Don't let anyone Bullshit you, it is against the law to spy on Citizens...

[mikelewis]

Bill of Rights - Amendment IV
"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."

If our legal system is to have any merit, the law must apply to everyone; thus the term, Equal Protection. In the 14th Amendment, it clearly states:
" Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

Essentially, this says, our Government is not allowed to spy on us without a warrant even if the person is a Muslim Extremist. There is no eminent danger clause nor a war powers provision written anywhere in the text. Don't let them Bullshit you. Bush is not a King. He is a citizen of this country just as much as you or I are citizens. If I break the law, I must be willing to accept the consequences of my actions under the law and so must he. Any politician or partisan who supports such action is by definition, Un-American. Any person who participated in this violation must be charged with a crime. Any person who obstructs this investigation must be charged with obstruction of justice, especially those Senators and Congressmen who are charged with investigating High Crimes and Misdemeanors. If these crimes are not investigated and punished then the Constitution is not worth the paper it's printed on. You might as well wipe your ass with it and flush it down the commode.

[rzemanfl]

1. There is no way I am going to let anything Bush and Cheney

already wiped THEIR asses with anywhere near my butt.

[proud patriot]

2. I carry the U.S Constitution in My purse

pulling that out Usually shuts freepers up

[Luminous Animal]

6. Then they are stupid freepers...

Any freeper with his/her salt spits on the Constitution. They don't give a flying fuck about the Constitution and are more than willing to piss on it to support GWB. It's not the freepers that you have to worry about, it's the every day Joe who only thinks about politics when someone asks them to think about it.

Listen, there is a concerted effort out there to make the general population think that unwarranted spying on U.S. citizens is a regular course of business from the executive branch for the past 100 years. This is an outright lie. And it is up to patriots like those on this board to fight this lie. Arm yourself with the truth. The President is not above the law.

[tavalon]

21. Stupid Freeper is an oxymoron n/t

[fooj]

3. Little Lord Pissypants is not above the rule of law!

Peace.

[Quakerfriend]

4. I'm quite sure that many of us here on DU are being spied on.

When my husband installed a firewall several months ago, we discovered that the DoD was spying on me, a middle-aged, stay-at-home mother of two who just happens to be Quaker, by background- This happens several times each day, usually around the times that I tend to be on DU.

I have taken photos of 'their visits' and will be mailing this 'proof' to Patrick Leahy tomorrow.

[tavalon]

23. Well, you are a Quaker after all

Dangerous subversives I've heard.

[Luminous Animal]

5. Catapulting the propaganda

I own a free-wheeling left discussion board that pretty much allows anything excpet death threats and stalking. We've had a few new trolls show up recently that are doing their best to catapult the propaganda... that is, repeating the same lies over and over and over again by citing court cases that, upon inspection, do NOT give this administration any leeway regarding the fact that Bush broke the law. This is how they expect to win. By telling half-truths and outright lies. They expect to gain acceptance from the general population by casting doubt and undermining their very American belief in historical fact.

My advice. Do not let the right wing get away with this. Write your media, write your congresscritters, talk to everyone that you know, post flyers. Make your own flyers. No citizen in this U.S. is above the law.

Fight back, goddamnit! Don't wait for your "leaders".

[acmejack]

7. We need to have a citizens conga line through the capitol!

Chanting "Rule of law, rule of law". Might seem like old times to a bunch of those republican hypocrites!

[Cleita]

8. Yeah, but like the Nazis they are rewriting the rules to suit

themselves.

[Luminous Animal]

10. They can't rewrite the rules to fit this situation.

The rules have already been written. In fact, in an attempt to rewrite the rules during PATRIOT ACT version 1, they were rebuffed by Congress. That is why they had to break the law.

It's propably best argument-wise to refrain from the Nazi accusations and to stick with what is true blue American. That is, the 4th Amendment and FISA.

[Cleita]

13. But this is what the Nazis did and if they didn't get a law changed

the first time, they would get it changed eventually. In the meantime they broke those laws with impunity and no law enforcer dared to confront them with this. This is what is happening today. You can't change the facts and well if it looks like a duck....you know the rest.

[Luminous Animal]

17. Who gives a shit what the Nazis did?

It has no bearing on how we respond to this situation now.

And how does comparing Bush et al to the Nazi's apply to the U.S. today? Do you have any evidence that Bush has broken a law in the past and then turned around and changed the law to get away with it? Do you have any evidence that he's going to do change the law now to weasel out of breaking FISA?

I suggest you drop the irrelevant Nazi crap and fight as an American for your rights guaranteed as an American.

[Cleita]

18. Isn't there some saying out there about those who refuse

to learn the lessons of history, will repeat them? I personally don't want to go down that road if awareness of what has happened before can stop a repeat of history.

So far from the day Bush stole the election and took office, his Presidency has run parallel with that of the Third Reich. Do we need to end up like Germany after WWII?

If you think your rights are guaranteed, I hope you aren't surprised the day you wake up and find you don't have them anymore. But go stick your head in the sand if you must.

I for one will call a spade a spade or a Nazi a Nazi if it looks, smells and performs as one.

[Luminous Animal]

20. Really. How has his presidency run paralle

to the third Reich? Your hyperbole will serve no purpose because Americans do not see themselves as Nazis.

And where oh where did you come to the conclusion that I see my rights as being guaranteed. I've done nothing on this thread but exhort my fellow Americans to fight for their rights as Americans. As Americans as guaranteed under the Constitution.

It serves no purpose to call anybody names... even pissypants. Name calling will not retain our rights. Fighting in public to uphold American rights will.

[Cleita]

25. I agree with you that we have to fight this, but it doesn't

hurt to know your enemy. So here are some parallels to the Third Reich.

Hitler became Chancellor (prime minister) when appointed by President von Hindenberg under pressure. Bush became President when appointed by the Supreme Court. Both men gained power to the seat of government in a way that was not the normal way for these seats to be acquired in highly unusual political maneuvers.

After the Reichstadt fire Hitler got what was Germany’s version of the Patriot Act, that essentially stripped away most of the democratic rights of the Germans. After 9-11 the Patriot Act did the same for Americans.

There are suspicions that the Nazis started the Reichstadt fire, which they blamed on the communists. There are suspicions that the Bush administration didn’t respond adequately to the 9-11 attacks. They blamed it at first on Osama bin Laden, and then blamed it on Iraq.

This gave the Bush administration an excuse to invade Iraq. The Nazis staged an attack on German radio stations on the Polish border giving them an excuse to invade Poland.

Hitler built Germany’s economy on manufacturing instruments of war, weapons, tanks, airplanes, bombs and even experimental rockets. These factories were run by the corporations and paid with tax payer’s money. We have made Halliburton and many other private contractors rich with dubious services they provide with tax payer’s money in Iraq, Afghanistan and now apparently in Louisiana and other states hit by Hurricane Katrina.

Hitler started rounding up undesirables in his country and those he occupied, Jews, Gypsies and homosexuals. First he passed laws making it illegal for these people to do just about anything to survive, like shop in a market, or eat in a restaurant or live in most places that non-Jews lived in. They were sent to labor camps when they broke the laws, those which would eventually become concentration camps complete with torture and inhuman abuses. We seem to be creating a class of illegals with the migrant workers from Mexico. They too won’t have any rights and will be accused of breaking the law just for being on the wrong side of the Rio Grande.

Well, let’s see, so far we have Gitmo, Abu Ghraib and those countries we render prisoner “terrorists” to. With the class of stateless people from across the border that we are creating, how long before they get put in work camps for breaking the law for taking a job? Also, in Nazi Germany private militias were normal. This is where Hitler got his SS. Now what about those Minutemen patrolling the border, hmmmm.

Now about the domestic spying. That is undeniably facist and no one condones it. How much longer before midnight raids, kicked down doors and disappeared neighbors?

Is that enough now or should I go on? The book, “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich”, by William L. Shirrer is over a thousand pages long so I can’t list all of them, but his should cover some of it.

On edit: One more really important one. Neville Chamberlain, the British PM gave Hitler the approval he needed to take over Austria and parts of Czechoslavakia, thinking that this would satisfy him. It seems a certain Tony Blair, British PM also backed up Bush's desire to attack Iraq, even though he knew the evidence was bogus that there were WMD's and that there really was no Niger Yellow Cake that was reported. We don't know what Tony was thinking but maybe it was the same, let him do this and then he'll be quiet.

[WyLoochka]

32. Smokin' Cleita

Made my day to read your words. Thanks.

[Joey Liberal]

26. BUSH IS A NAZI

Go ahead and defend Adolph Bush if you must. I, for one, will continue to compare him and his Nazi-like republican party to the Gestapo.

[boobooday]

9. If there is justice . . .

Then we will see this soon:

[Luminous Animal]

11. There will be no justice

unless you demand it. And I mean a full on every day effort to get out there and demand it.

This is a Constitutional crisis. We will not be Americans if we let this pass without a fight.

[WernhamHogg]

29. Hey

Hey, why isn't Karl in that picture? Usually I loathe the sight of the pig, but there are some exceptions... ;-)

[NNN0LHI]

12. This guy thought it was OK to spy on his own citizens

Mussolini and his mistress killed and hanged upside down in Milan's Piazza Loreto on April 28, 1945.

[mikelewis]

16. There are a lot of parallels between Bush and Mussolini...

Hopefully, this one doesn't become yet another.

[EVDebs]

19. Corporatism is Fascism...for example

[tx_dem41]

14. The legal case will turn on the definition of "unreasonable"....

I believe, given the end-around of the FISA statute/court, it will be ruled "unreasonable".

[EVDebs]

22. As in 'unreasonable' due process ? Guilty before proven innocent ?

Data-mining in the Bahamas via TIA and Global Information Group, Ltd., the offshored/privatized version of TIA relies upon information supplied by ChoicePoint for example. Not exactly entirely reliable information. And the security of the offshored data isn't that great either.

Brave new world with Bubble Boy at the helm. Egads.

[Jim__]

15. And bush says he's he gonna keep right on doin' it.

If he's not stopped now, then he is the king. And we have no rights.

[robbedvoter]

24. Precisely why he was proclaiming he wasn't doing it

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/04/20040420-2.html
"Secondly, there are such things as roving wiretaps. Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so."
A question on it led to the hillarious headline that's my sig line now.
THE MSM DOING POLLS ON IT TRY TO OBFUSCATE THE FACTS BY MAKING IT A MATTER OF OPINION. I DON'T CARE IF 100% PEOPLE THINK IT'S OK, THE LAW SEZ OTHERWISE.

[BamaBecky]

27. Elaine Cassel has some excellent Interviews on this

Interviews Here


Blog here

Bama

[0007]

28. Nominated

This should be on the front page of every newspaper in the U.S.

Especially the repuke's rag.

[Ediacara]

30. Plus, warrentless electronic searches ALREADY RULED ILLEGAL

Warrantless ''National Security'' Electronic Surveillance .--In Katz v. United States, 151 Justice White sought to preserve for a future case the possibility that in ''national security cases'' electronic surveillance upon the authorization of the President or the Attorney General could be permissible without prior judicial approval. The Executive Branch then asserted the power to wiretap and to ''bug'' in two types of national security situations, against domestic subversion and against foreign intelligence operations, first basing its authority on a theory of ''inherent'' presidential power and then in the Supreme Court withdrawing to the argument that such surveillance was a ''reasonable'' search and seizure and therefore valid under the Fourth Amendment. Unanimously, the Court held that at least in cases of domestic subversive investigations, compliance with the warrant provisions of the Fourth Amendment was required. 152 Whether or not a search was reasonable, wrote Justice Powell for the Court, was a question which derived much of its answer from the warrant clause; except in a few narrowly circumscribed classes of situations, only those searches conducted pursuant to warrants were reasonable. The Government's duty to preserve the national security did not override the gurarantee that before government could invade the privacy of its citizens it must present to a neutral magistrate evidence sufficient to support issuance of a warrant authorizing that invasion of privacy. 153 This protection was even more needed in ''national security cases'' than in cases of ''ordinary'' crime, the Justice continued, inasmuch as the tendency of government so often is to regard opponents of its policies as a threat and hence to tread in areas protected by the First Amendment as well as by the Fourth. 154 Rejected also was the argument that courts could not appreciate the intricacies of investigations in the area of national security nor preserve the secrecy which is required. 155


The question of the scope of the President's constitutional powers, if any, remains judicially unsettled. 156 Congress has acted, however, providing for a special court to hear requests for warrants for electronic surveillance in foreign intelligence situations, and permitting the President to authorize warrantless surveillance to acquire foreign intelligence information provided that the communications to be monitored are exclusively between or among foreign powers and there is no substantial likelihood any ''United States person'' will be overheard. 157

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment04/05.html#6

[B Calm]

31. If Bush says it is legal for him to strip Americans of their 4th Amendment

rights, then why in hell did he launch an investigation to find out who leaked that he was doing something supposedly LEGAL?