NSA phone-records spying is totally, utterly illegal

boing
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People who use the Socratic method usually have a point. Indeed, people usually argue or debate because they have a point.

I’m sorry if you missed my point. I believed it clear enough. Let me, therefore, spell it out for you (I refer the honourable whatever to my initial post).

I am not amazed that “President Obama and other NSA defenders are still arguing that the program is perfectly fine”. Amongst the many reasons why I am not amazed are that President Obama and other NSA defenders have done things which some might regard as having somewhat more enormity than eavesdropping, and that they have done it at a distance, and for reasons which are not under public scrutiny, and which involve deliberate removal of certain individuals’ lifely substances’ (to misquote E L Wisty).

I honestly believe that if you actually answered any of the questions I asked, you would see that there are inconsistencies in your beliefs.

Why would I answer questions which have nothing to do with the point I was making? Unless you’re going to argue that the aforementioned actors have never done anything other than eavesdrop, that they have never done any of that heavier stuff?

And I’m somewhat surprised that you believe my beliefs inconsistent. Largely because I’m not aware of having expressed any. I’m hardly responsible for your inferences about my beliefs.

What gave me the impression you were damning Obama for his drone strikes? Maybe the part where you said that he “remotely executes folk without due process.” That might have something to do with it.

Yes. And?

Why do you infer I’m condemning him for remotely executing folk without due process? Where’d you get that from? Insofar as I’m willing to express my opinion on the matter, I will certainly concede that it’lll be tending towards the ‘I’m not terribly happy about that sort of thing and I’d rather he/they didn’t do it’. Is that ‘damning Obama’? Even if it is (and it’s a pretty wishy-washy hell, maybe domestic oven heat, I’d be condemning him to), it’s only here and now that you’ve finally got it out of me. Your inference - even if true (which it isn’t) - was rather premature.

What am I saying? I mean incredibly, breathtakingly premature.

I have no idea what your point is. Is it that if I quote you and ask that a term you used be defined, I have to use your name, and capitalize your name?

No. It just means you don’t get to pretend that I was the first person to refer directly to the other person in the engagement just because you didn’t happen to use the second person pronoun. If you want to say that your remarks were not directed at me personally though then I’m more than willing to accept your apology. Does that give you an idea of what my point was?

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Jeez, you two, get a room.

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They’ve got you right where they want you, don’t they? They’ve got everything going exactly as they like through the usual political channels, and you’re perfectly happy as long as you get to strut around, rifle on shoulder, and imagine yourself the Sentinel of Liberty.

You imagine a nice simple world where the Bad Guys wear clearly-marked uniforms and come roaring over the hills to be cut down by heroes. Smart tyrants and busybodies don’t want to use wholesale violence. It’s messy and polarizing and unpredictable. They’d much rather work within the system to get what they want, and as long as they can keep their opponents prideful and fragmented and pecking at each other over side issues, they don’t have any problem doing just that.

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Are we still going on with this dudebro bullshit again? And can people change the channel?

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That conclusion is a nightmare, essentially denying that right exists, if you can’t localize what a battelfield is or define exactly where you are at war.

At any rate, civilians should not be killed without some kind of process - at the very least some kind of inquiry after the fact. Obama has been killing them, and in the case of men, condemning them as fair targets because otherwise they wouldn’t have been nearby to be killed.

Whether it formally counts as execution or murder or some other form of butchery is quibbling about terminology, and adds very little here. It’s a horrible violation regardless.

So many people have such an idiotic idea of courage; that it consists of buying tools and leaving them in the shed, in the vague hope that anyone in power would care, rather than taking real risks and striving for a positive change.

America has a much worse record on these rights than many countries without something like that amendment, so if it is supposed to be keeping tyranny at bay, it is a poor second to what they are using.

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If your point was that you are not amazed by Obama’s defence of NSA surveillance, I’m not sure what your ongoing and bizarre focus on the word “you” and the use of capitalised names has to do with anything.

You honestly don’t believe that using the word “executions” doesn’t convey any beliefs? Like, for example, a belief that what he’s doing actually is an execution? No? And that it’s improper to ask to explain why you used that word, and unpack what you meant by it? And do you think that saying someone is doing something “without due process” doesn’t convey a belief, either?

I’m sorry for making the apparently illegitimate logical leap that you didn’t intend to be complimentary when you said that Obama “remotely executes folk without due process.” Because apparently this is a purely neutral statement that no reasonable reader would construe as conveying any sort of judgment.

No. What is your point? That I was wrong to reply to you without using “you” or your name? That I was wrong to infer that when you said he executes people that you meant that the killings are executions? That I was wrong to infer that executions without due process are bad?

When does someone stop being a civilian? Were French resistance fighters civilians? Were Viet Cong guerillas civilians? Do you become a civilian the moment you take your uniform off and stop being a civilian when you put it on? When can they legitimately be targeted?

If you’re expressing concern mainly about collateral damage, historically we’ve been very tolerant of this during wars. Heck, in WWII the US firebombings of Japan and Germany even targeted civilian populations. In my opinion most drone strikes have been undertaken in a way to minimize civilian casualties, but unfortunately they are still fairly indiscriminate if you’re within a certain radius. But there are drone strikes that have not incurred collateral damage: are these strikes still bad, to the extent that civilians are not involved?

I think the terminology matters. Was the killing of Osama bin Laden an execution, or merely some other form of butchery? Did the civilians killed in that compound get due process? Was that operation a terrible thing? Did it deny that the right of due process exists?

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They’ve been doing ok in terms of what gets admitted in the official counts, but then those deliberately omit bystander men. And of course there are all sorts of stories like this. I think your opinion is based on seriously neglecting just how much damage happens, because you’ve decided it’s all just war:

But that’s why expanding war to mean any place the US feels it has a potential enemy, without need for any special declaration, review, or even deployment of troops, means essentially denying the possibility of such rights. For someone nitpicking what we call the different forms of killing people, you’re sure being lax in what you allow as a war and battlefield. If other rights are to depend on them, they’d better not be vague.

And the change here has been more explicit anyway. When they did a drone strike on an American citizen, Obama’s administration didn’t argue he wasn’t entitled to due process, but that an executive decision behind closed doors satisfies that right. I’m sure you see the failure in terminology there.

Edit: and, by the way, here is more terminology for you: the US firebombings of Japan and Germany were never ruled as such, but probably fall under the definition of war crimes. The only possible exception would be if they were justified by the gravest need; holding them up as a model for the present is essentially giving up on rights entirely.

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I’m not saying that drone strikes are great or should be universally accepted or anything. I’m saying that the issues are more complex than simply saying Obama is executing people without due process. And I’m saying that if we accept that some of these killings are acceptable under some sort of quasi-war model, then given our historic understanding of war some collateral damage should be expected. Of course there are many contrary arguments, including that fact that drone surveillance should make it possible to target these individuals when they are alone. [quote=“chenille, post:27, topic:21215”]
But that’s why expanding war to mean any place the US feels it has a potential enemy, without need for any special declaration, review, or even deployment of troops, means essentially denying the possibility of such rights. For someone nitpicking the different forms of killing people, you’re sure being lax in what you allow as a war and battlefield.
[/quote]
I haven’t even addressed when/how a terrorist group and its membership should be considered/designated a valid military target, but I do think you’re right that that is a pretty important consideration. I haven’t said anything about whether the CIA or the military should be running these operations, either, and that’s also another important conversation. Obviously, if we are using a war model, then it makes sense to bring thing under military control; under CIA control the perspective is more in terms of terrorism prevention, which probably involves very different decision-making criteria and rules of engagement.

Obviously there’s going to be a lot of legitimate differences of opinion on these issues, but my main point here was to acknowledge that both sides of the debate have valid points. Going after terrorists doesn’t make you someone who executes without due process, and due process doesn’t require that the government wait until you commit a terrorist attack before arresting you and giving you a civilian trial.

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I don’t think Lemo was assuming a war model, seeing as how that normally applies to very different situations than you see in countries like Yemen; and if you weren’t making that assumption, would you still be quibbling with the use of the word execute or that due process wasn’t provided?

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Whether you see it as a war model or as a prevention model, the same principles largely apply: the US has a legitimate interest in protecting itself from domestic attacks, whether they originate in foreign governments or sub-national organizations such as Al Qaeda. What are a country’s options for legitimately defending itself from these attacks? Do they have to simply wait until they are attacked, and then respond through a formal declaration of war against what is possibly a transnational terrorist group? Are they forced to sit and wait until incursions are made into their territory? If the USSR launched cruise missiles at the US would the US have had to wait until US airspace was breached before responding? Should it be different if it’s a terrorist organization with a dirty bomb? And again, was killing bin Laden (when we’re not at war with Pakistan) an execution without due process? Would it be an execution without due process if a drone strike was employed instead?

As I said in a prior response, the due process standard changes depending on whether the purpose is law enforcement or prevention. The suicidal and the mentally ill can be detained with less due process than the criminally accused. Intelligence surveillance requires less due process than law-enforcement searches.

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Is everyone the US has killed really akin to Osama bin Laden, that you keep looking to him and him alone to determine whether illegitimate executions are happening? What about the examples like in the link I gave? What dire need led to the death of Mammana Bibi; did anyone even have to make sure such a need exists?

Would you please at least consider what bloodshed you country is perpretating before you brush it all away as justified, because countries get to defend themselves, and somehow that now means making pre-emptive strikes against anyone anywhere with no oversight?

Because you know, that’s what a lot of the terrorists have been doing, too; attacking a country they personally decided is a threat. And in that one point they’re right - it’s been running military coups and killing people they know for a long time now. It’s just that to those of us who oppose terrorism, that legitimate interest does not justify their actions.

But I guess that’s the point of insisting on particular terminology; if you can call something by the right words, you can say it’s right without facing what it really means, whether it’s the same as what you condemn in others using different names, or exactly what kind of damage you’re okaying.

Well, I’m not having it; forget whatever stupid words are involved, and look at the real situation. People should have rights to ensure they aren’t arbitrarily killed by those in power based on allegations of possibilities, and if someone won’t even so much as delimit a field of engagement let alone submit to real review or checks on doing that, saying wɔːr or prɪˈvɛnʃən shouldn’t give them a pass on it.

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What do you want me to say? The piece you link to doesn’t say who was targeted, why they were targeted, or what possibly went wrong. And even if everything is as the witnesses say it is, this doesn’t make it an execution. You don’t execute random people. At worst, this was a horrible case of collateral damage from a strike gone wrong, unless you believe innocent civilians were intentionally targeted.

On the other hand, if you agree that the bin Laden killing was justified, or not an execution, you have acknowledged that these sorts of killings and/or drone strikes are not executions per se, and that there may be legitimate reasons to engage in them. As I’ve said multiple times, this doesn’t mean that the drone program is perfect, or that you have to think they’re a good idea in general. It simply means that this is a complex issue with legitimate points on either side of the debate.

[quote=“chenille, post:31, topic:21215”]
Would you please at least consider what bloodshed you country is perpretating before you brush it all away as justified, because countries get to defend themselves, and somehow that now means making pre-emptive strikes against anyone anywhere with no oversight.

Because you know, that’s what a lot of the terrorists have been doing, too; attacking a country they personally decided is a threat.[/quote]
Terrorists do not have military objectives. They do not target military actors. They deliberately target innocent populations in order to sow terror. Even if one somehow believes that preemptive strikes can be leveled against “against anyone anywhere with no oversight,” this is not what the strikes actually do: they target specific actors believed to be terrorists. There may be a lack of transparency, but I don’t think there’s a lack of oversight.

I’m also not a US citizen—not that I think this is particularly relevant—and I’m not aware that my country has perpetuated this bloodshed.

Oh. So I don’t get a pass, but others should get a pass when they say this is nothing more than execution in the absence of due process, without facing what that really means? Because I don’t think you’re really objecting to the terminology, you’re objecting to actually unpacking it and examining the meaning. You want to use emotionally-charged language without having to acknowledge the meaning that gives it that emotional value.

But I would actually be interested in hearing what you think the appropriate response to terrorist groups in Yemen, Pakistan, Mali, or wherever is. Should a certain level of terrorism simply be accepted? Should efforts at combating terrorism simply stop at the border? What sort of government response would you give a pass to? Should bin Laden’s presence in Pakistan have simply been ignored? Or if you agree with the killing of bin Laden, how do you reconcile that with your views that people have rights, that he wasn’t in a demarcated battlefield, and that this appears to have been a strike with no public oversight?

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That is certainly what the strikes are supposed to do. And police are supposed to target specific actors believed to be criminals, but because of how much potential error there is in that, we all agree human rights are only safeguarded if there are reviews and limits on what they can do to them. I have never seen any explanation why this case is different.

In the case of Mammana Bibi, I agree this was an unintended civilian casualty. But I don’t know if that possibility was carefully evaluated, if there was some important target to justify that risk, or if it was all a case of shoot-everything-just-in-case without caring about the people down there. Because there’s no procedure that gives those citizens advocates, I don’t know if their rights ever came up in the decision process.

And no, simply trusting the US executive and military on properly considering such rights has not been a solution in the past. Why are these people less deserving of defense lawyers than domestic criminals?

Fair enough. I remembered your user name, but apparently not who you were; my apologies for the assumption.

Absolutely. English can be used with different levels of precision, so I give people in the “we have to use words just so” camp a lot less latitude than people who are more concerned about what is happening, because the latter may simply be trying to evoke a description without making claims about the precise legal meanings. The cost of being pedantic is being held to a stricter standard.

Absolutely, the level being terrorism that can’t be stopped without greater harm.

I mean, you’re already accepting a certain level of rights violations here, of civilian deaths and people being killed without judicial process, just so long as it’s all externalized to other Yemenis and Pakistanis. In the long run, that approach just makes things worse by encouraging them to push the violence back to you, when what we need is for it to be actually minimized.

And by the way, I don’t agree with the killing of bin Laden in the sense you are using it. I agree that it is something that could have been done in a justified way, that is, they probably could have actually made a case for it and justified it with some appropriate public procedures. I don’t think anyone would have blinked if congress That in no way means that it should serve as a precedent saying those things aren’t important for dealing with people in general.

You’ve been giving a lot of hypotheticals, so let me ask you one: when does a person have a right to a trial? Most people accept that you can neglect them to stop imminent danger, but rarely has that ever included someone simply plotting to do something. Is there a certain magnitude of their accused crimes, or a certain difficulty of capturing them, that negates the need for them to face their accuser and receive an advocate?

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Statesmanship and the political process offer two avenues of oversight, with efficacy being a third. Drone strikes in a sovereign country are likely to be unpopular, and I don’t think the US is winning any friends in Pakistan with them. Yemen, on the other hand, might actually welcome them to a certain extent. But I think the reality is also that these sorts of drone strikes occur because the host governments are either ineffectual or hostile to the US. If the US could get the Pakistani or Yemeni government to apprehend these terrorists in accordance with their laws, this would probably be the preferred option. Pakistanis or Yemenis should also take their own governments to task for their failures. But strikes also encourage anti-American sentiment, and it may also be that fear of fanning this hatred also helps curb the use of drone strikes.

And these people are less deserving of defence lawyers than domestic criminals because they are not criminals and they are not being accused of a crime. These are not executions following trials in absentia. They are preventative in nature. You won’t like the analogy, but it’s like saying a soldier should be represented by a defence lawyer before you’re allowed to kill him in the battlefield. This is not a workable situation, because you kill a soldier and you kill a terrorist not because of what they’ve already done but because of their intent and objective in killing you and/or harming your country.

I would agree with you in a lot of contexts, but not when you’re saying Obama executes people without due process. This is a pretty highly charged statement. I mean, would I get a free pass if I said that someone’s WWII-vet grandfather was a mass murderer who acted as judge, jury and executioner while violating the Constituion? Would that be appropriate, and advance discourse? It would certainly be evocative.

I’m not sure what those would be. Like, have a show trial and try him in absentia? Tell people we know where he is and have them vote on what we should do? Let the people or Congress decide whether we should violate Pakistani sovereignty? I mean, some of this would be counterproductive, while others would attempt to apply criminal justice standards on this preventative/military action and absolutely make a mockery of the criminal justice system. As I’ve said before, capture with host-country cooperation would probably be the preferred approach, but this typically isn’t a viable option in countries where drone strikes are employed.

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With all the might in the world Afghanistan can’t be taken.

There’s been about 1,700 American soldiers killed inside Afghanistan as a result of hostile action so far. On the other hand, on top of the many thousands of insurgents killed, about 20,000 Afghan civilians have been killed thus far.

It would appear that despite their pea-shooters, the Afghans are, by far, getting the worst end of the deal. And, Afghanistan doesn’t have the spying infrastructure we have in the USA. Walk outside with your little peashooter in the USA and smile for the cameras.

You’ll go from fearless insurrectionist to little, pathetic, red smudge on the ground quite quickly (and pathetically).

I’m sure if you had courage you would see things from a mans side of existence.

Let me know when you see one in the mirror, pre-smudge. Also, explain to me what kind of courage you’ve shown, smudge boy? Let’s see, you’ve made an empty threat that somehow your peashooter scares a vast military-industrial complex and nothing more. Is that your idea of courage?

Your kind of red badge of courage just ends quickly as a red smudge on the ground. Your smudge will get pressure washed off the sidewalk and that’s that.

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I don’t like it because it’s a broken analogy, describing someone who has consciously waived that right. A battlefield is a place you can avoid and being a soldier is a vocation you can quit. It may not be easy - but if someone has manage to extract themselves to a situation where they are not in the way of a battle, and has quit, say by waving a white flag? Then they have their right to a trial back.

Anyway, it’s not like you can’t be charged as a criminal based on something you were planning to do. Conspiracy to commit murder. It means the police get to detain you, but they still have to prove their charges in court if they want to do anything further, because they have a right to a trial. What exactly do you think it takes to lose that?

Either of those might be a good start - either apply some part of the procedure for actually creating a situation where you’re actually defining a war zone, or some part of the procedure for a judicial trial. I mean, it’s not ideal with no defendant, but it’s less of a mockery than claiming someone can receive due process without ever holding court at all.

Again, I understand that’s what actually happened with Al-Awlaki; they didn’t argue he didn’t need due process the way you are doing, but rather that due process was satisfied by the executive meeting behind closed doors. Do you have any thoughts on that wording? Because the distinction between that and being able to execute someone without trial is too narrow for me.

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I think that someone who joins al Qaeda waives the right to be treated as a civilian. Those al Qaeda agents who want to waive the white flag and turn themselves over to the other side can still do so, and I’m sure the US would be happy to receive them.

Conspiracy charges would technically be possible, but I don’t think it aligns with the goals of anti-terrorism. The very point of terrorism is to inflict terror. Not to murder a specific person, but to terrorize. Anti-terrorist activities aim to prevent this, and indefinite detention until you are no longer a threat (which may be longer or shorter than a sentence under criminal law) may be the only way to accomplish this. And again, the standards for preventative measures are lower than they are for criminal matters. You don’t have to prove someone is suicidal beyond a reasonable doubt in order to detain them and put the under observation. Do we really want to have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt in a public court of law that an al Qaeda member was part of a specific plot in order to take action against them, even presuming we are able to capture them alive?[quote=“chenille, post:36, topic:21215”]
Either of those might be a good start - either apply some part of the procedure for actually creating a situation where you’re actually defining a war zone, or some part of the procedure for a judicial trial. I mean, it’s not ideal with no defendant, but it’s less of a mockery than claiming someone can receive due process without ever holding court at all.
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I’m not sure I agree with this. Diluting the criminal justice system seems like a bad idea, and I’m not sure why need to define a war zone per se. Surely it should be possible to define an enemy force, and proceed on that basis; I certainly don’t think WWII activities were defined geographically given the constant territorial flux of the Axis powers. As it happens, Congress did authorize military action against al Qaeda, which would seem to partially satisfy your objections.

As for Al-Awlaki, I’m not sure that the procedure behind the decision to target him was substantially different from the procedure for targeting other individuals. At some point the decision has to be made whether they are an imminent threat to the US. Once that decision has been made, they can target that person. His US citizenship certainly complicated the discussion, at least from a political perspective, and motivated higher-level review, but I’m not sure if it really affected the basis for the actual decision to target him.

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The very point of terrorism is to inflict terror. Not to murder a specific person, but to terrorize.

Sounds like American drone attacks to me.

Drones fuelling terrorism, Malala tells Obama

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Don’t know how that video supports what you’re saying, unless you somehow believe that because drone attacks fuel terrorism this is somehow evidence that the attacks are intended to terrorize. In which case—tortured logic aside—Obama should have been very happy to hear Malala say that, because it would mean the strikes are working as intended.

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But now there is no set battlefield you consciously enter and no point where you’re brought before an accuser. There’s just everyday life. So if the US merely thinks someone has joined Al Qaeda, when do they get to protest the error, or learn that they ought to surrender? Are we supposed to just trust that nobody innocent will ever get targeted, which becomes less and less likely as strikes become routine, or not care?