ryansutter.net

Reposting my comment (in part) to The Godless Heathen's blog:

I don't think it's as simple as "just vote for the third-party" and we'll magically have a multi-party system. I think it would require a major overhaul in how we elect the president.

If you look at working multi-party systems around the world, you will find some funky voting systems (two-round, runoff, approval). Now, I'm not saying that this isn't the direction we should be heading, I'm just saying that this is what might be required.

Look up "Duverger's Law" for more on how this works.

I'm also not sure that these third-parties would have such integrity if they actually had a shot at winning. Perhaps Nader or Barr, specifically, would hold their positions (Nader for sure. Barr - well, just look at his record.), but as a general rule I don't see why we shouldn't expect three, four, five parties all moving toward the center. Look at the coalitions of India as an example.

Another thing, from my atheist side, I'd be concerned that the religious wackos might possibly hold together stronger than others. In a multi-party system that doesn't employ things like instant runoffs, rankings, etc, you can have a winner that received much less than 50% of the vote. Then it becomes a matter of who can coalesce 20-30% of the voting population...

I see this as "politics as usual" too.

But not on the side of the politicians.

Thanks for digging that one up, Jennifer. That's actually the statement I was looking for when I found the Op/Ed piece I posted earlier.

Another of my blog reads recently posted on the false dichotomy of the two-party system after deciding to vote Nader instead of Obama over this very issue. I don't particularly agree with him on every issue, but I think his message applies here, and it's interesting to see how strongly people are reacting over this issue.

I don't like terms like "flip flopping". It makes it appear that you demand bigotry and intolerance of your preferred candidate, when all you're really trying to say is you think Obama made a wrong compromise.

Have you read Obama's statement on this? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/barack-obama/my-position-on-fisa_b_110789.html That is what makes me the most uncomfortable, as I don't really understand the laws and bills and all that, but a statement I can understand. To me he seems to be saying, "oh, sorry, but I had to pander to the republicans, but don't worry, I'll be liberal once I'm elected." Yeah right. And also, "hey, if you don't like it, too bad buddy, I'm still better than the other guy and your stuck with me now." I don't like his changing tone. He's right, we are stuck with him, he is still better than the other guy. But it seems he is letting us down. He's flip flopping. He's acting like just another politician, instead of who we thought he was. Oh well, in this messed up two party system we only have two choices, and that is what sucks and why he isn't kept in check. I hope he learns something from the backlash.

No offense taken. I'm not asking you to "trust my ability to analyze and interpret" the act. If you are limited in your ability to understand it, then I can understand why you've been reading blogs and grabbing news headlines to help you. I'll step back from this one - no problem.

But just in case want to take another shot at thinking for yourself, here's another original source that may be a little easier to read. The text around page 32 or so gets really plain language-y although I think the whole thing is pretty easy to follow. Might help.

http://www.shopfloor.org/wp-content/uploads/bond-7-08-08-fisa-senate-floor.pdf

If you want, I can list the page and paragraph numbers for the parts you (your sources) seem to be most interested in.

Oh, and you're right - Barr does have it over on Obama (again). Let's just vote for him then, shall we? :P

This isn't a matter of letting somebody else think for me. I have quoted the ACLU stuff because it summarizes the effects that all the analysts I can find say that the bill will have. I can find no analysis of the legislation anywhere that does not reach these conclusions. I am not personally (and I don't believe you are either) well-versed in the law to the point where I can read a bill like this and work out what all of it's repercussions are likely to be. It can look completely innocuous unless you understand the network effects. For example, the article I linked to about a journalist who discusses how he will not be able to convince dissidents in repressive foreign governments to share their stories with him because he will not be able to guarantee them that their communications will not be intercepted by the government, stored and even shared with their own governments. This is a concrete example of a specific effect that this bill will have.

No offense, but I don't trust your ability to analyze and interpret the effects of this bill. Every analysis I've read says that the effects of the bill are retroactive immunity and dragnet surveillance, so I suspect that's the case even if you can't see it in the text. Find me an in-depth analysis by a trained legal scholar that explains that this is all much ado about nothing and I'll happily post it and retract everything I've said.

Here's the deal. Not on this issue (I'm done with it), but with me.

For about 25 years I let other people dictate how to think. I selected a group of guys to determine my morality, ethics, political ideals etc. I listened exclusively to them for everything from what I should eat and what time I should wake up in the morning to where to work and who to have as friends.

Well, it turned out that the guys I selected for this task weren't very trustworthy. Every bit of Science, History, Archeology - you name it - was altered or translated in such a way that I never really saw an original source.

But I'm not mad at the guys. Turns out nearly everyone does this - alters data (whether intentionally or not) to fit their ideas. No, instead of holding a grudge against them, I've decided to take accountability for my own stupidity.

When I read a news article that interests me, that may shape how I think, I carefully scrutinize it. I find other sources covering the same information. I search out the source material and sometimes I go out of my way to find a dissenting opinion (even if the opinion is from someone I'm sure to disagree with).

What I've found is that everyone is susceptible to making mistakes, misunderstanding, or altering information when trying to compress, translate, and opine on some bit of information. It's unavoidable.

And if you think that news sources, scientists, and professionals are somehow above scrutiny, I will remind you of the time you claimed that a person's mind who's experiencing Cognitive Dissonance "literally STOPS THINKING". It wasn't your claim. You heard it on NPR's Science Friday. I also found it in a number of places on the net, from blogs to news agencies. And it was completely incorrect.

So this bit that the ACLU is making a case doesn't mean anything to me. Especially when they use terms like "sweeping and virtually unregulated". There's no hard fact there. It's all written as opinion. "The amended law eviscerates..." Do you know how many sites are using this same exact wording? Who are they all copy/pasting from?

I ask for a single line from the text that supports your position and you give me link after link of what someone else is saying. Are you letting others think for you like I used to?

Sorry, but I just can't sign up for the idea that there's some authority out there who, once they speak, everyone else must bow to their superior abilities and intellect. Everyone is fallible. Everyone needs to be checked and double checked.

Oh, and apparently your boy Bob Barr is a moron who can't read as well:

http://2008central.net/2008/07/05/libertarian-candidate-bob-barr-hits-obama-on-fisa/

Well, how about you let the legal team at the ACLU who have been studying this legislation for months now in on the amazing legal insights of your formidable mind because clearly they're morons who don't understand how to read.

A law can say things that make it sound like "oh yeah, only the bad guys are targeted here, really" while simultaneously weakening enforcement or oversight. This creates a real-world situation in which there is no way to do anything to curtail abuses. This bill basically puts the U.S. intelligence apparatus on the honor system where domestic spying is concerned. That's the fundamental problem with this law and why the ACLU is suing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority

It may be possible that my mind is finer.

The person being targeted has to be outside the US. Show me the text that says otherwise. It's stated so many times and in so many ways it's ridiculous. There's even a bit that says that you aren't allowed to go after someone outside the US if your true objective is to use them as an excuse for getting info on someone in the US.

Court certification is required - another thing very clearly stated. There is a provision that under circumstances where timing is critical, the certification may be obtained after the fact, but it is still required. Keep in mind, this stuff in question is only dealing with electronic communications. These are special provisions made specifically for the uniqueness of electronic communication.

And one more from the PDF of the ACLU's legal challenge to the FISA law:

As amended, FISA allows the executive branch sweeping and virtually unregulated authority to monitor the international communications - and in some cases the purely domestic communications - of law-abiding U.S. citizens and residents.

...and...

The amended law (the "challenged law") eviscerates the "[c]lear legal standards and effective oversight and controls" that the Senate Church Committee concluded in 1978 were necessary to ensure that government surveillance did "not itself undermine the democratic system it [was] intended to protect."

So, finer legal minds than mine or yours have read this law and concluded that this is, indeed, a big damn deal.

Just for a refresher, ladies and gentlemen, the late, great, Fourth Amendment:

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

You person, your house, your papers, your effects used to be yours. They could not be searched or taken from you without reason. The government needed to have probable cause to search you or your effects. These days they can confiscate your laptop at the airport, subject you to searches, scan your email and wiretap your phone, all perfectly legally, but quite unconstitutionally.

Yeah, I saw that too, but what difference does it make if the bill pays lip service to the fourth amendment while removing court oversight of who is being wiretapped? This system is already being abused and now they've opened the door to even further abuse with less oversight. Saying that a program that is inherently inconsistent with the fourth amendment "shall be conducted in a manner consistent with the fourth amendment" is pretty laughable.

I'll have to contact them and ask for their copy as well. Mine says:

"SEC. 702. PROCEDURES FOR TARGETING CERTAIN PERSONS OUTSIDE THE UNITED STATES OTHER THAN UNITED STATES PERSONS.

‘(b) Limitations- An acquisition authorized under subsection (a)--

‘(5) shall be conducted in a manner consistent with the fourth amendment to the Constitution of the United States."

According to the ACLU, the bill:

<ol>
<li>"nearly eviscerates oversight of government surveillance by allowing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) to review only general procedures for spying rather than individual warrants. The FISC will not be told any specifics about who will actually be wiretapped, thereby undercutting any meaningful role for the court and violating the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable search and seizure."</li>
<li>"trivializes court review by authorizing the government to continue a surveillance program even after the government’s general spying procedures are found insufficient or unconstitutional by the FISC. The government has the authority to wiretap through the entire appeals process, and then keep and use whatever information was gathered in the meantime."</li>
<li>"grants absolute retroactive immunity to telecommunication companies that facilitated the president’s warrantless wiretapping program over the last seven years by ensuring the dismissal of court cases pending against those companies"</li>
<li>"what [Americans] say on international phone calls or emails is no longer private. The government can listen in without having a specific reason to do so"</li>
</ol>

This bill legalizes dragnet government surveillance of the electronic communications of American citizens, while weakening judicial oversight of the process. That is precisely what I would call "de facto endorsement and establishment of a legalized surveillance state in which no electronic communications are private from the government". Admittedly this currently only applies to international communications, but now that the precedent has been established, if it stands, it will eventually entail all communications, domestic or international. I never said this bill said anything about the rest of the developing police state.

Are you referring to H.R. 6304? Is that what it says? Funny, my copy doesn't read like that at all.

http://www.opencongress.org/bill/110-h6304/text

Obama not only voted for the bill, he voted for cloture on the bill. It is not technically possible to get further from a filibuster than to vote for cloture and the bill itself.

This bill expands the powers to wiretap, makes what was previously illegal legal, removes the end date for these powers, and magically retroactively grants immunity to lawbreakers. This bill is a de facto endorsement and establishment of a legalized surveillance state in which no electronic communications are private from the government. This is the bill that George Bush has been dreaming of to get himself off the hook for his wiretapping felonies. Where is the outrage? The Constitution no longer matters at all to the Republicans or the Democrats, we live under the governments constant 24-hour surveillance even if we do nothing, laws that are broken by companies can be unbroken by giving campaign contributions and lobbying, and everybody says, "meh. we need to give up our liberties to stop those terrorists."

This is how fascist police states start. The airports already feel like that. REAL ID, legal unwarranted electronic surveillance, DHS, TSA... At some point this erosion has to stop or there will be nothing left to erode and this was a major deal. Obama voted for it. He could have withheld his vote. He could have filibustered and protected our privacy. He voted for it. He fucking voted for it.

He's no fascist, but remember, he can only serve two terms max. These laws, this infrastructure, these precedents, will outlast his term. When the Republicans get another Bush/Cheney in power they'll be even more well equipped to rape this country. Unless these things are repealed, unless our constitutional government is restored, you won't be able to travel from state to state without showing papers, people will be detained without charges indefinitely or "disappeared", everything you say and do will be potentially cause for detention or persecution, this is happening in Britain, it happened in Nazi Germany, it has happened over and over and over whenever these kinds of laws are enacted. Why would this country be any different? We're not magic. We're not special. If we strip people of their rights and privacy and disrupt the balance of power within the government, we will fall just like every other government that has made these mistakes.

http://obama.senate.gov/votes/

Jen, I was looking through all the news stories on this for something I considered "source"-worthy, and found this Op-Ed piece, which happens to offer my very opinion of this whole situation:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/10/opinion/10collins.html

Sources?