Comments on: Constitutional Disconnect

By: Christy Hardin Smith

Christy Hardin Smith — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 22:45:01 +0000

What part of my article being about a violation of our current constitutional principles in the United States was difficult for you to understand, Seixon? My point in the retort was fairly straightforward, I thought — if the laws in the EU are what you and your political buddies think is appropriate, than you should amend the laws so that the actions taken or demanded by the DoJ and this Administration FIT the laws — and so they are not acting in ways that are contrary to current legal standards. But Republicans, as you could no doubt tell from my response, in this country at least, sure as hell are going to have a difficult time of selling that to their constituency due to them spending so much time making fun of Europeans and EU laws. It must suck always trying to pick a fight by ignoring the obvious and hoping everyone else does the same. Bottom line: the laws, as written, in the US make this sort of action questionable, especially if it is geared toward making illegally seized information (via domestic wiretapping by the NSA without a warrant) usable in court via a backdoor subpoena. The President doesn’t get to just make up the laws as he goes along. And what the EU is doing doesn’t mean squat to what our laws say at the moment. And no amount of dancing around the subject makes what you say true.

By: Seixon

Seixon — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 22:31:29 +0000

Christy,

I’m not a Republican, so that whole “haha, go tell that to your party” spiel ain’t gon work on lil ol me. ;)

I’m not a partisan absolutist, either, so I have more than enough room to agree with things Democrats do, things Republicans do, and things those crazy Europeans are doing. Oh wait, I am European. Never mind.

Nice dodge, though, not having to deal with the fact that the people that reside at Firedoglake often look to Europe as a moral compass for how “liberal” or “progressive” things should be. Unless, you know, they are doing the exact same thing as Bush. Then it just becomes the elephant in the room.

I swear, you “progressives” must have a mansion to fill all those elephants in the room(s). You know, kind of like the Canadian terror plot that was just foiled. Add one more elephant into the liberal Ivory Mansion.

It must suck being a partisan, having to always have your back up against the wall to protect your party rather than doing what is right.

By: Christy Hardin Smith

Christy Hardin Smith — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 21:27:18 +0000

Seixon — so, let me get this straight, oh ye of the party of “Freedom Fries,” and ye of the party of the pissing match with Justice Ginsburg and others regarding the interpretation of American law by looking to international jurisprudence — suddenly the EU is the arbiter of all things which fit the American way? Bwahahahahaha. Nice try — but the actions of our President have to fit our laws as they are written. You want European laws and interpretations, then tell the GOP to go out there and sell it to the American public — make sure you tell them to go with that “Well, the EU does it.” argument, because I hear Rush Limbaugh’s been itching to cuddle up with the French for a while.

By: Seixon

Seixon — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 17:07:05 +0000

So the AG wants to do the same thing as the EU? The horror! The horror!

By: MarchDancer

MarchDancer — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 09:13:39 +0000

Oh Dear! I fear I have become a radical. You know, one of those far-left crazies that is afraid of her own government; who wants to warn her adult children of what to look out for but won’t use the internet or her phone for those warnings; who wonders if she should take the chance on flying after all this summer and if she does, should she make arrangements online. You know what I’m talking about! Just the opposite of Rush, right? Same pardigm, just a bunch of crazies trying to destroy a rational government. Is it wise to vote and will my vote be canvassed if I do? Will my vote be tabulated?

What’s even worse is that I truly am getting fearful. {{Shudder}}

By: The Oracle

The Oracle — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 05:15:55 +0000

I have trouble distinguising whether Albert Gonzales is neo-Gestapo or neo-KGB.

And when did the Republican Party become a member of the “Axis of Evil”? Did they just join recently or were they a charter member?

I think more and more U.S. citizens are awakening to the utter vileness and corruption of the Republican Party. More and more U.S. citizens are realizing that none of us, for the sake of our nation’s children, can turn our backs on the Republican Party, because either the Republicans will steal our wallet or stab us, and our children, in the back.

But they’re Christian, you might protest. Yeah, right, and George W. Bush is the greatest president ever in American history. Scout’s honor. Don’t make me laugh.

By: DrBB

DrBB — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 02:33:15 +0000

This is their pattern: using some gut-instinct issue to forestall debate and force policy in a direction they want. And that direction is always toward more surveillance power, more ability to control information, more ability to quash dissent. Ratcheting us ever further toward the authoritarian police state that is their idea of utopia.

By: Libby Sosume

Libby Sosume — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 00:26:36 +0000

Cross posted from my blog:

Subj: Child porn

Christy, I just love your blog*, but I’ve got to clue you in on something. You’re using the wrong term.

When the FBI search’s a hard drive and finds pictures of children having sex with children, adults, and even animals, that’s not “child porn.”

That’s documented child sexual abuse and rape.

“Child porn” is the stuff you see every day on TV, in commercials and in the movies.

Update:

Christy’s post wasn’t so much about child porn as it was about the government wanting to invade your privacy in order to fight the problem, except that her mention of it triggered one of my pet peeves. And maybe I’m a little unfair to call her on it. So I’ll just explain my peeve.

People use the term child porn to refer loosely to two different social problems (which I would further isolate into three).

1. Child slavery, rape, and sexual abuse, which of course is the most horrific of the three. The people who engage in this crime often document it with photographs. Technically, such photographs could be described as “child porn,” but the real crime (in my view) was the rape and abuse. I don’t know how many child rapists there are.

2. The documentation of the first crime finds its way into circulation around the internet, apparently satisfying the impulses of a (much larger?) community of child porn enthusiasts. This probably amounts to further “abuse” of the children in question; I don’t argue that point. But the crime of possessing and viewing the porn is not of the same character as the crime of creating it. Yet law enforcement officials tend to believe that the market for child porn causes the porn to be made in order to satisfy the market, thus child porn being a root cause of child abuse. They also tend to believe viewing it stimulates further people into committing the first crime. Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t know. By itself, it’s certainly a major social problem.

3. But while we’re on the subject of social problems, let’s not forget the sexualization of children by our society - which is very pervasive and not on the books as a crime. I’ll skip over Brook Shields and Britney Spears (prior to age 18) and take a milder example: The other day I was at the Burger King and I saw posters for the toys you could get with the children’s meal. The boys would get alpha male stuff having to do with armored robots. The girls would get stuff that would outfit them as a “Passion Princess” (if I recall the description correctly). The picture was of an Arabian princess with big luscious lips and a come-hither look. Do you not think this is a social problem?

So my point is:

1. Let’s call pictures of actual sexual abuse and rape what they are: Documentation of actual sexual abuse and rape.

2. Let’s also call the sexualization children in our media what it is: child porn.

Am I making sense?

By: professor rat

professor rat — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 22:20:20 +0000

I know this is creeping fascism , I know, but it is also an opportunity when you think about.
Like the open government project at MIT that was mapping the state. We could do that with the storage we all have and the right P2P client ( Freenet? )
We can map their entire death star complex and using our superior open source analyis locate the weakness’s. The net itself was a pentagon project originally and that didn’t work out so well for them did it.
Also our database can respect the forth ammendment - we can keep and store every detail of every public servants life but private citizens could be protected by encryption layers requiring probable cause to release to qualified investigative delegates.
This citizens intelligence agency is already an informal reality - it wouldn’t need much to set it up as a running concern that should strike terror into the heart of any totalitarian state fascist. Give us lemons and we’ll make lemonade so long as living well is the best revenge.
Fuck you fascist pigs - your fucked motherfuckers.

By: SherAn

SherAn — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 22:04:55 +0000

Yes, the cost would be prohibitive, but the administration has a carrot to dangle if you think about it. Is it not a strange coincidence that tiered internet service is being discussed concurrently with this latest attempt at an unconscionably massive data grab?
Let’s see what else we can find on the “back burner,” as it were.