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Only the worst salesmen say "the other guy is just as bad as I am".
I'm no salesman for Obama. However, if you voted for McCain, it is you saying "the other guy is just as bad." I don't agree with the patriot act, and I wish Obama was more like me in political views, but I have also seen him do some good things that I doubt McCain would have done.
Regardless, I am merely pointing out the hypocrisy of this thread. Unless, that is, you would have preferred that everyone had voted for a 3rd party candidate?
Not to rain on yet another right-wing parade, or to believe for a minute that there is anything actually to be gained in debating something as complex as the law with a bunch of people who get lost somewhere along the way through 2+2=4, but Hepting has nothing at all to do with Bush's illegal warrantless wiretapping programs. To review, there is nothing wrong with wiretapping. It is perfectly legal under some circumstances. There is nothing wrong with warrantless wiretapping. It too is perfectly legal under some circumstances. What was wrong with Bush's illegal warrantless wiretapping programs was the illegal part. That is, they were, by his administration's own admission, conducted entirely outside of and apart from circumstances that would have made them legal. This -- both on its own and as part of broad patterns of extralegal operations -- is what complaints against the Bush administration were and are founded upon.
The issues in Hepting meanwhile are primarily two. The first deals with sovereign immunity (which is quite distinct from executive privilege, by the way), a concept that right-wingers seem to encounter for the first time, but which extends back in common law for centuries prior to the founding of this nation. Briefly, you cannot sue the government except under circumstances where the government itself has agreed that it may be sued. The agreed exceptions must be specifically stated. There is no Well, this situation is sort of like that other one...the exception relied upon must be plainly and unambiguously created in law.
The second issue is the state secrets privilege which the facts of this particular case do not actually much strain. al Haramain v Bush would be the far more interesting case in this regard. Briefly, it is long and well established that the goverment may protect information the disclosure of which would entail a reasonable danger that interests of national security would be compromised. The law establishes with certain entities the power of claiming that such reasonable danger exists in certain cases, and considerable deference to the judgments of these entities is to be shown. It is not the regular role of the judiciary to substitute its uninformed judgment on such matters for the expert judgments of those established entities.
The facts in Hepting are that plaintiffs lost their chance to pursue AT&T et al when Congress passed a retroactive immunization of various telecoms for their cooperation with orders from the Bush administration, and they are simply trying to bring that same frustrated case against the governnment instead. The government is only responding as it should, and that response is not drawn so much against the facts of the instant case as claimed by plaintiffs as it is against the legal precedents and changes to them that decisions in plaintiffs favor would establish. Whatever promises right-wingers may invent and seek to assign to Obama, none of them was to compromise or undermine the government's ability to provide and protect national security. There is no defense of illegal warrantless wiretapping in the recent filing, and there is nothing to claim that plaintiffs' rights might not in fact have been violated by the extralegal actions of the previous administration. There is merely the claim that plaintiffs do not have an explicit exception to sovereign immunity under which to bring their case against the government, and a claim that their case would necessarily involve compromises not only to legitimately established state secrets, but also to the means by which such state secrets are protected to begin with.
Author Greenwald in the piece first referred to is far off base. Hepting does not involve issues of transparency, accountability, and respect for civil rights. It involves the issues outlined above -- the extents of the well-established privileges of sovereign immunity and state secrets. Hepting is not a case about whether Bush's illegal warrantless wiretapping programs were illegal. They were, and there isn't anyone who seriously contends that they were not. Hepting is about the means by which those who may have been aggrieved by these illegal programs may seek any sort of relief through the courts. There is no guaranty that such a means exists, even though the telecom immunization act did nothing to relieve the potential culpability of any government official. The government's contention in these recent filings is only that if such a means does exist, it is not likely that the plaintiffs in Hepting have in fact found it. Greenwald, however, is not willing to accept that notion. Instead, he engages in a common right-wing practice, swapping in one's druthers in the place of the actual facts. Note for instance the degree to which he finds outrage in that the recent filing uses tone and language all but indistinguishable from that appearing in prior Bush administration filings. Nowhere does he note what would have been obvious to a less partial observer -- that the apparent identity results from each either quoting or lifting key phrases from the same controlling statutes and judicial decisions. Greenwald and others may indeed have a legitimate sense of outrage over the conduct of the Bush administration, but mere zeal to see that outrage expressed and addressed is not a sufficient reason to support subversion of the law.
Right-wing posters are of course only too happy to pick up on Greenwald's unfounded theme. Without so much as either addressing or comprehending any of the actual issues involved, they write like little school children to tie Obama in with Bush and thence to legitimize an infantile ridicule and castigation of those who may have found good and sufficient reason to vote for Obama. To them, I would say get a life, and in that life try for once to gain an understanding of an issue before making yourselves look so thoroughly foolish for the lack of it.
Location: miami, fla. enjoying the relative cool, for now ;)
1,085 posts, read 2,531,154 times
Reputation: 1063
Quote:
Originally Posted by saganista
Not to rain on yet another right-wing parade, or to believe for a minute that there is anything actually to be gained in debating something as complex as the law with a bunch of people who get lost somewhere along the way through 2+2=4, but Hepting has nothing at all to do with Bush's illegal warrantless wiretapping programs. To review, there is nothing wrong with wiretapping. It is perfectly legal under some circumstances. There is nothing wrong with warrantless wiretapping. It too is perfectly legal under some circumstances. What was wrong with Bush's illegal warrantless wiretapping programs was the illegal part. That is, they were, by his administration's own admission, conducted entirely outside of and apart from circumstances that would have made them legal. This -- both on its own and as part of broad patterns of extralegal operations -- is what complaints against the Bush administration were and are founded upon.
The issues in Hepting meanwhile are primarily two. The first deals with sovereign immunity (which is quite distinct from executive privilege, by the way), a concept that right-wingers seem to encounter for the first time, but which extends back in common law for centuries prior to the founding of this nation. Briefly, you cannot sue the government except under circumstances where the government itself has agreed that it may be sued. The agreed exceptions must be specifically stated. There is no Well, this situation is sort of like that other one...the exception relied upon must be plainly and unambiguously created in law.
The second issue is the state secrets privilege which the facts of this particular case do not actually much strain. al Haramain v Bush would be the far more interesting case in this regard. Briefly, it is long and well established that the goverment may protect information the disclosure of which would entail a reasonable danger that interests of national security would be compromised. The law establishes with certain entities the power of claiming that such reasonable danger exists in certain cases, and considerable deference to the judgments of these entities is to be shown. It is not the regular role of the judiciary to substitute its uninformed judgment on such matters for the expert judgments of those established entities.
The facts in Hepting are that plaintiffs lost their chance to pursue AT&T et al when Congress passed a retroactive immunization of various telecoms for their cooperation with orders from the Bush administration, and they are simply trying to bring that same frustrated case against the governnment instead. The government is only responding as it should, and that response is not drawn so much against the facts of the instant case as claimed by plaintiffs as it is against the legal precedents and changes to them that decisions in plaintiffs favor would establish. Whatever promises right-wingers may invent and seek to assign to Obama, none of them was to compromise or undermine the government's ability to provide and protect national security. There is no defense of illegal warrantless wiretapping in the recent filing, and there is nothing to claim that plaintiffs' rights might not in fact have been violated by the extralegal actions of the previous administration. There is merely the claim that plaintiffs do not have an explicit exception to sovereign immunity under which to bring their case against the government, and a claim that their case would necessarily involve compromises not only to legitimately established state secrets, but also to the means by which such state secrets are protected to begin with.
Author Greenwald in the piece first referred to is far off base. Hepting does not involve issues of transparency, accountability, and respect for civil rights. It involves the issues outlined above -- the extents of the well-established privileges of sovereign immunity and state secrets. Hepting is not a case about whether Bush's illegal warrantless wiretapping programs were illegal. They were, and there isn't anyone who seriously contends that they were not. Hepting is about the means by which those who may have been aggrieved by these illegal programs may seek any sort of relief through the courts. There is no guaranty that such a means exists, even though the telecom immunization act did nothing to relieve the potential culpability of any government official. The government's contention in these recent filings is only that if such a means does exist, it is not likely that the plaintiffs in Hepting have in fact found it. Greenwald, however, is not willing to accept that notion. Instead, he engages in a common right-wing practice, swapping in one's druthers in the place of the actual facts. Note for instance the degree to which he finds outrage in that the recent filing uses tone and language all but indistinguishable from that appearing in prior Bush administration filings. Nowhere does he note what would have been obvious to a less partial observer -- that the apparent identity results from each either quoting or lifting key phrases from the same controlling statutes and judicial decisions. Greenwald and others may indeed have a legitimate sense of outrage over the conduct of the Bush administration, but mere zeal to see that outrage expressed and addressed is not a sufficient reason to support subversion of the law.
Right-wing posters are of course only too happy to pick up on Greenwald's unfounded theme. Without so much as either addressing or comprehending any of the actual issues involved, they write like little school children to tie Obama in with Bush and thence to legitimize an infantile ridicule and castigation of those who may have found good and sufficient reason to vote for Obama. To them, I would say get a life, and in that life try for once to gain an understanding of an issue before making yourselves look so thoroughly foolish for the lack of it.
my word sir you must a PhD. (piled higer, deeper) thanks for the chuckle you Moderator cut: personal attack.
my word sir you must a PhD. (piled higer, deeper) thanks for the chuckle you Moderator cut: personal attack.
Hey, don't knock it. When one is a lifelong bureaucrat hangin' with the beltway boyz, they have a lot of free time to surf the web and create large op-eds on C/D.
well some in here understand the only difference between Obama and Bush is oratory ability.
The Obama administration insists in court filings that release of the document will create "intolerable risks" to national security, the same stance taken by the Bush administration.
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