There are 245 comments.

1. Thatcher
   MSJL

   @MSJL

   

   6:55 PM EDT ⋅ Jun 5, 2015

   Tuck:

   And now a court has reviewed it, and found no statutory authorization for it.

   So the current state of the law is that it’s illegal. Smith aside.

   Here’s a prominent Conservative, Republican legal scholar on the matter:

   “As regular readers know, I that Section 215 doesn’t authorize the NSA program. “

   And the government then proceeded to shut down the program.  Is that the sign of a pending dictatorship?

   How’s your Nuremburg Defense going right about now?

   Not tracking you on this point.  Congress passes a statute, a government agency interprets the statute, a court later finds the agency exceeded its authority.  This happens quite frequently without anyone alleging a government overthrow of Constitutional order.  And we usually do not allege that those implementing an apparently legal program are enemies of the state.

   You didn’t address the Parallel Construction issue at all.

   The NSA and the DEA are working together to bypass Constitutional protections about how evidence may be gathered to convict a person of a crime, and then lying to courts about it, because they don’t think the court will accept the evidence.

   I’d love to hear how that is OK under our scheme of law.

   You are correct.  I said I was only taking on the one point.  I will ditto Klaatu on this one.  This is descending into picking up any stray theory and attaching bad faith motives to all actors on the other side with no evidence.  That’s also not consistent with our scheme of law.

2. Moderator
   Ricochet

   @OmegaPaladin

   9:27 PM EDT ⋅ Jun 5, 2015

   Tuck,

   Why have you not taken up arms against the US government?   You have claimed that this is a situation parallel to the Revolutionary War (which was not related to the Constitution that did not exist yet) and you have implied the government no longer has legitimacy.

3. Inactive
   Tuck

   @Tuck

   5:05 AM EDT ⋅ Jun 6, 2015

   Klaatu:…There is an argument to be made a president also has such power inherent in his war making power….

   His war against who, the American people?

   Lincoln had a civil war and may have had a justification for doing stuff like this.

   Eisenhower had a cold war, with an enemy who was active in our country, and didn’t see the need to do things like this.

   You didn’t address the Parallel Construction issue at all.

   The NSA and the DEA are working together to bypass Constitutional protections about how evidence may be gathered to convict a person of a crime, and then lying to courts about it, because they don’t think the court will accept the evidence.

   Until you can cite a case where such activity occurred and the information was not gained as part of an ongoing counter terroror foreign intelligence operation, you have nothing but conjecture. Also, it is the secret nature of the program, not a desire to deceive the court that necessitates not making the source of the information public.

   Your second sentence refutes your first.  The NSA’s secrecy does not put them above the Constitution.  Remember that oath?

4. Inactive
   Tuck

   @Tuck

   5:40 AM EDT ⋅ Jun 6, 2015

   MSJL:

   This is descending into picking up any stray theory and attaching bad faith motives to all actors on the other side with no evidence. That’s also not consistent with our scheme of law.

   You said you’d seen no evidence of bad faith on the part of the NSA.  I provided you with the evidence that the NSA, along with other government agencies, is acting in bad faith wholesale.

   That’s not a “stray theory”, and it not “no evidence”.  Even the White House. has said this is a problem, although they’ll likely bury it, since they’ve been involved all along.

   Moreover, if you read the FISA court opinions or the FBI OIG report, you’ll see that the so-called “protections” are mostly theoretical, as the evidence is they don’t function.

   ““Contrary to the government’s repeated assurances, N.S.A. had been routinely running queries of the metadata using querying terms that did not meet the standard for querying,” Judge Bates recounted. He cited a 2009 ruling that concluded that the requirement had been “so frequently and systematically violated that it can fairly be said that this critical element of the overall … regime has never functioned effectively.”

   You two are coming across as cultists, frankly, offering ever-changing assurances that salvation is right around the corner, in face of evidence to the contrary.

5. Inactive
   Klaatu

   @Klaatu

   9:12 AM EDT ⋅ Jun 6, 2015

   His war against who, the American people?

   No, that would be the war against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons.

   Your second sentence refutes your first. The NSA’s secrecy does not put them above the Constitution. Remember that oath?

   Not at all. Are you arguing the Executive is subordinate to the Judiciary? Basically what you are advocating is rebuilding the wall that existed prior to 9/11 when intelligence agencies could not share information with law enforcement. Do you honestly believe if the the NSA were to discover information pertaining to drug cartel operations in the U.S., it should not tell the DEA or risk exposing the means by which they gained the information in open court?