As stated here 11 months ago, court of appeals reverses wire tapping ruling

[ChicosBailBonds]

Several of us said this would happen and it did today by the 6th circuit.

You'll recall the ruling out of Detroit almost a year ago by a Carter appointed judge on the legality of warrantless wire tapping situation.  The ACLU brought the case vs the NSA and the ACLU won.  Today, the 6th Circuit en banc court (only 3 judge panel) overturned it 2-1....two Republican appointed judges in favor of overturning it, and one Democratic appointed judge against it.

Not surprising.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,288381,00.html

[SoCalwarrior]

[Pakuni]

Several of us said this would happen and it did today by the 6th circuit.

You'll recall the ruling out of Detroit almost a year ago by a Carter appointed judge on the legality of warrantless wire tapping situation.  The ACLU brought the case vs the NSA and the ACLU won.  Today, the 6th Circuit en banc court (only 3 judge panel) overturned it 2-1....two Republican appointed judges in favor of overturning it, and one Democratic appointed judge against it.

Not surprising.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,288381,00.html

What took you so long? I expected this post much sooner.
But before you declare victory, I suggest you read the ruling. Because what the court ruled and what you predicted are not exactly the same.
Contrary to your prediction, the appeals court did not rule that the wiretapping program was legal. In fact, they didn't rule it illegal either.  They, for lack of more eloquent phrasing, chickened out and avoided a decision altogether. Instead, they simply ruled that the ACLU lacked legal standing to file a complaint since the organization itself was not wiretapped without a warrant.
Kind of lame when the very people appointed to make these difficult decisions do legal gymnastics to avoid them, but that's the way it goes, I guess.

Kind of a weak, backdoor victory for the administraion, but I suppose they'll take anything they can get these days.

[ChicosBailBonds]

I don't recall declaring victory, I simply said about a year ago this would be overturned....and it was.

[ChicosBailBonds]

Don't worry So. Cal, if you aren't talking to some buddies in Iraq about blowing up innocent people with bombs here in the USA, you have nothing to worry about...but it is a nice strawman anyway.  Just think back to when RFK illegally wire tapped MLK or FDR back in the 1940's as examples from the left....or Clinton using his "Echelon" program....apparently it wasn't Fascism when they did it either.   

[ChicosBailBonds]

By the way, this is one of my favorite articles a buddy of mine sent to me.  It's actually found on SOCIALIST WORKER ONLINE and asks the question whether Bush is a fascist.  Fairly quickly into the article it rails against a bunch of former Democrat Presidents with examples of fascism that, quite frankly, Bush hasn't come close to using.

I guess "Bush is Hitler" and "Bush is Brain Dead" (Biden yesterday) are just too easy to roll off the tongue these days.  I keep being reminded that we need to be more civil and usually it's pointed toward conservatives...and then I take a step back waiting to see it on the other side....waiting...waiting.

---------------


Is George Bush a fascist?

By Paul D'Amato | October 10, 2003 | Page 9

THE WORD "fascism" is used broadly on the left as a term of abuse. Sometimes it is used to refer to any repressive government, whatever its political form. Most commonly on the left in the U.S., it is used to describe any Republican government--in particular, any Republican government or candidate on the eve of a presidential election.

But fascism has a far more precise definition. Historically, fascism is a far-right movement of the middle classes (shopkeepers, professionals, civil servants) who are economically ruined by severe economic crisis and driven to "frenzy."

In the brilliant words of Leon Trotsky, fascism brings "to their feet those classes that are immediately above the working class and that are ever in dread of being forced down into its ranks; it organizes and militarizes them...and it directs them to the extirpation of proletarian organizations, from the most revolutionary to the most conservative."

Fascism unites the middle classes on the basis of the "nation" and race, under the leadership of some iron-fisted leader who will solve the crisis and restore "national greatness." But while fascism appeals to the middle class on the basis of a kind of "fool’s socialism"--anti-Semitic criticism of the role of big business, for example--fascist movements do not bring the middle class to power.

As Leon Trotsky wrote: "German fascism... raised itself to power on the backs of the petty bourgeoisie, which it turned into a battering ram against the organizations of the working class and the institutions of democracy. But fascism in power is least of all the rule of the petty bourgeoisie. On the contrary, it is the most ruthless dictatorship of monopoly capital."

In power, as we know, fascism ruthlessly crushed even the most limited forms of parliamentary democracy. Clearly, this is not the character of the conservative state under which we current live. Moreover, if we were to accept the wrong definition of fascism (repression), then we would be forced into the position of saying that the Democrats are also "fascist."

Even the "freest" electoral system in the world keeps in reserve special laws designed to nullify various democratic rights in the name of "national security" or "emergency." In the U.S. historically there has been a great deal of legal and also violent repression against working-class struggle and other social movements, regardless of the party in power.

Democratic president Woodrow Wilson pushed through the Espionage Act during the First World War that sent more than 1,000 people to jail for speaking out against the war. After the war, Wilson rounded up and deported 6,000 foreign-born radicals.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, considered the archetypal Democrat, forced 120,000 people of Japanese descent into concentration camps. Under his presidency, troops were used 43 time to quell labor disputes.

In 1948, Democrat Harry Truman--the man who began the Cold War witch-hunts--ordered the army in to seize control of the railroads to stop a railroad workers’ strike. In the 1960s, the FBI’s secret COINTELPRO operation against activists was begun and thrived under Democratic administrations. Clinton’s Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act paved the way for the even more repressive laws being pushed these days.

If we lived in a fascist state, it would be impossible to even publish this newspaper, let alone print this article. To cry "fascism" every time a Republican is in the White House is to drastically underestimate what fascism really is. Secondly, it feeds illusions in the idea that the Democrats are somehow less likely to resort to police measures to attack working-class and political movements.

You can’t have it both ways. Either fascism is a police dictatorship resting on the middle class and backed by big business (the meaningful definition), or it is simply a word for repression. Calling the Bush administration "fascist," without also calling equally repressive Democratic administrations "fascist" is simply a way of scaring progressives into voting the lesser evil.

[SoCalwarrior]

Speaking of articles.  David Halberstam's last for Vanity Fair in the upcoming August edition is a good one. 

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/08/halberstam200708

[StillAWarrior]

Today, the 6th Circuit en banc court (only 3 judge panel) overturned it 2-1....two Republican appointed judges in favor of overturning it, and one Democratic appointed judge against it.

It was not an en banc decision.  Just a typical three judge panel.

[ChicosBailBonds]

You are correct, not sure why I said en banc....I was talking about the 9th circuit to a friend of mine earlier in the day...the 9th circuit is the only appeals court that uses en banc because of it's nearly 30 jurists.  Though the 5th circuit could use it because it has more than the 15 limit....I must have been still caught in that conversation.

Getting old is a bitch.