Obama Sued by Rand Paul Over Phone Surveillance Program • Hacker News Board

Re: Obama Sued by Rand Paul Over Phone Surveillance Program

#91

Post by vilhelm_s » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 3:21 AM UTC

saalweachter wrote: post #7

My two minutes of internet research says that this is going to get tossed. A President can't be sued for actions taken as President, but can be sued for personal actions. A Daily Beast article mentions this: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/01/30/can-bachman...

The complaint[1] also names the Director of National Intelligence, the Director of the NSA, and the director of the FBI. Presumably it can go forward against those three, and the president is only named because it makes for better headlines?

[1] http://s3.amazonaws.com/freedomworks.org/files/nsa_complaint...

Re: Obama Sued by Rand Paul Over Phone Surveillance Program

#92

Post by joering2 » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 3:35 AM UTC

Clapper (defendant) is in my opinion the most disgusting dirtbag that perfectly represent the broken state of our political system and its rotting that we are currently funcion in.

This piece of trash lied to the Congress (something that hundred of thousands of people commit a jailtime in this moment as i write this) and further explained himself as "i choose the least truthful statement". Well, it wasn't up to him to decide whether he should tell the truth or not, he was answeing to rightfully appointed commision.

Imagine a society you live in where people you pay salaries for (public servant) choose to lie in your face and perfectly get away with it.

This banana republic approach that a cocroach like Clapper can personally decide whether or not he will tell the truth, and not being punished in any way for blunt lies, but rater praised and kept on his post, perfectly summarize the rotten system we live under, where all three branches merge into one and someone like Clapper can call another dirtbag named Holter and asked him not to press charges so life can just abrubtly go on...

Re: Obama Sued by Rand Paul Over Phone Surveillance Program

#93

Post by tanon500 » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 6:40 AM UTC

diminoten wrote: post #69

tanon500 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have the power and opportunity to change a wrong, but do nothing, then you're as culpable as whoever caused the wrong in the first place. In this case we're proving that a wrong occurred by attempting to get retribution for the alleged wrong - whoever is targeted (be they Rep. Dem. Lib.) is inconsequential for the general public, aside from adjusting voting patterns in the future. Once the suit determines culp…

If what you say is true, then every single second of every single day that I'm not spending my time maximizing my benefit to society and others, I'm living in... well, "sin" or whatever moral bad state you would like to call it. You may choose to live like that, but I prefer to judge myself in a way that doesn't make literally everything I do an immoral act.

We're all selfish and make decisions in our best interest (our families' and close ones' interests _are_ our own) - whether or not you look at those selfish decisions as a "sin" isn't a distinction I've made or intend to.

Re: Obama Sued by Rand Paul Over Phone Surveillance Program

#94

Post by diminoten » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 8:25 AM UTC

tanon500 wrote: post #93

diminoten wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If what you say is true, then every single second of every single day that I'm not spending my time maximizing my benefit to society and others, I'm living in... well, "sin" or whatever moral bad state you would like to call it. You may choose to live like that, but I prefer to judge myself in a way that doesn't make literally everything I do an immoral act.

We're all selfish and make decisions in our best interest (our families' and close ones' interests _are_ our own) - whether or not you look at those selfish decisions as a "sin" isn't a distinction I've made or intend to.

Okay, but what you said was that any time we don't act and can act we are operating "in sin", which leads to the conclusion that if we don't always act in the most optimal way for society, we're acting in sin.

So even if you didn't intend to, you just made all selfish acts sinful.

Re: Obama Sued by Rand Paul Over Phone Surveillance Program

#95

Post by zacinbusiness » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 9:18 AM UTC

twoodfin wrote: post #73

zacinbusiness wrote: post #28

I dislike politics in general because, really, it's all just a giant reality tv show. I lost faith when I was in high school, actually, because President Bush stood on national television and said that they couldn't find any weapons in Afghanistan and that was proof that they were there. And nobody, or at least nobody that I had exposure to, thought that was the stupidest thing they had ever heard. Since then, I've s…

I lost faith when I was in high school, actually, because President Bush stood on national television and said that they couldn't find any weapons in Afghanistan and that was proof that they were there. Afghanistan? I assume you mean Iraq, and still I don't have any idea what speech of Bush's you're talking about. Can you help me out?

Could be. It was probably 10 years ago. But basically it's back when the "mobile WMD trucks" were the talking point of the day. U.N. Inspectors and U.S. Inspectors had been all over the place and had been looking for these supposed weapons but they couldn't find any. And so the President said very clearly that, no, they couldn't find the weapons or even the mobile units. But that was evidence that they were being hidden and that we should thus begin preparations for a ground campaign.

Re: Obama Sued by Rand Paul Over Phone Surveillance Program

#96

Post by saalweachter » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 8:08 PM UTC

jdreaver wrote: post #22

dmix wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both parties are slowly merging into one anyway: http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/02/12/us/politics/boehner-to-... The only notable difference these days is the fringes (where Rand Paul and Tea Party reside) vs the single party.

Agreed. Another reason to disregard partisan politics, because the two sides are really one on the most important issues of our time.

Yes, like immigration, health care, women's rights, food stamps, voting rights, minimum wage, social security, and taxation.

Re: Obama Sued by Rand Paul Over Phone Surveillance Program

#97

Post by dllthomas » Tue, Feb 18, 2014, 5:22 PM UTC

dmix wrote: post #49

saraid216 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The national debt is one of the biggest issues in the country right now I disagree with this claim. Unfortunately, it is also the claim upon which the rest of your claims are founded, so I'll have to disagree with everything else you said, too.

> I disagree with this claim. Unsupported opinions are pretty meaningless. How is it not one of the biggest issues? The national debt story has been making constant front-page of news for 3+ years now. Anyone who doesn't see the huge long-term significance of the massive debt is exhibiting significant ignorance to economics. The USA is making a serious gamble that the economy will be strong and fast-growing for the n…

"The USA is making a serious gamble that the economy will be strong and fast-growing for the next 5-10 years."

You know who else is making that bet? The people eagerly buying t-bills. So eager, in fact, that they're loaning us this money at well below inflation - they're more or less paying us to keep their money safe.

We should be sure we're using borrowed money for something reasonable (building infrastructure, smoothing short term needs) rather than on what amounts to consumption, though that distinction may be hard to make.