George Bush on illegal warrantless wiretapping

just like privacy, our rights to our own money is opposed by the necessity of government maintaining order. and there is a sliding scale.

just like i can tangibly see the results of giving up some of my freedom for security. and remember your quote? i thought it didnt matter if you can see the benefits of sacrifice, if you sacrifice any liberty for security i thought you deserved niether?

what i am saying is that i think it is silly to pretend there is not a trade off of liberty for security. even in the sense that you have to work to pay taxes to provide for cops and such to provide security. that is clearly your liberty being infringed, money forcibly taken from your pocket to increase security. it is a trade-off. we must give up some of our freedom for secuity. if we didnt, we would live in anarchy. the question is how much freedom we are willing to give up. i dont find wiretapping to find terrorists to be very oppressive.

this goofy ben franklin quote is over-simplified, smug and pointless. it is just reality that we must sacrifice freedom for security.

i believe the post office is self supporting and doesnt use your tax dollars.

 

it wont be carved anywhere, but it is true nonetheless. you are not free. the question is how free we should be.

let me put in red55 terms.

what we need is a balance between liberty and security, there are no absolutes. there is no absolute liberty or freedom. we are looking for a moderate balancem where an acceptable level of intrusiveness by the government keeps us acceptably safe from getting bombed. if i use the word "balance" enough, i figure you will eventually have to agree.

incidentally your big-spending programs and efforts to regulate everything are far more oppressive to the americans than any bush spying program. you are the one always favoring forcible destruction of people's rights by taking away the products of their labor.

 

dang you got your post in before mine so i didnt get to point out how i was doing that for your benefit without it looking like i was doing it in response to you directly.

obviously i think when you always claim you favor "balance", what you really mean is you favor pushing us towards socialism. you use balance as a substitute for actual principles.

and freedom is a worthy principle. but in this case it is clear that this stuff really isnt very intrusive, especially in the context of all the other things the government does to us financially.

 

stamps

 

You are a grizzled, wise old timer. Why do you insist on being so naive in this instance? Listen to intelligence and act based upon what they tell you. Don't try and find a judge to approve the surveillance first. The seemingly innocent American whose rights are about to be trampled may well be an al quaeda operative who has been patiently plotting his sinister acts for years. For all we know, some well meaning judge told the CIA to leave Mohammed Atta the hell alone at one point. We've got to do what needs to be done, civil liberties be damned. That's how strongly I feel about this. Whiney babies like (name withheld to protect the liberal), who don't want their conversations overheard are not seeing the forest for the trees. It's all principle with them. With me, it's stark reality. I don't look forward to the "I told you sos".

 

I guess you have a point there, but you are getting something beyond the security with the pat down. You are getting entry into the building or event.

I agree in large part this is all about balance. What we must be aware of is the line. I feel the wiretapping could be crossing the line between what is constitutional liberty and what is constitutional abuse.

Maybe. They operate at a huge deficit and we would be better off doing away with them and all using FedEx.

 

What no liberal wants to explain is how do we get a warrant on calls coming into the US before they happen? I'm sure you read that some of the intelligence used in capturing the terrorists in the UK who were about to blow up airplanes, was gained through the use of this NSA program? I'm sure you knew that.

We either have to hope every case is hatched and cracked within the UK or allow our country to perform their Constitutional duties with Congressional oversight of which Congress had. There are built in safeguards in the program and Congress was briefed on what those things are and was satisfied.....until the NY Times exposed the program and then the DEM's had to pander to it's power-base......ex-hippie 60's liberals who control their party.