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U.S. Secretly Obtains Two Months of A.P. Phone Records

nytimes.com

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Re: U.S. Secretly Obtains Two Months of A.P. Phone Records

#61

Post by angersock »

grecy wrote: post #6
sneak wrote: post #5

Second amendment's been gone for a while. Fifth and fourteenth haven't been seen in a minute, either. Peaceable assembly's overrated anyway. (RNC '04) How much of the first needs to be gone until it's enough to recognize that the USA is no longer a free society? How many whistleblowers, security researchers, and cryptographers need to be thrown in prison on bullshit trumped-up charges? How many hunger-striking politi…

> It's time to emigrate. http://www.reddit.com/r/iwantout http://www.reddit.com/r/igotout

Yes, because as a foreign national you'll be so much more protected from the US. Don't be daft.

Re: U.S. Secretly Obtains Two Months of A.P. Phone Records

#62

Post by gyardley »

MartinCron wrote: post #35
hga wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really should check your facts before simply repeating the current party line. The acknowledged scope of the targeted investigations is so wildly beyond "anti-tax activists" the mind boggles. And see also e.g. Z Street's allegations about being questioned WRT to its views et. al. of Israel.

simply repeating the current party line No, the party line is that that targeting some groups is "Outrageous". I'm taking the unpopular contrarian position that maybe some organizations are more prone to be compliant with tax laws than others.

The same office released the confidential application documents of conservative groups to ProPublica.

http://www.propublica.org/article/irs-office-that-targeted-t...

Perhaps you could argue that digging into these groups was being 'prudent', if that was in fact all they did. (I'm not buying it - being opposed to taxation has nothing to do with the eligibility requirements for a 501c4.)

But whatever could be the justification for sharing a confidential application with the press, if not partisan politics? That's actually a felony, not that anyone will ever be charged.

Re: U.S. Secretly Obtains Two Months of A.P. Phone Records

#63

Post by knowtheory »

MartinCron wrote: post #35
hga wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really should check your facts before simply repeating the current party line. The acknowledged scope of the targeted investigations is so wildly beyond "anti-tax activists" the mind boggles. And see also e.g. Z Street's allegations about being questioned WRT to its views et. al. of Israel.

simply repeating the current party line No, the party line is that that targeting some groups is "Outrageous". I'm taking the unpopular contrarian position that maybe some organizations are more prone to be compliant with tax laws than others.

There is a question of governance that trancends party politics and reducing it to partisanship does the discussion a serious disservice. I'd go so far as to say that the forces who benefit from the status quo (lobbying groups of varyi g forms, and corps who've politically engineered circumstances they take advantage of) prefer discussions of governance framed as partisan he said she said arguments.

What is in question here is competence in government and how tax exempt orgs are regulated.

Re: U.S. Secretly Obtains Two Months of A.P. Phone Records

#65

Post by ThomPete »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #22

So inside of just a few days, we have political opposition groups targeted for audits -- including questions about donors and volunteers -- and surveillance of the press. The easier we make it for some analyst in FBI headquarters to determine everywhere a potential terrorist cell has been, the easier we make it for some other analyst to conduct political spying and harassment like the world has never seen before. You…

This is exactly what Wikileaks was created to obstruct.

Re: U.S. Secretly Obtains Two Months of A.P. Phone Records

#67

Post by uptown »

angersock wrote: post #57
speeder wrote: post #53

I am from Brazil, and I must ask: Why the US citizens and government propaganda insists that US is about freedom, when US ignores its own constitution, takes away freedom from its citizens, and most important to me, takes away freedom from citizens of other countries while claiming to do the exact opposite? I am from Brazil, and many people here remember the US backed (and enforced sometimes) rightwing government tha…

Now, you can hardly judge a country on one or two acts of unrelated political activism abroad... :P More seriously, it's complex--painting it in the simplest broad strokes of "The US only cares about corporations" is unfair. The US is not the US; it's a combination of local, state, and federal governments and bureaucracies. There's almost certainly near no magical evil council sitting atop it all scheming about how t…

"instead, we have the misguided actions and interactions of generally well-meaning people that are so segregated from the big picture and scared of losing their jobs that they make mistakes which snowball."

That's a pretty generous supposition ... in regard to both intent and competency.

Re: U.S. Secretly Obtains Two Months of A.P. Phone Records

#68

Post by jlgreco »

angersock wrote: post #61
grecy wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's time to emigrate. http://www.reddit.com/r/iwantout http://www.reddit.com/r/igotout

Yes, because as a foreign national you'll be so much more protected from the US. Don't be daft.

When we have a situation where we are afraid to leave the system, as is our right, then the system can no longer be said to be just.

Re: U.S. Secretly Obtains Two Months of A.P. Phone Records

#69

Post by beedogs »

sneak wrote: post #5

Second amendment's been gone for a while. Fifth and fourteenth haven't been seen in a minute, either. Peaceable assembly's overrated anyway. (RNC '04) How much of the first needs to be gone until it's enough to recognize that the USA is no longer a free society? How many whistleblowers, security researchers, and cryptographers need to be thrown in prison on bullshit trumped-up charges? How many hunger-striking politi…

I left 4 years ago and haven't looked back.

Re: U.S. Secretly Obtains Two Months of A.P. Phone Records

#70

Post by rayiner »

gyardley wrote: post #52
rayiner wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fun fact: none of the Bill of Rights originally applied to the states. In 1795, Illinois, California, and New York could have banned all guns totally Constitutionally. It wasn't until the 1900's that the Bill of Rights was interpreted to apply to the states via the 14th amendment.

Hell, I'm not sure the Second Amendment was fully incorporated against the states until McDonald v. Chicago in 2010. Doesn't matter a bit to me, though - it's incorporated now.

I don't disagree that the 2nd Amendment is now incorporated, and I'm actually not a proponent of gun control. My point is that talking about how it's a "Constitutional issue" is, while technically true now, also a little misleading, in the sense that the Founders would not have considered state gun control laws to be a Federal Constitutional issue.

The whole process of incorporation has been a modern attempt at redrawing the boundaries of federalism to address things the Founders got wrong. The most decisive revision was with regards to slavery/civil rights, where the Constitution was revised at the point of sword with the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments. A lot of other things have come along for the ride (from free speech to abortion), but all of that is rooted in a modern understanding of what states can be trusted to do.

Consider a hypothetical where 90% of the population was in favor of state-level gun bans. If you held up the 2nd Amendment in opposition to that consensus, you'd be in the position of arguing that states should be constrained in a way that neither the framers nor contemporary consensus contemplates them being constrained.

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