Civil Liberties vs. Security

Give me liberty or give me meth. Live free or die. Tonight’s topic: Civil liberties vs. security.
The government is saying we need to be afraid of the terrorists. Saw this article the other day when an intel official said to expect less privacy.

Privacy can no longer mean anonymity according to Donald Kerr of the NSA. You are trying to destroy the 4th amendment. They’re hiding behind the threat of terrorism. Civil liberties vs. Security.

We live in an age where there are warrantless wiretaps. There is  a secret court set up to handle the wireless wiretaps. But they can’t be bothered. We can’t go in front of the FISA court.

The 4th amendment is read, but for copyright reasons not copied here.

They want to take away our liberty in order to fight those who want to take away our liberties.  They’re asking us to trade one facist police state for another. Live free or die.  The FISA act was created so as to have wiretaps and stuff reviewed but maintaining secrecy over the process. This is data mining. This came about because of changes the Democrats are trying to make in the house.

They want to put in retroactive immunity for telecommunications organizations. If they want this retroactively they must have been breaking the law up to now. They’re data mining and spying on us right now. What we have an imperial presidency. We are being spied upon by the secret police. They’re all a bunch of Lyin’ Cocksuckers. We are moving to a state where the government has groups that are above the law. We are destroying the 4th amendment before our eyes. We have illegal wiretaps and data mining, and also illegal torture. Torture doesn’t work. If torture worked they’d be trotting out all the examples of torture working. Have you seen that example? What about illegal wiretapping. I have seen no evidence of an illegal wiretap working. The people they end up arresting are buffoons and idiots who are pretending to be terrorists.  People who have no ability to threaten anything. They have suspended habeas corpus. You can be put in jail forever with no reason, no trial or judicial review. Even if they toss you in jail way down in MS. Eventually your lawyer will get you to the supreme court.  We’re talking about secret police and evidence. Cameras everywhere with and without your permission. Private armies like Blackwater. We’re talking about Gitmo.

Richard Nixon said if the president does it, it isn’t illegal. That’s what Cheney and Bush think. We’re being screwed here. It is unconstitutional. There needs to be probable cause to search people. Anyone who speaks out against the government gets shot down, and they are subject to being thrown in jail. No real reason, but because you may have the opinion that the US government is a much bigger threat to our freedom than al Qaeda is.

These aren’t special times. Who are we at war with. Not Iraq. You’d have to tell me who the enemy is and how we’re going to defeat them. If we were at war, there’d be a draft and a wartime economy. We’ve been attacked two times on US soil in the last 30 years. It is a problem that we need to deal with, not a problem we need to overreact to. It is our government and our money, we have a right to know what they do. What we do should be secret. The government should be open. They want to become our enemy to defeat our enemy.

Scott in Baltimore
S – I love civil liberties. As a student of political science, this shit is unacceptable. The founding cornerstone of America is that we as Americans have a right to seclusion. We have a right to not be bothered by the government.
M – people say, how come the government has to be open and we have to be free. The government is inherently lying cocksuckers. By its nature it wants to abuse the power we’ve given it.  They want to give it more power.
S – what really irritates me as a Democrat, is how my party reacted to the Patriot Act right after 9/11. They don’t understand how easy it is to pass legislation and how hard it is to repeal it.
M – from the other side, Libertarians and Republicans should be ashamed of themselves for going right along. I understand people were upset after 9/11. But by invading Iraq, that didn’t do it. Has Osama been caught.
S – absolutely not.

Darren in LA
D – What do you think of the 9/11 conspiracy
M – what that the government knocked down those buildings on their own?
D – yea,
M – it looks to me like those planes ran into those buildings.
D – yea but did you hear about that third building?
M – building number 7 or something? I saw some of that stuff. But look, I don’t believe all that. I think Osama has been trying to get our attention for years. If you remember they tried to blow up the trade center 8 years earlier.
D – There is an interesting film called “Zeitgeist” on Google video for free and some of the points are a little farfetched, but in some ways it just doesn’t surprise me with what the government has done
M – I will admit that people are using fear and hate to take away our civil liberties. I think people are taking advantage of the situation. They wanted to make the president stronger and congress and the judiciary weaker. And they succeeded in doing it.
D – I agree with the previous caller that the Democrats need to grow some balls. They need to deal with these issues. Maybe we need more than two parties to deal with these issues.
M – the two parties that we have are bought and paid for. If it takes $100MM or $500MM to run for president, well someone gave them that money and someone’s going to want something back in return.

Comedy break with Lewis Black

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Walker in TX
W – I feel sorry for you. You’re completely ignorant.
M – enlighten me
W – because you have no idea how many attacks our defense system has prevented on our soil. They were done illegally and they can’t tell us about them or they’d be in trouble. They did that by suspending our civil liberties.
M – See, I want you to see the circular nature of your logic here. By using these illegal tactics they’ve stopped all these attacks, but they can’t tell us about it because it is secret. This is the tactic of a lying cocksucker. There is no truth, no facts no figures. All he can say is trust me it is secret. That’s when the gov’t is lying to you.
W – No sir
M – if they had the proof, don’t you think it would be on TV? They’ve tried to show us proof and it turned out to be bullshit. Complete and utter bullshit. Half-ass schemes done by amateurs.
W –Hold on. You’re saying that the gov’t is giving us amateurs to show us the evidence.
M – No I’m saying they haven’t caught any real terrorists or we’d see them on TV tonight.
W – really, how about this scenario. Someone high up in the gov’t finds out there is going to be a terrorist plot against the US, and the only way to stop the plot would be to send Navy SEALS into the other country that would break some treaty or something
M – but tonight’s topic is civil liberties here in the US. Taking away our rights in the US. SEALS and Rangers operating in a foreign country is not the topic. Walker, if the gov’t had proof that torture and data-mining worked. Don’t you think they’d show it to us?
W – if they could legally, they’d show it to us 100%
M – well then they shouldn’t be breaking the law. It is a circular logic here.
W – you’d rather they not break the law to save our lives than break a little law and save millions of lives.
M – I’m telling you for the sake of America the government needs to be open. Otherwise we can’t trust it and we have no idea what they’re doing. If they broke a law and saved a million lives and they couldn’t come clean and call it a wash. These are the tactics of lying cocksuckers.

Rick in CA
R – It’s a bunch of lying cocksuckers. And this country is volunteering for this shit. No one is over there in the sand who didn’t volunteer and get brainwashed by these cocksuckers.
M – just remember right after 9/11 the ridiculousness of freedom fries. The French weren’t with us so we called them freedom fries.
R – turned out the French were right too.
M – that’s the key. The French were right. Saddam was a threat to no one. Iraq has nothing to do with 9/11 and never did
R – and he hasn’t been trying to do anything about bin Laden. If we devoted even half the energy there we’d have caught him.
M – the other thing is that 9/11 shocked us at how successful was. It was the 2nd time in 30 years.
R – they got lucky
M – They could have been stopped at the border, the airport, the planes could have not hit the buildings. Any number of things could have gone wrong. They were very professional and very lucky. You can’t throw away 200 years of civil liberties because there might be a terrorist cell. How about we find Osama and crush his network instead of invading the wrong country.
R – Yes it would but it is too late.
M – You think they have us by the balls
R – yea. Whoever gets elected next year, they won’t catch Osama either. Until he rears his head again he got away with it.

Sean in IA
S – I agree with you on your civil liberties point, but you’re a little bit to the left of me.
M – I’m kind of a libertarian anarchist. You know where the libertarians and anarchists come together at the bottom of the political circle.
S – imagine the worst possible candidate is elected and has the same powers as the current one. How well will you sleep at night?
M – I agree. And this whole thing that we did was a giant overreaction to 9/11. This is exactly what the terrorists wanted. If we act like the totalitarian regime, we should be able to beat the totalitarian regime. But the FISA court isn’t stopping any information from being caught. But they can’t be bothered with it. We as a country and individuals, our liberty is being hosed up the ass.
S – The other irony of the situation is that in 72 hours you should be able to determine if you need a warrant or not.
M – how long did it take for them to plan and execute 9/11. 20 minutes doesn’t make a difference. We always talk about what if they have suitcase nuke and the thing is ticking. That’s not how it works. When we get to that bridge, we’ll cross it. I’m not going to let you go through my mail and phone and whatever kind of email and perverted magazines I’ve bought at the store. I don’t want them to be able to see what sites I’ve visited online just so you might succeed in the future.

Comedy break

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Rule of law vs law of secret police. The US gov’t is a much bigger threat to our freedom than al Qaeda. If they were a real threat they’d have a country, a standing army and air force. They have nothing. They are a nuisance.

Master Chief in OK who thinks I’m a moron.
MC – First time listener and I was surprised. You’re a moron. The only person who has to fear about what you’re ranting about is a person who is committing crimes. The only person who has fear of the gov’t is the person who is committing something illegal. In an armed society and a military state, the only person who has to fear is someone who isn’t a viable member of the society.
M – All it takes is one neighbor who thinks, “I don’t like the way he looks”. All it takes is one person and you have no legal rights. They torture you and you have no idea why and you confess some crime you know nothing about. These are Gestapo police state tactics by definition.
MC – I’d rather 100 innocent people go to their deaths and one guilty one go free.
M – you’d rather have 100 innocent be tortured to death than one guilty go free?
MC – most certainly
M – I can see we’re going to have a difference of opinion here, I’m going to reverse that on you. What is the big threat to the US
MC – the big threat is Islamic fundamentalism and political correctness is going to kill this country. Between the politicians being so damned scared to call a spade a spade and to straighten up our society and put fear of the law of the land again. That’s what’s going to kill our society. The reason the crime rate is what it is
M – The crime rate has been going down for the last 40 years.  Since WWII it has been going down steadily.
MC – but drug offences are going up
M – that’s because the drugs were brought around and before WWII they weren’t illegal. The government should fear us.
MC – I’m a master chief of the US Navy and I don’t fear anything on two legs
M – The government should fear us. We are the people, we put them in government and we give them the money. The government doesn’t exist in some fantasy that the government is just good. Our government has just as much ability to abuse its powers as any big corporation. And that’s just what it is, a big giant bureaucracy in DC that just wants to get bigger and stronger. At some point we need to man up and stand up and put them down. Tell them they aren’t going to read our email and send people off to prisons in other countries forever. Master Chief thanks for the debate.

I want people calling me a moron, I don’t want the government able to come in and grab people in the middle of the night who have no recourse.

Sam in MO

S – I don’t think I’ll call you a moron. I’ll call you an American with an opinion I don’t agree with.
M – We can agree to disagree
S – I believe what the last caller said that the person with the most to fear of the government dropping in on our cell phone calls is the person who is doing something wrong. And I believe they should have the right to do that and that they should be able to take anything that will prevent another 9/11. After 9/11 all you heard was that you knew this information and didn’t do anything. Well now we’re doing something and all we hear is that they shouldn’t be doing anything.
M – I would like the proof that this torture or data mining has resulted in stopping 9/11 number 2
S – I believe it has, and I don’t believe our government is going around grabbing Joe Schmoe off the street because his neighbor said he looked his suspicious and water-boarding him. I think the person getting the water-boarding is probably the person who deserves to get the water-boarding.
M – Here’s the thing. Because it is all secret, we don’t know. They don’t have anyone representing them because they don’t go to trial. If we can’t interview them, we don’t know.
S – If we go around telling every terrorist that we stopped, we’re telling them how we found out what they were doing and they go and change their tactics. If we have someone trailing Osama and figuring out everyone he’s talking to then we can go in and swoop them all up at one time. I don’t want to tell you that as the president of the US because it ruins the whole operation and CNN will have it everywhere and the terrorists know about everything we do and all they have to do is watch TV.
M – Sam maybe what you’re saying is true, maybe it isn’t. I want facts, figures and the truth and openness. I understand D-Day how we had to keep secret where we’d land. I understand that and that’s why we have the secret court to issue warrants in secret cases. If we have the court, why aren’t we using it.
S – You know our government. You keep as many people out of the loop as possible. CIA or FBI there is always one guy who want to go slipping off to the Washington Post what we’re doing. That’s how they found out about the torture.
M – Here’s the problem with your argument. Say what you’re saying is true, and it may be. The problem is that you have no way of proving it. You’re going to hide behind executive privilege. That’s a state secret. I have no way of knowing if you’re telling the truth . We have the 4th amendment because we didn’t trust the government.
S – When the government turns into a fascist state, the people won’t let it happen. And that’s the greatest thing about this country. We’ll let it go so far and then we’ll pull it back if it goes overboard, I hope.
M – the problem is the government has such a bad record. They’ve lied to us so much about Iraq why would we believe anything they have to say?
S – I don’t think they lied to us about Iraq.
M – I’d like for you to show me the link between al Qaeda and Iraq and two the weapons of mass destruction.
S – well, let me start with #2. At the beginning the US, Germany, UK and France all agreed on the intelligence that was saying Hussein had the pieces to have weapons of mass destruction. We got in there and found this wasn’t true. But we got in there and also found out that he had extensive paperwork and information making everyone believe he had them. He also had several top Iraqi generals who were surprised to find out they didn’t have these weapons
M – let me bust in. If I’m going to invade a country I’m going to be damn sure that a fact is a fact. I’m going to put someone on the ground. I’m not going to just look with a satellite. I want someone to tell me to my face that we’re going to risk lives by invading Iraq because they have WMD.
S – they had people who looked Bush in the face and said they have those weapons.
M – they did not. The one guy they had was tortured. His name was curve-ball for Christ sake. Everyone talks about how everyone agreed that Saddam should be knocked out. Not me. I stood on the stage at the San Diego music awards 6 mos before the invasion, singing a song “Show me the fucking weapons” I didn’t believe it then. The only fact of the WMDs in Iraq is that he’d used them 10-15 years earlier against the Kurds. I was right. Saddam was a paper tiger. What about his link to al Qaeda.
S – We did find mustard gas over there about a year ago. And it was released and it was public record. Where is al Qaeda now? In Iraq thanks to Iran and Syria.
M – How many al Qaeda’s were in Iraq before we invaded? There is a number you’re looking for and it is less the one. The number is zero.
 
Quick Comedy break

Straight Jacket
S – I agree with you 100%. I was in Albany NY the other day and they had posters on all the truck stop walls. I’m a hazmat truck driver and the first line of defense of protecting terrorists from hijacking our loads and using them against us. Well I don’t have personal protection and not only are they shitting on the 4th amendment, they’re shitting on the 5th. What am I supposed to do, hit them with my tire iron if they come at me with an AK-47. I’m not allowed to carry anything.
M – just because you aren’t allowed to doesn’t mean everyone follows the rules there Straight Jacket.
S – Well, I’m one who does.
M – that’s what I suspected. And the last caller and the Master Chief guy, he kept saying if you haven’t done anything wrong, you’ve got nothing to hide. Well I put the same thing to the government. If the government is not abusing their power, what do they have to hide? They are hiding behind national security because they’re breaking the law. They’re trying to become more like a dictatorship and less like a democracy.
S – exactly right. And if it gets to the part where they abuse their power too much we’ll stand up, well if it gets that bad we won’t be able to.
M – ringleaders like me and you will already be in the re-education camp with our nuts cut off.
S – Right. We won’t have our Smith and Wesson or our voices. They’ll just shit on the 4th and 5th amendments. If we don’t do anything now no one will be able to see what’s behind the smoke screen.

Mike in MS
Mi – Sam and Master Chief are the problem. A large part of the population are brainwashed like the Master Chief there. I think MC is one of those guys who worries and lies awake at night about someone having a good time.
M – that’s a HL Mickey quote.
Mi – the people who aren’t against it, they think we’re killing two birds with one stone. Those people having a good time and the
M – bible thumping Jesus preacher prude are going to cut down on some of our civil liberties too?
Mi – we may or may not catch a terrorist, but we’ll catch some having a good time.
M – what I don’t get is that a lot of these people are conservative republicans who are for a smaller government. I don’t want the government or the church telling me anything. I want to be left alone. And if you’re going to snoop at me, you better have a really good reason. You can’t come around just because you want to.

Jeremy in El Paso
J – There are soldiers out here don’t agree with that Master Chief and aren’t as ignorant and retarded as this guy.
M – he appeared to be angry about something.
J – probably didn’t get laid in a while. Guys like them, they’re pissed that they signed their lives away.
M – it is like you sign up for the Army and they send you to Iraq, you have to believe Iraq is a good idea. You have no choice, I understand that completely.
J – most soldiers don’t agree with the war, but with the paycheck and healthcare that comes with it. They’re trying to put food on the table.
M – I just think that at some point someone is going to stand up and say they’ve gone too far and they’re going to fight back. They’ll burn down their house if they have to in order to keep you from spying on them.
J – that’s why guys like you are there for unlike guys like me who are sitting around because our hands are tied.

I want to thank the jersey boy Sean for producing the show. And my Daddy who made the beast with two backs in Chapel Hill NC, and I was born in the USA and I’m not going to be giving away any of my civil liberties. In fact I’m going to be fighting for them.