Via TPM, Federal Judge Richard Leon says the NSA’s metadata collection probably violates the Fourth Amendment:
Comparing the technology used by the National Security Agency to George Orwell’s dystopian fiction, a federal judge on Monday ruled that the NSA’s bulk collection of telephone metadata is likely unconstitutional.
U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon’s ruling found that an NSA program that was approved by the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court likely violates the Fourth Amendment prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures — and that the court precedent used in the past to justify the program is out of date.
“The almost-Orwellian technology that enables the Government to store and analyze the phone metadata of every telephone user in the United States is unlike anything that could have been conceived in 1979,” Leon wrote in his opinion.
The ruling came in response to two lawsuits originally brought in June by the conservative legal activist Larry Klayman and four other plaintiffs against government agencies and officials, as well as telecom and internet companies. In his ruling, Leon wrote that the bulk collection and analysis of phone records “almost certainly does violate a reasonable expectation of privacy.”
Yeah, THAT Larry Klayman. The ruling may be the right one, but I have to agree with valued commenter Burnspbesq here:
The idea that Larry Klayman, who is both a wingnut and an asshole, is about to be canonized as the newest First Amendment Saint makes me want to vomit.
Yep.
campionrules
I think he immediately stayed it for appeal though – trying to fasttrack it up the ladder I suppose.
Also, Klayman? I mean this guy is wacky wacky, I have friends who I would consider very, very conservative and they think he’s a nutbag.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
Not holding my breath for the SCOTUS to uphold this
BGinCHI
If Larry Klayman is right, I don’t want to be right.
burnspbesq
PACER seems to have melted down, so copies of the opinion aren’t yet available. I’m curious to see the standing analysis.
I wonder how Jameer Jaffer feels about putting the ACLU in bed with a guy who is trying to intervene in the North Carolina voting rights litigation on the State’s side.
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2013/12/15/4545975/judicial-watch-wants-to-join-fray.html#.Uq99Go03lE0
Cassidy
Woohoo, ain’t no party like a BJ purity party! This comments section will be fun. Now who’s sticking their dick in the mashed potatoes?
Yatsuno
@burnspbesq: They’re good at rationalising that shit. Honestly they have a point: civil rights are for everyone, even if that someone is a reprehensible human being.
Could throw up an interesting conflict of interest point though.
Zifnab25
@GHayduke (formerly lojasmo): That’ll just prove how the SCOTUS is unconstitutional and we can only look to our Constitutional Sheriffs and Constitutional District Judges to defend us.
Socoolsofresh
Ya, cause concerned Obama supporters were going to file their lawsuit on the NSA phone spying program any day now!
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@Zifnab25:
Excellent point.
@Socoolsofresh:
Fuck yourself.
different-church-lady
@Socoolsofresh: Nobody stopped you from filing one.
Botsplainer
There was another thread where socoolsofresh was lionizing the incestuous child molesting racist grifter.
burnspbesq
@Yatsuno:
As a long-time member of the ACLU, I expect it to periodically do shit that pisses me off. They’ll keep getting my money every year, becuase they’re right more often than they’re wrong.
Botsplainer
Locked out test
DTOzone
is he? What are the odds most Americans are even concerned about this? Snowden is not exactly hailed as a hero by the masses.
Although the court ruling might sway public opinion.
I predict NSA will wind down these activities. I don’t believe the Obama administration did this for any other reason than to pander to the masses that they weren’t weak on national security.
Now it’s out of their hands.
Roger Moore
@burnspbesq:
Politics makes strange bedfellows. Not that there’s anything wrong with
queerstrange bedfellows.max
@burnspbesq: I wonder how Jameer Jaffer feels about putting the ACLU in bed with a guy who is trying to intervene in the North Carolina voting rights litigation on the State’s side.
I doubt he cares, and if he did, he’d suck and should step down. Larry Klayman is a freak, a jerk and an asshole, and the fact that he (RIGHTLY!) won merely demonstrates that sometimes it takes a freaky jerky asshole to get the courts to do what they should have done a long time ago.
max
[‘See, *my* tribe believes in the Bill of Rights, unlike conservatives.’]
Baud
Back then, we were only concerned about locking up black people for drugs (and, to be fair, organized crime).
Gypsy Howell
Honest question – even if it’s upheld as unconstitutional, who is going to make the NSA stop? And how?
NCSteve
For anyone who gives a damn about the rule of law, and in particular anyone who fears that conservative judges are going to spend the next three decades trying to lawlessly impede the agenda of the people who can actually win elections, his opinion’s reasoning is very troubling. It’s raw judicial activism of the most blatant kind and raw judicial activism by Bush appointees should give one pause, even if it’s done in the service of all that is Right and Good.
Basically, he says “yeah, I know the FISA court has looked at it, and yeah, I know there are two Supreme Court cases on point that seem to be controlling, and yeah, there are a lot of other lower court cases that are contrary to what I’m saying here, but I’ve decided that I don’t have to follow Supreme Court precedent because, you know, stuff is like, different now, than it was all they way back in 1979.”
Trial court judges are free to express doubts about the continued viability of mandatory authority in light of changed social or economic or even technological circumstances and commend their views to the appellate courts. But they don’t get to just disregard existing fucking precedent just because they don’t like it!
Not even when they’re doing it in a case the know a lot of liberals will like.
When judges appointed by George W. Bush suddenly start waxing poetic and professing their enduring love and devotion to the Fourth Amendment after four decades of Republican appointees slowly hollowing it out, a piece at a time, like termites in a roof beam, I smell an ulterior motive, a hidden agenda.
And in this case, I suspect what they’re doing is setting up a body of law that allows them to attack precedents like, say, Roe v. Wade and the ban on teaching creationism because, you know, stuff is, like, different now and all and using cases they know liberals will cheer rather than read skeptically to do it.
Belafon
If you’re just talking about phone metadata, the technology isn’t keeping up with the amount of data being generated. We had one home phone when I was a kid in 79. My family now has 5 different phone numbers with my name attached to them.
Personally, I don’t really see the SCOTUS overturning the 1979 decision, and I suspect the vote will be pretty high in favor of keeping it.
Jay B.
Then it’s settled, the preening, conservative, cynical and entirely worthless burnsesq is actually more useless than Larry Fucking Klayman.
Baud
@Gypsy Howell:
The President, by direct order.
ruemara
@NCSteve: ugh. Don’t tell me such ugly facts, I wanted to feel a bit of good about it. Crap. I want the right outcome, for the right reasons, not the right outcome with a fucking mega ton of negative legal precedence coming out of it too. Bah.
burnspbesq
link to opinion (be patient).
DTOzone
@NCSteve:
In fairness, courts do this all the time.
Hill Dweller
@max: Interestingly, this ruling(ironically made by a Dubya flunky) will have to likely be upheld by the DC Circuit and Supreme Court, both considered right wing.
If the wingnuts temporarily discover their love for civil rights because the Kenyan Muslim is in the WH, I’m all for it. But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to point and laugh at their hypocrisy.
kindness
I agree with some of the prior comments. SCOTUS will say it’s all completely OK. Our current SCOTUS decides things on their political opinion rather than points of law in my view. So I am happy to give lunatic Larry a cheer for bringing this case. He’s still a lunatic.
Socoolsofresh
@Botsplainer: Haha ya I was so lionizing him. I think I said he should be in Guantanamo and that he is a notorious Obama hater. But if that is lionizing, well, up is down then.
soonergrunt
I haven’t been following the Presidential appointments issue as much as I could have. Did President Obama’s nominees for the Washington, D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals get confirmed?
If so (or if not) what would that mean on appeal of this ruling?
@Socoolsofresh: You are, of course, a party to this case?
Cacti
@NCSteve:
Essentially this.
This is a District Court Judge reading third party standing into a statute where none exists, and deciding that Smith v. Maryland no longer applies.
Sounds like Dubya’s kind of “strict constructionist”.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@Hill Dweller:
Hoocoodanode?
Roger Moore
@Hill Dweller:
I’m not all for it. I may have some qualified praise for their recent discovery of the importance of civil rights, but I’m not going to be really happy about it until they’re as willing to call out Republican attacks on civil rights as civil rights Democrats are willing to call out their own side. Since I’ve never seen that in my lifetime, I’m not holding my breath for it to happen now.
Cacti
@Belafon:
6-3 to affirm the Smith precedent, with Breyer joining the 5 wingers. Possibly 6-2 as Kagan may recuse herself.
chopper
let’s not start sucking each other’s dicks quite yet. i’m sure the uphold rate for district judges saying something is unconstitutional because the precedent is ‘out of date’ is not super high.
Anoniminous
AFAIK, the only situation where this matters is talking over a land line – maybe mobiles, don’t know – at one’s home. Everywhere else there’s no expectation of privacy.
different-church-lady
@chopper:
Really no need, as there are plenty who are quite content doing that activity solo.
Yatsuno
@different-church-lady: To be honest, that takes talent.
burnspbesq
@Jay B.:
Yup. Abso-byGod-lutely.
P.S. In case you can’t tell, I’m politely suggesting that you GFY.
burnspbesq
I don’t find the District Court’s attempt to distinguish Amnesty International v. Clapper (in order to find standing) very convincing.
MattR
@NCSteve: @DTOzone: I don’t know the proper legal procedures for change to occur and I don’t know the specifics of this particular case, but it certainly seems reasonable to wonder if the privacy issues related to the government accessing the “public” portion of electronic communications that are necessary for third party companies to be able to deliver the communications have changed in the past 25 years as the scope of electronic communications and the ability to sift through the mountains of data have increased.
As others have pointed out, I have my doubts that SCOTUS will reverse itself. But I also think that most Americans don’t actually realize that the gov’t has that much legal authority so there is a certain value to public exposure (unfortunately, that assumes a semi-competant media to facilitate the conversation)
@Yatsuno: Joe Rogan does a standup bit about how overrated self-(oral)gratification is. He mentions talking to pornstar Ron Jeremy who no longer has that ability because he ate “too many cheesburgers” so his gut now gets in the way. Rogan’s theory is that if you stop doing something so you can keep eating cheesburgers, that activity probably wasn’t that great to begin with.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
This thing could turn me into a jackbooted brownshirted thug if Jane Hamsher gets her cooties on it too.
kindness
I am aghast. I would think that in a ‘liberal’ blog such as this there would be equal opportunity for all. Especially where oral activities are in order. So, maybe it should have read:
Before we each start giving each other the head of their choice…..
Yea political correctness is not poetry.
Yatsuno
@MattR: I know of folks who can do this to completion, but it’s definitely a novelty act.
Ash Can
The wording of the decision seems awfully mealy-mouthed. Given that and the fact that the judge is holding the door open for his decision, such as it is, to be overturned on appeal doesn’t strike me as making this any kind of a watershed decision. Nevertheless, if it gets the ball rolling in the direction of reviewing the actual constitutional legitimacy of laws that were passed amid fits of hysteria — finally, after ten fucking years — there’s nothing bad about that.
Churchlady320
@BGinCHI: Look at it positively – if YOU are correct, then he accidentally got onto the correct side. He’s probably sweating out being in YOUR camp.
Best part of this is that PBO has been trying to prod Congress to act to revise NSA and Patriot Act provisions. It is NOT true he’s slavering for your shrimp dip recipe stored on your Hotmail account. This is how things changed for the better in 2007 – the result of court actions. Without a rational Congress – at least a rational House – this COULD bring needed changes, improved controls. I think SCOTUS would uphold this with very clear limits and permissions that might be very good. And it will have the president’s OK since he ASKED Congress to look at NSA methods, but, surprise, they never have.
SiubhanDuinne
@campionrules:
Every time I see the name “Larry Klayman,” I have to stop and remind myself that he’s not the same person as “Richard Clayderman.”
SiubhanDuinne
@Botsplainer:
That could be so many people in the GOP.
P.S. Edited one word to keep from being thrown in moderation jail.
burnspbesq
@Ash Can:
The arguments that Smith v. Maryland is outmoded and should be revisited make a good deal of sense to me. But from a process perspective, if Supreme Court decisions are to be revisited, it should be the Supremes doing the revisiting.
You’ll also notice that I’m not arguing against a major rollback of the Patriot Act and a major update of the Stored Communications Act. Both are long overdue. That’s for Congress, not a District Judge, to do.
Botsplainer
@DTOzone:
But not in favor of progressive economics or racial progress, not anymore.
Eric U.
I swear this isn’t the first time that Klayman has sued on the side of the angels, but I can’t remember any previous instances.
Of course, to the extent that all his baseless lawsuits against Clinton paved the way for the ascension of Bush the lesser to the presidency means that he bears some blame for the collection of metadata
mike in dc
I had Judge Leon as an instructor for a course on Congressional Investigations in law school. Decent guy. Glad he made this ruling. Republican judge, by the way. But I guess a pre-insanity Republican.
Mandalay
@Churchlady320:
This strawman is often trotted out to defend the indefensible.
Trivialize what the government is doing by mentioning an innocent email about a “shrimp dip recipe”, or defiantly proclaim how you really don’t care if the government knows that you pay your gas bill on line, or that you phone Aunt Gertie on her birthday.
Demean the very idea of challenging the government at all, by making government overreach and unaccountability all seem like a silly fuss about nothing.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
Did this blog ever cover the NSA whitewash on 60 Minutes? I know its tough to make time for that boring spy v. spy shit when there’s the happy news about a frontpager getting neutered.
kc
Me too, but then that’s what happens when no one else steps up.
kc
@kc:
Should be Fourth Amendment, anyway . . .
chopper
@Mandalay:
but my aunt gertie is an al qaeda member. god, her shrimp dip is to die for.
literally. there’s bits of C4 innit.
Socoolsofresh
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader: I brought up the 60 minutes report in an earlier open thread. It was promptly ignored.
FormerSwingVoter
@NCSteve: Yeah, he didn’t say “Precedent doesn’t count, HAHA”. He said “I am bound by precedent, but the chances of this law surviving appeal are close to zero, so an order temporarily blocking it is completely proper, but I’m also going to put a hold on my own order so that it can be appealed as well”.
I could have something hilariously wrong, as IANAL. But SCOTUSblog is generally good to me.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@kc:
Apparently, Larry Klayman isn’t sufficiently disgusted by Glenn Greenwald to turn his nose up at the whole damn thing.
burnspbesq
@kc:
Yup. Mea culpa.
Ben Franklin
Y’all can relax along with Feinstein/Rogers. If it reaches the Roberts Court I say it will swing 5-4 against transparency.
Mandalay
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader:
Yesterday 60 minutes did a complete whitewash on the NSA, and spent almost an hour lovingly sucking their cock, going to great lengths to exclude any criticism of the NSA.
Job done? I don’t think there is much more to be said.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@Mandalay:
Of course, no more apologia was necessary. Good call.
kc
@Eric U.:
I think he sued Dick Cheney over Cheney’s secret energy task force meetings, though I don’t recall the details.
kc
@burnspbesq:
Larry FLYNT is the asshole First Amendment hero we love to hate. :)
Socoolsofresh
No one here needed to bring up yesterdays 60 minutes NSA report, cause it obviously was very good journalism.
MattR
Deleted my comment because it was unnecessarily dickish. I think we can all agree that Klayman is scum, but it is unrelated to the actual issues of this case.
Ben Franklin
@Socoolsofresh:
No one here needed to bring up yesterdays 60 minutes NSA report, cause it obviously was very good journalism
Some things are better left unsaid. ‘Nuff said.
Mandalay
@chopper: There is probably a group of NSA analysts in Utah swarming around around in front of a screen checking you out right now, since your comment contained two red flag terms from their perspective.
Expect a black helicopter on your lawn within 15 minutes.
Poopyman
Not like Burnsy to be redundant, but “Wingnut” AND “asshole”? Well ….
Socoolsofresh
Love how they reported on the NSA thwarting China’s plan to destroy the world economy through bricking computers, like China would have nothing to lose if the global economy crashed.
cmm
For those who know more about Klayman than me (this thread is first I have heard of him), do you think he would have brought the suit if a Republican was in the WH? Curious whether he is coming from a libertarian absolutist sort of pov or a f— Obama pov. Either way I am glad to see some legal wheels starting to turn on this. Also, who DOESN’T have standing on this? If they are collecting everyone’s metadata then if you have a cellphone or am email account you would have standing I would think.
Cassidy
@Socoolsofresh: @Mandalay: Hyuk, hyuk, hyuk, we really stuck it to that negrah didn’t we?
different-church-lady
@Yatsuno: Well, okay, so they probably have to use a long straw, but still…
kc
@Mandalay:
The NSA doesn’t care about your P ORN SURFING!
White Trash Liberal
Ted Olson shepherded the overturning of California’s Prop 8 under equal protection grounds.
Interesting that two attorneys who cut their teeth hunting Bill Clinton on Scaife’s dime are the tip of spear in the major civil rights cases of the modern era.
srv
Nutjob judge makes nutjob ruling.
In other news, Ayn Rand was a swamy of the future about Obamacare, says US News & WR’s Meganalookalike:
http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/Stephanie-Slade/2013/12/16/obamacares-latest-grab-makes-ayn-rand-look-prescient?google_editors_picks=true
kc
@cmm:
For those who know more about Klayman than me (this thread is first I have heard of him), do you think he would have brought the suit if a Republican was in the WH?
Maybe – he did sue Dick Cheney.
Curious whether he is coming from a libertarian absolutist sort of pov or a f— Obama pov.
Probably some of both, I bet, with some crazier-than-a-shithouse-mouse pov thrown in.
MattR
@cmm: He is the founder of Judicial Watch which was formed to file all sorts of anti-Clinton lawsuits back in the day.
Socoolsofresh
@Cassidy: Ah, the good old ‘must be racist’ smear. Love how quickly it has come to this. Can’t wait to hear another ‘dudebros don’t care about poor people’ whine. Really getting desperate here.
Hill Dweller
@Socoolsofresh:
It could just be very few people here watch 60 Minutes. I certainly don’t.
Moreover, anyone who believes they’re going to get good journalism from 60 Minutes likely has larger problems.
Mnemosyne
@cmm:
Ah, you must be young if you don’t remember Larry Klayman, Judicial Watch, and his vendetta against Bill Clinton.
IIRC, he did bring one or two lawsuits during the Bush years, but he’s pretty much 99 percent Republican asshole with strong ties to the white supremacist movement.
different-church-lady
@cmm:
Probably — filing lawsuits is the man’s raison d’être.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@Socoolsofresh:
I couldn’t follow it, it was so complicated. Apparently, the global forces of evil have figured out how to exploit a computer’s BIOS, whatever that means.
/twirls blond curls, giggles incredulously
Thank God for the NSA’s protection.
Socoolsofresh
@Hill Dweller:
I didn’t watch it either until I saw that it was getting a ton of criticism in the media for being propaganda. But the NSA defenders on this blog probably didn’t see anything wrong with it. They tried to trash Snowden, were super deferential to the NSA, ya, pretty much par for at least half of the commenters here.
Cassidy
@Socoolsofresh: So what’s your excuse? Facts are this is the most progressive POTUS of the modern era and instead of championing liberal causes, you’re creaming yourself in a purity circle jerk. Just looking at it logically, you’re obviously no liberal or you’d want this POTUS to be successful, and the only people who cum all over themselves when something negative happens to this administration, like you are, are conservatives and they tend to be bigoted wasted of space. So,….you fit the bill to me.
And it is true, if you were really a liberal or progressive or whatever, you’d put some time and energy into solving real problems that affect real people. This NSA thing is nothing and the only people who are upset by it are the suburban set. Poor people and hungry people don’t give a shit. They want income equality and food. Your priorities say a lot about you.
HeartlandLiberal
Of course it is unconstitutional. And of course Scalia and his cronies will declare that it IS constitutional. Just wait. The ruling class has declared the rule of law dead. Becxause 9/11 changed everything. Did you not read the program?
danielx
@Mandalay:
Uh-huh…because – all together now!
If you aren’t doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about!
Amirite?
White Trash Liberal
@Socoolsofresh:
Wake me when brogressives demonstrate one iota of care about poverty. That includes you.
Socoolsofresh
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader: I know! If it wasn’t for the NSA, China would have destroyed my computer! It is so worth it to have them tracking everything I do!
chopper
@Mandalay:
good, it’ll make swinging by day care to pick up my son much faster.
White Trash Liberal
@Socoolsofresh:
Yes, because no one wrote about the report, that must mean that deep down it is because front page bloggers agree with it. Praise Jeebus you are around to point out the connection.
Ben Franklin
@Cassidy:
OMFG.
chopper
@Socoolsofresh:
i know. all this talk about ‘poverty’, like that shit matters. how gauche.
Violet
@Socoolsofresh:
So you didn’t watch it until you read other people’s opinions of it but you’re upset that people here didn’t watch it? Okay….
White Trash Liberal
It’s funny to me that the biggest brogressive commenters on this blog are not using their considerable rhetorical gifts to discuss the case.
Instead they are chucking darts and derailing the discussion to fit some OTHER blasphemy that makes them better than Obots.
It makes me wonder if they actually give two shits about the issue.
Mnemosyne
Actually, now I’m getting nervous about this ruling, because socoolsofresh kindly reminded me in the thread below of what happened the last time a group of conservative activists got their case to the Supreme Court — the SC ruled in favor of Citizens United (Not Timid) and basically trashed campaign finance laws.
So what poison pill with disastrously unforeseen consequences is hiding in this ruling?
Baud
@Mnemosyne:
The NSA can only spy on Obamaphones.
Socoolsofresh
@Cassidy: Ya, that’s hilarious. Obama has done so much for poor people and income inequality. Love how many bankers have been locked up for the 2008 meltdown, he really came down hard on them. Poor people really have been living way better lives since Obama was elected, he has been such a champion to the cause! So much progress has been made on raising the minimum wage!
You seem to have labeled Obama progressive, and then think anything he does is progressive. I’d rather judge him for his actions. I also love that you think the NSA spying on everyone means poor people don’t care about it. Are you sure? Just because they might not know about it, doesn’t mean they wouldn’t care if they were aware of it.
MattR
@Mnemosyne: I was more thinking that Klayman is the perfect trojan horse to bring this in front of the Supreme Court, make a completely terrible set of arguments and guarantee that SCOTUS upholds Smith v Maryland (and possibly even confirms that it applies to email, texts and all other electronic communications as well as phone calls)
(EDIT: Having glanced at some of Klayman’s birther lawsuit, I realized that he is not just a gadfly but incompetent and often incoherent. I would definitely not count on him putting forth a coherent argument)
Socoolsofresh
@White Trash Liberal: Everyone else was talking about it. I so zero mention of it here, by any commenter.
danielx
@kc:
Probably not. However, given the way that NSA data seems to be finding its way into the hands of state organs such as “fusion centers”, local law enforcement, local sheriffs, their associates, and jeebus knows who else, do you suppose it’s just barely possible that somebody’s web viewing habits might be grist for political blackmail mills? I mean, wingers have been making shit up about their political opponents for decades now; what could they do with actual data? (Assuming they develop opposed thumbs and all that.)
Could be that I’m way off base, but every time I’ve thought I was getting too paranoid over the past couple of decades the sumbitches turn around and do something else to prove me wrong. You know, all that stuff that’s not supposed to happen, but does, like indefinite detention, habeas corpus vanishing (yes, pun intended), the Fourth Amendment becoming a dead letter, etc etc? And if anybody really thinks Keith Alexander gives a fiddler’s fuck about court opinions, I have some beachfront property in Nevada I’d like to show you.
Socoolsofresh
@chopper: Ya, love it, because someone is concerned about privacy, must mean they don’t care about poverty. Brilliant logic.
Cassidy
@Socoolsofresh:
ACA. And there’s more. What have you done? As usual, people like you leave out the do-nothing congress or that whole governing thing. I would say you have a child’s understanding of govt, but it wouldn’t be accurate. My children grasp it better than you do.
SiubhanDuinne
@Socoolsofresh:
Things would be so different
If they were not as they are
Joe Buck
Wow. There are people on this thread who would rather give up fundamental freedoms than give anyone whose politics they oppose credit for everything.
JPL
@Socoolsofresh: Doug, It’s past your bedtime.
danielx
Yeah, and your oh-so-blithe dismissal of government agencies pissing all over the Bill of Rights says a great deal about you.
Socoolsofresh
@Mnemosyne: I know, huh? The horrible poison pill of the NSA not being able to spy on everyone! What disastrous consequences that would be!
Brandt Hardin
Finally a step in the right direction to protecting civil liberties! For too long, we’ve been allowing the coming of an age where the civil liberties our forefathers fought so hard for are being eroded by the day. Freedom of Press, Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Assembly are mere ghostly images of their original intent. We’ve woken up to an Orwellian Society of Fear where anyone is at the mercy of being labeled a terrorist for standing up for rights we took for granted just over a decade ago. Read about how we’re waging war against ourselves at http://dregstudiosart.blogspot.com/2011/09/living-in-society-of-fear-ten-years.html
Mnemosyne
@Joe Buck:
I know, it was so mean of us to point out that “anti-drone” Rand Paul immediately said that he’d be fine using drones to kill liquor store robbers when we should have been giving Paul credit for everything.
Keith G
@Cassidy: I began drinking way too early today, so I must ask: Was this comment a parody or a stab at seriousness?
Mnemosyne
@Socoolsofresh:
Or, as others have pointed out, the horrible poison pill of the Supreme Court legalizing everything the NSA is doing now.
But, hey, Klayman filed his suit against the NSA, so even if it all goes horribly wrong and we end up worse off than before, he’s a hero and we can’t question his motives, which must be of the purest.
Sebastian Dangerfield
@DTOzone:
How does one “pander to the masses” through a secret program?
danielx
@Cassidy:
Um…right. Poor people and hungry people don’t give a shit? You’ve done a poll, focus groups and all that, have you? From what I’ve read, their reaction is more like hey, we’ve been putting up with illegal surveillance, police brutality and the like in our neighborhoods for years – doesn’t feel so good when it happens to you, does it?
Oh yes, and your oh-so-blithe dismissal of government agencies pissing all over the Bill of Rights says a great deal about you.
Ben Franklin
One-dimensional progs extolling ACA, extreme concern for the poor and Glibertarian creeping rot. Johnson Democrats.
mclaren
But…but…but…all the sociopathic bully-worshiping lickspittles who yearn for a new Great Leader to whip America into shape, like Mnemosyne and Martin and burnspbesq and omnes omnibus, assured us that the mass collection of metadata was utterly totally 100% harmless.
(Of course sufficient metadata suffices to reveal everything about a person from where s/he shops to whether s/he is pregnant or gay or vote Republican or eats blackberry jam for breakfast, but never mind that — just another example of the gross ignorance typical of the goose-stepping lickspittles like Martin who despise democracy and want a simpler, purer system of government in which the Undesirables get conveniently Disappeared, and the trains run on time.)
How can something so completely harmless as metadata collection possibly be unconstitutional???
Why, next thing you know, these far-left fringe kooks will be telling us American citizens have the right to a trial in front of a jury before being executed by the government. What a laugh. Fortunately, Obama and his admirable Attorney General Eric Holder have dispelled that extremist far-left fantasy!
The Sheriff's A Ni-
Klayman awards victory to the ever-oppressed White Dudebro, White Dudebros continue to fill thread with their whining.
Mnemosyne
@mclaren:
Hey, if you want to leap into bed with Larry Klayman, I can’t stop you. But I strongly recommend you take a shower afterwards, and probably get a dose of antibiotics, too.
Socoolsofresh
@Cassidy: Hahaha, so until I’ve done as much as you feel Obama has done on poverty, I have no right to comment on a blog! So good.
Jane2
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader: I doubt it…this blog is still into Snowden/Greenwald personalities and why we hate them.
Cassidy
And the circle jerk continues.
mclaren
@Cassidy in 2013 America:
Cassidy in 1930 Italy:
Cassidy in 1350 Spain:
Cassidy in 1973 Cambodia:
Cassidy in Rome ca. 100 A.D.:
LT
If it were Larry Byrd the Cescites here and elsewhere would find fault with that. The ruling is pure gold, and it stands alone.
Ash Can
And P.S.: I don’t think I have much of a problem with the NSA keeping an eye on someone who regularly and publicly agitates for an overthrow of the government. It’s kinda their job, yo.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@Mnemosyne: They were already batting their lashes at him while Standing With Rand. This may just shove them into the Bernie Goldberg ‘Party Left Me’ Party sooner rather than later.
Cassidy
@mclaren: So you’re volunteering for the bukkake I see.
kc
@Cassidy:
Poor people and hungry people don’t give a shit. They want income equality and food. Your priorities say a lot about you.
I for one would like to thank you for championing the cause of poor people by crapping all over every single fucking thread about the NSA, and many that aren’t about the NSA.
Keep up the good work.
Violet
@Mnemosyne: Could be the ‘enemy of my enemy’ type of thing. I’m glad for the ruling. It’s good to see some pushback on the NSA.
Socoolsofresh
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-: The NSA spies on everyone. Only white dudebros need to be concerned. Totally makes sense.
Cassidy
@kc: Actually, sunshine, I interact and do something for poor folk at least once every three days, more if I pick up overtime.
Omnes Omnibus
@Cacti: I am not a big of Smith v. Maryland result. However, metadata =/= pen register info. And I think if you want metadata, you should get a warrant. Being on Klayman’s side on this makes me want to shower but he is a stopped clock.*
*I haven’t been able to read the opinion yet, so I don’t know what I think of the reasoning.
Mandalay
@danielx:
Yes, you are right. Trivializing concerns isn’t the only approach that defenders of the government’s security policies use. Implicitly smearing their opponents is another: “Well if you haven’t don’t anything wrong then what are you so concerned about?”.
Another, of course, is to attack the character of those who oppose some of the government’s policies, such as Assange, Greenwald and Snowden.
The larger goals are always the same: to deflect attention away from what the government is actually doing, and to blindly defend the government’s policies.
kc
@danielx:
I know, I was being sarcastic. I’m with you.
mclaren
@Mnemosyne:
Hey, Mnemosyne, if you want to leap into bed with a president who ran on a pro-slavery platform like that vile Abraham Lincoln, a guy who proposed deporting all American blacks to Africa, I can’t stop you. But I strongly recommend you take a shower afterwards, and probably get a dose of antibiotics, too. So I hope you’ve rethought your advocacy of citizenship and voting rights for blacks in America.
And by the way…if you want to leap into bed with a guy like FDR who signed off on squelching a bill that would’ve banned lynching just so he could get his sordid economic legislation passed, a guy uner whom Japanese Americans got deported en masse to camps without due legal process, I can’t stop you. But I strongly recommend you take a shower afterwards, and probably get a dose of antibiotics too. Better stop supporting America’s wrongheaded opposition to fascism during WW II.
Remember: we can only sign on to policies advocated by pure perfect people who have no flaws. Scumbags like Jesus Christ, who ran around smashing the tables of moneylenders and committing heinous violence, are the kinds of people to whom we should never listen. Forget about all that “do unto others” Golden Rule crap — Jesus Christ: wrong on violence against moneylenders…wrong on committing carnage in the sacred temple…wrong for America.
Policies mean nothing, personalities mean everything. So speaks the voice of wisdom Menmosyne.
Of course we’re not supposed to notice that since there are no pure perfect people, this mindset means that we must dismiss every criticism uttered by everyone and retain the status quo ante forever…
Cassidy
@Mandalay: Nothing blind about it; just choosing to think real problems that affect real people every day are more important. Can’t say much for you and yours blind insistence that the scawy gubmint is out to get you and your cat pictures.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@Ben Franklin:
Mandalay will play pivot position. Lotion up.
Mnemosyne
@mclaren:
Aww, isn’t that cute? Now Larry Klayman, white supremacist founder of Judicial Watch, is a bigger hero than those slackers Lincoln and Roosevelt.
I’m sure Larry will never let you down, not like that bastard Jesus Christ did.
kc
@Cassidy:
You know, like pit bulls.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@kc:
Edited for acccuracy.
JPL
OT.. Is there any news on the Balloon Juice calendar?
raven
@mclaren: Fucking jackass.
kc
@Mnemosyne:
Pretty sure no one on this blog has called Klayman a “hero.”
On the contrary, even people who think the NSA is wrong have expressed great distaste and dislike for Klayman. Right here, on this very thread, in black and white.
MattR
@Mnemosyne: You forgot child molester (or whatever the legal term is for someone who, as part of a divorce proceeding, was found to have inappropriately touched his children). He really doesn’t like it when you mention that one.
Cassidy
@kc: You mean the proposed wiping out of an animal species just for existing? You really want to go back to that?
Mnemosyne
@kc:
You may want to re-read the comment I was replying to, which actually did compare Klayman favorably to Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Jesus.
handsmile
While he didn’t specifically address the ironic (?) question posed by burnspbesq above (#4), here’s what Jameel Jaffer, ACLU Deputy Legal Director, had to say about today’s ruling in Klayman v. Obama:
“This is a strongly worded and carefully reasoned decision that ultimately concludes, absolutely correctly, that the NSA’s call-tracking program can’t be squared with the Constitution. As Judge Leon notes, the government’s defense of the program has relied almost entirely on a 30-year-old case that involved surveillance of a specific criminal suspect over a period of two days. The idea that this narrow precedent authorizes the government to place every American under permanent surveillance is preposterous. We hope that Judge Leon’s thoughtful ruling will inform the larger conversation about the proper scope of government surveillance powers, especially the debate in Congress about the reforms necessary to bring the NSA’s surveillance activities back in line with the Constitution. The bipartisan USA Freedom Act, which has 130 co-sponsors already, would address the constitutional problems that Judge Leon identifies.”
https://www.aclu.org/national-security/judge-rules-against-nsa-phone-data-collection
At the bottom of this linked ACLU press release, there is a link to “aclu.org/nsa-surveillance” which is an excellent resource for those interested in this matter.
Also, when it becomes available from the New School University’s Center for Public Scholarship, I intend to post on this blog a video link to a panel, “Surveillance” that was held on December 5. Moderated by Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, the program’s panelists were Jaffer, Rachel Levinson-Waldman of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law School, and James Bamford, investigative journalist and the leading expert on the history and operations of the NSA.
Should one choose to watch the two-hour presentation (which I attended in person), many of the questions and objections that are repeatedly raised here on any NSA/Snowden post are answered authoritatively.
Ben Franklin
How did this thread get posted in BJ? The 4th Amendment issue is the third rail for imaginary progressives who carry water for other imaginary progressives, isn’t it? Someone must be screwin’ with the local Bund.
kc
@GHayduke (formerly lojasmo):
[sigh] Okay, Judicial Watch did.
kc
@Cassidy:
What difference does that make to poor people?
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
Ron Reagan is just a classic pearl necklace and a petite set of earrings from being his mom’s doppelganger.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ben Franklin: Hey, you’re back. But you might want to read the fucking blog before you post.
JPL
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader: I’m streaming MSNBC and I thought he looked kinda sexy.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@Socoolsofresh:
Everyone else was talking about it? This is the first I’ve heard of it, either here or on the GOS. Maybe you spend too much time on democraticunderground or redstate.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@JPL: Nancy Reagan was kinda sexy too.
kc
@Mnemosyne:
Hm, I don’t read it quite that way.
For the record, I personally agree that Larry Klayman is a huge douchebag. Huge, gigantic, scummy. A dreadful person.
mclaren
@Omnes Omnibus:
Metadata reveals much more about you than pen register data. Too bad, you need to ask your CIA handlers for better talking points.
At this point, you need to ask yourself:
Do any of the respondents display the urge to supply information that could be helpful to your mission?
Do the respondents appear hostile to your attempts to steer the discussion?
Have you made a personal chart taking care to note who appear to be the “leaders” versus who appear to be the “followers”?
Have you attempted to gauge the “temperature” of the forum’s users? In other words, the prevailing social psychology of the forum’s members?
Have you been more successful with one or the other XStart methods that were demonstrated in N-7015A.DOC?
Have more technical members (Computer Programmers, Administrators, or Moderators) of the forum deduced or accused you of hiding behind a proxy?
Would you gain more trust and/or credibility if you were to use one of the Agency’s allotted “HOME” pools? (most often needed when handling EVTS that are more sensitive to the pop. of a specific locale but also location centered web sites such as FB or Patch)
Has your PREDEV “persona” been successful or do you gauge that the users find you to be too obtrusive?
Refer to your DOD-approved PsyWar operations manual in the section titled “operations against suspected domestic enemy combatants.” Remember, the 2013 NDAA authorizes the military to conduct paid propaganda operations against U.S. citizens, so you’re legally in the clear here.
Ben Franklin
@Omnes Omnibus:
Heh. I’m just surprised at any reference at all to the bogeyman when most just like to whistle whilst they pass the Graveyard.
Cassidy
@kc: Gonna go out on a limb, but I’m guessing people care more about the eradication of their family members than what kind of fetish stash you have.
Look, your attempt at a gotcha is cute, but you’re wasting your time. Last I checked, kindness to animals is still a more liberal position than you and your fellow cheerleade’rs constant rejoicing in in anything that could be perceived as a failure for the most progressive administration in modern memory.
Cacti
@Mnemosyne:
Larry Klayman is the new true progressive.
We’ve all been too dismissive of his birther arguments.
Hill Dweller
I’d love to know when Richard Leon had his epiphany on civil liberties. Perhaps the lifetime appointment gave him the freedom to voice his true beliefs. Because he was knee deep in Iran-Contra, Whitewater and the ’92 October Surprise investigation on behalf of Republicans during the 80’s and 90’s. Leon’s arguments for Presidential power during the Iran-Contra investigation were later cited by Cheney to rationalize Dubya’s reign of terror.
I suppose the same could be said of Klayman, who is a crackpot and birther. He’s also called Obama a Muslim who bows to Allah; and accused him of feeding info to communists, among other things.
Perhaps the players are irrelevant, as long as it ends well. I’d like to see the NSA’s power checked. But the wingnuts’ sudden concern for the NSA, while ignoring voting, reproductive and workers’ rights, doesn’t feel all that genuine.
mclaren
@burnspbesq:
And I wonder how the ACLU feels about filing lawsuits based on laws passed by a guy who suggested deporting all blacks in America to Africa.
Whoops. You need to phone Karl Rove and ask him for better talking points. That’s some weak trolling there, astroturfer.
kc
@Cassidy:
I’m pretty sure most poor people would be offended at being likened to dogs, but don’t let that stop you.
different-church-lady
I’ma say two things:
a) Man, this thread got stupid fast.
b) Either some of you are easily baited, or you really are the O-bots you get accused of being.
Omnes Omnibus
@mclaren:
You stupid fucking twit. Read my fucking comment before you spout off. I think, and I stated in a declarative sentence, that warrants should be require to collect metadata.
mclaren
@kc:
Dogs, untermenschen, enemy combatants…c’mon, what’s the difference?
As long as you’re
Aryaninnocent of any terrorist intent, you have nothing to worry about.Mandalay
@handsmile:
Thanks, but no need. We all watched 60 Minutes last night, and our concerns have been fully addressed by a thorough and dispassionate examination of US government surveillance.
Everything is hunky dory says 60 Minutes, and why would they lie?
kc
@Hill Dweller:
But the wingnuts’ sudden concern for the NSA . . . doesn’t feel all that genuine
Not to me, either. I think the wingnuts’ concern about NSA overreach will evaporate as soon as Republicans take control of the government.
That will be when liberals rediscover their own concern about it.
rda909
@Cassidy: Maybe it’s best to let the Online Progressive Party have their brief moment to feel as if they’ve had a “victory” for once in their sad, pathetic lives. They almost never actually, you know, accomplish anything (outside of the Snowdenwald’s grift job to enrich themselves), so hopefully none of them will off themselves now…
Interesting that they had to rely upon a racist Republican sociopath (Klayman), and a Scalia-level insane Bush-friend judge (Leon) to get what they want. Hmmmm…..anything to hurt the most liberal president in generations, I guess is worth it to these patriots.
Cacti
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’m still waiting for it to dig up that Congressional declaration of war against the southern states in 1861, that made Lincoln having over 100,000 southerners killed totes different than Anwar al-Awlaki getting droned.
mclaren
@Omnes Omnibus:
Oops. Refer to the XStart methods detailed in N-7015A.DOC before attempting to “steer” the discussion of an unknown forum. Name-calling is not effective until you can get a sufficient number of PsyOp sock puppets operating behind firewalled proxies, and this may require approval of your CIA supervisor.
Omnes Omnibus
Just did a quick read of the opinion – ignoring the footnotes, of course – and it looks pretty good.
Mnemosyne
@kc:
Criticizing Larry Klayman for his white supremacist ties is like criticizing Lincoln for his views on returning American blacks to Africa, or criticizing FDR for imprisoning innocent Japanese-Americans.
Soonergrunt
@Yatsuno: You know why dogs lick their own plumbing–because they can.
Any man who says he wouldn’t even if he could–is LYING.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@kc:
Yeah, I amended my post. Stupidly relied on a wikipedia page.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@different-church-lady:
“Crazier than a shithouse rat” should be a third choice.
different-church-lady
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader: Sorry, didn’t mean to leave you out. ;-p
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
I don’t know if you saw NCSteve’s comment at #19 after reading the opinion. IANAL, so I have no idea if his concerns about the potential fallout from the opinion are valid.
kc
@Mnemosyne:
Actually, I didn’t even know Klayman had white supremacist ties. So he’s scummier than I thought.
Which is why I HATE that he’s even involved in this at all.
Cassidy
@kc: Eh, I already know you’re a liar, so this is nothing. You know that’s not what I said and you know that most people feel their animals are family member. Now you’re just boring.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@different-church-lady: How does that logically follow?
different-church-lady
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader: Try pretending Groucho Marx said it.
mclaren
@Cacti:
And I’m still waiting for evidence of any crime of any kind ever committed by Anwar El-Awlaki.
Show us the evidence.
Post photocopies.
Let us see it.
The evidence that the Confederacy was engaged in war against the United States was clear. They seceded, declared war, and attacked Fort Sumter with an army.
Which terrorist country has declared war against the United States?
How many armies of Al Qaeda soliders have attacked U.S. installation?
The so-called ‘war’ on terrorism is bogus bullshit. It’s not a war at all. Terrorism is a crime, it has traditionally been dealt with effectively using police methods, and all the legal junkthink and legalistic garbage thrown around using phony buzzwords like “enemy combatants” and “extraordinary rendition” has zero legal status.
The legal status of terms like “enemy combatant” is equivalent to the legal status of a word like “kike” or “jungle bunny” or “untermenschen” — it has no legal status. It’s a smoke screen designed to hide gross illegality and massively unconstitutional high crimes and misdemeanors committed by the executive branch under both the Drunk-Driving C Student and Barack Obama.
Socoolsofresh
@GHayduke (formerly lojasmo): Go check out Memeorandum on the 60 minutes coverage and all the media outlets that linked to it, then get back to me. In case you didn’t know, it is an aggregator for political news.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@different-church-lady: I don’t care what you look like. I’m asking you how it followed from your original #2.
Cassidy
Man, and I thought we were gonna stall out around 150. Then, our suburban progressives, not content with their purity circle jerk, have dropped their dresses like a freshman at a frat party. It’s a purity gangbang! This keeps up, McLaren is getting an AVN nomination and kc will fall in love with a donkey.
WereBear
Except… 1984 was written in 1949 which means somebody could have conceived of it before 1979.
If, you know, thinking was involved here. I’m guessing… not.
different-church-lady
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader: [blank stare]
[blink]
Right, let’s just forget that. Who you got tonight, Lions or Ravens?
Cacti
@mclaren:
So, is that the long way of saying no such declaration exists?
I’m disappointed. You assured me that there was a declaration of war, and you’re usually so reliable.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: Most previous challenges have failed due to standing. It is that courts have look at the programs and decided they were fine; they have looked at plaintiffs and decided that they did not meet the requirements to have standing. Then they relied on the presumption that a law passed by Congress and signed by a president is Constitutional. Thus, end of law suit. This opinion relies on info made public by Snowden to conclude that these plaintiffs had standing and thus the right to challenge the law.
ETA: This was a gross simplification of the previous litigation history.
kc
@Cassidy:
Um, yeah, maybe middle class and rich people feel that way. Treating your pet like a “family member” is a luxury.
Worrying about the fate of some dog breed is definitely not a priority for most poor people.
Cacti
@WereBear:
Which neatly sidesteps the principal holding in Smith v. Maryland, which is that you only have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the contents of your telephone conversation.
different-church-lady
@WereBear: Anyone who wants to see the NSA reined in should hope the supemos (or an intervening court) doesn’t pay too much attention to the prose poetry in this decision, because it could make the thing unravel much in the same way the Judge Jackson harmed his own decision in the Microsoft antitrust case.
Omnes Omnibus
@kc: You want to restart that fight too?
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
I haven’t read it. What did you find convincing. I’m not a fan of Smith v. Maryland, but it seems hard to get around.
kc
@Omnes Omnibus:
Nah, not really, just trying to make a point to Cassidy, and probably failing.
Point being, it’s possible to care about more than one thing at a time.
Mnemosyne
@mclaren:
Interesting wording. I guess bomb attacks on embassies don’t count since they’re not “U.S. installations,” just U.S. soil, and the U.S.S. Cole bombing doesn’t count because it was a U.S. Navy ship, not a “U.S. installation.”
ETA: And apparently bomb attacks don’t count at all since only ground-based attacks by regiments of uniformed enemy soldiers count as real “attacks.”
schrodinger's cat
Serious thread is serious, I think it needs Lawrence Kitteh
Cassidy
@kc: Sure kc, sure. Keep flogging away. No one is going to stop you for being an ignorant liar.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@kc:
It’s not always the teacher’s fault. Sometimes the student is a fucking blockhead. Just be glad he didn’t bring a gun to school and kill you and half the class.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: Metadata has far more info than a pen register. Basically, Smith v Maryland isn’t controlling. Again, this is off a quick read.
Cassidy
@kc: You’re failing miserably because your clumsily trying to force two things to be similar that are not. Keep going though. You’re good for a laugh.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
So do you think there’s anything to the worry that “new information” could be used in other cases to claim standing where it wasn’t allowed before? Let’s say that (pulling this out of my butt) an anti-abortion group claims that the “new information” provided by the Kermit Gosnell case allows them standing to challenge Roe v. Wade. Do they have a leg to stand on?
kc
@Cassidy:
Please accept my apologies for distracting you in your ceaseless quest to help POOR PEOPLE.
God knows what you could have accomplished in the time you spent engaging me.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@Socoolsofresh:
What the fuck are you blathering about?
kc
@Cassidy:
Dude, I’m not the one who compared poor people to dogs.
mclaren
@Mnemosyne:
And setting up absurd straw men and making ridiculously false equivalences, as you constantly do, is like Pol Pot ordering children to kill their parents.
Now that you’ve successfully led the discussion into a morass of logical fallacies and long-discredited straw man arguments your job is done for the day, since you’ve succeeded in distracting everyone from the basic fact that this kind of NSA universal surveillance is one of the ten steps to fascism detailed by Naomi Wolf. (“Set up a surveillance system” is Number 4 of Naomi’s list, in case you haven’t read her prophetic 2007 article.)
You’ve successfully followed the four basic disinformation techniques of paid internet trolls so far, Mnemosyne: [1] The straw man argument by accusing people who stand up for the constitution of the united states of saying things they never said; [2] muddying the waters by dragging in irrelevant issues; [3] smear campaign by associating people who stand up for the constitution with unsavory indivudals; [4] paranoia/divide-and-conquer by trying to start fights among each of the people who claims that the president of the united states and the congress must obey the constitution.
Alas, your disinformation techniques haven’t worked, since people like me persist in blowing right through your smears and straw men and divide-and-conquer efforts by pointing out that
Source: Supreme Court Justice Douglas, majority opinion for Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 7 June 1965.
And when a survey reveals that 1 of 6 online writers are now self-censoring because of the NSA revelations, the rights enumerated by Justice Douglas in the Griswold v. Connecticut opinion are already being trampled upon. And so the NSA surveillance directly stabs at the heart of our most fundamental rights, for “the right of freedom of speech and press includes not only the right to utter or to print, but the right to distribute, the right to receive, the right to read (Martin v. Struthers, 319 U.S. 141, 143) and freedom of inquiry, freedom of thought, and freedom to teach (see Wiemann v. Updegraff, 344 U.S. 183, 195) — indeed, the freedom of the entire…community” of Americans.
different-church-lady
@Cassidy:
I go away for a few days and a friend ends up taking my cat to the vet while I’m gone (don’t ask). I come home and there’s a folder from the vet with my cat’s name and my last name (sort of like “Cuddles Church Lady”) and all I can think is, “You people are fucking ridiculous, my cat and I are not married!“
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
Thanks. I’ll have to read it. I thought Smith v. Maryland didn’t turn on the amount of information involved, but the fact that the phone company used that information as part of its operations and, therefore, the individual had no expectation of privacy.
But that decision was a long time ago. It was probably wrongly decided then, and there is no way the court could have envisioned how technology would develop.
Cassidy
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader: Oh goodie, another with a toddlers view of, well, everything.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@mclaren:
There’s a ton of other shit, but this is a start.
Cacti
@Omnes Omnibus:
Which the caller still voluntarily conveyed to the wireless provider.
srv
This blog has so matured from the mid-aughts were everyone was non-stop butthurt about Hitler Bush and FISA.
Peak Darrell was a lie, Doug.
kc
@mclaren:
Aw, great, now we can all argue about Naomi Wolf.
Cassidy
@kc: neither did I. Keep trying.
@different-church-lady: I gave a tour of the station to some kids the other day and was asked if we go inside to get pets. With certain qualifiers, the answer is “yes”.
different-church-lady
Oh my fucking god, please tell me Naomi Wolf hasn’t crashed this cirque des fous…
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: New information can always create a leg to stand on. Plessy v. Ferguson said separate but equal was fine. New information, in the form of Jim Crow laws, etc., gave the NAACP a leg to stand on in Brown. And so on.
Mnemosyne
@mclaren:
Naomi Wolf? You’re going to try and cover your ass about Larry Klayman with the wit and wisdom of Naomi Wolf?
Oh, Jaysus. You’re going to give me an aneurism.
different-church-lady
@Cassidy: Good on ya, but we’re still just co-habitating.
different-church-lady
@Mnemosyne:
Not bug — feature!
mclaren
@Mnemosyne:
That’s not the worry at all.
The most fundamental problem with claiming that this kind of NSA surveillance is constitutional is that it destroys the right to privacy — and without the legal right to privacy, the decisions allowing abortion and gay marriage all fall.
Legally, all those decisions stand upon the fundamental basis of the absolute right to privacy. If you give up that right and stand passively by while the government invades every aspect of your life while you giggle and shrug and snicker “people who haven’t done anything wrong don’t need to worry,” then you voluntarily admit that you have no expectation of any kind of privacy and thus you can no longer argue before a court that abortion should be permitted on the basis of a legal right to privacy.
Once privacy falls as a basic human right, many other ancillary rights also disappear.
No one on this forum seem to get that — not even the shit-for-brains tax avoidance lawyer burnspbesq, whom you’d expect to know something about the law.
srv
@Cassidy:
Not quite a Digby unit, but 371 wasn’t bad.
They were all racists.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
Here’s my worry, which I didn’t even think about until socoolsofresh kindly brought it up in the other thread — could there be some kind of stealth door to a really, really bad decision inside this one the way Citizens United fucked up our campaign finance laws? And I don’t mean an unintended consequences problem, I mean something that’s written in there by design.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud:
It did. I think that Judge Leon is skating close to the edge here. The suggestion is that the technological change is enough that it reliance on Smith v. Maryland as controlling wasn’t necessary.
different-church-lady
@srv: I obviously haven’t been keeping up — how many Digbys in a TBogg?
handsmile
@Omnes Omnibus: , @burnspbesq: (if you’re lurking)
When will the Supreme Court decide whether it will hear two cases – US v. Wurie and Riley v. California – that challenge the legality of warrantless cellphone searches under the Fourth Amendment? According to SCOTUSblog, both were “Distributed to Conference of December 6, 2013.” From that point, is there a standard length of time until the Court announces how it will proceed?
The Court’s unanimous decision in US v. Jones (ruling that police surreptitiously installing a GPS device on a vehicle to monitor its movement violated the 4th Amendment) gives me (who’s very much NAL) some reason to hope that should it take up the Klayman or related case, certain current NSA practices would be found to be unconstitutional.
Cassidy
@different-church-lady: That’s okay. All I ask is don’t tell me “your baby” is inside when you really mean your Bichon Frise.
mclaren
@Cacti:
Utterly totally 100% false. The metadata is conveyed as part of the Terms of Service of the wifi system, which is a click-through contract the user must agree to in order to use the service. In other words, it is a contract by adhesion with is plainly and grossly illegal.
Source: The Open Law Library.
srv
@different-church-lady: Two Tboggs divided by two.fifty.
Botsplainer
I haven’t waded all through, but has anybody mentioned how Larry lied his way around Schiavo and likes to grope his kids in a sexual way?
Because THAT is Glenn’s hero.
IIRC, Leon is a crank who likes tossing Larry some bones occasionally-he is a wingnut’s wingnut.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@Cassidy: lolz
You’re calling someone else a toddler? That’s projection, my batshit crazy friend.
Mnemosyne
@handsmile:
Call me foolish, but I still think there’s a major difference between collecting digital metadata in a database through a computer and physically installing a piece of equipment on someone’s vehicle to monitor them, so I’m not sure you should get your hopes up too high that a ruling against the latter will naturally lead to a ruling against the former, especially for technophobes.
ETA: To be clear, I’m assuming that most of the SC justices are technophobes.
kc
@Cassidy:
Aw, don’t be mad.
You know, I actually agreed with you on the pit bull issue. Though I’m rethinking that now, as it occurs to me on reflection that defending a dog breed just doesn’t do jack shit to advance the cause of people living in poverty. And I do so want to do the right thing, and nothing but that one right thing.
Cacti
@mclaren:
Now it’s an expert on the law of contracts too.
different-church-lady
@Cassidy: If you ever show up at a conflagration that used to be my house, you can trust that I’d be more concerned about your well-being than my cat’s.
If that makes me some kind of monster I guess I’ll just have to live with that.
(You can also trust that my cat would be thinking, “YES! FINALLY SOMEONE LET ME OUT OF THE HOUSE!”)
Omnes Omnibus
@handsmile:
Not really.
I agree. I also think that the courts have been going out of their way to find lack of standing in order to avoid theses cases. I think they have been hoping that the political branches will resolve it.
different-church-lady
@srv: C’mon, she gets more than 4 comments.
mclaren
@Mnemosyne:
Absolutely. Naomi Wolf was a prophet. Since you object so strenuously to Naomi Wolf’s statement of facts about America, and since you’re systematically on the wrong thuggish side of all the arguments against violations of the constitution, it’s worth repeating Naomi Wolf’s basic points as set forth in her 2007 article yet again:
Fascist America, in 10 easy steps
HI MY NAME IS MCLAREN AND I AM TOO FUCKING STUPID TO INSERT A HYPERLINK
Cassidy
@kc: Do you ever get tired of being dishonest? At the end of the day, when all this navel gazing is over, I just can’t respect someone who can’t be honest. A liar is one of the lowest forms of life.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@mclaren: It seems more important when you bold it.
Ben Franklin
@different-church-lady:
a gelding in TBogg; Infertile mare in DIgby.
kc
@mclaren:
Edit! Edit!
Cacti
@Mnemosyne:
In many cases, this info was handed over voluntarily by the telecom providers, and immunity for this was provided by statute. On that particular issue, SCOTUS declined to grant cert and let stand a 9th circuit ruling which upheld telecom provider immunity.
mclaren
@Cacti:
I can read the black-letter law and follow basic logic. If you have evidence or logic to show that click-throuh wireless contracts are not contracts of adhesion, please provide it. Otherwise your comment is the usual vacuous Karl-Rove-style smear.
John Cole
This thread would be at 500 already if Stuck were still alive.
different-church-lady
@John Cole: I saw what you did there at 238.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@John Cole:
Cassidy is doing a fair imitation.
Ben Franklin
@John Cole:
That’s if his mortality could exceed your penchant for ribald hypocrisy.
Go ‘head and ban me for 90 days for rampant douchbaggery since you have no rules for your narcissistic piques.
Mnemosyne
@mclaren:
TL;DR (at least before Cole killed it).
And Wolf should probably stop plagiarizing David Neiwert (part 1, but there’s also a linkable PDF of the entire series on his site. From 2004.)
kc
@Cassidy:
What did you find objectionable in that particular comment? Are you saying that I was on Cole’s side in the pit bull argument? Because there is a record, you know.
Or . . . are you saying that defending this dog breed DOES help poor people? How so? Do tell. My ears are pricked, so to speak.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: What is the stealth evil that you fear will be put in?
srv
@different-church-lady: two.fifty is a fraction!
@John Cole: Uh, Stuck was an authoritarian.
Mo ppgaz, please:
Baud
@different-church-lady:
Holy shit. And I thought the NSA was dangerous. No one should have that power.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
I don’t know. That’s what makes it stealth. Stand Your Ground laws sounded great, until it turned out that Florida’s meant that it changed the definition of “self defense” so you walk free if you kill someone but go to jail for 20 years if you fire a warning shot.
kc
@kc:
Wait, good God . .. are you advocating that poor people eat their dogs?
Just when I thought you couldn’t sink any lower . . .
Cacti
@mclaren:
A cut and paste from The Open Law Library is now the black-letter law?
But you missed this part from your cut and paste:
By most American states, they mean all 50 of them, plus DC, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Virgin Islands.
But I’m sure this is all old hat to you, and you already know which types of contracts are covered by the common law vs. which are covered by the Uniform Commercial Code.
kc
@Mnemosyne:
Stand Your Ground laws sounded great
Only to gun-humpers and wingnuts, really. Everyone else predicted that the laws would have the exact effect that they have had.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: There is a chance that something horrible could be put in any piece of legislation (SYG) or court decision (Citizens United). This particular decision, however, seems to be simply saying that the mass collection phone metadata is likely to be found to be in violation of the the Fourth Amendment.
Mnemosyne
@kc:
To use another example, “Three Strikes” laws sounded great (to non-lawyers) but ended up sentencing people to life in prison for stealing a $10 pack of batteries.
I dunno. Maybe I’m just insufficiently trusting in Larry Klayman’s good faith.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: You are also starting to use legislation as examples rather than court decisions.
handsmile
@Mnemosyne:
As a principle, my hopes on anything are never “too high.” A life-long dysthymic, I’m simply grateful to have them at all. And on a potential NSA surveillance case before the Supreme Court, US v. Jones does seem to merit at least that.
And I would never think to call you foolish – other than on French Nouvelle Vague cinema.
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yes, to my hearing that was the Court’s loud plea in its decision in Clapper v. Amnesty International.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
Meh. I think I need to go back to my 48-hour waiting period on commenting about this stuff since it seems the early reports always do a 180 from what the initial claims were.
ETA: And I’m pretty sure that Larry Klayman is going to show his true colors on this sooner rather than later just like Rand “droning liquor store robbers is A-OK!” Paul did.
Corner Stone
I just wanted to say a big thank you to everyone on BJ, because I am now aware of two vital subparts to the idea of equal protection under the law.
First, we have the Cooties Clause. Under this direction, if you agree with someone no one likes then you are in bed with them, and most likely love them en toto. This argument is also useful when a despised individual or group is defended in a court of law. They are scum, ergo their lawyer is also scum. And it’s this level of scumbagosity that allows our betters here to determine precisely how much protection and justice the scumbags are “entitled” to.
Then we have the Transmutable Clause. This informs us that, first, we all know what topics, ideas and ideals are important to all “poor people” . And by the immutable transmutable law, if “poor people” aren’t complaining about something loudly enough then a) they don’t give a shit about it and b) no one else has any standing to give a shit about it either.
Thanks, all.
kc
@Mnemosyne:
Well, you don’t have to trust Klayman’s good faith. I sure wouldn’t. I would just feel free to presume bad faith on his part. But that doesn’t mean that the decision is a bad one.
Betty Cracker
@Mnemosyne: Mcl;dr
Corner Stone
@Mnemosyne:
You were initially a strong proponent of SYG laws?
Cassidy
@kc: yawn
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne:
Well, yeah. The guy is an asshole’s asshole. But then Ernesto Miranda was not a really great guy.
MomSense
@Soonergrunt:
If we could do to ourselves the things cats and dogs can do to themselves, no one would ever leave their houses!
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@Corner Stone:
At least for the first 48 hours.
Corner Stone
@handsmile:
Why would we need to watch a two hour presentation to determine a)Snowden is a poopyhead and b)Greenwald lives in Brazil?
kc
@Corner Stone:
Thank YOU for summing that up.
Corner Stone
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader: Well, according to her they sounded great .
You don’t think she was being facetious, do you? Oh wait, sorry, had a misspelling there – should have been “fascist”.
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone: Because there is a small number of people who read this blog who are interested in the actual topic.
handsmile
@Corner Stone:
Welcome back! I have to say I’ve wondered where you’ve been of late. The place needs some holiday cheer.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@Corner Stone: I think of her as the female equivalent of mclaren.
Corner Stone
@Omnes Omnibus: Those people, or should I say “people”, have made the effort to inform themselves and make up their own mind.
Don’t come all the high and mighty on me now, Pfc Butterfield.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
Who’s left? Let’s switch up the teams and fight about Hurricane Christie.
Corner Stone
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader: I’m still kind of amazed you weren’t struck down from on high when you compared Cassidy as a poor man’s…oh wait, a “poor people’s” Stuck.
You know that dud benches his own body weight, don’t you?
srv
Like Jeff Goldstein said, If Dems really believe the President’s NSA foreign intel gathering program is illegal, then they should call publically for the immediate end of this horrible illegal program which is trampling our civil liberties. Assuming the Dems believe country before party, they should follow their accusations with actions.
Corner Stone
@Omnes Omnibus:
There “is” a small number of people, OR, There “are” a small number of people?
Dammit! Where’s Steeplejack when I need him most?
Ben Franklin
@Omnes Omnibus:
Oh, the tyranny of the minority. Let’s all get bogged down in legalisms rather than what’s right and good. GFY Counselor.
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone: I flipped a coin.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ben Franklin: Dumb as ever.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@Corner Stone: To be fair, Stuck is probably a little smarter.
Still.
Cassidy
@Corner Stone: And here I was hoping your alcoholism had finally killed you. This is why I don’t go to church. I’ll hold out for a Christmas miracle, though, snow falling, you having asphyxiated on your own vomit….
Carry on with you circle jerk, guys.
Corner Stone
@Cassidy: Every thing’s always about the violence with you. Have you considered telling your physician about the steroids you’re taking and seeing if maybe he can get you into group to talk about the underlying issues that frustrate you so?
Jeremy
I think that some people on this thread fail to understand that many people are not making excuses for the NSA. I like many other people believe that we should find a middle ground solution that reforms some of it’s practices. I think you can support the President and the democratic party and disagree over certain things at times, but too many people today have a rigid approach.
Jeremy
@srv: Spying on foreign countries is not a big deal. Every country does it and it’s been going on for a very long time. The idea that America and other countries shouldn’t spy is ridiculous and if you believe that we should stop then that is a ridiculous position. The NSA should be reformed (domestic spying) but spying on other countries will continue whether you like it or not
Corner Stone
@Jeremy:
Are you sure you’re at the right blog, Jeremy?
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@Corner Stone:
lolz
I had the same thought.
Ripley
So much pissing on, so much shitting all over. So pure, haha, ya.
srv
@Jeremy:
For those strict constructionists out there, I thought it might be entertaining to read the text of the Fourth Amendment:
It’s not just important that warrants issue prior to a search, but also that the allegations of probable cause be supported by oath or affirmation. In other words, you put the person seeking to perform a search on record about just what he has in mind and subject him to penalties for making shit up.
Those who are prepared to give Mr. Obama the benefit of the doubt believe him when he says that all of the searches involve agents of foreign powers, even if one party to the communication might happen to be a U.S. citizen. But, really, how would we know if he was telling the truth?
Madison and the rest of the Framers designed our government so that we need not rely on office holders being angels. Instead, government can still work with office holders being flawed humans. The government is set up so that the ambitions of one group of flawed humans work against the ambitions of the other group. But in the case of Obama’s warrantless searches, there are no checks. Nobody from another branch of government is being allowed to put the brakes on Obama’s authority. And that arrangement can’t last for long. Congress needs to step up and rein him in.
Betty Cracker
@Jeremy: Who’s being rigid? The people who are insisting that only white, racist suburbanites who are indifferent to the fate of the poor care about government surveillance? Or the Obama-drones-skreee people?
Omnes Omnibus
@srv: You are advocating applying the Fourth Amendment to espionage? That is novel.
Corner Stone
@Betty Cracker: The amusing part of his comment was the explicit contention that the position of the president and the D party was actually one of lawless surveillance.
Otherwise, who is being rigid, and against what?
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@srv: I think the NSA’s upcoming series of Afterschool Specials will help us understand the NSA is simply looking out for us.
srv
@Omnes Omnibus: It’s right there, Omnes, next to the part where the president always has to tell the citizens the truth. Which is right after the passage that says that the people’s liberties are not to be suspended just because bad people knock down some buildings.
Not everything is spelled out in the Constitution, Omnes.
Corner Stone
@burnspbesq:
Even though Jaffer has Cooties now, I will still unfreeze tag him on the playground and run away yelling, “Olly Olly oxen freeeeeee!!”
Omnes Omnibus
@srv: Let me make sure I understand your point. Are you saying that before wiretapping a North Korean consulate in Shanghai, the US government should get a warrant?
Corner Stone
I wonder what the odds are of Judge Leon making the beast with two backs with Greenwald?
Where’s Zandar when you really need some juicy, yet amazingly well informed, speculation?
srv
@Omnes Omnibus: Keep trying to frame it as a “foreign intel” program that we’re complaining about. There are plenty of FOX news Republicans that will buy that. Honesty is a dead end when arguing politics.
Omnes Omnibus
@srv: This exchange began with you referring to foreign intelligence programs. Hence the references to foreign intel in the exchange.
Funny in this context.
mclaren
@John Cole:
And 300 of those comments would be Stuck screaming “You have butt rabies!” and “You’re off your meds!”
Corner Stone
@Cassidy:
What else don’t “poor people” give a shit about? You seem very authoritarian, er, authoritative on this issue.
Tell us, what do “poor people” give or not give a shit about?
burnspbesq
@mclaren:
From whence do you get this shit?
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@Corner Stone: Poor people don’t give a shit about Judge Leon and Glenn Greenwald breeding each other’s butts, fool!
srv
@Omnes Omnibus: Context is of course always important.
mclaren
@srv:
You’re arguing with a Pentagon-funded sock puppet. Pointless. The astroturfer with the username “Omnes omnibus” is probably a corporal in the basement of the Pentagon’s E-wing ordered to spew this kind of disinofrmation to support U.S. military ops.
See The NDAA Legalizes The Use Of Propaganda On The US Public,” Business Insider, 21 may 2012.
Corner Stone
@White Trash Liberal:
Transmutatis, transmutandis!!
Poverty, bitches! It’s what’s for dinner!
Oh, wait.
chopper
@srv:
“give me liberty! i mean me, not my slaves” — things patrick henry probably said
Corner Stone
@White Trash Liberal:
The absolutely fucking hilarious part here is that immediately before this comment you said if someone hadn’t been preaching about poverty then they shouldn’t be talking shit about the NSA!
So, commenters talk about what’s posted = they don’t give a shit about anything else.
But, front pagers do not post about something = yeah, right. Like their NOT posting about something on the FP means of course they care about it, amirite?
Omnes Omnibus
@srv: Okay. I missed the reference. Forget the whole thing.
srv
@chopper: All these Obama Apologists need to sign the following:
I, [state your name], do give up all my Constitutional rights* necessary in support of the Federal Government’s ‘War on Terror’. I freely give up these rights indefinitely no matter if a Republican or a Democrat is the President. I will not criticize the President no matter their party as long they are fighting the ‘War on Terror’.
Full Name
* Rights to be determined by the President with no oversight by the Congress or the Judiciary
Omnes Omnibus
@mclaren: Dude, go read my comments in this thread. Actually read them. There is no way an honest, good faith reading could leave you with the impression that I am okay with current domestic surveillance practices.
srv
@Omnes Omnibus: Or you could just join in with the (ctrl-c & v) keys.
Omnes Omnibus
@srv: I am a cut and paste guy.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@Omnes Omnibus: “, he said as he carefully smoothed out the air bubbles in his skin suit.
burnspbesq
@Omnes Omnibus:
In my view, that’s a distinction without a difference. The question which the opinion fails to adequately address, which makes metadata more similar to a pen register than different, is “how can you have a reasonable expectation of privacy in information that you voluntarily broadcast to the world?”
Corner Stone
@chopper:
Ahhh, the virus is spreading.
Doing my best Samuel L. Jackson:
“Tell me what the poors think!! I dare you! Tell me one time what the poors think, you motherfucker!”
Corner Stone
@Brandt Hardin:
I think you mean, “being labeled a rigid racist”.
But you know what Judge Leon says, right? “A hard man is good to find.”
Corner Stone
@Keith G: For God’s sake. Please do not use words like “stab” in replies to the roid addled Cassidy.
burnspbesq
@Omnes Omnibus:
mclaren has no fucking clue what that is. That’s been clear since some time in 2007 or so.
Omnes Omnibus
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader: That’s cut and sew.
@burnspbesq: You didn’t broadcast it to the world. You shared it with the phone company. When I give my credit card info to a store, I am not broadcasting to the world, I am performing a discrete and hopefully discreet transaction. I would say that the same is true of metadata. I also contend that the government should need a warrant for either type of info.
Corner Stone
@danielx:
That’s where you’re wrong. Because he totally did do a focus group on this with “poor people”. He put a big fucking ham, with rolls and sides on a cart to “focus” the starving people’s attention. He then rolled it toward them and away again as he asked them, “Do you reeeaaalllyyy give a shit about the NSA? Mmmmm? Hmmmm?”
mclaren
@burnspbesq:
First, you need to learn how to speak the English language correctly, shit-for-brains tax avoidance lawyer. “Whence” means “from where.” So saying “From whence” is redundant. Either say “From where” or “Whence.”
Now let’s get into the basic realities:
As John Cole has remarked, “I almost cannot believe what people on this forum are saying” from a year or so ago when all the toadies and lickspittles were eagerly defending the murder of women and children by drones in foreign countries with which we’re not at war.
You, burnspbesq, have explicitly defended the AUMF, which among other unconstitutional provisions authorizes the president of the United States to murder people anywhere in the world including countries with which we’re not at war, to kidnap people anywhere in the world without charges or a trial, or assassinate people anywhere in the world without charges or a trial — including U.S. citizens.
You, burnspbesq, have explicitly defended legalistic terrorism in which the United States government threatens harmless citizens like Aaron Swartz with 35 years in prison for allegedly violating the Terms of Service agreement when using MIT’s public computers while you belligerently defend Barack Obama’s unconscionable refusal to prosecute Wall Street financial crime lords for conspiracy to commit fraud, interstate wire fraud, extortion, perjury, grand theft, fraud, and embezzlement.
You, burnspbesq, have continuously and belligerently asserted the alleged “right” of the Attorney General of the United States and the President of the United States to commit a non-stop litany of high crimes and misdemeanors, including:
* Assassinating U.S. citizens without charges and without a trial (Four of them so far, at least one allegedly under the age of 17, according to the New York Times article “Secret `Kill list’ Test Proves a Test of Obama’s Principles and Will,” 29 may 2012);
* Kidnapping U.S. citizens without criminal charges and without a trial and holding them indefinitely in a military facility (Jose Padilla);
* Signing a bill that authorizes the universal warrantless wiretapping of all Americans in gross violation of the Fourth Amendment;
* Signing a bill that authorizes the kidnapping and infinite detention of American citizens in dungeons forever, without access to a lawyer and without charges or a trial (the NDAA);
* Stating that firing a hellfire missile from a drone at a U.S. citizen constitutes “due process” (Eric Holder’s infamous speech);
* Murdering wedding parties consisting of innocent women and children with drone-fired missiles, then going back after rescuers try to save the survivors and murdering the rescuers (the so-called “double tap,” an atrocity long recognized by the United States as the hallmark of the most despicable terorists);
* Using military weapons against non-violent public protesters (Occupy, the G20 summit, with military LRAD sounc cannons used against protesters);
* Signing a bill making non-violent public protests around “national security areas” into felonies in gross violation of the first amendment right of assembly clause;
* Using military propganda propaganda and PsyOps methods against the U.S. public (as authorized in the latest NDAA);
* Claiming that the laws by which U.S. citizens are prohibited from flying on the so-called “no fly” list must be kept secret, essentially continuing George W. Bush’s legal Star Chamber atrocity;
(See “Supreme Court: You Can’t Challenge Secret Law Because It’s Secret,” Mother Jones, 27 February 2013.)
Put these policies all together, burnpbesq, and what do you get?
You get the policies of Stalin. You get the Enabling Acts of Berlin in 1935. You get the policies enacted by Mussolini in 1920s Italy.
At every turn, burnspbesq, you have supported and defended a laundry list of legal atrocities which demolish the most basic protections against tyranny which Western society has erected since the Magna Carta.
The most basic foundations of Western civilization, burnspbesq, are what you have belittled and ridiculed and found the most casuistical sophistries to deny and abrogate.
These are the hallmarks of a wannabe blackshirt, burnspbesq. These are the signs of a citizen who has grown tired of ruling himself and yearns for a Man on a White Horse, a great heroic Il Duce to do the difficult job of governance.
You have forgotten the most basic function of the law — to preserve civil society; for once we abandon laws, we embark upon a state of barbarism which is nasty, brutish, and short:
Corner Stone
@mclaren:
I admit it. This made my train run on time.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@mclaren:
lmfao
Corner Stone
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-:
You do know who’s getting the worst of this bargain, right? I mean, you do know they are targeting brown people harder than whites, right?
It’s baffling to me that anyone can say with a straight face that this is a “white peoples problem”.
Really? Get back to me in Jan 2017.
TooManyJens
If self-righteousness were spooge, this thread would set a bukkake world record.
Corner Stone
@Socoolsofresh:
Damn. It seems I have missed this one.
Part Three of the “Some people deserve some equal protection under the law, when we say so” Series.
If you have not done as much as President Obama, the most powerless man on the planet, then you have no standing to criticize any decision made by elected officials.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@TooManyJens:
That is really hot.
Corner Stone
@TooManyJens: That’s kind of unfortunate. Don’t you think Cassidy would’ve already choked himself out with the silk scarves and candlewax?
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@Corner Stone: When he kills again, I hope you step up and take responsibility.
mclaren
@burnspbesq:
Yet another Jesuitical casuistry in defense of totalitarian panopticon surveillence that would make Mussolini beam with delight.
Let’s run through the legal reasons why your argument is an atrocity, a sophistry, and a crudely cartoonish lie disguised as legal reasoning;
[1] The contract a cellphone company forces you to sign in order to get service is a contract of adhesion, and unconscionable (that’s a legal term of art). The consumer is given a take-it-or-leave-it set of terms with no choice. That’s not a valid contract, it’s a contract of adhesion, and unenforceable. So your assertion that consumers “voluntarily” spew their information into the ether is an outright lie with a candy coating of legal sophistry to make it palatable.
[2] Your claim that consumers “voluntarily” spray their personal data ‘to the world” presumes that consumers know what information is being collected from their smartphones, and how it’s being used. As recent history shows, companies systematically lie about the information being collected and systematically lie about whom they share it with. The biggest and most obvious lie is that the companies share the info with the NSA — something no consumer was ever told. So, another lie by burnspbesq…par for the course.
[3] You claim that consumers share their information ‘with the world” suggests falsely that companies that collect data can actually control its dispersal. In fact, they can’t, and that’s part of the problem. Once in one database, information tends to percolate into many other databases. Giant big box stores are now using shoppers’ buying patterns to determine which shoppers are pregnant — this information then inadvertently gets shared with other entities, diffuses into other databases, and people the company had no idea would know this stuff wind up making commercial use of it. So if the company can’t be expected to realize where this collected information will diffuse to, how can the person making the phone call possibly be expected to? You specious legal reasoning places an unreasonable burden on the consumer (the burden of being omniscient) and therefore falls apart.
Taken to its logical conclusion, burnspbesq, your specious legal reasoning would conclude that because laser mics can now pick up conservations on rooms with windows and that since all bedrooms have windows, therefore no couple in their bedroom has a reasonable expectation of privacy and thus the neighbors should be invited in to listen to and watch them fuck.
Stick a fork in yourself, burnsie. You’re done here.
Corner Stone
@Ash Can:
Which one(s) of the 315 million did you have in mind?
chopper
@srv:
lol, all that cause I pointed out that Patrick Henry didn’t actually believe in liberty?
Corner Stone
@Cassidy:
I shutter at the thought of what it means for you to “do something for poor folk at least once every three days”.
TooManyJens
@Corner Stone: If he’s choking himself out with candlewax, he’s doing it wrong.
srv
@chopper: Those who forget the lessons of the past are doomed to repeat them.
Corner Stone
@rda909:
Or, you know, the exact same cause brought by the ACLU. Which, last time I checked, also hated all black people.
FlipYrWhig
I dunno, it kinda seems like a good idea to get this issue of metadata recording and storage before the Supreme Court — especially because cell phones, to use a technical term, do different shit than other phones do. So… Let’s see what happens here.
chopper
@Corner Stone:
why, poor people care most about what happens to their metadata, of course. back I was so poor I had to sell of most all my meager possessions to cover rent, I remember how worried I was about my metadata.
Omnes Omnibus
@chopper: Doesn’t mean that poor people are not affected by it.
Corner Stone
@Cassidy:
This just gets weirder and weirder. Freshman frat party gangbangs, bukkake, circle jerks…
mclaren
@Corner Stone:
Exacta-fucking-mundo.
All the white dudebros whining their sophistries in support of these atrocities and illegalities ignore the very shocking reality that the so-called War on Terror and the alleged War on Drugs are actually a giant War On Brown People..
Who the fuck do you think is getting swept up in these anti-terror dragnets? John Cole? Whitebread suburbanites like me? Fuck that, people, the folks who are getting dragged into black sites and secret prisons are conspicuously dusky.
And all those folks getting hauled into the slammer for 20 years without parole?
Dusky.
Dusky, dusky, dusky.
These people are distinctly brownish in skin color, if you haven’t fucking noticed.
Hell, if I was concerned about how these law affected me, I’d be snoozing away and watching the fucking Simpsons on TV. Because goddamn, I’m white, nobody’s gonna target me for this anti-terror shit. I’ve never done a drug harder than aspirin (even ibuprofen scares me, too easy to trash your liver with an overdose) and I’m white, so fuck-all if I have to worry about anti-drug laws.
No, I’m banging the table about this shit because I remember pastor Martin Niemöller’s famous statement:
When American citizens start acquiescing to violations of the constitution because “he’s an enemy combatant” or “he’s a terrorist” or “he’s a subversive” or “he’s a danger to the national security” that’s no fucking different from throwing out the law because “he’s a Jew” or “he’s an untermensch” or “he’s a suspected counterrevolutionary” or “he’s an anti-Mao thought criminal.”
The law applies to everyone or it means nothing.
Corner Stone
@TooManyJens: Not putting *anything* past that dude.
He benches his own body weight, did you know that?
mclaren
@Corner Stone:
They’re just trying to erect hard legal protocols which will climax with increased freedom for every American citizens, and I’m sure all their ejaculations are aimed at that end.
Corner Stone
@chopper: I am so happy you were stupid enough to fall for that one.
Because, guess what? I’ve been so fucking poor for almost 30 years of my life that I went to bed wondering where and when my next meal was going to to be.
But guess what I also found time to fight for? Yeah, other shit too. I escorted women into free clinics, I locked arms with others as we protested against the religious nutjobs, etc etc. And yeah, I, to this point, have never had a vagina. And am pretty sure I will never be pregnant.
But I gave a shit about equality under the law. I took my hungry and angry ass to places to let people know that we cared about a woman’s right to agency, to privacy, and the right to determine her life/destiny/family.
So you and Cassidy sitting there so supremely telling “dudebros” that poor and hungry people can’t focus on anything outside themselves is fucking bullshit.
Fucking simple ass scumbags.
mclaren
@rda909:
So when a court disagrees with the president it “hurts” him?
In what Bizarro World are you living?
Out here on planet earth, when a judge issues an opinion that strikes down a policy of the president, the president is not “hurt,” the president doesn’t retreat to this private palace screaming and then take out his AK-47 and start shouting “Say hello to my LEETLE FRIEND!” and shooting up the place. When a court strikes down the president’s policy in a democracy, the president recognizes it as a part of the system of checks and balances and moves on.
Second: how in the fuck is Barack Obama “the most liberal president in generations”?
Are you seriously telling me that Barack Obama is more liberal than Bill Clinton? How many U.S. citizens did Bill Clinton order assassinated? How many times did Bill Clinton order his Attorney General to go to court to defend secret laws? How many times did Bill Clinton’s Attorney General explain that “firing a missile from a drone constitutes due process”? How many times did Bill Clinton make speeches defending the universal surveillance of all Americans? How often did Bill Clinton praise Ronald “the senile sociopath” Reagan? How often did Bill Clinton sign off on bills that allowed the president to kidnap Americans and hurl ’em into dungeons forever without a trial?
“Generations” suggests that Barack Obama is more liberal than Jimmy Carter.
Oh, really?
Seriously?
Where the fuck is Barack Obama’s energy policy? Jimmy Carter offered congress a comprehensive energy policy which, if enacted, would’ve eliminated any need for a U.S. military intervention in the middle east. Jimmy Carter used his executive powers to sign an amnesty for all Vietnam era draft dodgers. How many times has Barack Obama used his executive powers to sign an amnesty for all the innocent victims swept up wrongly in the so-called War on Terror?
In terms of national security and foreign policy and financial reform, Barack Obama is George W. Bush’s third and fourth terms. Obama only starts to look slightly liberal when we get to gay marriage and health care.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@Corner Stone: I hummed Queen’s We Are The Champions while I read that.
mclaren
@Corner Stone:
I think he means he gives poor people a shower at least once every three days.
A golden shower, true…but still–!
mclaren
@chopper:
When you’re black and the DEA use NSA-collected metadata to smash your door down and send you to prison for 20 years for having a marijuana joint in your bedside table, you bet your ass you will. Especially when the DEA lies about where they got that NSA-collected metadata that led them to arrest you.
As for “caring about poor people,” you may want to peruse law professor Michelle Alexander’s book “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness” which uses statistics to make the case that 21st century drug laws are nothing but a continuation of the 1950s Jim Crow laws by another means. Since the NSA surveillance plays directly into this issue, and since most of the poorest people in these United States happen to black, it matters.
And, yes, for your information…she’s black. So it’s okay to mention her.
Corner Stone
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader: I envisioned it set more to “Rocky’s Theme”.
Duh da duh, da duh duh….duh da duh duh da duh duh duh duh
mclaren
@Ash Can:
So you mean you’re only in favor of NSA surveillance of Republican politicians like Michelle Bachmann (“I want my supporters armed and dangerous”) and governor Rick Perry of Texas (“When we came into the nation in 1845, we were a stand-alone nation, and one of the deals was, we can leave any time we want. So we’re kind of thinking about it again.”) and Republican pundits like Ann Coulter (“We need somebody to put rat poisoning in Justice Stevens’ creme brulee“).
No, I don’t think it’s a good idea to single out only Republicans for NSA surveillance. Universal surveillance of any group of Americans is a fundamentally bad idea, and unconstitutional. Even if that group constantly talks about overthrowing or poisoning prominent members of the United States government, or about seceding from the United States.
Once again: the law (in this case, the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure) applies to everyone or it means nothing
chopper
@Corner Stone:
yes, you see i’ve been that poor. and i helped plenty of my neighbors during that time (one of the reasons i was so broke).
thing is, my metadata wasn’t on the top of the list back then. not even close. meals? check. money? check. job? check. helping my friends and neighbors? check. finding a doctor when i had a liver infection? check.
metadata? no.
look, i don’t like this program at the least. i think it violates any of a wide number of laws and privacy rights. i think the ‘national security’ excuse is mostly horseshit. but, and i know that this really chaps you guys to death, there are a lot of people out there that aren’t anywhere near as frothy over the issue as you guys. and many people who are poor have bigger fish to fry. i felt that way when i was poor and i wasn’t alone.
it really drives you up the wall that people don’t feel the way you do about this. i’m pointing out that this is reality, and actually there are quite a few people out there who have a pretty damn good excuse for it.
chopper
@Corner Stone:
i never said that poor people can’t focus on anything outside themselves. you made that up entirely.
i’m arguing that their ‘metadata’ isn’t likely to be high on the list. unless you think that ‘metadata’ is the only thing in a poor person’s life outside of themselves, you’re completely full of shit.
Omnes Omnibus
@chopper: The vast majority of people don’t really care all that much about any issue. If they did, they would vote in every election every time. It doesn’t meant that the issues aren’t important. People who characterize surveillance as a “Dudebro” issue don’t connect it with other Fourth Amendment issues. Where exactly the line on what constitutes a reasonable search falls is open to reasonable debate. What constitutes probable cause is subject to differences of opinion. The fact the privacy is important to personal liberty is not.
Corner Stone
@chopper:
Say what now?
I gave a clear example of something that was *not* metadata, but was, arguably, privacy related.
You’re grasping at turtles all the way down now. Because it’s clear, that for some people, aka dudebros, they can be poor and hungry and also still see that it’s all important.
That’s all I’m saying. You and Cassidy, et al keep making the argument that it *has* to be some certain way. But it does not and it never was/has been.
I also gave a shit about the death penalty, too.
Sorry about that, dudebro.
Socoolsofresh
@chopper: I come back and there are even more spokespeople for the poor and what their priorities are. I know its crazy to think, but especially in this day and age, poor people can use cell phones and computers! I know, it is insane! You think all they would care about is eating food, but, holy shit, they can also open up an email account, and have even used google before! Can you believe it? The shit is actually incredible! And so, get this, they are being spied on as well! Woah now!
chopper
@Omnes Omnibus:
of course. listen, this is america. clearly this is a society where plenty of people have learned to shrug off concerns with privacy.
the thing about this program that’s so insidious is that it’s metadata. you try to explain it to people and they often have a natural tendency to say ‘so?’
Omnes Omnibus
@chopper: Shouldn’t people who do see the problem make a stink?
Corner Stone
@chopper: You’re making the argument for the state, whether you see it or not.
Because if they can take *just enough* from you, then you have no grounds/energy to give a shit about all the rest of it.
If you’re tired enough, hungry enough, beat down enough, poor enough, then wtf else matters to you but raw survival?
Corner Stone
Metadata. How many calls has free clinic X received? Who called it? Who and what else have they called?
Three hops deep and I know everything about you and everything about everyone you know.
chopper
@Corner Stone:
it’s actually very simple. i’m talking about metadata. you know, the program that this whole thread is about. the NSA wholesale collecting metadata.
then i guess you’re admitting that your line about how i think that poor people can’t possibly focus on anything outside of themselves is complete horseshit. i figured it was one or the other, so thanks for clearing it up.
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone: Most revolutionary leaders have be middle to upper middle class. They have been the ones who had the time to get involved and get organized.
chopper
@Omnes Omnibus:
they should, but many don’t. many have other problems to worry about. many of them have good reason to have other problems to worry about.
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone: Three degree gets me to Kevin Bacon.
Corner Stone
@chopper: You’re not even worth wasting time on calling expletives.
Poor bastard.
Corner Stone
@Omnes Omnibus: I had to temp give up bacon a while back. One day we’ll make up.
If The Man doesn’t bury my heart at wounded knee first.
chopper
@Corner Stone:
you got called on being a hysterical buffoon who makes shit up out of whole cloth. it happens. come back when you’re sober.
Omnes Omnibus
@chopper: My point is that if white suburban people have the time to get involved and be concerned, it doesn’t mean that the issue is only theirs. It affects everyone. Who gives a shit if it is ACLU, coffee house liberals who push the issue, especially since we all know that knocking down Fourth Amendment protections has a greater day to day effect on the poorer and less white in society?
Corner Stone
@chopper: Nope. I re-read your pathetic attempt and it gets sadder each time. What do you think metadata is, if not privacy?
You’re a pathetic clown who makes feeble excuses for the state. Try telling us all again that poor people shouldn’t, or simply don’t, care about the right to privacy.
I’ll wait.
mclaren
@Omnes Omnibus:
You’re wasting your time arguing with a kook. Move on. He’s one post away from screaming “What’s the frequency, Kenneth?”
Omnes Omnibus
@mclaren: Hey, in your opinion, I am a low level CIA plant so you should probably be encouraging me to waste my time.
chopper
@Omnes Omnibus:
i understand. privacy is ultimately everybody’s issue, or it should be, because whether we know it or not it affects all of us.
unfortunately, what happens to our ‘metadata’ is not like the cops kicking your door down or being stopped-and-frisked. it’s invisible and most people don’t even grasp what the fuck ‘metadata’ is.
i’m talking about this specific program here. metadata. and how it’s seen and how people look at it. not privacy overall.
Corner Stone
@chopper: What was it I made up?
Corner Stone
@chopper: God. Take some aspirin and sleep it off, big guy.
chopper
@Omnes Omnibus:
truth is you’re in the cubicle next to me, aren’t you?
chopper
@Corner Stone:
“So you … sitting there so supremely telling “dudebros” that poor and hungry people can’t focus on anything outside themselves”
i never said that. ever. ergo, you’re a lying sack of garbage.
Omnes Omnibus
@chopper: Well, metadata is where the current fight is. We fucking lost on DNA swabs – a fucking invasive procedure.
I am hoping that Congress will take action on the USA Freedom Act. I am sure that Obama will sign it if it comes out of Congress more or less intact. That would be a good step. Both as far as objective policy goes and in restoring the appropriate balance of power between the two branches. One of the biggest problems today is that Congress has ceded everything to the the executive. If people are given power they will use it.
Corner Stone
@chopper: That’s what you’ve said this entire thread, and any time this issue has come up. I hate to tell you this, but the 4th amendment is also about the right to privacy.
It takes a special type of clown to not see what the erosion of privacy leads to.
As always, the dudebro projection is strongest with those who scream it loudest.
Yatsuno
@Omnes Omnibus: Are we finally going to get our long-awaited TBogg unit? It’s been awhile.
Also.
Omnes Omnibus
@Yatsuno: It is entering what would have been my ninth wedding anniversary; I can use the distraction.
chopper
@Corner Stone:
no I haven’t. you’re making shit up again. what is it with you and just making shit up?
Cacti
@mclaren:
You really should inform the Supreme Court about this, so that they can remedy their multiple rulings upholding contracts of adhesion. Especially their 2011 decision upholding AT&T Mobility’s standard consumer contract.
chopper
@Omnes Omnibus:
metadata certainly is where the current fight is. which sucks because its hard to explain metadata to people in a way that either doesn’t make it sound like a big deal or doesn’t make you sound like a kook.
I’ve been working in phone tech for 15 years. when I try to explain what it is to people their eyes usually glaze over.
Omnes Omnibus
@Cacti: The question on an adhesion contract is whether it is unconscionable. Agreeing to privacy violations may well reach that level. I don’t know of any court that has said it yet. I would love it if they did.
A Humble Lurker
Everybody insults each other…and in the end it doesn’t matter and the thread is forgotten. Feel big while you can, my darlings, ’cause it doesn’t last.
Omnes Omnibus
@A Humble Lurker: Then why bother to comment?
Yatsuno
@Omnes Omnibus: To distract you from shit? Seems to be working for me. Hell I should be doing the pre-surgery shower about now.
Betty Cracker
@chopper: Maybe you’re making the fairly uncontroversial point that people who are being stopped and frisked, are struggling to put food on the table, etc., don’t generally have the time and energy to learn about the implications of metadata collection and how it curtails their privacy. You could even be arguing that in good faith.
But let’s not pretend that’s really the point of the “white people’s problem” and “dudebro” bullshit people sling on every goddamn NSA thread. The point of that is to shut down debate and falsely delegitimize opponents by painting them as über-privileged dilettantes.
It’s a stupid argument because loss of civil liberties always affects the least privileged more than anyone else. And it’s despicable in the same way the accusations of antisemitism Likudniks and their wingnut apologists fling at anyone who criticizes Israeli foreign policy is despicable: It’s a dishonest smear that actually undermines the position of the people it allegedly champions.
Omnes Omnibus
@Yatsuno: Merde.
Omnes Omnibus
@Betty Cracker: Thank you. You did a far better job of expressing what I was trying to say than I have been doing.
chopper
@Betty Cracker:
I’m not one of those guys.
chopper
@Betty Cracker:
Yes I fucking am, Betty. Jesus titty-fucking Christ, not everyone in the world is a ‘dudebro accuser’. If Cacti has you that riled up you should take a fucking break.
Yatsuno
Getting closer…
A Humble Lurker
@Omnes Omnibus:
To be the person who GETS IT. The one lone bastion of sanity among the rubes.
Or I didn’t think the thread had reached it’s peak uselessness until I chimed in. Now it’s as low as it can get.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@Betty Cracker: Dudebra.
Cervantes
@mclaren:
That is a masterpiece.
Nicely done.
Cervantes
@kc:
Nor did I — but the response was not a surprise.
Cervantes
@Omnes Omnibus:
I think this is true.
Betty Cracker
Aw man, no TBogg unit? We were so close!
@chopper:
I’ll let YOU answer you on that one:
I wouldn’t have been quite so harsh, but when you outsource, you have to accept some quality control issues, amirite?
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@mclaren:
Tylenol (acetamiophen, paracetamol) affects the liver. Ibuprofen (motrin) affects the kidneys.
Corner Stone
@Betty Cracker: I have faith we can get there.
Let’s do this!
handsmile
in the interests of achieving a TBogg unit here, a link-laden summary of reaction to Judge Leon’s ruling in Klayman v. Obama from the “Just Security” website:
http://justsecurity.org/2013/12/17/news-roundup-notes-december-17-2013/
A plug as well for this excellent website which has become a daily stop on my travels on the Intertubes (and credit due, one first brought to my and this blog’s attention by burnspbesq.) Its founders, editors and roster of guest authors are impressively active and knowledgable, in both practice and theory, in the subject areas under its purview.
Corner Stone
@LT:
I couldn’t remember if I had actually read that last night or not.
“Cescites” ! That is some good stuff right there.
handsmile
Further to the TBogg objective, the indefatigable and, in my view, invaluable national security journalist Marcy Wheeler (aka “emptywheel) on the leaked recommendations of the White House-sponsored NSA surveillance review panel:
“President Obama’s NSA review group a typical administration whitewash”
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/16/obama-nsa-review-group-whitewash
While her conclusions will be to the liking of few here I suspect, it should be noted that her award-winning reporting on the Scooter Libby trial and her book Anatomy of Deceit was no less caustic or unsparing of the Cheney/Bush regime.
liberal
Damn…just when I needed to get back to work, I see that Corner Stone has shown up.
Ben Franklin
test
Corner Stone
I’m sad to see Senator Mark Udall be the latest to become infected with Cooties.
Udall: Court Ruling NSA Program ‘Likely Unconstitutional’ Shows Urgent Need to Rein in Overbroad Domestic Surveillance Powers
He’s actually had a conversation with *gasp!* scumbag Senator Rand Paul!
I’m going to need to up my cardio training as it appears I will be very busy unfreeze tagging a lot of Cooties having mofos on the playground.
Corner Stone
@liberal: And he said unto them, “Comest forth not, if you have Cooties
“For thouest are as scum to me
“As whosever touches the unclean
“Are as the unclean as well.”
So sayeth the BJ Dudebro Brogressive, so sayeth us all.
handsmile
@Corner Stone:
Don’t neglect the bench presses.
Corner Stone
@handsmile: I didn’t even bother reading her analysis as it’s clear she’s simply a racist. She uses the word “whitewash” right there in her headline.
It could not be more evident that she’s nothing but a dudebra who never gave a damn about our Constitution until Obama was elected.
Corner Stone
@handsmile: I leave all the heavy lifting to Brother Dudebro Cassidy. He can bench press his own body weight.
Corner Stone
@handsmile:
That is too funny.
handsmile
@Corner Stone:
Not to disturb your morning body-building routines, but your buff assistance might be required on the thread to Anne Laurie’s “60 Minutes…” post above. Too much savvy there for me, alas.
ETA: (#416) And next you’ll be telling me you find black-face antics amusing as well.
liberal
@Corner Stone: sadly, the New York Review of Books has that asshat Sunstein writing now.
Cervantes
@liberal:
“Now”? He’s been writing there for more than two decades.
chopper
@Betty Cracker:
Yeah, you go with that. The guilt by association couldn’t be clearer.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@liberal: Ain’t he awesome? (As far as Dudebro Brogressives go, I mean.)
Corner Stone
Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.
Scott Lemieux now has The Cooties
I guess this means, by law, that LGM is no longer a reputable blog.
The problem is, however, that I don’t really like Lemieux very much. So should I unfreeze tag him on the playground?
I’ll have to first read some of his writings on “poor people” and discover what it is they truly care about before I decide his fate.
kc
Poor people don’t care about tbogg units, dudebros. You can’t eat a tbogg unit.
Corner Stone
@kc: How do you know what “poor people” care about? Huh?!
Is your name Dudebro Brogressive Brother Cassidy? Or White Trash Liberal? Or Dudebro Chopper?
If not, what makes you so all fired sure of what “poor people” care about?
Maybe, in their dignified poordom, they know better than we dudebros that the absence of a tbogg unit harms us all? Maybe it’s the lack of a tbogg unit they feel most keenly?
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
I’m going to miss this thread when it’s abandoned to the Langoliers.
kc
@Corner Stone:
Cassidy told me. He understands poor people. He’s a poor people whisperer.
Anyway, all they care about is their next meal. That’s IT. Do not bother them with this shit about “privacy” and the “Fourth Amendment.”
Corner Stone
@kc: Ahhhh, so you’ve been allowed into the club then, eh?
Welcome, Dudebro Brother kc!
I see you have been studiously studying the teachings of The Poors’ High Priest Dudebro Brogressive Brother Cassidy.
Yes, He and His acolytes are quick to inform us of what is important to their flock, aka “poor people”. And it certainly is not a right to privacy. For how could they, the poors, ever attain a modicum of privacy?
THEY CAN’T.
And therefore, they in fact, do not care. And so we, the upwardly mobile dudebros, can not either.
So let it be written, so let it be done. So sayeth the BJ Dudebro Collective, so sayeth us all.