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President Obama’s Dragnet

nytimes.com

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61–70 of 141 posts

Re: President Obama’s Dragnet

#61

Post by wonderzombie »

Everlag wrote: post #56
pvnick wrote: post #30

Said Jim Sensenbrenner, who introduced the Patriot Act : “As the author of the Patriot Act, I am extremely troubled by the F.B.I.’s interpretation of this legislation,” he said in a statement. “While I believe the Patriot Act appropriately balanced national security concerns and civil rights, I have always worried about potential abuses.” He added: “Seizing phone records of millions of innocent people is excessive an…

When the fellow who introduced the Patriot act goes against something in the name of American privacy you know you've crossed the line that is political suicide. And they don't have a 9/11 as an excuse this time.

Well, you know what they say: failure is an orphan. Warrantless wiretapping has been going on for however many years, and now he's got a problem with it? OK, bro, whatever you say.

Re: President Obama’s Dragnet

#62

Post by jbm »

Shivetya wrote: post #49
emin_gun_sirer wrote: post #13

This article would have been stronger if it had contained a bit of introspection. Why did it require a UK paper to uncover this operation?

which of the major issues that the Obama Administration has the major US media broken recently? None. We have had nearly five years of a silent, complacent, if not compliant, major news media in the US. Sadly we have to resort to foreign news sources to get to the story. Don't be surprised if Al-Jazeera breaks a story before one of ours does.

Your comment implies that Al-Jazeera is a poor source of news. Is there a reason you feel that way, other than their lack of reporting on Qatar?

I find that they have excellent coverage of Africa, Asia, and most of the Middle East.

(Sorry if that wasn't your intention)

Re: President Obama’s Dragnet

#63

Post by yahelc »

khuey wrote: post #48
ericd wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ugh, I think I voted for her. :-( When is she up for reelection?

2018. But it's exceedingly unlikely that she has a realistic challenger in either the primary or the general elections.

She'll be 85 in 2018. There's a decent chance she'll retire.

Re: President Obama’s Dragnet

#64

Post by _delirium »

wonderzombie wrote: post #60
vijayboyapati wrote: post #23

Question: At what point does the average statist admit that the libertarians (s)he has been belittling for so many years as tin-foil hat crackpots were far more savvy about the nature of the state than they were? Answer: never

Stopped clocks, once a day, etc. ;) In all seriousness, though: civil liberties are one of the very few areas where libertarians and liberals (I presume "statist" was meant to be a jibe) can agree. Liberals were in fact among the groups pissed off about the PATRIOT Act, FISA, et al, during the Bush years. By this point, nearly a decade later, I'd resigned myself to the fact that nobody cared. I can't decide if I'm pl…

Yes, civil-liberties advocates have been on this particular horse since before the term "libertarian" even came into widespread usage. Various kinds of attempts at dragnet surveillance, at various scales, have been an active issue of controversy going back decades (e.g. in the McCarthyist era), and civil-liberties groups like the ACLU have been pretty consistent in opposition.

Re: President Obama’s Dragnet

#65

Post by jurassic »

> The administration has now lost all credibility on this issue.

Yes. Fuck you Mr. Obama, Mr. Bush, and everyone who ever voted for the PATRIOT Act. Failed promises on Gitmo, mideast conflicts, drone murders, and civil liberties/domestic spying. I hope they impeach him for failing to uphold the Constitution.

I'm cynical, so I suspected this was probably happening all along. But my anger over this is still white hot. Our whole government is broken when leaders of both major parties blatantly lie and conspire to undermine our Constitution.

Re: President Obama’s Dragnet

#66

Post by kibwen »

abduhl wrote: post #29
sneak wrote: post #16

Keep paying US taxes and voting. That should work. (But seriously. It's time. Pack your belongings and leave. Vote with your tax dollars, please.)

I enjoy these type of comments. They mostly come from Americans who have never looked into the requirements to "leave" legally. It turns out the rest of the world has immigration laws that are just as strict or more strict than America's so unless you're young and you're filthy rich, in a very specialized field that country needs, or ridiculously good looking you're probably not welcome in country X.

Exactly this. If you think it's so simple to emigrate from the US, go ahead and try. I'm sure it wouldn't be too onerous for the types that frequent HN, but for the 99.9% of the population that's less affluent and less technically skilled, you're stuck here.

Re: President Obama’s Dragnet

#67

Post by fianchetto »

mullingitover wrote: post #53
jpdoctor wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What's the significance of this? I cannot remember (I'm 49yo) the NYT ever going from endorsing a candidate [1] to " The administration has now lost all credibility. " That's quite a fall politically. [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/28/opinion/sunday/barack-obam... Edit: I have to agree with them, but I hold out hope that this will cause several high-profile firings in the administration.

The New York Times did not write "The administration has now lost all credibility." You made a very misleading statement. What they actually wrote was "The administration has now lost all credibility on this issue ." (emphasis added) Quite a bit of difference there. Edit: apparently NYT did some hasty editing, I apologize--You didn't make any misleading statements[1]. [1] http://www.newsdiffs.org/diff/245566/245668/w…

The line was in an earlier edit:

> "The administration has now lost all credibility."

http://www.newsdiffs.org/diff/245539/245566/www.nytimes.com/...

Re: President Obama’s Dragnet

#68

Post by TillE »

kibwen wrote: post #66
abduhl wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I enjoy these type of comments. They mostly come from Americans who have never looked into the requirements to "leave" legally. It turns out the rest of the world has immigration laws that are just as strict or more strict than America's so unless you're young and you're filthy rich, in a very specialized field that country needs, or ridiculously good looking you're probably not welcome in country X.

Exactly this. If you think it's so simple to emigrate from the US, go ahead and try. I'm sure it wouldn't be too onerous for the types that frequent HN, but for the 99.9% of the population that's less affluent and less technically skilled, you're stuck here.

I did it five years ago, to Germany. No problem, you just need a job offer. It has to be mildly specialized to justify hiring you over a local, but this is a very loose requirement that's easy to bend if your employer so desires.

Germany also has no shortage of relatively unskilled Turkish immigrants who are simply working at restaurants.

Re: President Obama’s Dragnet

#69

Post by drawkbox »

mtoddh wrote: post #25

From the article: "The defense of this practice offered by Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, who as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee is supposed to be preventing this sort of overreaching, was absurd. She said today that the authorities need this information in case someone might become a terrorist in the future." That second sentence is the one that really caught my eye: She said today that the au…

If terrorists hate our freedom, then maybe this data collection shows Dianne Feinstein to be a terrorist. We need to access her information. I am sure she has nothing to hide.

Re: President Obama’s Dragnet

#70

Post by LukeShu »

jbm wrote: post #62
Shivetya wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

which of the major issues that the Obama Administration has the major US media broken recently? None. We have had nearly five years of a silent, complacent, if not compliant, major news media in the US. Sadly we have to resort to foreign news sources to get to the story. Don't be surprised if Al-Jazeera breaks a story before one of ours does.

Your comment implies that Al-Jazeera is a poor source of news. Is there a reason you feel that way, other than their lack of reporting on Qatar? I find that they have excellent coverage of Africa, Asia, and most of the Middle East. (Sorry if that wasn't your intention)

I think the implication was that Al-Jazeera does little coverage of the US.
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