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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

#171

Post by angersock »

rsingel wrote: post #84
angersock wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If you don't think there's the equivalent of an evil council, you need to read up on Kissinger. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_wor...

I think anybody of any memory or knowledge would have killed to have Kissinger running our foreign policy for the the past decade and a half.

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

#172

Post by speeder »

OGinparadise wrote: post #170
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…

Short answer: As bad as US is, you should see the other countries. If a US cope beats you, you most likely hit the lottery, in other countries if they didn't beat you, you hit the lottery. The rest of your examples are oversimplifications. What if US didn't exist and tyrants didn't fear anyone? How many local if not world wars would we have? As for oil, US lost trillions fighting Iraq and Afghan war, not sure what yo…

Tyrants fear the US?

Like, Pinochet? Costa e Silva? Rios Montt? Hosni Mubarak?

Oh wait, those were US-backed and sold stuff that US wanted and bought stuff that were profitable from the US, thus they were not tyrants.

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

#173

Post by danenania »

rayiner wrote: post #104
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…

Very little of this is actually true, at least with regards to what the U.S. does internally. As flawed as the U.S. government is, it's still better than almost any government outside Western Europe, and is in some ways better than governments in Western Europe (e.g. with regard to free speech), though worse in others. The U.S. government very rarely ignores the Constitution, although many things it does are greeted…

The most benevolent murderer, pillager, and global tyrant in history. What a noble distinction!

Humanity can do better than that, and your comment is frankly sickening in its moral complacency.

This must be how engineers who help build nukes and drones and surveillance systems rationalize to themselves so they can sleep at night.

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

#174

Post by OGinparadise »

speeder wrote: post #172
OGinparadise wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Short answer: As bad as US is, you should see the other countries. If a US cope beats you, you most likely hit the lottery, in other countries if they didn't beat you, you hit the lottery. The rest of your examples are oversimplifications. What if US didn't exist and tyrants didn't fear anyone? How many local if not world wars would we have? As for oil, US lost trillions fighting Iraq and Afghan war, not sure what yo…

Tyrants fear the US? Like, Pinochet? Costa e Silva? Rios Montt? Hosni Mubarak? Oh wait, those were US-backed and sold stuff that US wanted and bought stuff that were profitable from the US, thus they were not tyrants.

You are going back how many years?

Is the post-Mubarak Egypt any better for the average Egyptian? You can argue that US should mind it's business, but otherwise do not assume that the alternatives are perfect.

Using that logic we could reason that yes, Saddam was horrible, but Iraq without him could be much worst.

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

#175

Post by codex »

The U.S. did not secretly obtain these records. It notified the AP that these records were obtained using a valid subpoena, which by law needs to be approved by the attorney general. Subpoenas of phone records happens all the time in both criminal investigations and civil cases.

This is just the AP using the propaganda power of its infinite supply of ink to attempt to protect itself from criminal investigations. Congratulations, HN--you fell for it. The amount of critical thinking on this site has dropped to unmeasurable levels.

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

#176

Post by barry-cotter »

encoderer wrote: post #152
oinksoft wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

as far as global hegemons go, the U.S. is the most benevolent such entity in the history of the world. Well, that's some real comfort. You heard it here, better than the Roman and British empires! The reference point should be absolute moral good, not third-world dictatorships. The whole "city on a hill" idea and what have you. That is what the top-level comment is getting at: Blatant hypocrisy from a state whose den…

It's easy to forget that the American Revolution is what ignited the fire of liberty and republican ethos, and catalyzed all of today's democracies to end or augment monarchial rule. The world in the 18th century was not -- and today still is not -- able to grow and nurture a powerful country towards "absolute moral good." The world is still a primitive and dangerous place full of despots at worst in inequality at be…

It's easy to forget that the American Revolution is what ignited the fire of liberty and republican ethos, and catalyzed all of today's democracies to end or augment monarchial rule.

Switzerland has been a republic since 1523 at the latest, 1291 at the earliest. The Most Serene Republic of Venice was founded in 421 and lasted more than 1500 years. But France has a much, much better claim than either to have founded the modern republican movement. The idea that the US had more influence on early modern republicanism is risible.

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

#177

Post by obstacle1 »

rayiner wrote: post #104
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…

Very little of this is actually true, at least with regards to what the U.S. does internally. As flawed as the U.S. government is, it's still better than almost any government outside Western Europe, and is in some ways better than governments in Western Europe (e.g. with regard to free speech), though worse in others. The U.S. government very rarely ignores the Constitution, although many things it does are greeted…

You've provided literally no evidence or reasoning for any of your statements.

"The US government is better than every other government!" isn't a valid argument.

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

#178

Post by obstacle1 »

kitcar wrote: post #146
mullingitover wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I were Chilean I wouldn't be outraged. I did some light reading on this topic. How exactly were a large number of people saved from death? Did you misspeak? Because from what I've read, the overthrow of Chile's elected government actually resulted in a large number of people dying/being tortured/'disappearing'. I'm guessing the Chileans who you spoke to weren't from that group.

"In late August 1973, 100,000 Chilean women congregated at Plaza de la Constitución to vent their rage against the rising cost and increasing shortages of food, but they were dispersed with tear gas.[18]" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Chilean_coup_d%C3%A9tat People on all sides of the political spectrum were distraught. It wasn't as clear cut as "left versus right" or "poor versus rich".

What does that particular event have to do with American intervention? How did American intervention save anyone from death-by-tear-gas?

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

#179

Post by mathieuh »

rayiner wrote: post #104
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…

Very little of this is actually true, at least with regards to what the U.S. does internally. As flawed as the U.S. government is, it's still better than almost any government outside Western Europe, and is in some ways better than governments in Western Europe (e.g. with regard to free speech), though worse in others. The U.S. government very rarely ignores the Constitution, although many things it does are greeted…

Please please please don't tell me people actually believe this. Some of the things you are saying here are laughable. I'm pretty sure people in Palestine, Korea, Chile, Cuba, Syria, Iran, Guatemala, and any other states where the USA has decided it should stick its gun in would have some choice words for you.

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

#180

Post by obstacle1 »

codex wrote: post #175

The U.S. did not secretly obtain these records. It notified the AP that these records were obtained using a valid subpoena, which by law needs to be approved by the attorney general. Subpoenas of phone records happens all the time in both criminal investigations and civil cases. This is just the AP using the propaganda power of its infinite supply of ink to attempt to protect itself from criminal investigations. Cong…

It isn't as cut-and-dry as you're pretending. The AP's complaint is that the records obtained were unreasonably broad in scope, which goes against the DoJ's guidelines w/r/t news subpoenas.

>Rules published by the Justice Department require that subpoenas of records of news organizations must be personally approved by the attorney general, but it was not known if that happened in this case. The letter notifying AP that its phone records had been obtained through subpoenas was sent Friday by Ronald Machen, the U.S. attorney in Washington.

>A subpoena to the media must be "as narrowly drawn as possible" and "should be directed at relevant information regarding a limited subject matter and should cover a reasonably limited time period," according to the rules.

>The reason for these constraints, the department says, is to avoid actions that "might impair the news gathering function" because the government recognizes that "freedom of the press can be no broader than the freedom of reporters to investigate and report the news."

Regarding the attorney general approving subpoenas,

>Rules published by the Justice Department require that subpoenas of records of news organizations must be personally approved by the attorney general, but it was not known if that happened in this case. The letter notifying AP that its phone records had been obtained through subpoenas was sent Friday by Ronald Machen, the U.S. attorney in Washington.

In general it is really shady that so many things are 'unknown' about this. Presumably the reporters who wrote this article should have been able to gather this information (since the article is itself written by the AP). That they didn't implies either a) that the journalists are supremely incompetent, or b) that the DoJ is intentionally withholding information it normally has to hand over by law or regulation. That may be why the journos are calling this "secret" information gathering.

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