So why did they sit on the story – gosh, you don’t think it was timed to coincide with the Patroit Act re – authorization? Nah, couldn’t be…

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/16/AR2005121601716.html?nav=rss_politics

Not a big leap for them to make it to our own domestic market.

So we should allow our government to spy on us unless we can prove we aren’t terrorists? Guilty until proven innocent? Didn’t Republicans, some time in the very distant past, have a healthy scepticism towards gubmint?

clint: Talk about no-knock warrants and indefinite detentions without probable cause hearings, and I’m right there with you.

We have been holding hundreds of people indefinately without probable cause hearings, although most are foreigners. But I suppose not having a US passport is their problem. And even Padilla, a US citizen, was held a couple of years without charges.

Governments – left and right – will always try to chip away at our freedoms. It starts as part of the “war on terror” or some other serious issue. But once you feed the beast, it wants more. It starts with illegal detention of foreigners, then it moves on to detaining Americans under “special” circumstances, and then……, etc. Laws focused on terrorism are soon used to harass recreational drug users, potential tax cheats, and later other “enemies of the state” (unfriendly journalists, opposition party members, etc.). Why not? An “unfair” political attack on the President is divisive. Doesn’t that help the terrorists? It’s easy to justify, once you assume the law no longer applies to the executive branch.

Giving government unchecked power is a recipe for disaster. To paraphrase Reagan, “I’m with the government fighting the ‘war on terror,’ and I’m here to help.” Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrghhhhhhh!

http://www.fas.org/irp/facility/menwith.htm

the last phrase of the first para should answer ANY questions.

and JOE, this facility has been in operation through dem & rep administrations.
my only question to you is: are the black helicopters hovering or circling?
your comment about a dem. prez. is truly, truly stupid………given the existence and continuous(trust me) operation of this facility. joe FYI those big white balls don’t hold raquet ball courts.

Can’t have it both ways — the same anonymous sources are claiming that these wiretaps are taking place and that there have been successes (specific examples in the article). You can’t take one as gospel and the other as baseless rumor, unless you have some other sources.

Police state: I’m fairly certain this word doesn’t mean what you think it means. Talk about no-knock warrants and indefinite detentions without probable cause hearings, and I’m right there with you.

What’s going on here is not the administration just doing whatever it feels like — these procedures were authorized by Congress (though we weren’t told about it) and whenever the calls were domestic, they had to be authorized by a judicial warrant. No laws were broken. Not even little ones.

Finally, and most importantly: NO, I do not need to know everything that my government does in my name. Eventually, twenty or fifty years down the road, historians should indeed have access to everything my government did in my name, but not now. Some documents ought to be classified, some actions ought to be secret, some technologies ought not to be shared.

Well this is a serious problem. Those that don’t know anything about the technology of communications are the first to jump. But in times of war some rights have to be suspended to protect the public. If you aren’t an al-Qaeda sleeper, I don’t see the problem.

Apparently Sen Rockerfeller didn’t see a problem either or he would have said so.