Baltar I'm with you on the he thinks he's above the law thing. After all, as was recently noted, to Bush the constitution is "just a piece of paper" (yet he's willing to see thousands of Americans dead and spend hundreds of billions of our dollars to get a "piece of paper" in Iraq).

some domestic violence analogies

Um, please tell me you are not going to start singing that god awful song Hannity uses.

Baltar,
We had a discussion a little over a year ago on this blog when Bush was running for President. I stood up for Bush and said that because of him we hadn't had a successful terrorist attack on our soil since 9/11. Some of my esteemed debaters on this blog said that that didn't mean anything, because we had no reason to believe the terrorists had even tried to attack us since 9/11, and Bush wouldn't hold out on something like that because he's Machiavellian, and it would have been to his political advantage to tell us about it, and since he's corrupt that's what he would have done if such attacks had taken place, etcetara ad nauseum. I argued that if he hadn't told the American people about attacks, it would make perfect sense because he's committed to protecting national security, and to tell us might jeopardize ongoing investigations and that sort of thing. You call me a sheep now as you would have then if you'd thought of something that clever then, you call me a sheep for believing in the President when what I said came to pass, that the President did hold back on attempted terrorist attacks, several of them, until it didn't jeopardize American lives to talk about them. The President hasn't acted in a Machiavellian way this time either but again jeopardizes his power and his life in order to protect us, takes a risk of going to jail this time as he'd taken a risk of losing the election last time, a world away from you and Lemieux's suggestion that Bush is interested in power aggrandizement.

Being someone who's open to self examination, I just took the F scale test again, and I got a 1.6, which is far on the opposite end of an authoritarian mindset. In fact, it's on the liberal side of liberal. But what's most interesting is a question about whether we should keep some of the pre-war leadership in Germany (the test was written in 1946) to maintain order. It is interesting that a common staple of the American liberal talking points is how Bush should have kept some of the oppressive Sunni forces who were, after all, just following Saddam's orders, how Bush should have kept them in power to maintain order. When Adorno wrote his facism scale after WWII, apparently it was the authoritarian personalities who espoused that position. Yet you accuse me of an authoritarian mindset.

You and Lemieux's argument that we don't know if wiretaps will actually help our national security is obvious. Any given wiretap may or may not bring us information. But as to what is certain, we certainly won't get information on terrorist attacks from wiretaps if we never use any.

You say Bush violated the law for no reason, because there are few restrictions on FISA wiretaps, but the ones I see could easily be substantial barriers to gaining intelligence. The most obvious one is the restriction of US citizens from such wiretaps (remember Oklahoma City?).

You say maybe these warrants helped prevent the Brooklyn Bridge from being blown up, and then you say that there's been no or little gain in national security from their use. How is blowing up the Brooklyn bridge so inconsequential to you? I can't believe it's conservatives that get accused of being callous. And you continue in that vein by suggesting that there's lots of things that kill more people than terrorists, so why aren't we worried about all those things instead? Which of those exactly do you think wiretaps would help prevent? Is someone going to stop smoking just because a government agent breaks into a phone conversation when they start talking about their smoking, and the federal agent tells them not to smoke? How about they start talking about Ben and Jerry's, so an agent breaks in and tells them about heart risks?

As far as banning tobacco goes, I don't see smoking in the bill of rights, so I'll be happy to support it being banned. You write the proposition and I'll vote for it. Unfortunately, banning firearms would not save any more lives or liberties than it would cost, that's why it's in the Bill of Rights to begin with. I'd like to see the data on how many lives aspirin saves before suggesting we ban it, it's short sighted to presume that banning a thing will save lives without costing any, especially when it's a medicine people take to prevent heart attacks.

What makes terrorism different from almost all the other causes of death you bring up is that it is the intentional destruction of another human being. It's murder, and it's usually murder of many. Almost all cultures in history have found something especially troubling about one human being setting out to take another human being's life. Maybe you're all okay with that idea, but most people aren't. They don't want us to leave just Saudi Arabia, just the Arabian Peninsula. They have designs on controlling the whole world and they don't care if they exterminate everyone who doesn't agree with them. Yet you say I have an authoritarian personality.

Binky - I don't know what you mean, but the mere prospect that I'd be at all like Hannity has prompted me to delete the entire paragraph that would be the basis of any such comparison (well, that and the fact that it was a top-of-the-head reaction I didn't give more than 2 seconds of thought to).

Sorry, just a smidgen of snark.

Btw, Morris - you do realize you just accused Baltar and the rest of us as being supporters of murder - care to retract that?

I am most definitely NOT a supporter of murder, or killing people generally - one of the reasons I'm strongly against this war.

And you have no evidence at all that killing Iraqis (including the killing of many innocent Iraqi men women and children) has saved American lives. It's just an idea. You can believe it - but not prove it. And a pretty damn strong case can be made that we endangering American lives by continuing to battle in Iraq. And of course as a result of launching this war already 2,100 Americans are dead and over 15,000 injured. Those aren't lives saved by the American president's actions - quite the opposite.

And you do realize that you are making law itself entirely meaningless, right? Giving unfettered power to those who are already powerful is a prescription for horrible abuses - and we've already seen some. Is there anything you think the president can't do because the US has an enemy in the world (as it always has and always will)? Or should we just go ahead and declare an absolute monarchy and shred the Bill of Rights immediately?

I'm sure the answer to your question will be "no."

However it's one more example of the "with us or against us" strategy. [It seems to be irrelevant - ed.] That none of us are pro-murder, and that in fact the arguments we are making against these policies are because there is no evidence or logic that suggests they actualy work, and that their side effects are worse than the "cure." We are in fact suggesting that there are better ways to stop terrorists and save american lives.

It's the usual. If we were criticizing the administration's lack of support for the hungry, we'd get labeled as wanting children to starve. And then as being authoritarians for wanting it our way instead.

Note, of course, that everyone wants it his way, and that's why democratic pluralism is such a great thing, because we have rules and procedures and separation of powers to make sure no one sneaks around in the dark and makes things his way without consulting the rest of us. And no, winning an election and informing a few Congressmen doesn't amount to obtaining the consent of the governed.

I don't think anyone's calling for the banning of wiretaps, Morris. JUST WARRANTLESS WIRETAPS ISSUED BY EXECUTIVE FIAT IN VIOLATION OF THE 4th AMENDMENT AND THE SEPARATION OF POWERS.

False dichotomy #28,483.

I am too! And for the end of America! And eating babies! And roasting puppies! And, and....

Bro,
What I said is that Baltar's arguing a few murders isn't such a big deal that it justifies any limiting of civil liberties, that the Brooklyn Bridge being blown up would have had little or no effect on national security, that there's nothing worse about people dying from terrorism that there is about people dying from other causes, so that does sound callous to murder, not supportive of it.

There was no more evidence in the late 1930's that Germany would continue to act aggressively than there is international terrorists will continue to act aggressively. Oh, wait, actually there is because the terrorists are really saying they want to continue to kill us where Germany said there were going to stop. There's no evidence Hitler would have continued to exterminate Jews and Gypsies any more than Saddam would have continued to exterminate Kurds and Shia. The evidence for things like this happens after they happen, and it's a bit short sighted to argue that just because the next time hasn't happened yet, we can't predict the next time based on past behavior. We can't be sure, but taking the chance is taking a really big chance. The Supreme Court has ruled during WWII that liberties can be limited during a time of war. And if you think we may as well shred the bill of rights just because of a few hundred wiretaps, go over to North Korea and live for a while, and when you come back tell me if you may have been a little extreme in your position. And yet Binky has the temerity to suggest I'm the one with the with us or against us strategy, to suggest that I'm the one seeing things in black and white.

Norbizness,
Baltar suggested that wiretaps were useless (little or no gain to national security) and that there was no evidence any of the wiretaps had actually stopped a terrorist attack, so that's why I make the points that wiretaps have the potential to bring enough intelligence to stop a terrorist attack (the calls made by terrorists before 9/11) and that potential does not exist if we never use them. If you agree that this potential does exist, then it is Baltar's and Lemieux's doubt of a zero sum relationship that if false because they argue that no gain is made toward national security by violating these liberties when if fact experience with wiretaps and with terrorist attacks shows us that these would have helped in the past. So therefore in the past taking them away would have been a net decrease in intelligence, so we have every reason to believe from past experience that we will gain and have gained by their use, even if the President hasn't told us about it yet.

Morris,

Short answer: what norbizness said.

Long answer: What the heck are you talking about? This is a remarkably clear problem: under present (FISA) law, if the President wants to wiretap anyone (domestic to international, international to international, or domestic to domestic) he can without a warrant, without waiting. The law requires, however, that a warrant be issued (and, hence, must be applied for) by the special FISA court within 72 hours of actually slapping the wiretap on whatever phone/email/fax line the US government wants to wiretap. That FISA court (according to this table) has only rejected 4 wiretaps since 1980 (out of several thousand applications). This is as close to a rubber-stamp approval process as one can get. Thus, by the law that exists today, there is no restriction on the President's ability to gain information through wiretaps.

But the President, by specific executive order, decided to ignore this law, and wiretap US citizens without going to the FISA court to get a warrant.

Explain two things to me: (A)By what legal authority the President has the right to ignore the FISA law; and (B) Why, given the history of the FISA courts to approve wiretaps and the fact that wiretaps can be gotten with retroactive warrants, it is necessary for the President to order the National Security Agency to act without warrants?

Now, as to the rest of your long essay, I (mostly) have no idea what it has to do with the original post. You think Bush is acting (nobly) to defend freedom and this country. I disagree. As I have stated (and others on this board have stated), Bush sees little check on his powers:

In light of the President's complete authority over the conduct of war, without a clear statement otherwise, criminal statutes are not read as infringing on the President's ultimate authority in these areas.(Page 20)

The Administration's legal position is that, given that Bush is Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, and given that we are in a war (not declared by Congress, but asserted by the President), any action by Bush is legal (regardless of the laws) because Bush's authority as Commander-in-Chief is supreme, and any limitation of his authority (by, for example, laws passed by Congress) would limit his authority as Commander-in-Chief, which is clearly unconstitutional. Did you follow that? A shorter version is: Because the Constitution says I'm in charge of the military, and because we were attacked over four years ago, anything I do is legal because I'm in charge.

You are OK with this, Morris? (And remember, if it's OK for Bush, then by definition it will be OK for anyone in the office. So, for example, Hillary Clinton would have exactly these same broad powers.)

I don't know, or care, what an "F scale test" is. I'm glad you scored liberal. Why aren't you acting like one?

And about the Brooklyn Bridge: as I noted above, warrantless wiretaps were unnecessary. The FISA court has approved all but four (and even those were mostly approved with restrictions). How can you claim that warrantless wiretaps prevented this terrorist, when the same information could have been gotten with a warrant?

As to my suggestions about other violations of civil liberties, I think you are playing deliberately stupid. Of course wiretaps have nothing to do with stopping smoking: the point was that if the President is authorized to break laws in order to save lives, then there are many, many laws the President can break that will save many, many more people than this silly warrantless wiretapping. If you are so concerned about saving lives, why aren't you upset over his failure to do the necessary (but illegal) actions to ban smoking, ban guns, or ban alcohol?

Your statement that "banning firearms would not save any more lives or liberties than it would cost" is unsupported by facts. If you would like to cite me evidence that civilians having firearms saves over 29,000 lives a year, then I'll believe you. The (original) facts to not bear out your assertions.

I won't reply to your final paragraph. You are just trolling.

Still sheep.

no evidence that these measures are helpful? its self-evident. what kind of evidence are you looking for?

and the trains run on time, too. oh, wait . . .

if you dont think this works then why dont we get rid of FISA courts and alltogether abandon the idea of tapping the phones of potential terrorists inside our country

Uh, Anonymous, the whole point is that the President should have used the FISA courts in the first place because they are an existing legal way to go about it.