Senate report concludes: no proof of contact between

[Occhidiangela]

Why is this a bad thing™? If someone of power in the US Government/Military service does something worthy of a war crime, they should be dealt with. Let's look at the facts, when it has come to war crimes commited, it has always been an international organization that has held the trials, so why shouldn't the US be just as subject to those trials as anyone else?

1. It should be dealt with by the US court system, if the Military Courts can't handle the matter. Soldiers do not give up their status as citizen by donning a uniform. There is ample provision in US Law to prosecute any American in Uniform who commits a crime, and for that matter, any out of uniform who does so. The ICC kangaroo court lacks valid checks and balances that our court system is bound to.

2. War crimes trials are typically "the justice of the victor" and nothing more. To pretend they are fair or just, rather than window dressing in vengeance by lawyer, rather than by lynch mob, strikes me comedy gold. Milosevic and Saddam clearly demonstrate the farcical nature of these so called courts.

Occhi

[ShadowHM]

The ICC kangaroo court lacks valid checks and balances that our court system is bound to.

Please be specific about those deficiencies?

[kandrathe]

To reply to your points from my POV as a libertarian;

As I seem to recall, he was asked to intervene by Europe and/or UN. There was no war declaration as well, so Congress had no real say so.

Yes, but if Europe asked us to jump off a bridge... The point is that he (as well as most other presidents) are using the Armed Forces for purposes that are not in our security interests without our (peoples) permission. The point is that Europe was incapable of securing Europe.

Why is this a bad thing™? If someone of power in the US Government/Military service does something worthy of a war crime, they should be dealt with. Let's look at the facts, when it has come to war crimes commited, it has always been an international organization that has held the trials, so why shouldn't the US be just as subject to those trials as anyone else?

Occhi answered it well. If our soldiers commit war crimes, then they should be held accountable to the uniform code of military justice. If our civilians commit any crimes they are answerable to appropriate US courts. The ICC is a political court, used for political purposes. Like the UN.

This has been in the works a lot longer than Clinton. The government has always wanted to act in a big brother role since the early 30s across all political parties.

Yup, but we won't let them. Right? ... of the people for the people...

Why in god's name does a civilian need access to the AR-15? Don't tell me it's so they can hunt with it cause that's a bunch of crap. (I grew up in an area where just about everyone hunted and no one used anything outside a standard hunting rifle.) There is no good reason for civilians to have access to military grade hardware, none.

Well, primarily because the 2nd amendment does not say that I have the right to hunt. It says I have the right to bear arms against tyranny. So, I should be able to choose the best weapon for that. If you don't agree with the 2nd amendment, how about we change the Constitution?

Have you used PGP and other encryption methods available? They're pretty hardy items as is. In order to break the encryption that most people use, you have to have several hundred PCs working in concert to break the encryption in a decent amount of time for encrypting things like files and the like (decrypting wireless signals on the other hand is fairly easy).

And, it would take the NSA about 15 seconds to break it. Maybe 1500 times less. The point is that it is the government trying to make privacy unavailable to the citizens by making encryption illegal.

The states have been losing power every since the 17th Amendment was put in (may be wrong on the number, but it was were Senators were changed to general election instead of appointment by the state government).

Using EO to limit states rights removes Congress, and therefore the "People" from the debate. It is legislation by decree. My opinion is that EO should be limited to Executive emergency powers (e.g. 9/11 shut down of air commerce).

And this is different from any of the prior Presidents? All branches have tried to get a leg up on all the others and this has been something that has been happening since the early 30s atleast.

Again, EO's used in the right way are done as emergency powers, and I still think the Congress should have the opportunity to address them to make them law, or strike them down. I feel Clinton abused this power more than other presidents.

Congress has been trying to regulate the internet since it started being used by the general populous. Government overall has been trying to control what they really can't. (One of the best analogies I every heard was from a tech saavy Congressman that pointed out that the internet is like a gigantic highway with innumerable lanes where everyone and their brother can drive on it with their ferrari or their lawn tractor. That there were onramps and offramps everywhere and there was no speed limit. Yet Congress still didn't get it after he made a beautiful and easy to understand explaination.)

Sure. To regulate commerce, which is a federal mandate. Clinton wanted to regulate free speech. I'm not a big fan of the trash on the internet either, but the internet users need to find a way to "live with it" rather than have government police it. There are ways to create safe zones to protect kids from the bad stuff without having speech police.

[--Pete]

Hi,

Nice post. One minor nit:

Well, primarily because the 2nd amendment does not say that I have the right to hunt. It says I have the right to bear arms against tyranny.

It really says nothing about tyranny: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

The Militia clause makes the intention of this Amendment somewhat obscure. However, I fully agree with you. All the gun control legislation to date is, in my opinion, an end run around the Bill of Rights. If the anti-gun people want to disarm the population, then let them first repeal or amend the second amendment.

--Pete

[Lissa]

To shoot you, and anyone else who wants to pry it from my cold dead fingers.

I don't have an AR-15, the "toys for Occhi budget" isn't that robust. They are cool, and fun to shoot. Guns are fun. Drinking and shooting are also fun. Dangerous as hell, but fun. :D

Occhi

I have no problem with keeping and using firearms. As I stated, why does a civilian need military grade hardware? That is the crux of what I find so problematic with all these calls to be allowed to buy any weapong available. You want a hunting rifle or a handgun, no problem, you want a single shot Uzi or a an AR-15 (both of which can be made automatic with tools and information that is not hard to obtain) in the claims of using it for "hunting", no.

And as Pete mentioned below, most people tend to gloss over the Milita portion of the 2nd Admendment. This has caused a lot of Constiutional Law questions in trying to figure out what the Framers were actually after. Is it supposed to be read as the members of the state Militias had a right to carry weapons or can any citizen carry a weapon in order to form Militias.

[Lissa]

1. It should be dealt with by the US court system, if the Military Courts can't handle the matter. Soldiers do not give up their status as citizen by donning a uniform. There is ample provision in US Law to prosecute any American in Uniform who commits a crime, and for that matter, any out of uniform who does so. The ICC kangaroo court lacks valid checks and balances that our court system is bound to.

2. War crimes trials are typically "the justice of the victor" and nothing more. To pretend they are fair or just, rather than window dressing in vengeance by lawyer, rather than by lynch mob, strikes me comedy gold. Milosevic and Saddam clearly demonstrate the farcical nature of these so called courts.

Occhi

Ah, but what about those instances where the people at the very top order the military to undertake something that would be considered a War Crime and the people at the very top can effectively stone wall being brought to Justice or can claim exceptional circumstances to get around internal law. What do you do then in order to bring about justice? We've already seen the checks and balances be thrown about by using Executive Orders and other powers available. Who then is to bring about justice in those instances Occhi?

[Lissa]

To reply to your points from my POV as a libertarian;Yes, but if Europe asked us to jump off a bridge... The point is that he (as well as most other presidents) are using the Armed Forces for purposes that are not in our security interests without our (peoples) permission. The point is that Europe was incapable of securing Europe.

And how do you know that by not going into Bosnia it wasn't going to effect our security? If Europe had destabilized due to what was going on in the former Yugoslavia and it spread to other nearby countries, that could easily affect US security interests. You and I do not have all the information, so arguing whether there was a clear security interest for the US to be involved or not, neither of us can truly answer.

Occhi answered it well. If our soldiers commit war crimes, then they should be held accountable to the uniform code of military justice. If our civilians commit any crimes they are answerable to appropriate US courts. The ICC is a political court, used for political purposes. Like the UN.

And, as I posed to Occhi, what happens when you have someone in a position where they can stone wall justice from our court systems, be it civilian or military? Who's to enact justice then?

Yup, but we won't let them. Right? ... of the people for the people...

If you believe that that is the way the government has worked for the last 100+ years, you're being naive. Ever since the late 19th century, our government has basically been for the money by the money (look back to TR when he was a state senator in New York). While there has been a fight to deal with corruption, it's never gone away and it never will, not until the people in power cannot receive any kind of perks from any special interest group.

Well, primarily because the 2nd amendment does not say that I have the right to hunt. It says I have the right to bear arms against tyranny. So, I should be able to choose the best weapon for that. If you don't agree with the 2nd amendment, how about we change the Constitution?

Again, look to my comment to Occhi about this along with what Pete said below. The language of the 2nd Amendment leaves a lot of room for different interpurtations.

And as I noted to Occhi, I see no issue with people owning hand guns and hunting rifles, what I see as an issue is giving people access to military grade hardware. There is no reasonable excuse for John Q. Citizen to have military grade hardware.

And, it would take the NSA about 15 seconds to break it. Maybe 1500 times less. The point is that it is the government trying to make privacy unavailable to the citizens by making encryption illegal.

No, they haven't made encryption illegal. Otherwise things like PGP and other forms of encryption would not exist. Does the government allow all levels encryption be available to everyone in the US and the world at large, no. What you don't understand about encryption and breaking it is the amount of time it takes. While the NSA has some very powerful systems, breaking encryption isn't a quick process.

Someone I use to work with decided to play around with the government (he was former Border Patrol) and knew some people in Sweden. He convinced them to give him an email account on some University system there. He encrypted a file using PGP that basically said, why are you decrypting this and sent it from that Swedish email address with some kind of Russian exercise and sent it to his email in the US. The message took 12 hours to reach his US mail account when previous emails were near instant (about a minute at most). So for something as stupid as PGP, if the email was intercepted, and it probably was, it took NSA several hours to break PGP. Someone at NSA probably got their ass chewed for wasting that much computer time on a stupid PGP message like that.

Using EO to limit states rights removes Congress, and therefore the "People" from the debate. It is legislation by decree.

And this is a never ending aspect that has been going on since the inception of the US Government. Just about every President since Washington onward has used them (very few Presidents, and mostly the early ones, never used an EO). State's rights have eroded for a very long time, saying that Clinton or any recent President has been the originator of it shows a lack of history on the Executive Branch. As I mentioned, every branch has done it's utmost to get a leg up on the other branches, this is nothing new and each has their little things they can do.

My opinion is that EO should be limited to Executive emergency powers (e.g. 9/11 shut down of air commerce).Again, EO's used in the right way are done as emergency powers, and I still think the Congress should have the opportunity to address them to make them law, or strike them down. I feel Clinton abused this power more than other presidents.

How much have you looked at EOs by various Presidents? Did you realize that Bush, the present President, has issued 600 EOs since taking office, twice the total EOs of all prior Presidents from Washington to Clinton? If you want to talk about someone who has abused the power of the EO, look no further than our sitting President, all prior ones are meer schoolboys compared to him on the use of EOs.

Sure. To regulate commerce, which is a federal mandate. Clinton wanted to regulate free speech. I'm not a big fan of the trash on the internet either, but the internet users need to find a way to "live with it" rather than have government police it. There are ways to create safe zones to protect kids from the bad stuff without having speech police.

Again, you're being naive if you think it's only Clinton that did/does this. I suggest you sit down and take a good long look at the history of the Presidents and the things that they have done "for the common good". And if you really want to see how much the Constitution has eroded, ask some Constitutional Scholars about when the erosion began and when it's eroded the most. You will get a lot of interesting comments then.

[Occhidiangela]

Ah, but what about those instances where the people at the very top order the military to undertake something that would be considered a War Crime and the people at the very top can effectively stone wall being brought to Justice or can claim exceptional circumstances to get around internal law. What do you do then in order to bring about justice? We've already seen the checks and balances be thrown about by using Executive Orders and other powers available. Who then is to bring about justice in those instances Occhi?

You want them, you figure out a way to arrest them, bring them before a court, and charge them. How hard is that? File the motion that won't get thrown out of court, and you have yourself the beginnings of "the case of the century." Appealing to "international courts" that do not have even the enforcement powers, or lack thereof, of our own courts strikes me as ludicrous.

International law is as valid as its enforement, or its acceptance by those in the "international arena." It has no validity beyond that. Where the US Senate has agreed to an international protocol, per our Constitution, US citizens are bound by that law.

I see no reason to abbrogate the rights of citizenship by throwing any American citizen upon the mercy of a court not made up of that citizen's "peers." Smells of tribunals and Star Chambers to me. Your trust in "international" is misplaced. The driving motivation behind a lot of this rhetoric is envy and resentment of whoever happens to be perceived as "the top dog" of the moment. The courts are used as a tool in this country -- Dylan's "justice is a game" lyric springs to mind -- which is small potatoes to the international scene.

You can have your Star Chambers, and your People's Tribunals. Ask the scions of Ho Chi Minh how to set one up.

Occhi

[kandrathe]

And how do you know that by not going into Bosnia it wasn't going to effect our security? If Europe had destabilized due to what was going on in the former Yugoslavia and it spread to other nearby countries, that could easily affect US security interests. You and I do not have all the information, so arguing whether there was a clear security interest for the US to be involved or not, neither of us can truly answer.

I would liked to have seen Europe try and fail before the president, after asking Congress, authorized the use of American troops in Europe. It felt more like a "world army" exercise to me.

And, as I posed to Occhi, what happens when you have someone in a position where they can stone wall justice from our court systems, be it civilian or military? Who's to enact justice then?

When has this happened? If it ain't broke...

If you believe that that is the way the government has worked for the last 100+ years, you're being naive. Ever since the late 19th century, our government has basically been for the money by the money (look back to TR when he was a state senator in New York). While there has been a fight to deal with corruption, it's never gone away and it never will, not until the people in power cannot receive any kind of perks from any special interest group.

How much money did you get to vote last Tuesday? Ultimatly, WE do make the decisions if we engage our brains, feet and fingers to exercise our voting rights.

Again, look to my comment to Occhi about this along with what Pete said below. The language of the 2nd Amendment leaves a lot of room for different interpurtations. And as I noted to Occhi, I see no issue with people owning hand guns and hunting rifles, what I see as an issue is giving people access to military grade hardware. There is no reasonable excuse for John Q. Citizen to have military grade hardware.

Some room, not a lot of room. It was obviously in response to having a tyrrant King George attempt to pacify the colonies by making citizens owning weapons illegal. Here is a quote by St. George Tucker who was appointed as a US District court judge by Madison;

This may be considered as the true palladium of liberty... The right of self-defense is the first law of nature; in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. Whenever standing armies are kept up, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any color or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction. In England, the people have been disarmed, generally, under the specious pretext of preserving the game: a never failing lure to bring over the landed aristocracy to support any measure, under that mask, though calculated for very different purposes. True it is, their bill of rights seems at first view to counteract this policy: but the right of bearing arms is confined to protestants, and the words suitable to their condition and degree, have been interpreted to authorise the prohibition of keeping a gun or other engine for the destruction of game, to any farmer, or inferior tradesman, or other person not qualified to kill game. So that not one man in five hundred can keep a gun in his house without being subject to a penalty.

No, they haven't made encryption illegal. Otherwise things like PGP and other forms of encryption would not exist. Does the government allow all levels encryption be available to everyone in the US and the world at large, no. What you don't understand about encryption and breaking it is the amount of time it takes. While the NSA has some very powerful systems, breaking encryption isn't a quick process.

We have access to simple encryption, for which the government has known methods for decoding. I've been in the NSA, and you have no clue as to the power of hardware in their employ. It's massive, parallel, and thousands of times faster than anything you or I use.

Someone I use to work with decided to play around with the government (he was former Border Patrol) and knew some people in Sweden. He convinced them to give him an email account on some University system there. He encrypted a file using PGP that basically said, why are you decrypting this and sent it from that Swedish email address with some kind of Russian exercise and sent it to his email in the US. The message took 12 hours to reach his US mail account when previous emails were near instant (about a minute at most). So for something as stupid as PGP, if the email was intercepted, and it probably was, it took NSA several hours to break PGP. Someone at NSA probably got their ass chewed for wasting that much computer time on a stupid PGP message like that.

Or, maybe it just took that long and the NSA never looked at it.

And this is a never ending aspect that has been going on since the inception of the US Government. Just about every President since Washington onward has used them (very few Presidents, and mostly the early ones, never used an EO). State's rights have eroded for a very long time, saying that Clinton or any recent President has been the originator of it shows a lack of history on the Executive Branch. As I mentioned, every branch has done it's utmost to get a leg up on the other branches, this is nothing new and each has their little things they can do.
How much have you looked at EOs by various Presidents? Did you realize that Bush, the present President, has issued 600 EOs since taking office, twice the total EOs of all prior Presidents from Washington to Clinton? If you want to talk about someone who has abused the power of the EO, look no further than our sitting President, all prior ones are meer schoolboys compared to him on the use of EOs.
Again, you're being naive if you think it's only Clinton that did/does this. I suggest you sit down and take a good long look at the history of the Presidents and the things that they have done "for the common good". And if you really want to see how much the Constitution has eroded, ask some Constitutional Scholars about when the erosion began and when it's eroded the most. You will get a lot of interesting comments then.

My original point to Pete was that the erosion of liberty was not limited to the recent regime, but that it extended to democrats and republicans alike.I'm not claiming that Bush is lily white. The number of EO's has nothing to do with the abuse of power. They would not be abused if they are used by the president to direct the executive branch, or the nation in an emergency. I believe that "A State of Emergency" does currently exist, and was put into effect legally after September 11th. Which ones do you think are an abuse of powers? Bush EO's

[Lissa]

I would liked to have seen Europe try and fail before the president, after asking Congress, authorized the use of American troops in Europe. It felt more like a "world army" exercise to me.

And I again state, how do you or I know if what was happening in the former Yugoslavia wasn't US security based? For all we know, since we don't have the information, the fighting in the former Yugoslavia could have inflame hatreds amongst the various ethnic groups in the vicinity that has been simmering for the better part of 50+ years.

When has this happened? If it ain't broke...How much money did you get to vote last Tuesday? Ultimatly, WE do make the decisions if we engage our brains, feet and fingers to exercise our voting rights.

Not as much as you may think. Have you ever tried getting information as to why a representative, be it HoR or Senate, voted a certain way? Getting a straight answer is a exercise in political double speak. It's very rare now to find a politician at the national level that truly cares about their constintuents, the vast majority care about one thing and one thing only, how much power they have.

Some room, not a lot of room. It was obviously in response to having a tyrrant King George attempt to pacify the colonies by making citizens owning weapons illegal. Here is a quote by St. George Tucker who was appointed as a US District court judge by Madison;

Again, and I continue to state this, why does John Q. Citizen need military grade hardware? No one has yet answered this, including the pro gun lobby. Having access to handguns and hunting rifles I see no issue with, but having access to military grade hardware is just too much. You can defend yourself just as easily with a handgun or a hunting rifle as you can with military grade hardware. There is no good reason to have military grade hardware in the hands of the public.

We have access to simple encryption, for which the government has known methods for decoding. I've been in the NSA, and you have no clue as to the power of hardware in their employ. It's massive, parallel, and thousands of times faster than anything you or I use.

I have plenty of understanding on what kind of systems they're running. They have several of the most powerful super computers in the world, but, like all supercomputers they have to share CPU time with many, many projects. The CPUs of the system are going to be working on a great deal of items analyzing a large amount of things.

Likewise, you make it sound like the encryption we have is easy to break, it's not. It takes a concerted effort of months to break 128 bit encyrption using several hundred desktops working in concert and spending 100% of the resources on breaking that encryption. Now we're moving in to the arena of 256 bit and 512 bit encryption for home users. Even if the supercomputer at NSA are several million times more powerful than a home machine, it's still going to take them time to break 256 and 512 bit encryptions.

Or, maybe it just took that long and the NSA never looked at it.

Considering all his prior and future emails from that account were near instant, I find it interesting that a single email with such subject taking 12 hours would be a fluke. If you know how email travels on the internet, there is one central server that all email goes through and it was setup this way by the original architects of the internet (the Stanford DARPA group). People that know about this system simply just do a quick scan of an email and can go from there on them (someone I know went to a conference by one of these guys and during the speech, the guy did a search of the server with a laptop he had on had and annonced to the session how there were 15 emails that day mentioning him, the guy giving the speech).

My original point to Pete was that the erosion of liberty was not limited to the recent regime, but that it extended to democrats and republicans alike.I'm not claiming that Bush is lily white. The number of EO's has nothing to do with the abuse of power. They would not be abused if they are used by the president to direct the executive branch, or the nation in an emergency. I believe that "A State of Emergency" does currently exist, and was put into effect legally after September 11th. Which ones do you think are an abuse of powers? Bush EO's

And as I have stated several times now, the US Government constantly abuses its powers. It's not just the Executive branch either. You can even go back to Washington to see preceived abuse of power (look up the Whiskey Rebellion some time). Brutus wasn't far off the mark when he uttered the line, "absolute power corrupts absolutely."

As to your list of EOs from Bush, looking through them, about half there we have little to no idea what they were about because they list as extention to this or that EO and give the EO's number, but none of the EOs have their number listed. Those EOs that actually have some information written next to them I can see 75%+ that could be seen as abuse of power.

[kandrathe]

And I again state, how do you or I know if what was happening in the former Yugoslavia wasn't US security based? For all we know, since we don't have the information, the fighting in the former Yugoslavia could have inflame hatreds amongst the various ethnic groups in the vicinity that has been simmering for the better part of 50+ years.

And... If that is the case, why couldn't Germany, Italy, Spain, Britain, France, Russia, etc. etc. act to protect themselves against little Yugoslavia, and their civil war?

Not as much as you may think. Have you ever tried getting information as to why a representative, be it HoR or Senate, voted a certain way? Getting a straight answer is a exercise in political double speak. It's very rare now to find a politician at the national level that truly cares about their constintuents, the vast majority care about one thing and one thing only, how much power they have.

I believe there are good citizens who would serve us better, yes. I believe that as long as we are still able to caucus, choose Presidents, Representatives and Senators, and vote, that WE the PEOPLE still decide how the government works. I am unwilling to abdicate power to special interests, who are actually just over funded minority interests. Democracy, if exercised, will prevail over them.

Again, and I continue to state this, why does John Q. Citizen need military grade hardware? No one has yet answered this, including the pro gun lobby. Having access to handguns and hunting rifles I see no issue with, but having access to military grade hardware is just too much. You can defend yourself just as easily with a handgun or a hunting rifle as you can with military grade hardware. There is no good reason to have military grade hardware in the hands of the public.

Let's turn that around, shall we? Why should the government, who I might need to protect myself from, get to choose which tools I get to use to defend myself? Yes, you can push the argument into the ridiculous extremes of wet noodles vs thermonuclear weapons, but if the principle of the 2nd amendment is to allow the citizens the right to defend themselves, then that right should be defended as passionately as we defend the freedom to speak our minds. This is why Ruby Ridge, and Wako are somewhat disturbing cases of the government enforcing arms limitations on citizens to the point of lethality. I don't agree with the actions of the citizens in those cases. In both cases I feel the citizens should have surrendered, then used the courts to fight their battles. Yet, I also believe MY government acted wrongly as well. Should we allow people to own military styled weapons? First, why not? What is wrong with military styled weapons in the hands of decent law abiding citizens anyway? What about banning Star Wars styled weapons? Does it make any more sense, since the lethality of a AR-15 is the same regardless of style?

I have plenty of understanding on what kind of systems they're running. They have several of the most powerful super computers in the world, but, like all supercomputers they have to share CPU time with many, many projects. The CPUs of the system are going to be working on a great deal of items analyzing a large amount of things. Likewise, you make it sound like the encryption we have is easy to break, it's not. It takes a concerted effort of months to break 128 bit encyrption using several hundred desktops working in concert and spending 100% of the resources on breaking that encryption. Now we're moving in to the arena of 256 bit and 512 bit encryption for home users. Even if the supercomputer at NSA are several million times more powerful than a home machine, it's still going to take them time to break 256 and 512 bit encryptions. Considering all his prior and future emails from that account were near instant, I find it interesting that a single email with such subject taking 12 hours would be a fluke. If you know how email travels on the internet, there is one central server that all email goes through and it was setup this way by the original architects of the internet (the Stanford DARPA group). People that know about this system simply just do a quick scan of an email and can go from there on them (someone I know went to a conference by one of these guys and during the speech, the guy did a search of the server with a laptop he had on had and annonced to the session how there were 15 emails that day mentioning him, the guy giving the speech).

Rather than argue the capabilities of the NSA, which you nor I can prove or disprove, let's focus on my premise that Clinton supported the NSA's attempts to limit and regulate privacy by encryption.

The investigation is the latest round in a growing battle in recent years between the National Security Agency and a variety of groups in this country, including high-technology companies, computer researchers and civil libertarians, over the role of coding software in protecting computer data. The N.S.A., whose role is to monitor electronic communications around the world, has consistently acted to block the adoption of new technologies that would make its mission more difficult. NYT, September 21, 1993

The above excerpt was from a news article about PGP back in 1993.

And as I have stated several times now, the US Government constantly abuses its powers. It's not just the Executive branch either. You can even go back to Washington to see preceived abuse of power (look up the Whiskey Rebellion some time). Brutus wasn't far off the mark when he uttered the line, "absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Liberty is in constant danger, thus the need for an ever vigilant citizen. I don't disagree with you on this.

As to your list of EOs from Bush, looking through them, about half there we have little to no idea what they were about because they list as extention to this or that EO and give the EO's number, but none of the EOs have their number listed. Those EOs that actually have some information written next to them I can see 75%+ that could be seen as abuse of power.

When you get some time, maybe point out a couple that appear abusive and we can discuss.

Edit: Also, look into the life and work of Adi Shamir. Of note, "Together with Eli Biham, he discovered differential cryptanalysis, a general method for attacking block ciphers. (It later emerged that differential cryptanalysis was already known — and kept a secret — by both IBM and the NSA.)" Does the NSA have something like TWIRL? I'd bet on it.

[Lissa]

You want them, you figure out a way to arrest them, bring them before a court, and charge them. How hard is that? File the motion that won't get thrown out of court, and you have yourself the beginnings of "the case of the century." Appealing to "international courts" that do not have even the enforcement powers, or lack thereof, of our own courts strikes me as ludicrous.

Judging by how long it took to get the information out on who actually slipped up and let Plame's name out into the public domain, fairly difficult Occhi. Another case in point, they tried to get Clinton on Impeachment for lying about a BJ, yet there has been nothing of the same against more egrious actions when the same parties control both the Legislative and Executive branches. In effect, it possible to "protect" someone from internal laws.

International law is a valid as its enforement, or its acceptance by those in the "international arena." It has no validity beyond that.

And maybe if International enforcement had some teeth, then people would take it more seriously. Like it or not, humanity is moving toward a one world government as bigotry is dying out in the most modern nations (although it does show up from time to time still).

Where the US Senate has agreed to an international protocol, per our Constitution, US citizens are bound by that law.

Yet we've seen time and time again we've seen people take actions that makes them appear to be above and beyond the reach of the law within their country.

I see no reason to abbrogate the rights of citizenship by throwing any American citizen upon the mercy of a court not made up of that citizen's "peers." Smells of tribunals and Star Chambers to me. Your trust in "international" is misplaced. The driving motivation behind a lot of this rhetoric is envy and resentment of whoever happens to be perceived as "the top dog" of the moment. The courts are used as a tool in this country -- Dylan's "justice is a game" lyric springs to mind -- which is small potatoes to the international scene.

You can have your Star Chambers, and your People's Tribunals. Ask the scions of Ho Chi Minh how to set one up.

Occhi

And yet, I point you back to what I said above. How do we deal with someone that does something and then manipulates the situation so they're effectively untouchable? Case in point, look to the recent shennigans going on the midwest (IIRC, Illinois). The governor of Illinois had done some shady things and was being brought up on charges for accepting bribes or something similar while still in office. Someone high up in the Illinois judiciary stated that he, the governor, could not be tried while in office even though he was caught red handed. Luckily he only had a few months left in his term and they tried him after it ended, but still he held of justice. So how are you going to deal with situations like that where someone can stymy the justice process?

[Occhidiangela]

And, as I posed to Occhi, what happens when you have someone in a position where they can stone wall justice from our court systems, be it civilian or military? Who's to enact justice then?

So, you would circumvent the due process of law in pursuit of justice? Nice vigilante, Lissa, I didn't know you had it in you. My rope, your tree, who is on your sh** list?

Stonewalling isn't illegal, it is part of how the game of the law is played. It is using your lawyers against someone else's lawyers. That is what you get when you support the rule of law: Lawyer Wars, soon to be an exciting game in the Nintendo Wii. :P

Note, yet again, Saddam and Milosovic, who use this fine tactic rather nicely, to expose this whole process as yet another exhibit in the international zoo.

"We want to hang him, but let's first give him a Fair Trial and then hang him." I feel dirty just talking about it.

And yet, I point you back to what I said above. How do we deal with someone that does something and then manipulates the situation so they're effectively untouchable? So how are you going to deal with situations like that where someone can stymy the justice process?

Oh, dear, someone exploited a loophole in the law. Here let me call the police.

The answer to your problem is to attempt to get the legistlature to close the loophole. Them being loophole jumpers, I find the likelihood low that you'll succeed. The other answer is what is already being done to him in the media, and on the internet, the best smear campaign one can muster. Vigilantism in print.

The "Justice" canard you can toss into the bowl and flush. Short of God, you won't find perfect justice. You can at best get "good enough" which comes with loopholes. That's all we pay for, can afford, and it's all we get.

Or, the rope. Like I said, who is on your sh** list?


Occhi

[Lissa]

And... If that is the case, why couldn't Germany, Italy, Spain, Britain, France, Russia, etc. etc. act to protect themselves against little Yugoslavia, and their civil war?

Ah, how soon we forget Sarijevo in August of 1914. One event destabilized and brought on World War I. Who knows for sure if a similar event couldn't have done the same. Remember, Communism had just fallen in Eastern Europe just 5 years prior. There's no telling what may have happened if we hadn't have stepped in.

I believe there are good citizens who would serve us better, yes. I believe that as long as we are still able to caucus, choose Presidents, Representatives and Senators, and vote, that WE the PEOPLE still decide how the government works. I am unwilling to abdicate power to special interests, who are actually just over funded minority interests. Democracy, if exercised, will prevail over them.

The problem is, humanity is fallable. Graft is the currency of politics now in the US. And I have to question any person that wants to be in our government.

Let's turn that around, shall we? Why should the government, who I might need to protect myself from, get to choose which tools I get to use to defend myself? Yes, you can push the argument into the ridiculous extremes of wet noodles vs thermonuclear weapons, but if the principle of the 2nd amendment is to allow the citizens the right to defend themselves, then that right should be defended as passionately as we defend the freedom to speak our minds. This is why Ruby Ridge, and Wako are somewhat disturbing cases of the government enforcing arms limitations on citizens to the point of lethality. I don't agree with the actions of the citizens in those cases. In both cases I feel the citizens should have surrendered, then used the courts to fight their battles. Yet, I also believe MY government acted wrongly as well. Should we allow people to own military styled weapons? First, why not? What is wrong with military styled weapons in the hands of decent law abiding citizens anyway? What about banning Star Wars styled weapons? Does it make any more sense, since the lethality of a AR-15 is the same regardless of style?

The government does allow you to purchase weapons with which to defend youself. The government allows you to purchase handguns and rifles with only minor annoyances. Would you prefer that our government acted like the British where a normal citizen was not allowed to own handguns?

You'll also note that in the case of both Ruby Ridge and Waco, officers went to server warrants and were met with hostile gun fire. In both cases, the people involved were being served warrants for illegal activities (Ruby Ridge happened to be someone that was sawing off the barrels of shotguns for increased concealability and was cutting the barrels lengths to well below the regulated barrel lenght allowed of 18 inches). The tragedy of both cases is the people that commited the crimes refused to own up to the crimes and put innocent bystanders in harms way instead of surrendering. While the government acted overzealous in the case of Ruby Ridge, they acted to try and server warrants and bring the issues to the court system where they belonged.

So, to answer your question, why shouldn't citizen have access to military hardware, it's rather simple, the weapons that are already commonly available are lethal enough, there is no need to increase the level of lethality a law abiding citizen needs to defend themselves. A handgun is more than enough to do that job, there is no need to use something more powerful. The fact of the matter is, someone claiming that they need military grade hardware to defend themselves isn't thinking rationally to begin with. John Q. Citizen can increase the lethality of his handgun easily by changing rounds, he does not have to get a bigger gun if he is worried about defense and lethality of said defense.

I've answered your questions, but still need to answer mine.

Rather than argue the capabilities of the NSA, which you nor I can prove or disprove, let's focus on my premise that Clinton supported the NSA's attempts to limit and regulate privacy by encryption. The above excerpt was from a news article about PGP back in 1993.Liberty is in constant danger, thus the need for an ever vigilant citizen. I don't disagree with you on this.

If you truly have something to hide that is worth hiding from the government, why the hell are you writing it down somewhere? And lets face facts, throughout history, very few encryptions have not been broken (the only one that I can think of right off the top of my head is the Navajo code talkers as the only encryption method that was not broken). It wouldn't matter how much we try to increase encryption for the general populace, someone, somewhere would still want to decrypt it, so if you got something you don't want people to know, don't write it down.

When you get some time, maybe point out a couple that appear abusive and we can discuss.

At a quick glance, all the EOs from Jan 29 to Aug 17 of '01 are all frivalous. There was no state of emergency or similar problems.

Edit: Also, look into the life and work of Adi Shamir. Of note, "Together with Eli Biham, he discovered differential cryptanalysis, a general method for attacking block ciphers. (It later emerged that differential cryptanalysis was already known — and kept a secret — by both IBM and the NSA.)" Does the NSA have something like TWIRL? I'd bet on it.

I wouldn't put anything past the NSA. There field of expertise is eletronic transfer of information. I have heard rumors of other organizations that do cryptoanalsis for the government that people don't even know about.

Let me give you an idea of just what kinds of things the government has had and kept secret. Do you remember DAT (Digital Audio Tapes)? They came out in the early '90s, but they were being used the government, specifically the Navy, for a good 10 years before they were introduced to the public. How about Velcro, do you realize that the military has had access to noiseless velcro since the late 80s? There are many things that the government has had that it has kept secret about. So I wouldn't put anything past the government on what they have and what they don't have.

[--Pete]

Hi,

Again, and I continue to state this, why does John Q. Citizen need military grade hardware?

Just what do you mean by "military grade hardware"? I believe that owning fully automatic weapons by private citizens has been under some strict restrictions for quite some time, going back to the the Tommy Gun days. And, frankly, neither rate of fire, nor caliber, nor energy matters a whole lot in the lethality of a firearm compared to the skill of the person using it, so the whole "military grade hardware" is, in my opinion, a big fat red herring.

To take it one step further, using "military grade hardware" as a synonym for military issue small arms is ludicrous. "Military grade hardware" can and does include everything up to aircraft carriers, ICBMs and nuclear weapons. The Second Amendment does not specify small arms, it just refers to 'arms'. At the turn of the 19th century, everybody could, and many did, own small arms that were better than the state of the art military arms (the military used Brown Bess, a hundred year old design). But few people then owned their own cannon or mortars. Once again, we see the failure of the drafters of the Bill of Rights to make their full intentions clear. If the purpose of the Second Amendment is to enable the people to overthrow a government that has become oppressive, and if that government has a strong control of the military (which would appear to be the only way such a government could take and maintain power), then the difference between a pea shooter and an Uzi is insignificant when either is compared to a battle tank.

". . . why does John Q. Citizen need military grade hardware?", is the wrong question. The right question is whether the Second Amendment entitles him to have it. And that can, and has, been argued from both sides, and has been compromised so that the average citizen cannot have such weapons and collectors, after jumping through many hoops and under a number of restrictions, can. If the population wants to change that, then let them use the mechanism built into the Constitution for that very purpose. And, depending on what they want to change it to, they might have anything from my complete support to my complete opposition.

--Pete

[Doc]

Once again I find my self agreeing with a lot of what Pete says.

Whatever grade hardware is pretty much a crock. I own several pistols that could easily blow holes clean through a well armored tank. And I have the ammo as well. Would these be military grade? Why on earth would a citizen need a S&W 500 or some big honking 50 calibre pistol seems to be the question of the day. I also own fully automatic weapons. Yes, multiples. What little sleep I get, I sleep better knowing that I own them.

Citizens need this sort of hardware in the event that the tree of liberty needs to be watered with blood, as it tends to need from time to time. The current administration is talking about using military grade hardware to subdue its own citizens, the whole air force thing where they are going to scramble peoples' brains using ray guns. Should the citizens rise up against the current administration, the current powers that be will have no qualms about using whatever means at their disposal to put us in our places, so yes, the common man "needs" military grade hardware. And that bill creeps closer to becoming law, that whole fiasco this morning trying to take away our constitutional rights in the name of security.

More guns, more bombs, more bullets.

[Lissa]

So, you would circumvent the due process of law in pursuit of justice? Nice vigilante, Lissa, I didn't know you had it in you. My rope, your tree, who is on your sh** list?

Stonewalling isn't illegal, it is part of how the game of the law is played. It is using your lawyers against someone else's lawyers. That is what you get when you support the rule of law: Lawyer Wars, soon to be an exciting game in the Nintendo Wii. :P

Note, yet again, Saddam and Milosovic, who use this fine tactic rather nicely, to expose this whole process as yet another exhibit in the international zoo.

"We want to hang him, but let's first give him a Fair Trial and then hang him." I feel dirty just talking about it.
Oh, dear, someone exploited a loophole in the law. Here let me call the police.

The answer to your problem is to attempt to get the legistlature to close the loophole. Them being loophole jumpers, I find the likelihood low that you'll succeed. The other answer is what is already being done to him in the media, and on the internet, the best smear campaign one can muster. Vigilantism in print.

The "Justice" canard you can toss into the bowl and flush. Short of God, you won't find perfect justice. You can at best get "good enough" which comes with loopholes. That's all we pay for, can afford, and it's all we get.

Or, the rope. Like I said, who is on your sh** list?
Occhi

Simple answer Occhi, anyone that pursues avenues to be above the law where a normal person would be hit by the full weight of the law. I think that justice should treat everyone equally and the fact of the matter is that there are people that go out of their way to pursue agendas above the law and flaunt that in the face of people that follow the laws.

[Lissa]

Hi,
Just what do you mean by "military grade hardware"? I believe that owning fully automatic weapons by private citizens has been under some strict restrictions for quite some time, going back to the the Tommy Gun days. And, frankly, neither rate of fire, nor caliber, nor energy matters a whole lot in the lethality of a firearm compared to the skill of the person using it, so the whole "military grade hardware" is, in my opinion, a big fat red herring.

To take it one step further, using "military grade hardware" as a synonym for military issue small arms is ludicrous. "Military grade hardware" can and does include everything up to aircraft carriers, ICBMs and nuclear weapons. The Second Amendment does not specify small arms, it just refers to 'arms'. At the turn of the 19th century, everybody could, and many did, own small arms that were better than the state of the art military arms (the military used Brown Bess, a hundred year old design). But few people then owned their own cannon or mortars. Once again, we see the failure of the drafters of the Bill of Rights to make their full intentions clear. If the purpose of the Second Amendment is to enable the people to overthrow a government that has become oppressive, and if that government has a strong control of the military (which would appear to be the only way such a government could take and maintain power), then the difference between a pea shooter and an Uzi is insignificant when either is compared to a battle tank.

". . . why does John Q. Citizen need military grade hardware?", is the wrong question. The right question is whether the Second Amendment entitles him to have it. And that can, and has, been argued from both sides, and has been compromised so that the average citizen cannot have such weapons and collectors, after jumping through many hoops and under a number of restrictions, can. If the population wants to change that, then let them use the mechanism built into the Constitution for that very purpose. And, depending on what they want to change it to, they might have anything from my complete support to my complete opposition.

--Pete

To answer your question Pete, it's weapons that are known to be issue by the military that are allowed either burst fire or fully automatic fire. The weapons I stated, the AR-15 and the Uzi, are capable of fully automatic fire if someone tampers with them and has the knowledge of what it takes to make them fire automatically. (The AR-15 is the police version of the M-16, it has various controls built into it to make it fire single shot, but those controls can be removed by someone with the right tools and the information on which parts to remove.)

As I have stated several times now, I have no problem with John Q. Citizen using handguns or hunting rifles, these two items are plenty lethal enough to defend one's self, it is weapons like the AR-15 that I take issue with.

[Occhidiangela]

Simple answer Occhi, anyone that pursues avenues to be above the law where a normal person would be hit by the full weight of the law. I think that justice should treat everyone equally and the fact of the matter is that there are people that go out of their way to pursue agendas above the law and flaunt that in the face of people that follow the laws.

Should I stop calling you Lissa and start calling you Pollyanna?

"Justice" is an abstract concept, a balance to be striven for. The Law is supposed to afford everyone equal protection. Many laws have loopholes. Lawyers make money finding and exploiting those loopholes. Each case is (or is supposed to be) tried on its own merits. You get the Justice you can afford, or luck into.
That's how it works, when you are before a Jury of your alleged peers, hand picked for gullibility by attorneys dead set on winning their game. They both want to get the high score and a free replay. If the rules are made by the self promoting players of that game, it's just another mod, another patch.

That' reality, where Pizza doesn't come with a justice topping. <_<

Your appeal to Justice is an appeal to the abstract. There is scant Justice in American courts, there is just the Game, and there is The Law. There are Justices (noun sense) on the courts, but not much Justice to be found.

OJ Simpson for two hundred, Alex, in today's game of Double Jeopardy. :P

You wanted to know how to "apply justice" to someone who is in a position where the rules grant him immunity. OK, I answer you for the third time:

Get the rules changed via your elected representatives, or get the rope, and the bandannas over the face.

Occhi

[kandrathe]

Lissa, I hope you are having as much fun as I am with this thread. I am really enjoying this set of discussions. :-)

Ah, how soon we forget Sarijevo in August of 1914. One event destabilized and brought on World War I. Who knows for sure if a similar event couldn't have done the same. Remember, Communism had just fallen in Eastern Europe just 5 years prior. There's no telling what may have happened if we hadn't have stepped in.

I can't help feeling "damned if we do, and damned if we don't" then. Who knows what would have happened had we not toppled Saddam? Who knows what would have happened had we not over reacted to the Gulf of Tonkin incident?

The problem is, humanity is fallable. Graft is the currency of politics now in the US. And I have to question any person that wants to be in our government.

Me too. It's like cops, those who really really want to be cops, probably should be excluded.

The government does allow you to purchase weapons with which to defend youself. The government allows you to purchase handguns and rifles with only minor annoyances. Would you prefer that our government acted like the British where a normal citizen was not allowed to own handguns?

No, we fought a revolutionary war for a reason. I would also prefer that they would stop trying to make end runs around the 2nd amendment with annoyances, like "military style". Ok, so Gucci is ok, but khaki is evil. Got it.

You'll also note that in the case of both Ruby Ridge and Waco, officers went to server warrants and were met with hostile gun fire. In both cases, the people involved were being served warrants for illegal activities (Ruby Ridge happened to be someone that was sawing off the barrels of shotguns for increased concealability and was cutting the barrels lengths to well below the regulated barrel lenght allowed of 18 inches). The tragedy of both cases is the people that commited the crimes refused to own up to the crimes and put innocent bystanders in harms way instead of surrendering. While the government acted overzealous in the case of Ruby Ridge, they acted to try and server warrants and bring the issues to the court system where they belonged.

Well, I don't want to rehash those incidents, but your facts about Ruby Ridge are wrong. Weaver contends that the ATF shortened the stock to have leverage to get him to become an informant against a local White Supremicist group.

So, to answer your question, why shouldn't citizen have access to military hardware, it's rather simple, the weapons that are already commonly available are lethal enough, there is no need to increase the level of lethality a law abiding citizen needs to defend themselves. ... I've answered your questions, but still need to answer mine.

You think they are powerful enough, and maybe many of our fellow citizens also think as you do. But, if I'm protected by the 2nd amendment and a good citizen, shouldn't I be trusted to determine that for myself? I'd say that if one of my law abiding neighbors wanted to own an Abrams tank, and they can afford it, and maintain it, then let them. Once they use it for illegal purposes, then I've got a problem with it.

If you truly have something to hide that is worth hiding from the government, why the hell are you writing it down somewhere? And lets face facts, throughout history, very few encryptions have not been broken (the only one that I can think of right off the top of my head is the Navajo code talkers as the only encryption method that was not broken). It wouldn't matter how much we try to increase encryption for the general populace, someone, somewhere would still want to decrypt it, so if you got something you don't want people to know, don't write it down.

Let's look at mail. It's a federal crime to tamper with mail. It's in a sealed envelope, and if anyone pryed it open you would know. What is wrong with wanting to insure a little electronic privacy?

At a quick glance, all the EOs from Jan 29 to Aug 17 of '01 are all frivalous. There was no state of emergency or similar problems.

Well, just looking at the one dated Aug 17th 2001;

The Export Administration Act of 1979, as amended, has been in lapse since August 21, 2001. In the absence of an Export Administration Act, the U.S. dual-use export control system continues to be dependent on the President's invocation of emergency powers under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. As demonstrated by recent events, having a modern, coherent, and effective system of dual-use export controls -- to prevent terrorists, rogue states, and proliferators of weapons of mass destruction from accessing sensitive U.S.-origin goods and technology -- is now more important than ever. The Administration supports legislation to create a streamlined and strengthened export control system that effectively promotes both U.S. national security and U.S. economic interests.

It doesn't seem frivolous to me. Sounds like Congress dropped the ball.

Let me give you an idea of just what kinds of things the government has had and kept secret. Do you remember DAT (Digital Audio Tapes)? They came out in the early '90s, but they were being used the government, specifically the Navy, for a good 10 years before they were introduced to the public. How about Velcro, do you realize that the military has had access to noiseless velcro since the late 80s? There are many things that the government has had that it has kept secret about. So I wouldn't put anything past the government on what they have and what they don't have.

OMG!!! Noiseless velcro!!! Those b@st@rds!!!