Fiery_penguin_of_doom Posts

'National Security Letters' used to have a lifetime gag-order automatically attached. Though a few lawsuits involving NSL's have occured after the gag order sections were revoked/removed/found unconstitutional.

Here are some of the lawsuits involving NSL's

Library Connection v. Gonzales

Internet Archive v. Mukasey,

Doe v. Holder*

Doe v. Holder resulted in several court rulings that found the NSL statute unconstitutional.

Additionally, As part of Electronic Frontier Foundations's FLAG Project. The EFF fileded a Freedom of Information Act request for records of intelligence violations stemming from the FBI's use of the roving wiretap provisions of the PATRIOT Act. In the FBI's response to their request, they uncovered evidence of multiple reports of potential violations however, in typical FBi fashion, the reports are almost entirely redacted.

I believe I've made my point. You are wrong, provisions of the Patriot act have indeed been used and resulted in the unconstitutional violation of the rights of American citizens.



Isn't that the job of being a skeptic? Not to trust anything unless verifiable evidence is presented? You treat everything I say with skepticism but, criticize me for holding Obama to the same standard? I guess you supporting the President gives him exemption to your own standards.



It's the basis of argument, person X makes a claim. You expect them to provide proof of their statement or claim. I am merely doing the same for Obama. He claims to have "reservations" for NDAA and I am expecting proof. You hold me to the same standard so what is wrong with holding Obama to that standard?



As for his policies, he has 30 years of consistency in those policies. As far as being able to verify that he will follow through on them. I won't know until he has the opportunity. If he fails to follow through, then I will be as critical of him then as I am supportive of him now.



Obama = no real history in politics thus no record for consistency.
Ron Paul = 30 years of consistent voting patterns and unchanging "message" or "rhetoric".

The key here is consistency. Think of it as a political credit check. Just like if you have no credit history, you are treated with skepticism and handled with caution as you have no "history" for credit issuers to rely on.

If a man has 30 years of consistently paying his credit cards, bill and mortgage, it's reasonable to believe that he will continue that behavior.

However if a man has a scant few years (<5) of credit history then you have to be wary as you don't have a history to go on.



Done and Done. See above.



If it's occurred (as stated above) it's not speculation, it's fact.



So you support the violation of everyone's rights (Patriot Act, NDAA, etc) because a terrorist MIGHT drag out the sentencing and get acquitted. Didn't you criticize me for referencing things that MIGHT happen?

Regardless, there have been several civil trials for terrorist suspects that have gotten guilty verdicts. One such instance is the trial of Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani. He was convicted of one count of conspiracy for his role in the 1998 terrorist bombings of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, that killed 224 people, including 11 U.S. citizens.



You're against it because his religious zealotry demonstrates that he MIGHT be incapable of being responsible with it. If I'm not allowed to use that logic, neither are you.



Eliminating a species from an ecosystem will lead to the destabilization of that ecosystem.





You missed the argument. A person was deprived of their life without due process. Yeah, we can split hairs over immediate threat, etc but, that's a different argument. Whether or not he was a terrorist is irrelevant to the argument. He was accused of something, in this instance it was "terrorism". He was never tried in a legal proceeding and was assassinated on foreign soil. It completely throws out the 6th and 7th amendment.





I deny them that ability because they have abused it as I mentioned above.



We'll argue this all day and never agree. So there really isn't a point to debating this. You think our rights can be taken away because you're accused of something. I argue that you have to be convicted of something before your rights can be taken away. We can move on and not waste our time here, agreed?



It's really silly to allow a "boogeyman" to scare you to such a degree than you're willing to throw everyone else under the bus just so you can feel safe from said mentioned boogeyman.



Close but, not quite. You won't get "black bagged" for your name but, you're calls will be monitored. In fact, the FBI has actually had operatives infiltrate mosques to look for "radicals".



Humor me.

Okay, so 15 minute Google searches won't cut it anymore. Fine, against my better judgement, I'll put in a little effort.



Renewal of the Patriot Act, NDAA and acta were signed into law. If their physical existence isn't enough for you, then I can't help you as you've clearly shut your eyes to anything that isn't in line with your own views.



First, if the Federal Government claims "national security" in the form of "NSA letters" the requirement for warrants can be waived. Second, the "Roving wiretap" (Sec. 206) allows one warrant to cover multiple devices. Instead of Warrants being narrow and specific such as oral, wire or electronic communication, they are now broader and cover all forms of communication so one warrant can cover all communications. Section 213, allows authorities of execute a search warrant without immediately notifying the target that they have been subject to a search. (Sec. 218) also lowers the bar for wiretaps involving "foreign intelligence" which basically boils down to, if you communicate in any fashion with a foreign entity then the requirements for a warrant are much lower.



U.S Patriot Act Text



I thought we had previously agreed to try to be civil for once?



Oh yes, because politicians are total beacons of truth. He couldn't simply be lying or anything because there is some magical spell that prevents the President of the United States from lying. If he didn't want to sign it, he should have veto'd it but, instead he signed it thus his "reservations" are merely for show.



By supporting these bills he's showing a consistent behavior that is a threat to rights. One shouldn't be concerned only when their rights have already been violated but, when something threatens to violate those rights. As with NDAA, you should care BEFORE you or someone you know is arrested and detained without a trial.

These are not so much about what "might" happen but, how the government is expanding it's power and control over it's population.

Give one reason why a person should be denied access to legal council and due process for being accused of a crime and how denying people access to these somehow benefits society.

You may be fine with the Obama administration having such power but, would you be fine if someone like Bush or Rick Santorum became President? Imagine a religious zealot like Santorum having the ability to indefinitely detaining people simply because his administration accused someone of a crime.



Several whale species are still endangered/protected and are currently hunted by Japanese whaling fleets to sell the meat in Japanese markets. Studies have shown that cetacean (dolphins, whales) meat that is sold in Japanese markets contains dangerously high levels of mercury.

You can find the study in the June 15 2003 edition of Environmental Science & Technology. I suggest using your school resources to find the issue as I can't find a working link via Google.

Additional link.



By supporting that proposal, he is directly allowing the hunting of endangered/protected species which may become extinct without further protection from whaling fleets. By the commercializing whaling, the toxic meat of whales will be sold in stores to people which will cause health problems due to the high levels of mercury in the meat.




Regulation

Regulating

By requiring that these forms of communication are compliant with this law. It allows the patriot act greater access to your communications. When it comes to government overstepping it's limitations, the more it can do, the more it will do.




If anybody "coped out" it was you. The event occured, there is no evidence that he was tried for any crime. He was simply assassinated on foreign soil because he was labeled a "terrorist". You're intentionally blinding yourself to events that are occurring right in front of your eyes.



Guantanamo bay prison is a stark violation to everything this Republic stands for. Those people have been held and are still held without access to lawyers or due process. The Obama administration has not freed those people, nor has there been any evidence that the administration has granted them access to legal council.

While he may not have directly ordered that person X being detained, his continuation of the Bush Era policy makes him just as guilty as the people who detained them in the first place. He's had 3 years to shut down Guantanamo bay, grant access to legal council for those detained there or even grant civil trails for those who are there.




Nice straw man you built there. Never did I say that they should be allowed to carry out their attack before being detained. People have the right to due process and the patriot act, NDAA and others revoke constitutional protections simply because you are accused of a crime, not convicted, accused.

We should not simply dismiss a person's rights because they are accused of committing a crime. If our "rights" are so easily dismissed then they really are not rights but, merely privileges. Never should our rights hinge on government fiat.

@Anesthetize: I'm not blaming Obama for ACTA, I'm blaming him for signing it. He caved to pressure from corporations. Corporations that are stuck with draconian business models and refuse to adapt to the new business market. ACTA and SOPA are attempts to restrict competition for the big players from tiny internet start up companies and have little to do in ways of actually fighting "piracy".

Extended Patriot Act.

Signed NDAA

Signed ACTA

supported a proposal by the I.W.C to lift the moratorium on commercial whaling.

Attempting to regulate the internet.

Stated that his administration can kill U.S citizens without a trial.

Continuation of a policy of indefinite detention without trial at Guantanamo bay.

Obama has been trampling our civil liberties. Any "liberal" who still supports Obama at this point in time is mentally ill or really isn't a liberal. Left/Right, Communist/Libertarian/Whatever we can all agree that we have rights and they should be protected from those who would deny them.

Starts back as far as 1953 with the TPAJAX Project and it continues today with the U.S supporting (and protecting) People's Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI)and the Jundullah militias. To this day the U.S CIA participates in black operations against Iran. This is accompanied by laws such as Iran Freedom and Support Act. Which gives money to any group that is opposed to the Iranian government.

I'm sorry to inform you that it won't fly in courts.

That's something that's always bugged me about child support & Abortion. Only the woman has the right to decide the direction of a pregnancy. The male has also contributed genetic material (property) to the pregnancy, yet he is second class to the woman in the argument. If a male does not want a child but, the woman does, she now has the legal right to use force to deprive the man of property to suit her needs which often leads to abuse of the system by females who would rather leech off their ex husbands than seek gainful employment.

On the other side of the argument, if the woman does not want the pregnancy and the male does, he also does not have any say in the argument and his "property" can be destroyed without his consent.

The entire event treats the male like a second class citizen to the female. Before someone calls me a sexist or a misogynist, let me make one thing clear, I believe in equality which means that neither males nor females should be treated as second to the other in any situation (now get off your high horse). So while we may not have the technology to help the male in the second situation we can help the male in the first situation by allowing him to opt out of child support if certain criteria are met.

Since you touched on a pro-death penalty argument, I was trying to pull more information out of you. This is because one of my external hard drives corrupted and I lost a good 10 GB chunk of my archives.

Lundi, the only one not reading is you. You stated



To which I responded



So, what else besides the "statistically lower exoneration rate" does the pro-death penalty crowd have? That's all I'm asking, what else do they have to stand on?

Christ, can't you and I have one civil conversation for once?

You wasted both your time and mine by regurgitating your post without actually answering the question. I guess you're just a douche like that.

I didn't ask why you opposed the death penalty. Since you were quoting Von Der Haag, I asked what other benefits does society gain from having a death penalty? The only answer you gave was from "higher exoneration rate". The death penalty is not more cost effective as it ties up resources that could be better spent elsewhere. Statistically the "derrent" factor has been proven to be bunk as well. If there is no other tangible benefit for society, the cons of such a policy far outweigh the pro's.

There are 2,019,234 prisoners in the United States alone. Thats 715 per 10,000 people. The majority of them are minor drug offenses. If "prison population" is becoming a problem, maybe we should look into alternative methods or even re-evaluating the policies that are leading to the exploding prison population. *Cough* War on Drugs *Cough*

Source
Source 2

I'm not saying rehabilitate and release every single person. If you've committed murder then you deserve to stay locked up for years. You committed the ultimate grievance against another human being by depriving them of their life and by extension you have caused damage against all the people who knew that person.

However, if you were arrested for a drug possession. Put them through a rehabilitation treatment and see how they respond. Portugal decreased their drug abuse problems by replacing incarceration with mandatory rehabilitation programs.

Simply locking them away from society for X amount of years and releasing them is only going to force them to recommit crimes. They have no job, no money, probably no friends or family willing to support them (depending on the crime and other factors). Then they face difficulty in finding gainful employment, they are restricted in ownership of cell phones and other devices, often they are restricted in the hours they can work, some might even be prevented from owning a drivers license which further restricts their ability to work. It simply perpetuates a cycle of crime & punishment.

@ Lundi: Okay, I'll bite. What benefits do we stand to gain as a country for continued implementation of the death penalty? Statistically, we've already debunked the deterrent and financial arguments so what else is there?

That is the problem with the modern prison system. Instead of just locking them away and forgetting about them we need to try and rehabilitate them.

Link

Link 2

Link 3

Link 4

The first graph alone puts hole in the deterrent argument. Theoretically, the number of murders should be lower in pro-death penalty states. Granted the graph is simplistic and doesn't go into the variable but, that's what the others are for.

I oppose capital punishments because nobody has the right to deprive another person of their life. It's a double standard that if I kill someone, I'm a murderer but, if the government kills someone it's simply "justice".

Plus, there are several studies and polls that have shown that capital punishment does not deter violent crime.

I could go on but, the ACLU has a nice article located here.

You forgot

Like many users here on fakku, I got bullied when I was younger. My bully problem started when I was in middle school. I was new to the school system (Having moved to Georgia from Iowa), I was scrawny (<100lbs at 13), wore glasses, my family was middle class (compared to the faux "rich" that was the demographic), I was introverted, socially awkward and kept to myself.

My bullies ranged the whole gambit from the typical name calling, to outright unprovoked violence. I remember once incident where a bully jumped me during the class change and began pummeling me. The oddest thing is, I didn't even know the kid. Still infuriates me to remember seeing the other kids just walk by and ignore it as if nothing was happening.

So after taking the abuse for as long as I could (teachers back then didn't care if you were bullied unless something like a black eye or a broken nose occurred (something the school could get sued for) I finally decided to start standing up for myself. So from that point on, anyone who made fun of me or threatened me got their ass kicked. Unfortunately, the same teachers who ignored my plea's for help at the time were the defenders of the kids I would beat up. I was routinely in the vice principals office for disciplinary actions. Even ended up with a juvenile record for disrupting school, oh the irony.

The bully problem got so bad, my family had to move to an entirely different county to escape it.

When I see the commercials or other media for these anti-bulling campaigns, I can't help but, feel a bit infuriated. In my father's time, if someone "talked shit" you had the privilege to kick their ass and nobody even batted an eye unless you hospitalized him. I would personally, like to return to that kind of mentality. You got a bully problem? Kick his ass publicly, show the school or community know that the bully is just a paper tiger. Once a bully is humiliated, they stop because they know nobody will fear them anymore.

Nowadays, we are teaching children to not stand up for themselves. Just take the abuse or cop out and "find an adult" to help solve your problems rather than solving them yourself. Once the teacher is involved, you look weak and will attract more attention/criticism and even more bullies.

PM Jacob and ask very, very, very nicely. Hopefully, he'll be in a charitable mood and will grant the change. If he says no, then you're S.O.L.

I won't stop because I doubt that SOPA or it's various incarnations would stop. SOPA isn't about stopping piracy, sure that is the official story. The real intent of SOPA and it's various incarnations was to stop internet businesses from sprouting up and threatening the quasi-monopolies of major corporations.

Why Megaupload was shut down.

Corporations like the RIAA members do not like this type of venture (i.e. competition) because it would take money away from them. They've come to realize that their outdated distribution model isn't working, so they've decided to take control of the internet by buying off a few senators which is a lot cheaper than setting up a new distribution system. The additional perk of this method is they can use the power of the Federal Government to stamp out any competition that threatens their profits.

Misogyny is born from two incidents, either the person was raised and educated with a misogynistic worldview or the person is hurt by one or more females in such a manner than they begin to distrust or outright hate women.

I believe Misogyny can be cured if the person is just raised with the worldview much along the same lines as a religious person can change their beliefs. The second cause for Misogyny can't really be cured since it's conditioned into the person through personal experience.

Shit like that will always remain as long as shit like this remains

As a fellow Ron Paul supporter, I have to ask you to drop this one. The fact is fewer people were added to Food Stamps under Obama than Bush. However, despite the difference being around .2 million it still doesn't speak well for Obama when Bush had 8 years to accumulate something like 1.4 million people on Food Stamps compared to Obama's 1.2 in 4.



Again, I request that you cease this argument. Obama has taken fewer vacations than Bush during their respective terms. The presidency is a tough job and you can't blame a guy for wanting to get out of the house once in a while. Even so, Obama doesn't shelf everything, he still works while on vacation, just not to the extent that he would while in office.



Gotta be a little more specific otherwise you hurt your argument. For example, flying him entire family out to Hawaii only for him to follow a day later was a huge waste of taxpayer money. There was no real reason for the family to be split up like that and requiring separate flights.



Track it yourself

He killed the boogeyman, good for him. Now, I can finally clean out my closet.



Numbers are fudged, that rate only accounts for the people still actively searching for work and does not account for long term unemployed who have simply given up. If you add in those factors, our unemployment rate is still well above 10%. Government numbers will always be skewed to make the government look better.



Where?



Anemic economic growth is anemic. Numbers are most likely misrepresented with hazy math for political points.



George W. Bush signed that withdrawal date at the beginning of the Invasion. Taking credit for another man's actions isn't a positive characteristic in a leader.



I approve of this.



Republicans in congress wouldn't approve any tax hikes anyways. Obama has repeatedly tried to raise taxes on businesses and "the wealthy" and every attempt was stopped in congress by the Republicans.



Oh yeah, that's totally a positive factor. Having the media label everyone who doesn't like Obama a racist. Totally the way a leader should behave.



Bailed out failing businesses with out of date business practices with our money. Essentially, he paid off his supporters (unions) with taxpayer money. Stealing from Tom to give to Harry isn't a positive thing.



Turning on your allies. Such a faithful partner. Gaddafi was an ally of the United States, we sent terrorism suspects to Libya for interrogations and detainment. You really need to look more into that one.



The Nobel Peace Prize is a joke and has been since Henry Kissinger got his grubby paws on one. President Obama was involved in two simultaneous wars when he received a PEACE prize. He was nominated for that "award" for political points.



Meh, no opinion. I hate all parties involved in that mess. Dislike the Feds for interfering, dislike the banks for writing those bad mortgages, dislike the dumb asses who bought homes they couldn't afford.



Oh yeah, forcing the population of a country to buy a specific product under penalty of law. Yep, buy this product or go to jail. Land of the Free my ass.



He renewed the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act, and signed the National Defense Authorization Act into law. Saying he protected our rights makes you sound barmy.



Obama is Bush in black face and a wig. A second term of Obama is a fourth term for Bush.