What about this program bothers you? Would you rather innocents be killed because we missed something by not tapping into their conversations, like we missed a lot with that Gorlick wall?

You know the irony is that the Gorelick wall is exactly the type of thing that Mark J. would vocally support and defend, and yet it was a key obstacle that prevented us from getting the 9/11 hijackers in the first place.

Were you born this obtuse, or did it require years of practice?

Liberals & what they are & stand for :

1)Anti-American
2)terrorist appeasers
3)Gay Marriage
3)Anti-Holiday (especially Christmas)
4)Cut & Run
5)Open Borders
6)Pro illegal aliens

That it is against the law. That it gives absolute power to one branch of the government to do whatever they want whenever they want to whomever they want without telling anyone or being accountable to anyone, ever.

The Senate Intelligence committee was kept completely up to date on everything, didn’t you read Rockefellers letter that it wasn’t his fault he was too stupid to understand what was happening?

To any right-wing supporters of this program… would you have been comfortable if Clinton had assumed this power? Would you sleep well at night knowing that his administration was tapping phones without accountability, or even a record that it had happened?

How do you know he didn’t? By all indications he did the same thing, but his political enemies weren’t as insane as Bushitlers. These are secret operations to develop intelligence, not evidence. The rules of evidence are completely irrelevant, nobody is interested in prosecuting these people in a court of law. God knows how long they have been going on, just secretly until now, when defeating the Republicans has become more important than defending the country.

Actually, Mark, there are an awful lot of Democrats who don’t think the terror threat is real.

Names? Quotes? As far as I know, even crazy 9/11 conspiracy theorist Cynthia McKinney doesn’t claim that terrorists weren’t involved with the attacks.

Sen. Minority Leader Harry Reid bragged about killing the Patriot Act.

Indeed, but we’re talking about FISA here… the ability of the government to listen in to terrorists’ communications.

I’ve not heard any Democrats recommend that FISA be locked down to make it harder for the government to listen in. The video proposes that this is a goal of the Democrats. I still say it’s a straw man.

It’s a clever straw man, no doubt. People are stupid. People don’t know what FISA is or that the government can already listen in to terrorists phone calls legally. They hear that Democrats are opposed to Bush’s warrantless terrorist surveillance program and then some dishonest propaganda message claims that Democrats don’t want the government to be able to listen in to terrorists’ communications, and they fall for it. Nevermind that it’s utter bullshit. Nevermind that submitting to court review doesn’t restrict the government… it only makes them accountable.

Hey Mark, it is being done legally.

No it is not. Alberto Gonzales admitted that they were violating the law. He just said that it is the administration’s opinion that they should be allowed to violate the law, if it will make Americans safer.

Terrorists don’t have civil rights protections.

They do if they are American citizens. Obviously a terrorist in Pakistan doesn’t have them, but I didn’t claim that they did.

You may not be against terroist surveillance, but all your contrived hoops giving civil rights to non citizens have the same effect.

My “hoop” is not contrived. It’s the bloody law. It doesn’t give civil rights to non-citizens. It doesn’t prevent, slow down or in any way interfere with the ability of the government to intercept terrorist communications. They don’t even have to tell the court ahead of time… they can listen in, and then tell the court after the fact. How does that restrict them? It’s not about restriction, it’s about accountability. The Bush administration wants to listen in to the calls of anyone at any time for any reason without having to ever tell anyone that it even happened.

Your comments about how Democrats are doves are well taken. Yeah, Clinton was useless, militarily. Regardless, it is a straw man to say that Democrats want to change FISA so that the government cannot listen in to terrorists’ communications. That was my only point. I think the Democrats’ foreign policy generally sucks. I voted for Bush in 2004 because I didn’t want Kerry in charge of the armed forces. I’m with you on that. What I’m talking about is a domestic issue… interception of phone calls without a warrant and without ever telling the courts, as the Bush administration admits is required by law.

What about this program bothers you?

That it is against the law. That it gives absolute power to one branch of the government to do whatever they want whenever they want to whomever they want without telling anyone or being accountable to anyone, ever. To any right-wing supporters of this program… would you have been comfortable if Clinton had assumed this power? Would you sleep well at night knowing that his administration was tapping phones without accountability, or even a record that it had happened?

Here’s how it currently works.

1. NSA taps a phone
2. NSA promises (internally, not to any external party) that there was a terrorist on one end of the call
3. America says “yeah, it’s cool, we trust you and all of the thousands of people who work for you to never ever use this power for a nefarious purpose”

Part of me almost wants a Democrat to be elected in 2008, just to watch the look on your faces when you realize that all the absolute power you silently let the Bush administration accumulate is now in the hands of an atheistic peace-nik.

God bless you, lady. Good luck to you and your husband. The true Americans in the country support you, your husband, and his position on all things in the war. Those who won’t fight it are too limited in intellect and attention span to realize they were ignoring the conflict for over 25 years now. Well we aren’t ignoring it now. And they are scared to death Real Men and Real Women might stand up for their lives and their kids and do something drastic about protecting America from an Islamic threat which has been present and actively attempting to fight the US for over 25 years.

Press on, ma’am.

Subsunk

Heh, funny. Of course the part of Murtha blocking “terrorist surveillance” is a load of crap. No one, not even civil libertarians like me opposes that. We just want it to be done legally.

Mark Jaquith

Was the Gorlick Wall a load of crap too? How about Sandy Berger shoving classified papers down his pants? Never underestimate the stupidity foolishness of any democrat.

Actually, Mark, there are an awful lot of Democrats who don’t think the terror threat is real.

Well, except they consider the Bush administration a “terror threat.”

So it’s not a straw man at all.

It’s a straw man.

Murtha blocking “terrorist surveillance” is a load of crap

right.

Allahpundit links a great ad for for the Donk’s future newsletter – “America Weakly”. H/T: the Llamas (who wisely advise that you keep your mouth free of food and drink while viewing) ;-)……

Allahpundit (who else?) has the link to the first truly-web based campaign ad with high production values up over at YouTube, the advertisement for the new Democratic newspaper “America Weakly.” Usual warnings about not watching while eating Cheerios…