"Is the Pentagon spying on Americans?"

PuffnScruff

Well-Known Member
#4
this isnt about spying on ordinary american citizens. the nsa isnt going to waste their time listening to my phone calls to my mom and dad. their not trying to listen in on convos from uncle joe in iowa to grandma in illinois. what they are doing is listening to calls being made intertnationaly to and from people that have suspected ties to terrorist. they should get a warrent for this, but that could take days ,weeks, or even months. by that time it could be too late. innocent people could be dead.

the nsa doing these "illegal" listenings on people that want to kill innocent people that have suspected terrorist ties has done some good. for example because of the nsa program, Iyman Faris , a convicted al Qaeda operative who admits to having ties too al Qaeda and meeting Usama bin Laden, and admits to trying to blow up bridges in new york, trying to blow up trains, was uncovered due to this nsa program. who knows how many countless of lives have been saved because of this. if the nsa had not done what they did and went the legal way of getting a warrent from a judge that could have taken days, weeks, or months, it could have been too late. people could be dead.

plus, this judge, Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly refused to issue a warrents for this. had they not done these illegal listenings on Faris, who knows what could have happend. he may have been able to go on about his plans. then that judge would have to go to sleep every night knowing that she did not stop innocent people from being killed.

the new york times broke this story. what i dont understand is why did they take a year to break this story? i question the timing of this story. the times is known for being a bush adminstration hating news paper. not to mention a paper that has a bad reputation for making up their own news (i'm not saying they did that in this case)

why did the times wait the day after the elections in iraq to break this story? they already waited a year to drop this , they couldnt have done it a week earlier? a week later? month before? month after?

i am not worried at all about this. i am not doing anything illegal that would make the govt listen to my phone calls. i think they have better things to do with their time then listen to my boring phone calls with mommy and daddy.
 
#5
Hey as an American, I’m personally outraged and concerned that President Bush and his cronies have authorized spying on American citizens. To farther expand on the issue you think that the government is spying on people named Mr. and Mrs. Smith, no they’re spying on individuals of middle and Arabic decent, which brings up the whole issue of racial profiling. Although it doesn’t come as much as a surprise because if anyone’s similar with anything about the history of US, you’d know that presidents and governments have always abused their power in times of war and upheaval to pursue their own political and self agendas.

It was fewer than 40 years ago during the civil-rights movement and the Vietnam War that Presidents Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon all authorized spying on American citizens. The program, known as CO-INTELPRO, which was run by the FBI spied on peace activists who were trying to end the war in Vietnam and Americans like Martin Luther King Jr; and in justification of this they deemed him the number one threat to the American way of life and reasoned it under measures of national security, so that they could attempt to derail the civil rights movement that was going on at the time.

Although the bright side of things is if you’re a bleeding heart liberal like myself, this is really great news that George W has the NSA tapping phones and [monitoring] e-mails in the U.S. to fight his war on terror. There’s hope for a future where President Hillary Clinton can do the same thing to catch the abortion bombers and white supremacists in her war on terror. Oh, and I hope she'll have the NSA keep close tabs on Pat Robertson and his assassination threats.

I just see no end to what a president can accomplish without the hindrance of a Constitution and a Congress.

(Oh yeah if anybody didn’t get that last part, I was being sarcastic.)
 

Duke

Well-Known Member
Staff member
#6
Foxmulder said:
Hey as an American, I’m personally outraged and concerned that President Bush and his cronies have authorized spying on American citizens. To farther expand on the issue you think that the government is spying on people named Mr. and Mrs. Smith, no they’re spying on individuals of middle and Arabic decent, which brings up the whole issue of racial profiling. Although it doesn’t come as much as a surprise because if anyone’s similar with anything about the history of US, you’d know that presidents and governments have always abused their power in times of war and upheaval to pursue their own political and self agendas.

It was fewer than 40 years ago during the civil-rights movement and the Vietnam War that Presidents Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon all authorized spying on American citizens. The program, known as CO-INTELPRO, which was run by the FBI spied on peace activists who were trying to end the war in Vietnam and Americans like Martin Luther King Jr; and in justification of this they deemed him the number one threat to the American way of life and reasoned it under measures of national security, so that they could attempt to derail the civil rights movement that was going on at the time.

Although the bright side of things is if you’re a bleeding heart liberal like myself, this is really great news that George W has the NSA tapping phones and [monitoring] e-mails in the U.S. to fight his war on terror. There’s hope for a future where President Hillary Clinton can do the same thing to catch the abortion bombers and white supremacists in her war on terror. Oh, and I hope she'll have the NSA keep close tabs on Pat Robertson and his assassination threats.

I just see no end to what a president can accomplish without the hindrance of a Constitution and a Congress.

(Oh yeah if anybody didn’t get that last part, I was being sarcastic.)
Preach, brother, preach!

What concerns me is this kind of stuff is happening in the world power that see itself as the Bastion of Democracy.
 

PuffnScruff

Well-Known Member
#7
is it racial profiling if a person of middle eastern or arabic decent is [U]KNOWN[/U] to have connections with terrorists groups? it doesnt matter what their decent is. you are jumping to conclusions based nothing. no solid proof or evidence that is what the adminstration and the nsa are doing.

i hope you were being sarcastic about the "president hillary clinton". please dont compliment her like that. that will never happen. if you believe it your living in a world with blinders on.

if im not mistaken president clinton did the same thing too. we werent in a "time of war" during his adminstration.
 
#8
^^^

To paraphrase Viggo Mortensen, if you believe the Bush administration is anything more than a conglomerate based on cheating, greed, cruelty, torture, racism, imperialism, religious fundamentalism, treason, and the seemingly limitless capacity for hypocrisy than you're the one who is living in a world with blinders on.

Nuff' said
 

Kareem

Active Member
#9
Foxmulder said:
Hey as an American, I’m personally outraged and concerned that President Bush and his cronies have authorized spying on American citizens. To farther expand on the issue you think that the government is spying on people named Mr. and Mrs. Smith, no they’re spying on individuals of middle and Arabic decent, which brings up the whole issue of racial profiling. Although it doesn’t come as much as a surprise because if anyone’s similar with anything about the history of US, you’d know that presidents and governments have always abused their power in times of war and upheaval to pursue their own political and self agendas.

It was fewer than 40 years ago during the civil-rights movement and the Vietnam War that Presidents Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon all authorized spying on American citizens. The program, known as CO-INTELPRO, which was run by the FBI spied on peace activists who were trying to end the war in Vietnam and Americans like Martin Luther King Jr; and in justification of this they deemed him the number one threat to the American way of life and reasoned it under measures of national security, so that they could attempt to derail the civil rights movement that was going on at the time.

Although the bright side of things is if you’re a bleeding heart liberal like myself, this is really great news that George W has the NSA tapping phones and [monitoring] e-mails in the U.S. to fight his war on terror. There’s hope for a future where President Hillary Clinton can do the same thing to catch the abortion bombers and white supremacists in her war on terror. Oh, and I hope she'll have the NSA keep close tabs on Pat Robertson and his assassination threats.

I just see no end to what a president can accomplish without the hindrance of a Constitution and a Congress.

(Oh yeah if anybody didn’t get that last part, I was being sarcastic.)

:thumb: so true! Puff N Scruff the problem is where does it stop? who's monitoring the monitor???? you can say they arent listening to what uncle Jim an aunt Jill in iowa are talking about but whats to stop them??? When Hitler took power didnt he say he was only concered with the communists an protecting the "homeland"?? We see how that went. What Bush is doing is no better then Saddam an his Secreat police, shits all hearsay, "Well Abdual said he doesnt like Bush so lets tap his phone an lable him a threat". They arent just doing this to suspected terrorists, in the past couple weeks its also been brought out that they have been spying on anti war protestors an so forth. Bush needs ta be impeached an quick!
 

PuffnScruff

Well-Known Member
#10
Kareem said:
:thumb: so true! Puff N Scruff the problem is where does it stop? who's monitoring the monitor???? you can say they arent listening to what uncle Jim an aunt Jill in iowa are talking about but whats to stop them??? When Hitler took power didnt he say he was only concered with the communists an protecting the "homeland"?? We see how that went. What Bush is doing is no better then Saddam an his Secreat police, shits all hearsay, "Well Abdual said he doesnt like Bush so lets tap his phone an lable him a threat". They arent just doing this to suspected terrorists, in the past couple weeks its also been brought out that they have been spying on anti war protestors an so forth. Bush needs ta be impeached an quick!
nobody said clinton needed to be impeached when clinton did the same exact thing on a man who was a spy for russia. you honestly think that was the only time he did this?

you guys dont know that is illegal, none of you are constitional scholars. none of you are lawyers. so what makes you so convinced he did illegal acts that should make him be impeached?

did i not point out that this has done some good?

you all are missing the main point. the nsa only looked at conversations and messages being sent internationaly. not messages being sent from point A in the country to point B in the country.the key word being internationaly.

have some faith that these people are doing their jobs correctly and they are trying to save innocent people from being hurt and killed, again.
 
#12
PuffnScruff said:
have some faith that these people are doing their jobs correctly and they are trying to save innocent people from being hurt and killed, again.
You mean having faith in an administration whose higher ups would leak the name and identity of covert CIA agents like Valerie Plame thus destroying her career as a form of political payback just because her husband spoke up against the Bush administration’s war propaganda and misinformation?

Have faith in the fact that these people are doing their best job to keep American’s safe, you say? More like doing their best to keep their jobs and pockets safe.
 

PuffnScruff

Well-Known Member
#13
Foxmulder said:
You mean having faith in an administration whose higher ups would leak the name and identity of covert CIA agents like Valerie Plame thus destroying her career as a form of political payback just because her husband spoke up against the Bush administration’s war propaganda and misinformation?

Have faith in the fact that these people are doing their best job to keep American’s safe, you say? More like doing their best to keep their jobs and pockets safe.
if there was any solid proof the adiminstration leaked her name wouldnt they have charged someone by now? its been over 2 years. still no charges in this case.

the same valerie plame who arranged a trip for her husband , an ambassador of the u.s., to go to africa search for wmds? :laugh: last time i checked its not an ambassadors job to be a detective or investigator. she was not a covert agent. she worked at cia hq for 6 years. her identity was known for a long time. this whole thing was a move on the part of the cia to take attention away from them.

look beyond what the main stream media tells you, because your not going to get any truth from them, all you'll get is distortions and lies.

why do you all believe everything that comes from the newyork times? are your short term memories that bad?

and i ask again, if you people claim that president bush should be impeached for this, should president clinton have been impeached on the same grounds? he did the same exact thing.
 

PuffnScruff

Well-Known Member
#14
Devious187 said:
They are doing more than monitoring the calls of suspected terrorists (by the way, whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty?) Puff, read this:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/15/p...4e4101aee&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss
it's too long to cut and paste so just click the link. They are spying on anti-war protesters as well as "suspected terrorists." And it's all in the name of national security, right Puff?
if the nsa has grounds to believe that it is in the name of naitonal security then so be it. who are you and i to say they dont. we dont work at the nsa, at least i dont. even if it is anti-war protesters. because for all we know one of those anti-war protesters may have terrorist ties.
we dont have access to their information so we shouldnt jump to conclusions based on nothing.

once again president clinton did that same thing. on protesters. was it wrong?
 
#15
Wait a minute, didn't you say Clinton did that to a man who was spying for Russia? Now you're saying he did it on protesters? Who's the one speculating here? And yes, if he used it in the same way Bush is using it, then it was wrong of Clinton to do it, just like it's wrong for Bush to do it. So now the American government should assume that any anti-war protesters may potentially be terrorists? Whatever happened to freedom of speech and expression? Now it's ok to speak your mind, just don't say anything against the administration or the war because you might be labeled a terrorist? Can you read what you are saying and honestly believe you have the same freedoms you enjoyed before? And do you really think this will prevent anything from happening? When the terrorists decide to hit America again, they will be smarter than to talk about it over the phone or the internet. It will happen, you better believe that. Unless the government starts reading people's mail, but that would be ok too, right Puff?
 

PuffnScruff

Well-Known Member
#16
Devious187 said:
Wait a minute, didn't you say Clinton did that to a man who was spying for Russia? Now you're saying he did it on protesters? Who's the one speculating here? And yes, if he used it in the same way Bush is using it, then it was wrong of Clinton to do it, just like it's wrong for Bush to do it. So now the American government should assume that any anti-war protesters may potentially be terrorists? Whatever happened to freedom of speech and expression? Now it's ok to speak your mind, just don't say anything against the administration or the war because you might be labeled a terrorist? Can you read what you are saying and honestly believe you have the same freedoms you enjoyed before? And do you really think this will prevent anything from happening? When the terrorists decide to hit America again, they will be smarter than to talk about it over the phone or the internet. It will happen, you better believe that. Unless the government starts reading people's mail, but that would be ok too, right Puff?
i didnt speculate anything, its a known fact that even president clinton has admitted too. there is proof he did it to the man who was giving secrets to russia and he did it to protesters. that were not protesting any type of war.

i didnt say assume that any anti-war protesters may be potential terrorist. if the nsa or any other agency has reason to believe or proof they have terrorist ties then they should look into them. that is what i was trying to get across.

"because for all we know one of those anti-war protesters may have terrorist ties. "
see thats what i said.^^^

and as i pointed out in a previous post this has stopped an attack before. look into it.

if the govt is reading email of people that they have reason to believe may have ties to people that want to kill innocent people then yes that is ok in my eyes. i think it is ok to look into messages and phone calls of people who may have terrorist ties.do you not?

i do not think its ok to read or listen in on converstations of regular normal law abiding citizens. which there is not proof the govt is doing and i do not believe they are doing. using the anti-war groups as an example is lame, you dont know who they were looking at in these groups and why.it could have just been one person. we dont have all the facts so there is no point to jump to conclusions.
 
#17
PuffnScruff said:
i didnt speculate anything, its a known fact that even president clinton has admitted too. there is proof he did it to the man who was giving secrets to russia and he did it to protesters. that were not protesting any type of war.

i didnt say assume that any anti-war protesters may be potential terrorist. if the nsa or any other agency has reason to believe or proof they have terrorist ties then they should look into them. that is what i was trying to get across.

"because for all we know one of those anti-war protesters may have terrorist ties. "
see thats what i said.^^^

and as i pointed out in a previous post this has stopped an attack before. look into it.

if the govt is reading email of people that they have reason to believe may have ties to people that want to kill innocent people then yes that is ok in my eyes. i think it is ok to look into messages and phone calls of people who may have terrorist ties.do you not?

i do not think its ok to read or listen in on converstations of regular normal law abiding citizens. which there is not proof the govt is doing and i do not believe they are doing. using the anti-war groups as an example is lame, you dont know who they were looking at in these groups and why.it could have just been one person. we dont have all the facts so there is no point to jump to conclusions.
The question is how the hell does the government know who is a law abiding citizen and who isn't? By monitoring their conversations! I'll put it this way. Let's say the police suspected you of being involved in criminal activities. Does that then give them the right to start to monitor your calls and conversations without a warrant? Even if they have no evidence, and you are only suspected of the crime? Do you not believe that people should be presumed innocent until proven guilty? Just because you are suspected of doing something doesn't mean you are automatically assumed guilty. Suspects are suspects for a reason, they have not been charged with a crime so why treat them as criminals? The point is that this administration is pissing away all your constitutional rights and you just stand there and say "give me more, sir"

Oh, and by the way, if this isn't speculation then I don't know what is
PuffnScruff said:
nobody said clinton needed to be impeached when clinton did the same exact thing on a man who was a spy for russia. you honestly think that was the only time he did this?
And to answer your question, yes I think it's wrong to look into messages and phone calls of people who MAY have terrorist ties without any evidence or a warrant. And don't give me that shit about it could take weeks. Regular cops can get a search warrant in a couple hours, are you telling me the government would have to wait?
 
#18
Devious187 said:
The question is how the hell does the government know who is a law abiding citizen and who isn't? By monitoring their conversations! I'll put it this way. Let's say the police suspected you of being involved in criminal activities. Does that then give them the right to start to monitor your calls and conversations without a warrant? Even if they have no evidence, and you are only suspected of the crime? Do you not believe that people should be presumed innocent until proven guilty? Just because you are suspected of doing something doesn't mean you are automatically assumed guilty. Suspects are suspects for a reason, they have not been charged with a crime so why treat them as criminals? The point is that this administration is pissing away all your constitutional rights and you just stand there and say "give me more, sir"
The key quality of Machiavellian leaders is their belief that their end goal always justifies whatever means they choose to accomplish the goal — e.g., "burn the village to save it." This administration has become more Machiavellian than "The Prince," to whom the term first applied. It insists on Draconian laws (Patriot Act) empowering its anti-democratic methods, then secretly overreaches even those laws.

Given all that has come to light about this administration (The false claims about weapons of mass distraction, links to AlQaeda, and the tactics used to discredit any who would challenge them.) are we supposed to just trust that they will not abuse our American rights and freedoms?

The answer to this question lays in the politics that you personally adhere to, if you’re a devoted republican like Devious187 said, you just stand there and say "give me more, sir”.
 

Latest posts

Donate

Any donations will be used to help pay for the site costs, and anything donated above will be donated to C-Dub's son on behalf of this community.

Members online

No members online now.
Top