No surprize here but I am confused again.....
 

He wants to trade an unspecified amount of freedom, to be determined without knowledge or consent, for some speculated security.

I have sought more details, and what we've learned so far is that he is willing to trade all freedom of certain people for this speculated security.

The problem with the bargain is that we know neither what we are being asked to give nor what we might get in exchange.

Please, Hank, correct me if I am wrong, and identify how much freedom you are ready to surrender, and whose.

Padilla
 

On a fundamental level, yes.

But the protests that started in the 60s were March on Birmingham kind of protests. The riots that originally came about were not dissimilar to the riots in Watts. Black people in America had/have legitimate gripes too. But in America, we started to deal with the problem, instead of arresting people without warrants and holding people without charge. America is not without race violence, but it doesn't have multiple armed paramilitary groups actively warring with each other and with the army.

Ultimately, in modern day western Europe, who really gives a fuck if they live in one country or another, if you're treated live every other citizen. As each day goes by, that becomes more and more like fighting over whether your land should be in California or Oregon. It just doesn't matter, on a fundamental level. It only matters out of a historical sense. Treat people fairly, and the historical sense of outrage will fall away in favor of the business of day to day life.

Britain could have taken the high road and maintained its moral authority. Instead, it panicked and created the second largest ethnic clusterfuck of the second half of the 20th century. (Note, Britain is also primarily responsible for Nos. 1, 4 and 5 as well.)

No surprize here but I am confused again.....
 

I disagree with Wonk. Pick one. Either one. And fucking stick to it. Personally, it would seem advantageous to treat it as a crime, to analogize Al Queda to the Mob or a drug cartel, and to actually be able to apply punishment toward the perpetrators.

But what we don't get to do is treat it as neither, changing the rules as we see fit. We don't get to say it's an act of war and so we can hold prisoners indefinitely without charge (as though they were prisoners of war) and then say that they aren't prisoners of war (and so are not eligible for the protections of that status).

No surprize here but I am confused again.....
 

1 The "no warrent" taps. I posted on these. Given the standards are so low to get a warrent, I believe there must have been a compelling GOOD reason to they skipped the procedure. I find that an acceptable thing- phone calls going somewhere overseas are tapped w/o a warrent in a few cases because there is some real reason.

The only answer I received was from TaxWonk who believes there was a compelling BAD answer (no real grounds). I ask why run the risk if the source isn't seemingly real paydirt- and if that is expected, then how could you not have grounds.

In sum, like the "Bush stole the election" "Bush lied us into war" arguments, I believe those that believe Bush evil, see evil motive everything he touches.

And i also don't see what protection a warrent provides here. They grant every request. Do you feel like the warrent procedure gives you some real protection? Please.

2 People held- i believe there are two groups- a few hundred caught in Afghanistan and a few scattered others- 1 a US citizen.

The people who fought in Afghanistan against us- i have no problem with holding forever. I beleive they are trying to work out how to do trials now, but hardcore Taliban/AQ guys being held- yes I'm willing to give up that freedom.

The other's have real direct ties to AQ. If a US citizen has gone to terror camps in Afghanistan am I comfortable that he may be held while the Government figures out how to try him- yes, i can live with that.

Given how long the problem was allowed to grow, and given how awful the injury anyone of these human bombs can inflict, I am comfortable that a few hundred effectively disappear. how is that worse than the thousands of complete innocents that are killed when we say bombed Baghdad? At least the guys were holding have done things to put themselves in that position.

In the end it boils down to whether you trust this administration*. Those that don't see very very bad motives when it does anything. I expect that it wouldn't do these actions unless there is avery good reason. TaxWonk/balt etc would not have been bothered by any of these actions taken by the clinton WH- of course the Clinton WH took no action soits moot.

*you and maybe Spank are the exception. you are both looking at this from a Professor's chair. That respectable, but not realistic in the world we are in right now.

No surprize here but I am confused again.....
 

When you consider the position of the Clinton administration, made clear by Gorelick's statements at the time, I would highly doubt that the Groper-in-Chief had any qualms about tapping phones.

Except, in his instance, it was the offices of American Spectator and Richie Scaife, not the Arab League.

No surprize here but I am confused again.....
 

I have some trouble understanding what you are saying here, but it seems to be that

(1) with respect to the taps, you trust the government to have had a good reason, and don't view warrants as providing much protection anyways; and

(2) with respect to holding people suspected of involvement in terrorism, you have no problem holding them forever on suspicion.

My response in each case is that we developed a system of checks and balances and judicial review so that these sort of decisions would be subject to some level of review, and so long as we have such a system in place, I can't understand why we should not give that review.

I have absolutely nothing against apprehending people in a war zone who seem to be threats and holding them for some period pending review; forever, however, I cannot see. At the end of the day, someone needs to build a case or we should let them go. Or, if they are prisoners of war and the war is ongoing, they should be held under the Geneva Convention.

And on the warrants, the fact that such a low threshold was not met strikes me as simply incredibly stupid and irresponsible. Warrants ARE one of the basic protections we have; someone needs to have enough of a case to get in front of a judge and explain themselves with a straight face. To fail to do so in these cases compromises our principles for nothing.

If an associate doesn't hand in a memo you asked for, and says you knew the answer anyway and he was just documenting it so he didn't think it was necessary, do you give him a raise for his efficiency?

No surprize here but I am confused again.....
 

This has been my point throughout. This is not a Republican / Democrat or liberal /conservative issue. It is an issue between the autocrats and the libertarians.

No surprize here but I am confused again.....
 

This reminds me of every cop's testimony for why a search was reasonable: "There was clearly a reasonable suspicion--he was the first off the bus, he was carrying a big bag, he paid cash for his ticket, he had on a large down jacket."

Translation: He was black.

No surprize here but I am confused again.....
 

that was sort of my point. it seems dumb that they didn't get a warrent in all situations- and they did get thousands. as I said previously, things must make sense to me. why would they not have done so in these few cases? That really is the heart of it, isn't it?

No surprize here but I am confused again.....
 

He hasn't explained why, having had a year to come up with a reason. The fact that 99.99% of these are approved gives me even greater pause as to the WH's judgment. Saddam may be right on this--it's the No. 1 liar in the world.

No surprize here but I am confused again.....
 

Yes, indeed. I'd like to know why, because I have trouble believing it is mere stupidity - these are smart people. And so much effort seems to have gone into not getting the warrants - certainly, getting 30 presidential authorizations is more work than getting several hundred warrants?

The fact that we don't know why, and no judge knows why, is disturbing to me.

No surprize here but I am confused again.....
 

how's that? Guy at FBI says--let's get a tap. DOJ says, what's your basis? FBI says, screw it, I'm calling Harriet Miers's assistant. Assistant WHC hits macro for the papers and short cover memo, gets on GWB's desk and off it within the day. Meanwhile the DOJ staffer is calling back saying give me another few hours to put together the application, and the FBI says "no need, it's tapped already".

No surprize here but I am confused again.....
 

I would be shocked if everything signed by the President isn't subject to a vetting process from multiple angles. I hope you are wrong on this.

No surprize here but I am confused again.....
 

Except for that 72-hour FISA grace period to get the warrant, this makes perfect sense.

And what's your basis for your scenario how these get put together? I'm thinking that - what, 15,000? - FISA requests is more compelling rationale for a macro than 30 memos to bush.

No surprize here but I am confused again.....
 

My basis is knowing someone who works at DOJ on these issues, and tells me that like any cops FBI wants unfettered wiretaps, and an informed guess at how things might work in the white house.