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| 2006/1/18-21 [Politics/Domestic/President/Bush] UID:41423 Activity:kinda low |
1/18 Zogby: 52% of Americans agree that Bush should be impeached:
http://www.democrats.com/bush-impeachment-poll-2
\_ How does that jibe with the poll that said "americans don't care
about presidential spying; they think it's making them safer"
\_ urlP
\_ #t
\_ About as well as polls comparing "police should be able to
arrest people" to "police should be able to arrest people
without warrants or PC."
\_ Amusing but not very interesting. Classic push polling. Yawn.
\_ Please elaborate.
\_ "If your spouse was cheating on you, would you be upset?"
"96% of spouses said yes to this question."
"Headline on motd: 96% of spouses are mad dog killers! Beware
of married people!"
\_ President Bush has said that he has wiretapped American
citizens without the approval of a judge. You're barking
up the wrong tree.
\_ What happened was illegal and impeachable if you think
Ohio was stolen in '04. As usual, cooler heads will
prevail. I do admit a small shock that you honestly
think his handlers would put him in front of a mic to
say he had committed an impeachable offense if it was
that simple and obvious. I'm not the one barking. I
find the whole thing silly. His political enemies
have been talking impeachment for years, they bring it
up for each new 'scandal' hoping against hope this is
the one that sticks. Anyway, if you think this is so
horrible, what do you think of Echelon which is/was a
much broader program that it is claimed scooped up data
in mass quantities on everyone not specific people
suspected of treasonous activities or terrorist ties?
Shouldn't Echelon's creation and use have triggered
the impeachment of the last few administrations?
\_ was the use of ECHELON for domestic surveillance
authorized by FISA?
also, pp probably meant to say "President Bush has
not denied that ..."
\_ Complicated question. Echelon technically only
monitors global non-USA communication and
therefore does not require FISA authorization.
However, there are unsubstantiated allegations
that Echelon partner countries can monitor
communications inside the US without FISA
approval. This is technically correct, however
there has been no proof that I know of this has
ever happened. I imagine Echelon would also
pick up communication between US nationals who
are abroad, and I do not know if this would
require FISA approval. I imagine in the
deliberate instance, FISA approval is required.
However, if US-to-US national communication
abroad is captured as part of the general Echelon
monitoring, I assume no prior FISA authorization
would be obtained.
\_ That is a truly amazing bit of intellectual
dodging. So you're not ok with tapping the
NSA tapping specific targets suspected of
terrorism ties after 9/11, but you're ok with
using Echelon or other systems to tap
American citizens in bulk as long as the
tapping is done by a foreign agency who
then hands over the data to us (and we do
the same so they can spy on their citizens)?
Oh-tay! Let's hear it for putting one's
party and political agenda ahead of common
sense and civil rights. IMO, both are wrong,
but Echelon is far worse and no one screamed
about that. IIRC, the NYT was actually doing
op-eds defending Echelon at the time. Sigh.
\_ A lot of people have screamed about it.
The crucial difference being that some
abstract concept of listening stations, no
matter how bad, does not ring the same
alarm bells with Joe Schmo as "wiretaps".
I've noticed a pretty strong rise in the
number of people using PGP/SSL'ing web
pages/whatever since the mid-1990s, that I
wouldn't just ascribe to a general growth
in security & privacy awareness--many whom
I know do so out of principle, to "add
entropy" in one colleague's words. Doesn't
make much difference, but it's a start.
And yes, it's wrong. -John
\_ Who was screaming for impeachment?
\_ Bushco was not wire tapping just people
suspected of terrorism. They were wire
tapping everyone. That is the crucial
difference.
\_ And this is different from Echelon
how exactly?
\_ Echelon spies on non-Americans,
hence non-voters.
\_ Opinion piece from John Schmidt, AAG 1994 to 1997.
"President had legal authority to OK taps"
http://csua.org/u/eoj
indicated in more or less words that ..."
\_ it's 52% think "Congress should consider" impeachment not
"Bush should be impeached", but anyways ...
The key marker here is IF they added the phrase, U.S. citizens
"suspected of terrorist activity", which is what Dubya would say
he did, and then you'd have a much different result.
\_ According to phone company execs, the NSA was basically wiretapping
everyone, not just suspected terrorists, and running a massive
data mining operation on it. When Americans find out that it is
*their* phone calls that have been tapped, they will be pissed.
\_ Again: this is different from Echelon how? Americans already
heard about Echelon and already assumed they were being
tapped. Nothing is going to come from this or any of the
previous 50 "obviously rises to impeachable levels of offense"
scandals coming off the DNC fax machine.
\_ We'll see. You seem to very sure of your reading of the
public's attitude. After massive GOP losses in November,
let's see what Congress does. When it becomes clear that
the NSA was wiretapping the media, Congress, the judiciary
and the Kerry campaign, it might cause an uproar.
\_ I'm very sure of human nature. People are what they are.
One thing the vast bulk of people never do is get overly
upset about anything for more than one news cycle. People
care about their food and gas bills, their rent, who is in
the super bowl this year and how about that rain yesterday,
it was someithng, huh? Elections are local. Incumbents
almost never lose. Nothing massive is going to happen.
Go have a beer and watch the superbowl with everyone else.
\_ Gas bills are way up and the Abramoff scandal could have
some real impact. These things are far more real than
complexities concerning NSA spying. |
| 7/9 |
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| www.democrats.com/bush-impeachment-poll-2 Search Search A Special Bonus For Advertisers For a limited time, when you buy an ad we will also run a bonus ad in our weekly e-mail newsletter to 50,000 subscribers. Premium ads will be featured at the top of our newsletter. org, a grassroots coalition that supports a Congressional investigation of President Bush's decision to invade Iraq in 2003. The poll was conducted by Zogby International, the highly-regarded non-partisan polling company. The poll found that 52% agreed with the statement: "If President Bush wiretapped American citizens without the approval of a judge, do you agree or disagree that Congress should consider holding him accountable through impeachment." "The American people are not buying Bush's outrageous claim that he has the power to wiretap American citizens without a warrant. Rasmussen poll that found 64% believe the NSA "should be allowed to intercept telephone conversations between terrorism suspects." Of course, that is exactly what Congress authorized when it created the FISA courts to issue special expedited secret warrants for terrorism suspects. But Bush defied the FISA law and authorized warrantless wiretaps of Americans, which has outraged Americans to the point that a majority believe Congress should consider Bush's impeachment. "Bush admits he ordered illegal warantless wiretapping, but says it began in response to 9/11 and was limited to a small number of calls to or from Al Qaeda," Fertik said. "The upcoming Senate hearings on White House wiretapping could be as dramatic as the Watergate hearings in 1973. A majority of Americans have already believe Congress should look into grounds for impeachment, yet we have only seen the tip of the iceberg in the Corporate Media. If Bush ordered warrantless wiretapping long before the terrorist attack on 9/11, then Americans will realize that George Bush came into office determined to shred the Constitution and take away our rights," Fertik said. Impeachment Supported by Majorities of Many Groups Responses to the Zogby poll varied by political party affiliation: 66% of Democrats favored impeachment, as did 59% of Independents, and even 23% of Republicans. By ideology, impeachment was supported by Progressives (90%), Libertarians (71%), Liberals (65%), and Moderates (58%), but not by Conservatives (33%) or Very Conservatives (28%). Among African Americans, 75% favored impeachment, as did 56% of Hispanics and 47% of whites. Majorities of Catholics, Jews, and Others favored impeachment, while 44% of Protestants and 38% of Born Again Christians did so. Majorities favored impeachment in every region: the East (54%), South (53%) and West (52%), and Central states (50%). Only 36% supported hearings to consider impeachment, and only 26% supported actual impeachment and removal. Even so, the impeachment debate dominated the news for months, and the Republican Congress impeached Clinton despite overwhelming public opposition. Passion for Impeachment is Major Unreported Story The strong support for impeachment found in this poll is especially surprising because the views of impeachment supporters are entirely absent from the broadcast and print media, and can only be found on the Internet and in street protests. People responded with small donations (on average $27) which quickly added up to over $10,000. After Downing Street has spent a portion of that money on the Ipsos Poll and the two Zogby Polls. org is a rapidly growing coalition of veterans' groups, peace groups, and political activist groups that was created on May 26, 2005, following the publication of the Downing Street Memo in London's Sunday Times on May 1 The coalition is urging Congress to begin a formal investigation into whether President Bush committed impeachable offenses in connection with the Iraq war. The June 2005 Zogby results are from a survey of likely voters. original impeachment question was written by Zogby for their own poll in June 2005. Obviously there are many ways to word polling questions, and wording has an effect on the results. MyDD's Chris Bowers to conduct an in-depth poll on impeachment, which should be completed soon. Personally, I think it's a waste of time to quibble over individual words in a poll for any number of reasons. Pentagon Post poll that purport to show that Americans approve of Bush's admittedly illegal wiretapping are far from conclusive - if not downright wrong - if they fail to make clear that the wiretapping was illegal. series of polls has shown, a solid majority of Americans think Congress should consider impeaching Bush for one reason or another. I don't think we've even measured the full extent of impeachment support; I would love to run a poll that asked about all of the possible reasons - including Iraq, torture, Plamegate, New Orleans, the deficit, and global warming - but we don't have enough money. I hope Chris Bowers will cast a wide net on these questions. Gallup's Frank Newport (and seconded by the PentaPost's Richard Morin) last September: "We will certainly ask Americans about their views on impeaching George W Bush if, and when, there is some discussion of that possibility by congressional leaders, and/or if commentators begin discussing it in the news media. the polls that followed registered 41%, 43%, 40%, 38%, 41%, 43%, and 42%. These new polls are in the exact same range as all of the polls that followed Hurrican Katrina. There could even be some dramatic and devastating testimony from whistleblowers like Russell Tice. These revelations will probably drive Bush's approval ratings down even further, and produce comparable increases in support for impeachment. Any thoughtful assessment of polling must recognize that polls change as facts and events change - and the facts and events of the next few weeks are certain to hurt Bush. The Question's Just Fine Submitted by Dusty on January 15, 2006 - 1:30pm. Note: This post was in response to one I no longer see complaining about the poll's wording. As my other post (about Morin) starkly illustrates, the issue here is that the DC/Euphemedia Analstocracy won't even consider impeachment when it comes to the bushkid. After stampeding to drag (actually elected) President Clinton, and the rational 70% of Americans who stuck with him, into a bogus impeachment over a little nookie; these same people (DC Dems included) insist that thoughts of impeachment for terrorizing the nation into war and/or spying on Fellow Americans in direct contradiction to the FISA Act can only come via a properly fitted tin foil hat. Given that reality exists, shouldn't our so-called "leaders" in DC come to terms with it and at least "consider" some rational degree of accountability? The American People are not being duped by wordplay, they are speaking loud and clear in their sovereign capacity. We can join them or throw our lots in with the neofascists and defy them. Submitted by Real American on January 14, 2006 - 1:15pm. He confessed he did it without a warrant and tried to justify doing so on national TV. The only question on the table is the punishment to make him accountable for intentionally breaking the law. PS I saw George Mitchell on CNN last night with Bill Maher, Drier and Gergen... he let Drier pontificate without challenge how great a president Bush is and did not make any points about the illegal wire taps.... He does not deserve to represent the democratic point of view. Submitted by Real American on January 14, 2006 - 1:18pm. Drier represented on CNN that the GOP has over 60 votes for sure for Alito's confirmation. I request that the DNC cut off all funding for any democratic senator that cannot stick with the party for a fillibuster. Dec 20th of last year Mr Morin granted a rare audience to some chatterers from those internets, also known as Fellow Americans, who were so rude as to ask about what they wanted to know rather that what he wanted to tell them. Where does a newspaper pollster get off being mad about anything? You've now had 3 shots at responding to a simple question and all you've done is demonstrated that you may not have to necessary temperament to be a calm, rational statistician. Dublin, Ireland: I... |
| csua.org/u/eoj -> www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0512210142dec21,0,3553632.story?coll=chi-newsopinioncommentary-hed Editorials President had legal authority to OK taps By John Schmidt Published December 21, 2005 President Bush's post- Sept. The president authorized the NSA program in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks on America. An identifiable group, Al Qaeda, was responsible and believed to be planning future attacks in the United States. Electronic surveillance of communications to or from those who might plausibly be members of or in contact with Al Qaeda was probably the only means of obtaining information about what its members were planning next. No one except the president and the few officials with access to the NSA program can know how valuable such surveillance has been in protecting the nation. In the Supreme Court's 1972 Keith decision holding that the president does not have inherent authority to order wiretapping without warrants to combat domestic threats, the court said explicitly that it was not questioning the president's authority to take such action in response to threats from abroad. Four federal courts of appeal subsequently faced the issue squarely and held that the president has inherent authority to authorize wiretapping for foreign intelligence purposes without judicial warrant. In the most recent judicial statement on the issue, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, composed of three federal appellate court judges, said in 2002 that "All the ... courts to have decided the issue held that the president did have inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence ... We take for granted that the president does have that authority." The passage of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in 1978 did not alter the constitutional situation. That law created the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that can authorize surveillance directed at an "agent of a foreign power," which includes a foreign terrorist group. Thus, Congress put its weight behind the constitutionality of such surveillance in compliance with the law's procedures. But as the 2002 Court of Review noted, if the president has inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches, "FISA could not encroach on the president's constitutional power." Every president since FISA's passage has asserted that he retained inherent power to go beyond the act's terms. Jamie Gorelick testified that "the Department of Justice believes, and the case law supports, that the president has inherent authority to conduct warrantless physical searches for foreign intelligence purposes." FISA contains a provision making it illegal to "engage in electronic surveillance under color of law except as authorized by statute." The term "electronic surveillance" is defined to exclude interception outside the US, as done by the NSA, unless there is interception of a communication "sent by or intended to be received by a particular, known United States person" (a US citizen or permanent resident) and the communication is intercepted by "intentionally targeting that United States person." The cryptic descriptions of the NSA program leave unclear whether it involves targeting of identified US citizens. If the surveillance is based upon other kinds of evidence, it would fall outside what a FISA court could authorize and also outside the act's prohibition on electronic surveillance. The administration has offered the further defense that FISA's reference to surveillance "authorized by statute" is satisfied by congressional passage of the post-Sept. The administration argues that obtaining intelligence is a necessary and expected component of any military or other use of force to prevent enemy action. But even if the NSA activity is "electronic surveillance" and the Sept. It is hard to imagine the Supreme Court second-guessing that presidential judgment. Should we be afraid of this inherent presidential power? If surveillance is used only for the purpose of preventing another Sept. The danger is that surveillance will not be used solely for that narrow and extraordinary purpose. I do not believe the Constitution allows Congress to take away from the president the inherent authority to act in response to a foreign attack. That inherent power is reason to be careful about who we elect as president, but it is authority we have needed in the past and, in the light of history, could well need again. Subscriber Advantage Daywatch The day's top stories e-mailed to you each weekday. The Info Desk Exclusive access to Tribune experts for help with homework or research 365 Day Archive A free archive search of a year's worth of Chicago Tribune stories. The Entertainment Expert Advice for making the most of a special night out. This month's featured offers include: Free 2006 Guide to Chicagoland. Start 2006 off right with a FREE Guide, compliments of Subscriber Advantage. |