...it's not dark yet, but it's gettin' there...
Now there's a problem with warrantless radiation monitoring? How could anybody possibly object to that?
i give up. i really give up.
Why don't we just propose a new law next year to quiet all the critics? The Unconditional Surrender Act of 2006. It might look like this:
<sarcasm>
AN ACT</sarcasm>To restore the United States of America to the safety of its pre September 11, 2001 status. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
TITLE ISection 101 FINDINGS
Congress makes the following findings:
(a) Life in the United States of America was easier when we didn't realize that there were people out there trying to kill us.
(b) Protecting the citizens of the United States from future terrorist attacks necessarily requires that difficult choices be made.
(c) Certain interest groups, including the news media, are very quick to criticize
anyevery action taken by a Republican president, no matter how sensible such action may be.(d) The elected members of the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America lack the collective guts to do the right thing in the face of media criticism or opposition by various nut-jobs such as Michael Moore or Cindy Sheehan and their ilk.
(e) By returning to a strategy of doing nothing and ignoring its enemies, Congress can invite a future attack on the territory and citizens of the United States of America.
(f) Such a future attack can be blamed on the President of the United States of America, thus allowing the Senate and House of Representatives to escape blame and responsibility therefor, and making it more likely that a change of political party control will occur in the executive and legislative branches of the government of the United States.
Section 102 SENSE OF CONGRESSIt is the sense of Congress that:
(a) People who have nothing to hide, generally do not complain about surveillance as much as those who do.
(b) People who oppose the use of the United States military are generally louder than those who support the United States military.
(c) Critics in the media, academia, and the entertainment industry will be satisfied only when the government of the United States gets out of the way of the people who want to kill us.
TITLE IISection 201 USE OF THE UNITED STATES MILITARY
(a) Effective immediately, all operations by all personnel of the United States Department of Defense shall cease.
(b) All personnel and equipment under the authority and control of the United States Department of Defense, and located outside of the territory of the United States of America, shall be returned to locations within the United States of America as soon as practicable, and in no event later than thirty days from the date of enactment of this law.
(c) Hereafter, the use of any personnel, equipment or assets under the authority and control of the United States Department of Defense shall be limited to either of the following:
(1) The distribution of food, medicine and currency to the heads of state, or their representatives, of the following countries only: Albania, Algeria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Brunei, Chad, Comoros, Côte d'Ivoire, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Egypt, Gambia, Guinea, Indonesia, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Libya, Maldives, Malaysia, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, the Palestinian Authority, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tajikistan, Turkey, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, United Arab Emirates, Yemen. For purposes of this subsection, the phrase "heads of state or their representatives" shall include warlords and/or members of the executive branch of the United Nations General Assembly.(2) The evacuation of American citizens under violent attack or after release from hostage captivity in the above listed countries.
Section 202 FOREIGN POLICY OF THE UNITED STATES(a) Effective immediately, all diplomatic relations between the United States of America and the state of Israel shall be severed and all diplomatic officers withdrawn and returned to their respective states.
(b) The 1949 Recognition of the State of Israel by the United States, is hereby rescinded, revoked and withdrawn.
Section 203 HOMELAND SECURITYEffective immediately,
(a) The United States Department of Customs and Border Protection shall be renamed the United States Department of Welcome and Transit.
(b) Every person located within the United States of America, or within any of its territories or possessions, either now or at any time in the future, who is not already a citizen of the United States, shall be deemed a citizen of the United States with all the rights pertaining thereto. Citizenship conferred to any person under this section shall:
(1) automatically extend to all members of said person's family, whether located within or outside the territory of the United States, and(c) No person travelling on a commercial airliner within the United States of America shall be searched or in any way impeded or delayed from entry into any airport terminal or airplane, unless he or she:(2) shall remain irrevocable in perpetuity, regardless of any criminal acts, including treason.
(1) is over the age of 70 years, or under the age of 10 years, and(d) No interception of any electronic communications by anyone shall ever be conducted upon anyone, ever, for any reason whatsoever.(2) cannot claim ancestry from any of the countries listed in Title II of this Act, Section 201, subsection (c)(1), and
(3) is not carrying any weapon, explosive device or apparatus for remote detonation of an explosive device.
(e) No person shall ever be arrested, investigated, kept under surveillance, watched or glanced at in a sideways manner if that person:
(1) is an immigrant from, can claim ancestry from, or ever spent time in a terrorist training camp in any of the countries listed in Title II of this Act, Section 201, subsection (c)(1),(2) advocates or encourages any act of terrorism against citizens of the United States, or contributes money to any terrorist organization or enemy of the United States.
Section 204 TREATMENT AND INTERROGATION OF PRISONERS(a) No person shall ever be taken prisoner by any member of the United States Military, or any agent of a United States intelligence service, or any officer of any law enforcement agency operating within the United States if such person has committed, planned or conspired to commit a terrorist act, or in any way taken up arms against the military forces of the United States or those of any ally of the United States.
(b) All persons currently in custody for the above listed acts shall be immediately and permanently released, without interrogation, and after a full meal.
(c) All persons so released shall be provided legal counsel, at government expense, for the purpose of pursuing civil recovery for torts committed upon them while in government custody.
i'm still trying to think of an acronymic title for this bill.
Two words: Fucking brilliant
Posted by: Blu on Dec. 23, 2005A name for the bill?
How about: "America Last"? or, "The Contract Against America"? Or, "In God We Distrust"?
Posted by: shelly on Dec. 24, 2005I hope you don't mind that I have forwarded this "bill" to every congress critter(I'm in Missouri, we talk like that!) I could think of!
Posted by: TBinSTL on Dec. 24, 2005If the Democrats ever get in, they will hire you to negotiate the surrender.
Posted by: Jake on Dec. 24, 2005i got one. How about the USA C.O.W.A.R.D. Act?:
Control of Warlike and Republican Disfunctions
Posted by: annika on Dec. 24, 2005Awesome, I'm linking it in my blog...
Posted by: Rob on Dec. 24, 2005Annika, you fascist. I completely object to your proposal to provide Department of Defense personnel for the following activity:
"The evacuation of American citizens under violent attack or after release from hostage captivity in the above listed countries."
We absolutely, positively should NOT send violent military personnel into foreign countries under such pretenses.
You're making the unwarranted assumption that the American citizens in the foreign country were peaceful people. Don't you realize that Americans in foreign countries are often threatening fascists, imposing Christianity and other Zionist movements on foreign nations? And you want to glamorize them by resucing these so-called "poor innocent" people?
The governments of these countries are fully prepared to deal with problems within their own countries, and don't need Big Brother running in on some false pretense. And if the foreign government can't protect the American citizens, then...they were probably doing something bad anyway.
With this one modification, I am fully prepared to support your bill, and hope it can be enacted soon after Kwanzaa.
All praise to Doctor Oba Saint Stanley Tookie Williams,
Ontario Emperor
Annie, that's absolutely inspired! It's great to see you making the most of your brief respite from school!
Posted by: Matt on Dec. 24, 2005How do I get on the list to get one of them there monitors in my neighborhood?
Posted by: Casca on Dec. 24, 2005Casca, that's easy enough.
Get a nuke from someone and store it in your back yard.
Posted by: shelly on Dec. 24, 2005That was excellent! :)
Posted by: Mark on Dec. 25, 2005Maybe you should give up. Nobody in their right mind is particularly concerned about the radiation monitoring. It was most likely dropped by the administration as a distraction.
In your previous post you falsely implied that officers could not conduct electronic tapping without an immediate warrant. This is fasle, they had seevnty hours to get a warrant. They worked under roughly the same system as the DEA and the question is why police agencies were effective in doing this but intelligence agencies unable?
Some reasoning has come out in recent speculations. It may be that the intelligence agencies were sampling huge numbers of messages looking for key words and patterns. These may have included many that were purely domestic.
Obviously judges would be hesitant to warrant such searches. This would be a plausible explanation of why the administration claimed that the article was a violation of security. From a terrorist point of view the knowledge that agencies were listening in as soon as they had a lead with a 99.9% warrant approval rate within 72 hours is little different than knowing they didn't bother to get warrants, but if the terrorists believed we obeyed our own laws and did not engage in this mass sampling and data mining domestically though it was fairly well known we do it internationally then we might find a few things they didn't guard against.
It is my suspicion that the terrorists are conspiracy buffs and do not believe we are much constrained by law. But I don't know.
Personally I think the Bill of Rights is an important element of society, one which distinguishes us from other societies. Therefore I agree with the individuals who wish to study this more closely.
You seem to despise this opinion, I suggest you go to a society where your idea of law and order is practiced. There are many of them.
Posted by: jen on Dec. 26, 2005
You have built a strawman the size of Burning Man. I would suggest that you could address each of the issues in a rational manner, as sarcasm only works on those who already feel the same way you do. The "if you're not with me, you're against me" approach means all or nothing, which is not the way a democracy tends to work, even if the optimum answer is not perfectly achieved.
Totalitarians crave more intelligence and power over individuals and organizations; libertarians strive to achieve greater freedoms, often to the other extreme. Each step towards a 1984 mindset is a step backward from democracy.
However, a solution is needed. One way to reduce the turnaround in court-approved wiretaps would be to set aside a 24/7 judicial capability to provide instant review, tied into a collaboration system.
Posted by: will on Dec. 26, 2005Since there are several active reactors within walking distance of my hooch, I'm certain that my neighborhood IS heavily monitored.
Posted by: Casca on Dec. 26, 2005Jen,
With all due respect, you have not a single clue about this topic. I'd suggest having a look at Powerline for a primer.
In addition, perhaps you could provide just a single example of the type of country that engages in (Annika's) type of "law and order." Do you think these, yet as unnamed countries, review their programs every 45 days and confer with the legislative branch? Do you think that they put a self-imposed limited on their monitoring? And if any these country were trying to keep a program secret and it was leaked to the press, what would happen to the "leakers" and to the media people involved in publishing the report about the secret program?
Posted by: Blu on Dec. 26, 2005im hopelessly confused by jen's comment, and i re-read it a few times before giving up. Here's an idea for next time: Topic Sentences! Try mixing them into each paragraph. It makes things so much easier for the reader.
As for will, it never ceases to amaze me how humorless the left is. "sarcasm only works on those who already feel the same way you do" Yeah, annnnd??? Your point is???
Posted by: annika on Dec. 26, 2005Priceless. I don't jump into political topics too much, I usually let my buddy Rob do the talking. Jen, try spell check. It works wonders on those who have the brain capacity of a 5 year old.
Posted by: Eric on Feb. 23, 2006