Remember the europeans who first settled america? Do you recall they would build a fortress to defend themselves against the terrorists? In the process, cutting all of the trees around that fortress, leaving the native american terrorists no tree to hide behind. My analogy is simple. If terrorists persist in hiding behind the articles of the Bill of Rights, which of these ten will you surrender to keep your children safe? How can we in good conscience let them stand, and let those who would harm us hide behind them? Which of the ten will you sacrifice to protect your children?
Let the word go out, there will be no Bill of Rights for terrorists to hide behind.

I therefore have an idea for you: We know that the NSA is conducting an illegal operation to spy on Americans using sophisticated “recognition” software to lock onto calls or emails containing certain key words. Data mining.

The only way any citizen can combat an illegal program such as this is by civil disobedience, SO IMAGINE WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF ALL AMERICANS, COUNTRY-WIDE, BEGAN USING TRIGGER WORDS IN EVERY TELEPHONE CALL THEY MAKE OR RECEIVE? The system would soon be overwhelmed by far too many “hits” for them all (or perhaps ANY) of them to be further investigated, potentially destroying the usefulness of the illegal program.

So what if every liberal blog, or any others believing Bushco has gone too far, asked ALL THE VISITORS to their site to include certain trigger words IN EVERY CONVERSATION THEY HAVE WITH ANYONE.

You know, words like: Osama bin Laden, jihad, dirty bomb, nuclear material, anthrax, chemical weapons, Zarqawi, Allah akbar, infidels, Iran mullahs, and everything else the readers could come up with. Perhaps even run a contest for your readers to add to the probable list that would “flag” their number for further investigation. The sheer numbers, if we could pull this off, would render it impossible or impractical for the program to continue.

I am sick of our Imperial President and his constant violations of the law and the erosion of my civil rights. It is time, in my opinion, to demonstrate to Bushco that this IS a government by, for, and of the People. This could perhaps be engineered into the greatest single act of civil disobedience in history.

What do you think? Do we stand by and gripe, or do we take action?

Richard M. Nixon attempted to use the red herring of national security to spy on political opponents and peace activists. Why should we believe that Bush and Cheney aren’t doing the same? THAT’S the reason why we have the FISA law in the first place, to ensure that at least some third-party oversight exists.

Bush and Cheney, by their own admission, have engaged in activity in violation of the law. They must be held accountable. To let them get away with this is to invite a very grave outlook for our future as a nation. They seem to believe that they are not accountable to us, the people for whom they serve. If we don’t hold them accountable, no one will.

During the Roman republican era, a dictator was one who assumed all powers, military and political, during a state emergency, like a war. He had all the senate’s power, too, and they actually assigned their duties and privileges to him. He could enact or abrogate laws by fiat.

Any one who has had even a freshman college course should know that the founding fathers intended to avoid dictators — that congress and the courts are never to be allowed to abrogate their powers to any executive, no matter the crisis, or danger to the US.

The most famous Roman dictator was Julius Caesar. The second most famous was his nephew, Octavius — now better known as Augustus, the first emperor.

It also shows how Osama escaped retaliation the previous time when cruise missiles were sent his way. Friends within the ISI must have passed the word to him.

The again I’m told Khadaffhi was taking a leak(other kind of leak) or would have been nailed in his tent back in the day… it could be coincidence but most likely wasn’t in light of the need to talk in traditional channels for air space clearance.

Larry they would certainly never talk of such over lines. One would easily suspect they would take stories which are longstanding within the historical narrative, or popular culture references, or even traditional writings and denote a value to them as a symbnol.

By cutting staff Bush removes the chance to do backtracking of previously overlooked/discarded info that in retrospect could deliver key insights in to codes used to denote times, locations, codes, etc.

Even a grand prosaic style such the words of Gibran in symbol as he was a rishly worded Moslem man who wrote elegaic of the East and West with established reference to both spheres of influence.

Just my two cents.

By the way, did Richard Clarke write his first public address after 9-11? One would suspect a man of his ability to have worded its introduction. The lead lacked the usual explicit harsh tones and referenced Gibran’s words for the purpose of furthering understanding between the two distinct cultures.

Too bad that first step and the world’s good will was sacrificed for political expediencey into a the rhetoric of character assassination…

Again something better to ask Mr.Clarke for certain but it just hints of someone with the grasp of complex influence that is missing from the present putsch of pundit talking points.

They don’t really want people to see what was leaked by whoever did. Nobody on the inside does this without a smoking gun to use as their ace in the hole.

Cheney would hate to see someone use the Ace in the Spider Hole to show the extent to which AWOL obfiscated the original stated purpose.

By the way the gov’t just released a slander of Katrina victims and says they’re relocations were not vetted with law enforcement for criminal prolifing/screening, the appearent claim is that sex offenders may be receiving grants and given new communities in which to trespass.

Can George Bush’s people do anything right? Aside from place guitars in his hand while a city drowns, fail to make sure he’s briefed of attacks on american soil, or keep him from falling off his bike?

it’s a sad state of affairs when a sitting president and his staff can ‘leak’ [compromise an intel asset's name intentionally for presidential political hackery purposes] causing ‘extremely grave damage’ to our national security, and congress seemingly lets him off the hook. according to the definition of ‘treason’, such actions by the president and his staff meet its definition — a betrayal of trust. and if that’s not an impeachable and jailing offense, what is?

now that bush’s law-breaking and his flagrant abrogation of his oath of office are out in the open, will congress once again let him off the hook, or will the do their constitutional duty and – impeach, remove from office, and criminally prosecute. stick bush where he belongs — in a federal jail cell.