A quick thought.

No real article here, just something I was thinking about.

Hayden and others in the NSA have said a downfall of the FISA is that it requires a phone number, some manner of identification of the party on the international end of the communications. He also has said, as have other NSA employees, that thanks to email and throwaway cell phones which do not require any kind of identification to purchase and use, it is nearly impossible to comply with FISA standards.

So, I think the obvious question is this: If throwaway cell phones and such make it impossible to get any information about that person, how in the hell can we possibly claim to know it’s a terrorist or an al Qaeda agent over there?

Or perhaps I got it backwards, the problem is throwaway cell phones and handheld email devices on our soil. Then the question remains and we can bring in the 4th amendment. How in the hell can one possibly have “probable cause” when we can’t even get a name for the phone user?

An open letter to President Bush.

Dear Mr Bush,

You have recently started collecting internet search results from Yahoo, MSN, and others, including thus far failed attempts at gathering said information from Google. Your NSA wiretapping and other eavesdropping has been at record high numbers.

Conversely, your briefing about said surveillance was, as Senator Rockefeller described it in his handwritten letter to Mr Cheney, vague and hard to understand. He also mentioned that he was prohibited by you from discussing matters of that briefing with his colleagues. More recently, Scott McLellan has stonewalled any information related to your involvement with Jack Abramoff, releasing only minimal facts when forced to by what the media has already uncovered.

Mr President, you are very driven to monitoring the activities of Americans. Why is it you are equally driven to hiding your activities from America? If law-abiding citizens should have nothing to hide, as you and others have said, why are you hiding?

Anyone who will be anywhere that Pres Bush will be answering unscreened questions, please take this.

Jesus would have registered Republican

Warning: Zach you’ve just entered a “no spin zone”

That’s right, you heard me! it’s time for you to put your money where your mouth is. It’s time for you to take a bite out of Bill O’Reilly like Scruff McGruff does to unemployed black men. Zach are you ready to BLOVIATE with Bill? I hope you are because i have just signed you up to be one of 6, count em’, 6 lucky SOB’s to debate Bill O’Reilly Live on Fox News’ numero uno show, “the O’reilly Factor.” It’s so exciting, it is like Mr. O’Reilly’s very own little Willy Wonka adventure, and you are my sweet little agustus gloop.

But, let’s get down to business. It’s time to put down the Ben and Jerry’s ice cream and boycott the Jolly Green Mountain State, the evil Vermont. That’s right, due to the 4th Reich of Vermonts refusal to punish Judge Ed Cashman. (who you may recall as the judge who was too soft in dealing with a suspected child molester, stating that the man needed treatment along with sentencing, and is now seen as enemy number 1 to all bible totting bleeding heart conservatives all around this country.) we all must now Boycott Vermont. they must be punished for their backing of this so called “man” who did not deal out a death sentence to this child molester.

Ok, you caught me, i don’t really care about any of these people. I dont care about the victim, i dont care about the judge. no, Im a realist, and i understand that all i want is whatever benifits me most. I can prove it. i like Michael Jackson’s music, and i dont care how many times he has to squeeze Macauley Caulkins steamin hot 12 year old ass to make and produce it. no, i dont care at all, as long as i get to enjoy the musical stylings of Jacko. (come on a voice over by Vincent Price, classic)

So about this judge. Im happy he did what he did. he stood firm and was not swayed by the people and groups who think they know better. i am sick and tired of all of these bible totting bleeding heart conservatives who use religion to justify their being 100% insane. Look at how many people use the Bible to justify what they are doing. have the pro-life abortion critics who kill planned parenthood doctors every seen in another light. you see they too use the bible to justify their actions. but by saying that, guess who’s group they get placed into, Osama Bin Laden’s terrorist cell, who uses the same biblical principals to justify killing. but we do not look at these pro-life extremist in the same way as we look at muslim extremist, why do you think that is?

I’ll tell you why. Because Jesus would have registered as a republican. That’s right, if these people are correct, and know what Jesus’ message really is then i say embrace it. we should not “turn the other cheek” as otherwise suggested, but instead take Jesus’ choosen path for dealing with life’s little problems…eye for an eye, a direct course of action. kill and punish everyone….for everything….Bush is on the right path. with his Macheavellian campaign of “the ends justify the means.” whats the difference between doing the right thing, and doing the wrong thing? who cares! as long as the problem gets solved. so i say, kill chester the molester and any other dipshit that steps out of line, let your babies grow up to be cowboys, and let the government keep taps on all of us so we dont become “Dangerous” citizens. hey, it’s what the bible tells us to do, right?

Vote Bush 84′……opps, sorry George “Orwell” Bush, i meant to say 08′

I dont think we have had a good old fashion inquistition in years. hell, lets celebrate with a picinic. i’ll bring the hot dog, you bring the bun.

that’s all i’ve got for you this week. just remember, im not a business man. i’m a business, man.
…Oh baby, that was sexy. take note of the B-Boy stance and i’ll see you later.

keep the faith

p.s. sorry if it seems like i was rambling. it’s 2am on a weds morning and i havent seen the monitor clearly since 12:30

It’s good to know people like this are in charge.

Though I’m not a giant fan of it, I watch the mainstream media. I keep switching between MSNBC and Fox/Faux News in the background while my primary focus is here on the internet front. Why? Partly to keep tabs on what they’re missing, partly to see what slop they’re throwing at America, and partly because now and again you get to see an appearance by someone official.

So imagine my surprise tonight when MSNBC’s Countdown showed to be rather ballsy via Keith Olbermann’s outright response to something General Hayden’s comment about the fourth amendment.

The fourth amendment actually protects all of us against unreasonable search and seizure. That’s what it says.
…
The amendment says “unreasonable search and seizure”.
…
No [it doesn't say "probable cause"], the amendment says “unreasonable search and seizure”.
…
Just to be very clear, okay? Believe me, if there’s any amendment to the Constitution employees of the National Security Agency are familiar with, it’s the fourth, and it is a reasonable standard.

Good stuff so far. He shuts down repeated accusations as to what the Fourth Amendment says and tells us what the letter of the law is. I myself believe in following what the law says and not what we think it “probably meant”, so I respect that he’s standing firm. Being that he’s a General, he created the whole program, I’d say he should know what he’s talking about, wouldn’t you?

Well, not quite. You see, as Olbermann himself noticed, the fourth amendment itself goes like this:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place
to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

It doesn’t take deep knowledge of the law to see where Hayden is wrong. You don’t have to have a degree and hours of research in order to unearth hidden sections of it to see where Hayden may or may not be right. The Fourth Amendment is that one single paragraph, and as you can see the man who created the program the President is using to eavesdrop on Americans doesn’t know what it says. In fact, worse than that, he clings onto what he thinks it says and doesn’t say.

Something that basic would be asked on an elementary school history test. And yet there’s General Hayden on national television exposing the fact that he has no idea what the law says. It’s almost as if he heard about the 4th amendment while he was eating lunch one day and just memorized that one phrase, “unreasonable search and seizure” and that’s all he got.

Or possibly, he was lying and hoping no one would notice. I honestly cannot remember the last time anything a higher-up from the right said anything that couldn’t be proven wrong with a 30 second Google search.

Of course, one of the implications of the Busheviks (I love that term, thank you Crisis Papers) wanting to monitor Google Searches means they could entirely block from the results what they don’t want you to see. So they can tell us complete lies and untruths, then block us from finding the reality.