FCC To Comcast: NO SOUP FOR YOU

[Elvis]

1.

No, you fail at life for taking an obvious troll bait seriously. Obviously Obama wasn't the only person who voted for that bill, a fucking 4th grader would know that. I just knew that if I even mentioned Obama's name that his fan girls would come running; you simply proved me correct.

2.

'oh guyz I was just kidding can't you tell when all I say is 'fixed.'?'

Still waiting for you to provide any kind of point. Instead I get you admitting that you're shitting up a thread for no reason and derailing it when called on it. Grats?

=

http://curiouslee.typepad.com/weblog..._architect.jpg

systemic anomaly, irrevocably, ergo, vis a vis, concordantly

[Plow]

I love that every time some shitty law comes up and passes, even if it's democrat majority supported, and I check the voting records, my good ol' hometown Russ Feingold (D-WI) voted against it.

If a mixed-race man can become a major party nominee for president, how about a divorced Jew? 2016, I can only pray.
http://towleroad.typepad.com/photos/...s_feingold.jpg
Oh ha sup Amele way to beat meh. Where in Wisconsin (I'm from Madison) And yeah, Herb Kohl sucks.

There will be a fully black president, and probably even a hispanic one, before there will be a Jewish.

Maaaaaaaaaybe someday a supposedly "converted" one or something, but there's no way in the foreseeable future anyone that can't pretend to be a Christian gets in. We haven't even escaped Catholic domination yet really, when it comes to actual policy.

[archibaldcrane]

We haven't even escaped Catholic domination yet really, when it comes to actual policy.

Did you mean Catholic here? What makes policy specifically Catholic as opposed to generally Christian?

Also, I hope you're wrong, Feingold is fucking boss.

[Kuya]

Catholic domination? Isn't it protestant domination, which, i believe one president managed to break?

[Charla]

If there's one thing we're less likely to see than a Jewish president, it's an atheist president.

At first I assumed Mr. Plow (hur hur) was trying to suggest that even though exactly one president ever has been Catholic, the others were somehow being 'dominated' by the Papacy, perhaps via the enormous sway that it holds over the voting decisions of the American electorate (lawlz).

Then I saw the next two posts and realized he might just be using the wrong word.

And Kuya, not quite. I counted at least five Unitarians, a Quaker, and one non-denominational President in a quick scan of the list.

[Amele]

Catholic domination? Isn't it protestant domination, which, i believe one president managed to break?

more than one but yes; the US was anti-catholic president for a long time (there were multiple whisper campaigns in prior contests similar to the "Obama is a closet Muslim!" one that was/is going on in this contest.)

[Kuya]

Aren't Unitarians and Quakers still Protestants?

edit: i guess not, how in the world is Christianity still taken seriously with so many different segments saying different things

[Amele]

Aren't Unitarians and Quakers still Protestants?

edit: i guess not, how in the world is Christianity still taken seriously with so many different segments saying different things

because Christianity isn't one religion? each particular religion within Christianity pretty much hangs separately but some are more closely aligned than others (Roman Catholic / Greek Orthodox are both generally considered sects of the same religion; many of the Wesleyan and Anglican Denominations are considered related sects etc.)

you could as much ask the same question about any judeo-christian-muslim religion, given that they're all basically worshiping the same God but can't seem to agree on what that God's commandments to them really are.

[Maxxthepenguin]

Maybe they should apply for immunity. Bush+company seems to like to give that to communications firms.

Here's the question I can't answer:
Should the government punish companies for following the laws that the government made? My understanding of the issue is that the telecom companies were doing what the government was blatantly and publicly asking them to do. Unless I'm getting something wrong, I can't say that they should be punished by the government for doing that. I think actually informing customers somehow would be better.

Now, there's other shit in the FISA bill that I majorly dislike, but the immunity thing is something I understand.

[Amele]

yeah you're getting some stuff wrong.

what the Executive asked the companies to do wasn't legal (and as an example, Qwest's Lawyers were aware of this from day 1 and that's why Qwest refused the request by the Executive Branch)

the Executive also didn't do this publicly (it was more than 5 years after the program started that it came out) and the only blatant part of any of it was that it blatantly ignores the 4th amendment rights of tens (if not hundreds) of millions of Americans.

warrantless wiretapping has never and hopefully; will never be legal in this country. and "I was following Orders" hasn't been a valid legal defense since 1946.


edit: and the immunity is to civil suit. and the government didn't set aside any cash to do recompense of the people who's right to trial was suspended as a result of their loss of standing; which is why the ACLU has brought suit to challenge the loss of standing on behalf of their clients. etc. There ARE people who suffered monetary damages as a result of all of this (Qwest among them; who lost a government contract for .. following the law) and this abdication by Article I of protecting the bill of rights is disgraceful to the whole body. Especially when congress had already won this round vs. Article II.

edit2: and the loss of civil standing means that discovery of what crimes and to what extent those crimes were committed may never happen, because it isn't clear that -anyone- who would have interest in seeing criminal trials has any avenue to establish standing to start criminal investigation. so when Sonny Bush issues his blanket Pardon on January 19, 2009 to the telecom CEOs, Board of Directors and Stock Holders pardoning* them for High crimes committed against the United States; there's nothing any of us can do to even find out what they did wrong, or safeguard against the next criminal executive from doing the same thing on a wider scale.

[Kuya]

because Christianity isn't one religion? each particular religion within Christianity pretty much hangs separately but some are more closely aligned than others (Roman Catholic / Greek Orthodox are both generally considered sects of the same religion; many of the Wesleyan and Anglican Denominations are considered related sects etc.)

you could as much ask the same question about any judeo-christian-muslim religion, given that they're all basically worshiping the same God but can't seem to agree on what that God's commandments to them really are.

I guess we all just have to play Russian roulette and pick the right religion?

Being agnostic is awesome.

[Maxxthepenguin]

Wait, the patriot act more or less abolished the barriers to a warrant (any district judge in America could write such a warrant) and the significance of a warrant with the sneak and peek and general information collecting provisions.

Also, would it have been illegal for the telecom companies to not comply?

Also, I am really fucking sick of congress not being informed of what the executive branch is doing. I understand there are some things that shouldn't be leaked to the greater American public but there needs to be god damn oversight. That's honestly my #1 beef with Bush: Expanding the executive's powers to insane lengths without oversight. The rest really just falls under that umbrella.

[archibaldcrane]

Also, would it have been illegal for the telecom companies to not comply?

Illegal? No. Qwest didn't comply, and was supposedly denied gov't contracts in retribution for not going along with the government's illegal requests. But saying "no" wasn't illegal.

[Amele]

Wait, the patriot act more or less abolished the barriers to a warrant (any district judge in America could write such a warrant) and the significance of a warrant with the sneak and peek and general information collecting provisions.

Also, would it have been illegal for the telecom companies to not comply?

Also, I am really fucking sick of congress not being informed of what the executive branch is doing. I understand there are some things that shouldn't be leaked to the greater American public but there needs to be god damn oversight. That's honestly my #1 beef with Bush: Expanding the executive's powers to insane lengths without oversight. The rest really just falls under that umbrella.

the FISA court(which has existed since '78) was and always will be a rubber-stamp court. But even that was too much work for Bush apparently, and they didn't bother to obtain warrants for the wiretaps. (and how could they? they wanted to wiretap every american citizen regardless of whether they were suspicious or not)

and no, it wasn't illegal for the telecom companies not to comply. it was illegal for the telecom companies *to* comply. it was illegal for the administration to make a request that violated 4th amendment rights. edit: it was illegal for the administration to exclude qwest from a contract-bid for refusing to comply (tantamount to extortion)

we don't live in a fascist state (at least, we're not supposed to) civil disobedience of unlawful orders given under color of law is not a crime.

[Maxxthepenguin]

the FISA court(which has existed since '78) was and always will be a rubber-stamp court. But even that was too much work for Bush apparently, and they didn't bother to obtain warrants for the wiretaps. (and how could they? they wanted to wiretap every american citizen regardless of whether they were suspicious or not)

and no, it wasn't illegal for the telecom companies not to comply. it was illegal for the telecom companies *to* comply. it was illegal for the administration to make a request that violated 4th amendment rights. edit: it was illegal for the administration to exclude qwest from a contract-bid for refusing to comply (tantamount to extortion)

we don't live in a fascist state (at least, we're not supposed to) civil disobedience of unlawful orders given under color of law is not a crime.

lol calm down with the hyperbole-ish speaking, let the facts speak for themselves. Given that the government wouldn't be able to crack down on disobedient telecoms, prosecuting them is a good thing. My thoughts are that people who follow an unconstitutional law shouldn't be punished for following it. Since it wasn't a law, it's a different story.

[Amele]

there was no hyperbole in my previous post.

FISA court has rejected a grand total of 9 warrant requests in 28 years. (all 9 were within the last five years, perhaps because the rate of requests has nearly doubled since a decade ago)

and while we don't know the extent of the wiretap requests to the other companies, qwest reported that the NSA was looking to obtain all call records past and future available to the company. (this corroborates statements from AT&T that allude to their handing over the entirety of the Hawkeye database; which contains over 1 trillion call records.) so given the extent of data requested and the number of telecom companies that data was requested from we're looking at something like 70-80% of total telecommunications market share with about 65-75% of it complying. edit: to give you an idea of the scale we're talking about, wikipedia includes reference links to estimates that there were approximately 1.9 trillion calls in the database as of 2006. about 6,000 calls per US citizen.

and the final sentence is entirely correct; in a fascist state color of law is always lawful, whereas in ours it isn't supposed to be. (whether it is or isn't depends on who you to talk to, given some of the current neo-conservative theories about unitary executive and 'president is always right')