Obama also didn't start the wiretapping, he just was President when it was revealed. People are blaming him for his predecessor's decisions, like blacks blaming whites for slavery.
What is Obama doing to stop the wiretapping?
What is he doing to address the problems this country has?
I don't care if he started them, it's his job to get rid of them.
To uphold the constitution.
i understand that, but it also works the other way around.
What are you doing to address the slavery issues, you didn't start it, but you need to provide compensation. I don't disagree with the wiretapping as long as it's within reason, for only the purposes of preventing terrorism. worse is, if there was an attack, but they stated that they could have prevented it, but that would have violated the terrorists privacy.
Privacy is part of what makes America great.
Don't break any major laws, and the government won't bug you.
If we sacrifice privacy than everything about you, how you think, what you want, your dreams and ambitions, will be forfeit.
That simply isn't worth it. No matter what.
It invites a totalitarian government, and if China, North Korea, and the Soviet Union are any indication, those can't be fought.
No amount of what we both know to be a temporary safety is worth becoming what we've been fighting against.
agreed, in a perfect world, but this isn't, there's terrorists, natural catastrophes, wars, famines and diseases. I'm sure that terrorists don't break major laws until the end so they remain under the radar. everything comes at a cost, even freedom.
I prefer the cost of more freedom over the cost of more security.
Even still, we could make more people on both sides happy by monitoring visitors to the country closer than we already do, and by being more aggressive when we take down bad guys/ steal information from Non-US sources.
It would probably also help by netting key phrases and people, rather than stockpiling everything about everyone.
but at that cost, you risk upsetting the global community by sanctioning spying on them only. I know it's a touchy subject, but even if one life is saved, isn't it worth it?
Spying on them is a hell of a lot more productive than spying on us.
And no, a single life doesn't make the nullification of liberty worth it.
The only thing that would make it worth it, is if the number of people willing to sacrifice their freedom, outweighed the number of people who have fought, are fighting, and will fight to preserve liberty.
there's a problem with that, what about home grown terrorists? those born in the US, that turn to extremism, if another government agency, say MI6 or Mosad, was spying on US citizens, does it become acceptable as it's not their own countrymen? Can't expect spy on them, not on us, to work for other countries as well.
Homegrown terrorists will find a way regardless of whatever opposition they face. All they need is a crowd.
Concerning your question about spying, of course other countries are spying on us, same as we are spying on them. It's how we predict what other nations are doing and how we make sure they are/aren't hostile. And those nations are probably spying on their own people too, but in spite of that Europe and Asia aren't really doing any better than the US.
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deleted
· 10 years ago
Hey truther, have you ever been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia?
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deleted
· 10 years ago
I simply don't understand the problem with the government 'wiretapping' the population - surely if you've nothing to hide then you've nothing to fear?
That information is being kept.
If someone wants to go into politics, practice law, or do anything of the sort, than their information is in the hands of people they may or may not work against one day.
If the information isn't used against you, your info, and that of millions of others, is in a single area/ database where it could be stolen by someone with the right capabilities.
.
You don't need to be a bad guy to have secrets, you simply need to want to change something.
.
Knowledge is power.
Knowledge about you, is power over you.
agreed, there will always be those for and against, one's opinion versus another. On a side note, i can't look at this link anymore, says "File not found", anyone else with this issue?
I think people think that the president has more power then he does. Look at congress and the senate. They share just as much to blame for legislature like wiretapping. To be honest, i think shows like "scandal" and "house of cards" are more accurate to how our government does business then we would be comfortable to admit.
You want change in America? Look into how your states representatives conduct themselves and if they really are ethical and good people. Or if they're crooks supporting crooked legislation. And always educate yourselves on both sides of a debate, election, campaign, and vote accordingly.
Let's inject a moment of sanity, okey-doke? Nixon - rat-fuqin;-bastard that he was - ordered wiretapping of thousands, and directed his minions to fix elections.
Obama continued programs that BUSH started to catch terrorists' phone calls. You conservatives don't get it both ways. Full stop.
Unpopular opinion time: I honestly don't care about government wire tapping, it's not like they give a shit about what you're saying unless you're planning a terrorist attack. Plus, this had already been going on for 10+ years, and ordinary citizens haven't suffered at all. It's like having a huge spider dangling above your head, just out of sight. It's not hurting you, and you only get freaked out when you can see it. But it could have been there for hours with out you noticing, and you wouldn't have suffered in the slightest. It's classic American ego to assume that legislation is passed specifically to screw you over.
I don't think laws are passed to screw us over, though some may feel it impinges on their ability to screw one another over. Calling it "Classic American Ego" marks you as an overprivileged asshole.
However, since some ass hat used slavery before, lets use that to illustrate the problem. Assuming you are a white American, slavery never affected you detrimentally. However, it eroded our national character for generations and destroyed lives.
Spying on your own populace says that you do not believe in the system that created the country. It says that you have to sacrifice our privacy for an arbitrary amount of security. I say arbitrary since it is pretty widely known that TSA is a joke, the forevering War on Terror is doomed to failure and that the wiretapping has not saved us. You can argue that you don't have to believe in a country to protect it, but I say: why protect something you don't believe in?
I mean, there's a slight difference between the moral issue in owning a fucking human being as property and the government being able to read your emails...
I wish I could believe that no laws are passed that don't knowingly hurt american citizens.
One example is the whole war on meth. For almost 30 years now, people have been working to pass laws for strict regulation of pseudo-ephedrine and ephedrine. Each time they got close, lobbyists from big-pharma would use their power/money/influence to change the proposed law just enough to render the proposed law useless. (Although some ground has been gained.) Even though the lobbyist know they are perpetuating the problem, (and in fact have lead to Mexican and Colombian meth overwhelming the USA), they have placed the drug companies bottom line above the American people.
He'll, Dick Cheney MADE MONEY off the war in the Middle East. Talk about a conflict of interest.
The problem with wiretapping, is that it's fundentally and morally and ethically wrong. It doesn't matter that I or you have nothing to hide. It's invasive and no one can guarantee that the information gained won't be used against citizens.
In the case of wiretapping the German chancellor, it's such a huge breach if trust and common decency. Imagine if it came out that Putin had been wiretapping USA congressmen. The outrage and response would be huge! But our government thinks it has a right under the excuses of protecting citizens.
Part of the point is that it was hidden. We've already learned in recent years of terrible things the CIA has done to "protect" the USA. It begs the question of what else is going on that we don't know about? At what point do the ends not justify the means? At what point does the USA resemble a rouge bully that does whatever it wants and always finds a way to justify its poor behavior.
I found the different take refreshing You turning from that and getting disgruntled over a bunch of chumps and trolls only makes you smaller. Maybe stop that.
Ok, sounds like somebody needs to learn the actual definition of bigotry. Having an Internet discussion is significantly different from hate speech based on the grounds of religion, race, or sexual orientation.
welllllll. it wasn't him. it was a government organization that's not even under Obama's control, and their practices were started during the Bush administration.
No other way of putting it.
What is he doing to address the problems this country has?
I don't care if he started them, it's his job to get rid of them.
To uphold the constitution.
What are you doing to address the slavery issues, you didn't start it, but you need to provide compensation. I don't disagree with the wiretapping as long as it's within reason, for only the purposes of preventing terrorism. worse is, if there was an attack, but they stated that they could have prevented it, but that would have violated the terrorists privacy.
I don't know what you are trying to say.
Don't break any major laws, and the government won't bug you.
If we sacrifice privacy than everything about you, how you think, what you want, your dreams and ambitions, will be forfeit.
That simply isn't worth it. No matter what.
It invites a totalitarian government, and if China, North Korea, and the Soviet Union are any indication, those can't be fought.
No amount of what we both know to be a temporary safety is worth becoming what we've been fighting against.
Even still, we could make more people on both sides happy by monitoring visitors to the country closer than we already do, and by being more aggressive when we take down bad guys/ steal information from Non-US sources.
It would probably also help by netting key phrases and people, rather than stockpiling everything about everyone.
And no, a single life doesn't make the nullification of liberty worth it.
The only thing that would make it worth it, is if the number of people willing to sacrifice their freedom, outweighed the number of people who have fought, are fighting, and will fight to preserve liberty.
Concerning your question about spying, of course other countries are spying on us, same as we are spying on them. It's how we predict what other nations are doing and how we make sure they are/aren't hostile. And those nations are probably spying on their own people too, but in spite of that Europe and Asia aren't really doing any better than the US.
If someone wants to go into politics, practice law, or do anything of the sort, than their information is in the hands of people they may or may not work against one day.
If the information isn't used against you, your info, and that of millions of others, is in a single area/ database where it could be stolen by someone with the right capabilities.
.
You don't need to be a bad guy to have secrets, you simply need to want to change something.
.
Knowledge is power.
Knowledge about you, is power over you.
Me too.
You want change in America? Look into how your states representatives conduct themselves and if they really are ethical and good people. Or if they're crooks supporting crooked legislation. And always educate yourselves on both sides of a debate, election, campaign, and vote accordingly.
Obama continued programs that BUSH started to catch terrorists' phone calls. You conservatives don't get it both ways. Full stop.
However, since some ass hat used slavery before, lets use that to illustrate the problem. Assuming you are a white American, slavery never affected you detrimentally. However, it eroded our national character for generations and destroyed lives.
Spying on your own populace says that you do not believe in the system that created the country. It says that you have to sacrifice our privacy for an arbitrary amount of security. I say arbitrary since it is pretty widely known that TSA is a joke, the forevering War on Terror is doomed to failure and that the wiretapping has not saved us. You can argue that you don't have to believe in a country to protect it, but I say: why protect something you don't believe in?
One example is the whole war on meth. For almost 30 years now, people have been working to pass laws for strict regulation of pseudo-ephedrine and ephedrine. Each time they got close, lobbyists from big-pharma would use their power/money/influence to change the proposed law just enough to render the proposed law useless. (Although some ground has been gained.) Even though the lobbyist know they are perpetuating the problem, (and in fact have lead to Mexican and Colombian meth overwhelming the USA), they have placed the drug companies bottom line above the American people.
He'll, Dick Cheney MADE MONEY off the war in the Middle East. Talk about a conflict of interest.
In the case of wiretapping the German chancellor, it's such a huge breach if trust and common decency. Imagine if it came out that Putin had been wiretapping USA congressmen. The outrage and response would be huge! But our government thinks it has a right under the excuses of protecting citizens.
Part of the point is that it was hidden. We've already learned in recent years of terrible things the CIA has done to "protect" the USA. It begs the question of what else is going on that we don't know about? At what point do the ends not justify the means? At what point does the USA resemble a rouge bully that does whatever it wants and always finds a way to justify its poor behavior.