversight, with business conducted in secret courts, I just get very nauseous. You need balance, and you need recourse. NSA agents and FBI agents are nothing more than human beings... as the age-old question goes "who will watch the watchers?"

*e.g., Japanese interment

I don't know why everyone is raving about this subject now, since the NSA has been running their Echelon Interception Stations in Europe since the mid 80's.

Any communications coming to or from the US from Europe, or going through a European Cable or Ground Station to anywhere else gets noted- the telephone numbers of the caller and the receiver and the length of the call.

To answer Emmie's earlier question...

I'm not saying it's okay simply because it was done before... I'm asking if it was done before, why is this any different? The same rules that allowed it to happen before are allowing it today. Now, if you disagree with the rules, fine... change the rules... but that has nothing to do with the application of precedent.

And I wish I had somone other than Ron Paul as a congressman. Paul might have been fine in the 19th Century but he never learned many of the lessons from the 20th Century. His isolationism was discredited in World War II, for example. A gold standard and lack of the Federal Reserve Bank did not prevent Panics in the late 19th Century that were worse than what we are facing now.

(02-26-2009 04:40 PM)emmiesix Wrote:  This is the one thing during the election season that made me swear I would vote for Ron Paul... and I'm kind of pissed that I didn't, now.


http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/02...nis-1.html

The Obama administration vigorously defended congressional legislation late Wednesday that immunizes U.S. telecommunication companies from lawsuits about their participation in the Bush administration's domestic spy program.

It was the first time the Obama administration weighed in on a federal court challenge questioning the legality of the legislation President Barack Obama voted for as an Illinois senator in July. "Accordingly, the court should now promptly dismiss these actions," the Justice Department wrote (.pdf) U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker of San Francisco late Wednesday.

Obama opposed immunity but voted for it because it was included in a new spy bill that gave the U.S. presidency broad, warrantless-surveillance powers.

Justice Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement that the immunity bill "is the law of the land, and as such the Department of Justice defends it in court."

Walker is weighing a challenge to the immunity legislation in a lawsuit brought by the Electronic Frontier Foundation of San Francisco. Congress crafted the bill after Walker refused to dismiss separate challenges brought by EFF accusing the nation's telecoms of violating the rights of millions of Americans for allegedly funneling electronic communications to the National Security Agency without warrants.

The EFF claims Congress was prohibited from legalizing what the EFF termed was unconstitutional activity by the telecommunication companies. The government claimed immunity was necessary (.pdf) because the spying allegations threatened to expose state secrets.

The administration's legal move should come as no surprise. During his January confirmation hearings, Attorney General Eric Holder told senators that the Obama administration would defend telco immunity. "Unless there are compelling reasons, I don't think we would reverse course," Holder said.

Two weeks ago, Holder announced a review of litigation inherited from the Bush administration in which the so-called state-secrets privilege was invoked. Despite the review, the Obama administration is not deviating from its predecessor.

President George W. Bush acknowledged in 2005 the so-called Terror Surveillance Program, which authorized the NSA to intercept, without warrants, international communications to or from the United States that the government reasonably believed involved a member or agent of al-Qaeda, or affiliated terrorist organization. Congress authorized such spying activity in July as part of the immunity legislation.

The EFF's lawsuit, however, includes documents from a former AT&T technician that the EFF claims describe a secret room in an AT&T building in San Francisco that is wired up to share raw internet traffic with the NSA.

Judge Walker did not indicate when he would rule.