Obama wins back the right to indefinitely detain under NDAA • Hacker News Board

Re: Obama wins back the right to indefinitely detain under NDAA

#121

Post by madaxe » Thu, Jul 18, 2013, 4:04 PM UTC

bobo1357 wrote: post #90

jbooth wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that a serious question? First line of the article: "The Obama administration has won the latest battle in their fight to indefinitely detain US citizens and foreigners suspected of being affiliated with terrorists under the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012."

Again, this law is constitutional. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamdi_v._Rumsfeld

But I'm guessing you'd say in the same breath that Wade v. Roe is unconstitutional, because it disagres with your politics?

Re: Obama wins back the right to indefinitely detain under NDAA

#122

Post by Semiapies » Thu, Jul 18, 2013, 4:04 PM UTC

eksith wrote: post #7

Why is it that every leader in power seems to forget that they won't stay in that position forever? Let's take his word for it and say the power won't be abused. What of his successors? If a power exists, it will be abused. Period. It's only a matter of time. That's the whole premise behind checks and balances and due process. You don't leave power in the hands of a few, but the many.

I'm just amused at how supporters of these politicians forget that their enemies will be back in office, eventually...

Re: Obama wins back the right to indefinitely detain under NDAA

#123

Post by ctdonath » Thu, Jul 18, 2013, 4:04 PM UTC

derefr wrote: post #16

junto wrote: post #12

This disgusts me. Sooner or later, my public announcement of this disgust is going to place me on a list of people that are seen as dissenters, since all of our electronic communication is now being logged for posterity. That list will at some point be renamed "terrorists". At some point in the future (as a non-American), the United States would find it legally acceptable that I can be targeted by a drone and blown u…

> Sooner or later, my public announcement of this disgust is going to place me on a list of people that are seen as dissenters Are you sure? If half of the US citizenship also expresses public disgust at the same thing, there's not much use in making a list; that list may as well be the phone book.

Oppressive governments are notorious for killing off large percentages of their populations to eliminate dissenters and dissuade survivors from even contemplating dissent.

Re: Obama wins back the right to indefinitely detain under NDAA

#124

Post by vor_ » Thu, Jul 18, 2013, 4:06 PM UTC

jbooth wrote: post #74

jvm wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Those revolutionaries would have all been labeled terrorists today. This is one of the huge ironies about contemporary conservatives. They practically worship the founding fathers like gods, but they would have hated many of them if they met them today, as many were godless radical liberals. The most extreme example of this for me was when D'Souza and other republicans accused Barack Obama of being anti-colonialist…

Not to mention that they've yelled tyranny! at every minor administrative tweak, regulatory change or appointment for the last 6 years... And then, when something like this comes up, that actually does threaten our rights, crickets? Not only crickets but cooperation from the least cooperative congress possibly in history? What the fuck, guys?

I don't understand singling out conservatives here. Liberals have been at least as complicit in bloating the spectrum of government power. Even worse, the majority of the media expressed practically no skeptical interest until they found out the government was spying on them.

Re: Obama wins back the right to indefinitely detain under NDAA

#125

Post by junto » Thu, Jul 18, 2013, 4:09 PM UTC

hef19898 wrote: post #71

twoodfin wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope pg really likes what he's let hn become by indulging threads like this. Wouldn't this submission be [dead] in about 5 minutes six months ago? Instead, it gets to be front page material for hours while goofy comments like this accumulate.

Maybe I'm not on HN for years now, but about 6 months ago, I assume it wouldn't have been dead that fast. I remember some articles during this hole SOPA / PIPA thing that went along similar lines. And this "goofy" comment was marked as "tin hat" by the author himslef, so I only took it half serious.

As the poster of the original comment, thanks for this. It was indeed supposed to be tongue-in-cheek.

The scenario was intended to be completely fictional. It doesn't necesarily need to be the US and could just have likely to be somewhere like the UK. This could be 20 years down the line.

It was intended to demonstrate an extreme, where the intimate knowledge of someone's entire personal life by the state is exploitable by a malicious entity. Snowden is an example of a whistle-blower. His ex-co-workers could just as easily be blackmailers.

Re: Obama wins back the right to indefinitely detain under NDAA

#126

Post by vor_ » Thu, Jul 18, 2013, 4:20 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #117

vor_ wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That irony isn't specific to conservatives. Today's liberals would have hated many of the anti-government founding fathers.

That would only illustrate the same irony if the near deification of the mythologized version of the FFs by today's conservatives referred to in the grandparent post was also common in today's liberals.

The irony is in the fact that, as today's conservatives would hate many of the founding fathers for being godless radical liberals, today's liberals would hate many of them for being anti-government Tea Party extremists.

Re: Obama wins back the right to indefinitely detain under NDAA

#127

Post by tmuir » Thu, Jul 18, 2013, 4:29 PM UTC

pandaman wrote: post #107

tmuir wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The whole distinction between one element of a set and a whole set seems to be incomprehensible to modern liberals." Because obviously, one person with a certain ideological bent speaks for every person with that same ideology. By the way, you should have spoken up if you knew unequivocally that the black thug was the attacker, especially when there was absolutely no evidence of that whatsoever, besides the testimon…

I've only brought up the recent events to show that it's not a singular case. The whole liberal community is engaging in this. PS. As for your suggestion for me to speak up - luckily prosecution brought a witness who testified that TM had been attacking GZ, so no need for me to do the same.

There are people of all sorts of political leanings that realize that the state's case was extremely weak because of the lack of hard evidence. Maybe that's because it isn't a political issue. I mean, how would you frame the question, if you wanted to glean a person's political affiliation from the single issue of Zimmerman killing Martin?

This square peg of a criminal case was jammed into the round hole of a political issue when Obama made his statement about if Trayvon was his son. Since there are millions of people in this country whose stances on various issues consist singularly of the opposing view of whatever Obama's view on the issue is, George Zimmerman became a conservative hero.

So to paint overreaction and the abandonment of logic and reason as a tenet of liberalism is downright ludicrous.

Re: Obama wins back the right to indefinitely detain under NDAA

#128

Post by adventured » Thu, Jul 18, 2013, 4:34 PM UTC

spodek wrote: post #21

"Congress granted the president the authority to arrest and hold individuals accused of terrorism without due process under the NDAA, but Mr. Obama said in an accompanying signing statement that he will not abuse these privileges to keep American citizens imprisoned indefinitely" If you want to influence someone, it helps to understand their motivations. I can't conceive of what Obama has in mind with pursuing this l…

It is obvious.

However, what you refer to as unwanted side-effects, are the entire point. Those side-effects, aren't side-effects, they're the goal. Obama is aggressively pursuing these powers, just as Bush did before him. It's not ignorance at work, or misplaced faith in the system; everybody at the top of the food chain understands exactly what this means.

You want to know what he's thinking? He's thinking the same thing every despot in history has thought. If this were 20 or 30 years into the future, with the way things are going, Obama would be a truly frightening monster. The next three or four presidents that come after Obama, are the ones to be afraid of; they'll start off right out of the gate with the kind of power the founding fathers would have understood to be the domain of kings and tyrants.

Re: Obama wins back the right to indefinitely detain under NDAA

#129

Post by roc » Thu, Jul 18, 2013, 4:40 PM UTC

spodek wrote: post #21

"Congress granted the president the authority to arrest and hold individuals accused of terrorism without due process under the NDAA, but Mr. Obama said in an accompanying signing statement that he will not abuse these privileges to keep American citizens imprisoned indefinitely" If you want to influence someone, it helps to understand their motivations. I can't conceive of what Obama has in mind with pursuing this l…

> "I can't conceive of what Obama has in mind with pursuing this law against resistance."

I think, logically, we're down to only a few options:

1. "he's lying": His stated opinions/positions don't reflect his beliefs at all.

2. "he's powerless": despite being President, he has no practical control over what is pursued, so his speeches and signing statements are essentially a plea for people and historians to not blame him for that which he cannot control.

3. "he's corrupt": Power has corrupted his ideals, and he truly believes he can fairly wield dangerous powers such as the drone kill list and suspension of citizenship/rights, despite their risks, and that having these tools available to him today is more necessary/important than denying them for fear of future abuse.

And none of those possibilities are particularly encouraging.

Re: Obama wins back the right to indefinitely detain under NDAA

#130

Post by nknighthb » Thu, Jul 18, 2013, 4:43 PM UTC

vor_ wrote: post #126

dragonwriter wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would only illustrate the same irony if the near deification of the mythologized version of the FFs by today's conservatives referred to in the grandparent post was also common in today's liberals.

The irony is in the fact that, as today's conservatives would hate many of the founding fathers for being godless radical liberals, today's liberals would hate many of them for being anti-government Tea Party extremists.

I don't think you understand where the irony comes from. Liberals don't view the founders the way conservatives do. Most of us have great respect for the founders in general, but we don't treat them as gods.

There is no irony in disagreeing with someone you never viewed as infallible.