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#2852 Apr 21 2017 at 11:27 AM Rating: Excellent
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I've heard suggestions that he wants to run for governor and doesn't want to be tied to this shitshow.
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#2853 Apr 24 2017 at 7:38 AM Rating: Decent
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Border states don't want it, Mexico won't pay for it, no one here wants to pay for it, and now there's a 50/50 chance it'll shut down the government next week.
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#2854 Apr 24 2017 at 9:55 AM Rating: Excellent
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That's a shame. Was waiting to hear more justification of why we need a giant wall built through the desert in the middle of nowhere. Those stories are always excellent.

Smiley: popcorn
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#2855 Apr 24 2017 at 10:04 AM Rating: Excellent
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From what I read in passing last week, not a single House rep whose district would house the wall supports its construction.
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#2856 Apr 24 2017 at 4:05 PM Rating: Good
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Gosh, it's almost like the whole thing was a stupid idea.
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#2857 Apr 24 2017 at 7:22 PM Rating: Decent
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someproteinguy wrote:
gbaji wrote:
Not sure if you're being tongue in cheek, but are you saying that it's perfectly ok and normal for our intelligence services to spy on a presidential candidate and team, you know, just to make sure they aren't bad people or something? By that reasoning, shouldn't Clinton and her team *also* have been spied on?
Yes I'd consider that normal, and yes I'd assume Clinton likely has been given the same treatment at some point too, along with many relatives and any notable social contacts. It's basic risk assessment. You need to know who they're talking to and who are the concerns if information is inadvertently leaked.


I disagree. The determination of who is elected president is a purely political decision. The last thing a democracy needs is a secret cabal of intelligence officers gathering information on potential leaders and choosing which ones meet their criteria. That's a recipe for abuse. Which is why it's not allowed in a free society.

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You can't really turn someone away from the presidential office because they're a security risk, the best you can hope for is to at least be aware of where problems might occur, and where that information may end up going if it does get out.


So you can't actually use whatever information you gather in any sort of legal manner, but you can "be aware of where problems might occur"? What does that even mean? And who would be the arbiter of this knowledge and when/where/how to use it? I'm having a hard time seeing a distinction between this and "collecting information for later political uses". Which is what I've been saying was the motivation for this all along. The fact that we've already seen a leak of this data used to crash one member of Trump's cabinet's career, I think it's fair to say that purpose was exactly why the data was collected, and exactly why Rice has the names unmasked.

What other use could there be for collecting and preserving data about the Trump transition team? You can't actually use it legally, right? I mean, Trump's going to be president at that point, and he'll be the boss of the intelligence services at that point. The only value to doing this is to grab up what you can and then move it (leak it) outside the range of control of the guy who's going to be taking power in a few months. And that's very very very illegal. Not to mention extremely problematic from a political power perspective.

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If you're asking why this isn't an issue with the Clintons this year, I'd point out they've been around for a long time and are likely a pretty well understood problem at this point, and are probably more used to working with the intelligence community too. Whereas Trump is fresh on the scene and more of an unknown. Add in that he has a large number of social contacts and family members that are foreign nationals and I'm sure he kept the intelligence community very busy in the run-up to the election. A wire tap at some point being part of that doesn't seem at all far fetched.


It's completely far fetched. And, as far as I know, completely unheard of. Let me remind you that the entire motivation behind Watergate was a desire for the sitting president's campaign to learn information (dirt) about the other party during a presidential election. How does that differ from what you're talking about here? At the risk of repeating myself, this is actually worse, since actual official national security resources were used (abused?) to do the spying, while in Watergate the collection itself was done by off books operatives. There was illegal breaking and entering going on, but not actual abuse of government resources. I'd argue the latter is far far worse, and much more concerning. We all know that hiring a couple of off duty spies to break into someone's office and steal some files is illegal from the start. But if we accept the idea of using our official spying apparatus to do what amounts to the same thing? That's a huge problem.

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I'm under the assumption that the intelligence agencies would keep the President up to date on matters related to national security, yes. Pretty sure that's in the job description. The idea they'd want the president to give his blessing on a plan to wire tap someone as important as a Presidential candidate from a major party also seems pretty prudent; basic CYA if you will.


Who's the "they" in that paragraph though? You're acting as though our intelligence services, in the course of their normal operations, came across suspicious conversations between members of the Trump campaign and/or transition team, flagged it, and the passed it up to the White House (presumably out of concern for doing exactly what I just talked about and being aware of how problematic that might be), and Obama's folks, out of some sense of sheer duty to country, reluctantly agreed to let them follow up on the investigation. That's not how it happened. The "they" in this case, seems to be the Obama White House. Specifically Susan Rice (although we don't know if she was the only one). While we do know that there was one case of one guy semi-connected to the Trump campaign who was flagged for conversations by UK intelligence services like a year and a half before the election (as in, back in like 2014 I think), that fact was completely ignored by the White House until much later. And as far as we know, there was no follow up on the original collections (except as political fodder after the fact ).

It was only after Trump became the leader in the GOP primary that suddenly there appeared a huge interest in spying on his campaign. And then, after he won the election, that spying continued against his transition team. That is pretty transparently political. This wasn't folks in the NSA coming to the President with concerns about Trump and his people. This was the Democrats needed to find some dirt to attack Trump with, and Obama providing the means to obtain it by opening up whatever incidental intelligence had been obtained along the way for potential future political use.

And yeah, that's problematic. It's not something that's ever happened before. Of it is was, it was done so secretly that no one knew about it (which seems unlikely, given that for the dirt to work, it has to be "leaked" from an otherwise legitimate intelligence source, and that's never happened in a situation like this before).

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Don't think collusion with Russia by Trump himself is even the concern, but there's enough people around him that have ties to other countries, including Russia, that they're going to want to know what those people know. In this case I'd wager the wire taps likely weren't even about Trump, but given Trump Tower is where many contacts were happening, it'd make sense to have eyes and ears there.


Again though, and wrapping this back to the beginning, it's not their job to do this. It really isn't. It's the political process that handles this. In every election, there is dirt that gets flung around. Speculations are made. Tons of them. It's all left in the political arena though. People make claims. Other people counter those claims. Somewhere in that mess, voters make a decision and vote. It's kinda messy, but that's democracy for ya (Ok, a republic, but whatever).

Have you ever, in your life, heard of our intelligence services being used to essentially check to see if some rumor about a candidate is true? Ever? Did Bush order the CIA and NSA to look into the speculation that Obama might be a secret Muslim plotting to destroy the US from within? No. And if he had, it's pretty certain we'd have learned about it (on the front page of the NYT in all likelihood). Those sorts of allegations are left to the political arena. Some are given weight, some aren't.

And yes, even if the concern was some of the people working with Trump, that's his job to deal with. He gets to decide who his advisers and staff and cabinet will be. And for the appointed positions, the US senate has this whole confirmation process they go through as well. That's how these decisions are made. We don't make them by having the outgoing president point his intelligence services as the incoming one, and try to find stuff that can be used against that incoming guy's people.

It's not his job to do this. It wasn't his job during the campaign. It definitely wasn't his job during the transition. That's what a transition is about.

I'll point out again that even if Trump was personally caught talking to Putin about plans to do <whatever> that's not illegal. It's policy. He's elected president. He gets to have those conversations, and his people are part of that as well. We can't have a secret political police spying on our leaders and making sure they're only talking to the people they want them to, and only saying the things they want them to say. Because then we don't have a democracy anymore. We'd have a cabal of folks running everything and just using the political figures as puppets for public display and legitimacy.

And I hope we all don't want that. Right?

Edited, Apr 24th 2017 6:55pm by gbaji
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#2858 Apr 24 2017 at 7:39 PM Rating: Decent
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Jophiel wrote:

From what I read in passing last week, not a single House rep whose district would house the wall supports its construction.


If you read in more than just passing, you'd have learned that 6 out of the 9 House districts on the border are represented by Democrats, who (shocker) all oppose the wall, as do the 4 out of 8 Senators of the states involved. The 3 GOP House Reps don't so much oppose the building of a wall, as they think that it wont be enough by itself and are asking for more border security and enforcement. The same sentiment is echoed to varying degrees by the 4 GOP Senators as well.

It's a statement that is technically true, and I'm sure makes for a great sound bite, but doesn't really mean what is implied.


And frankly, I'm in agreement with those GOP members. I've said for years that if you're going to build up a wall (which btw, can mean more than just a physical structure, but includes any measure designed to stop and catch people trying to cross the border illegally), you also need to put in place immigration reforms, specifically to our visa programs, so as to adjust to the legitimate need for border crossing. And yes, you also need to put in place better enforcement for dealing with those who slip past that first line (and, I suppose, those who cross legally and then overstay their visas). Also, the folks on the border are screaming for help dealing with existing Mexican cartels and quite correctly don't believe that just building a physical wall will do anything about that problem.

But yeah, Trump is going for a lowest common denominator "solution". I get it from a political perspective, but I totally don't see this as anything close to a complete immigration policy. Kinda what you get when you elect a populist though.
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#2859 Apr 24 2017 at 7:52 PM Rating: Decent
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Kuwoobie wrote:
Gosh, it's almost like the whole thing was a stupid idea.


It's not a stupid idea. In the same way that having walls and a locked door on your house isn't a stupid idea. It's just not sufficient by itself in an environment where there are a large number of people who really really want to get in and are willing to break through, over and under said protections to do so.

Sadly. And I really mean this, it's actually easier to just run on "build a wall", and probably easier to win that issue, than to tackle the much more complex and politically charged issue of immigration reform and visa changes which are really the bigger issue that needs to be solved. I'll put on my conservative hat (which looks suspiciously like Smiley: tinfoilhat in this case), and suggest that Dems are actually less opposed to the idea of just building a big border wall than to actual immigration reform. The latter might actually solve many of our problems, and they'd lose a victim class to use for political gain for themselves. On the flip side, mere talk about a wall can be used as political fodder, and the building of a wall itself promotes wonderful imagery that can be used for political purposes (Dems just love their victims).

So we get a freaking wall. Because for one side, it's the only thing they can actually get done to satisfy their base, and for the other, it's the only thing they'll allow to keep their base. And for everyone else, it's the one thing that both sides can jump on and be super emotional about. Which, sadly, is what drives far too much of our politics these days.

Edited, Apr 24th 2017 6:59pm by gbaji
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#2860 Apr 24 2017 at 8:35 PM Rating: Good
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gbaji wrote:
Kuwoobie wrote:
Gosh, it's almost like the whole thing was a stupid idea.


It's not a stupid idea. In the same way that having walls and a locked door on your house isn't a stupid idea. It's just not sufficient by itself in an environment where there are a large number of people who really really want to get in and are willing to break through, over and under said protections to do so.


I just... I can't even. I can't. Someone else.
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#2861 Apr 24 2017 at 8:40 PM Rating: Decent
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Kuwoobie wrote:
gbaji wrote:
Kuwoobie wrote:
Gosh, it's almost like the whole thing was a stupid idea.


It's not a stupid idea. In the same way that having walls and a locked door on your house isn't a stupid idea. It's just not sufficient by itself in an environment where there are a large number of people who really really want to get in and are willing to break through, over and under said protections to do so.


I just... I can't even. I can't. Someone else.


That's a nearly textbook example of an emotional response. Now try using logic and reason. Let's start with the basic starting position that a nation has the right, and arguably even the requirement, to control who enters its borders and go from there (or if you don't agree with that, explain how on earth that's ever going to work).

Just sputtering loudly isn't terribly convincing.
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#2862 Apr 24 2017 at 9:01 PM Rating: Good
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Except you already admitted that it won't work. It won't work. It is not practical or useful in any way, shape or form. I don't care what its intentions are. It is a waste of time and resources and should not even be a topic of discussion. It is the kind of thing that literally comes right out of a ******* Saturday morning cartoon.
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#2863 Apr 24 2017 at 11:11 PM Rating: Excellent
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Are we back to Gbaji pretending that the Democrats aren't the one group that actually put forth and passed a comprehensive immigration reform bill in the past, I dunno, couple decades? That's nice.
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#2864 Apr 25 2017 at 12:30 AM Rating: Good
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gbaji wrote:
There was illegal breaking and entering going on, but not actual abuse of government resources.


wiki wrote:
Nixon and his close aides also ordered investigations of activist groups and political figures, using the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

The scandal led to the discovery of multiple abuses of power by the Nixon administration, an impeachment process against the president that led to articles of impeachment,[2] and the resignation of Nixon. The scandal also resulted in the indictment of 69 people, with trials or pleas resulting in 48 being found guilty, many of whom were Nixon's top administration officials.


I must say, when you're wrong...you go all out.




inb4 "I just meant the burglars!!!!"
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#2865 Apr 25 2017 at 8:13 AM Rating: Good
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Jophiel wrote:
Are we back to Gbaji pretending
How can we be back to something that never ended?
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#2866 Apr 25 2017 at 8:33 AM Rating: Excellent
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gbaji wrote:
Let me remind you that the entire motivation behind Watergate was a desire for the sitting president's campaign to learn information (dirt) about the other party during a presidential election. How does that differ from what you're talking about here?

Because monitoring possible foreign interference in our elections is more than "dirt". It's bizarre that you'd need that explained.
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#2867 Apr 25 2017 at 10:03 AM Rating: Excellent
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gbaji wrote:
someproteinguy wrote:
gbaji wrote:
Not sure if you're being tongue in cheek, but are you saying that it's perfectly ok and normal for our intelligence services to spy on a presidential candidate and team, you know, just to make sure they aren't bad people or something? By that reasoning, shouldn't Clinton and her team *also* have been spied on?
Yes I'd consider that normal, and yes I'd assume Clinton likely has been given the same treatment at some point too, along with many relatives and any notable social contacts. It's basic risk assessment. You need to know who they're talking to and who are the concerns if information is inadvertently leaked.


I disagree. The determination of who is elected president is a purely political decision. The last thing a democracy needs is a secret cabal of intelligence officers gathering information on potential leaders and choosing which ones meet their criteria. That's a recipe for abuse. Which is why it's not allowed in a free society.
Um I didn't say they chose leaders that met criteria. In fact I specifically said the opposite, that the intelligence services don't get to choose the leaders (well at least any more than anyone else with a single vote Smiley: rolleyes), so the smart thing to do is risk assessment instead.

gbaji wrote:
So you can't actually use whatever information you gather in any sort of legal manner, but you can "be aware of where problems might occur"? What does that even mean? And who would be the arbiter of this knowledge and when/where/how to use it? I'm having a hard time seeing a distinction between this and "collecting information for later political uses".
Nobody is going to sit here and say it's impossible for information to be misused, but surprisingly there are legitimate uses for intelligence outside of political means. It's hardly the height of the cold war, but countries still routinely spy on each other, and you still have to protect sensitive information.

gbaji wrote:
What other use could there be for collecting and preserving data about the Trump transition team? You can't actually use it legally, right?
What do you mean by "use it legally?" There's usually a fairly large margin for acting in the interest of national security. Hence the reason Trump's immigration restrictions actually have a chance in court, once they get past the hurdle of justifying the harm to the states against the potential national security threats.

gbaji wrote:
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If you're asking why this isn't an issue with the Clintons this year, I'd point out they've been around for a long time and are likely a pretty well understood problem at this point, and are probably more used to working with the intelligence community too. Whereas Trump is fresh on the scene and more of an unknown. Add in that he has a large number of social contacts and family members that are foreign nationals and I'm sure he kept the intelligence community very busy in the run-up to the election. A wire tap at some point being part of that doesn't seem at all far fetched.
It's completely far fetched. And, as far as I know, completely unheard of.
Um, if you are a person with access to top secret information you are followed closely. Information is collected on you, along with notable social contacts and family, any social contacts have to be reported, etc. Stuff like that is part of what makes incidents like Snowden such a rare occurrence. Why would the president and his family be considered an exception this? Maybe there's some argument for executive privilege? Can't imagine that gets you entirely off the hook...

gbaji wrote:
It was only after Trump became the leader in the GOP primary that suddenly there appeared a huge interest in spying on his campaign. And then, after he won the election, that spying continued against his transition team.
So he only became of heightened interest to intelligence personnel when it appeared he might be granted access to classified information? Wow, color me surprised.

gbaji wrote:
Again though, and wrapping this back to the beginning, it's not their job to do this. It really isn't.
Since when is counter-espionage not part of the job description of our intelligence services? Smiley: dubious

gbaji wrote:
I'll point out again that even if Trump was personally caught talking to Putin about plans to do <whatever> that's not illegal.
Um, yes it is, or potentially is at least. Not once he becomes President of course, but normal citizens are not allowed to do diplomacy on behalf of the United States.

gbaji wrote:
We can't have a secret political police spying on our leaders and making sure they're only talking to the people they want them to, and only saying the things they want them to say. Because then we don't have a democracy anymore.
Believe it or not there's people that have loyalty to the country itself and not to the various smaller subsets of the population that go on bickering about abortions and taxes and racism and such.

gbaji wrote:
We'd have a cabal of folks running everything and just using the political figures as puppets for public display and legitimacy.
When's the last time the people got to have an election that had two candidates focusing primarily on matters of national security and not superficial domestic fluff? Smiley: tinfoilhat

Smiley: rolleyes

Edited, Apr 25th 2017 10:23am by someproteinguy
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#2868 Apr 25 2017 at 1:58 PM Rating: Excellent
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And it is officially dead now it seems.

Maybe later we'll get to see how amazing and beautiful an enormous pile of concrete can be, but not this fiscal year.
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#2869 Apr 26 2017 at 7:47 AM Rating: Good
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someproteinguy wrote:
And it's officially dead now it seems
Nothing can stop The Wall!

San Francisco judge ruled against and halted the implementation of an executive order targeting "sanctuary" cities. In turn, 45 blamed the wrong people for it on Twitter.
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#2870 Apr 26 2017 at 8:42 AM Rating: Excellent
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I mean that's what Twitter is for right? I'll give him the benefit of a doubt and assume he's just trying to fit in with all the cool kids. Peer pressure gets the best of everyone sometimes.
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#2871 Apr 26 2017 at 6:15 PM Rating: Decent
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Jophiel wrote:
gbaji wrote:
Let me remind you that the entire motivation behind Watergate was a desire for the sitting president's campaign to learn information (dirt) about the other party during a presidential election. How does that differ from what you're talking about here?

Because monitoring possible foreign interference in our elections is more than "dirt". It's bizarre that you'd need that explained.


What's bizarre is that you actually buy that as anything other than a flimsy excuse for them to target collected conversations of Trump campaign and transition folks and then... wait for it... look for dirt.

At the risk of repeating myself (so many times!), the whole point of FISA (and the need for it) was to prevent the government from using "national defense" as an excuse to spy on their political enemies or for personal gain, or frankly whatever abusive purposes one might desire. It was passed in direct response to Nixon's abuse of government surveillance. Your willingness to just accept that if they say it was for national defense it must mean that it really was is kinda frightening.

And yeah, I'll repeat this again. If the parties involved were reversed, and it was a Republican president spying on the campaign and then transition team of a Democratic presidential candidate (and then president-elect) there's no way in hell you'd be defending the administration's actions. Period. And you'd never in a million years accept the claim that it was done for national defense, or to prevent foreign tampering with the election, or frankly any other excuse. You'd see them for exactly what they would be: Excuses to spy on the other party and attempt to use whatever you find for political advantage.
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#2872 Apr 26 2017 at 6:38 PM Rating: Excellent
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gbaji wrote:
What's bizarre is that you actually buy that as anything other than a flimsy excuse for them to target collected conversations of Trump campaign and transition folks and then... wait for it... look for dirt

Your ham-handed Appeal to Emotion is noted but strangely I'm not convinced to buy into conspiracy theories just because the foil-hatted guy says "You're believing the lies, man!"

Oh, my! And a "You know if it was reversed you'd...!!!!!!!" as well? Why, this must be my lucky day if I was collecting pathetic arguing tactics.
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#2873 Apr 26 2017 at 6:40 PM Rating: Excellent
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Speaking of "You know if it was reversed...", North Carolina DA declines to prosecute woman who admits to vote fraud, saying that her illegally casting a ballot for Trump in her mother's name was her mother's dying wish.

Edited, Apr 26th 2017 7:41pm by Jophiel
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#2874 Apr 26 2017 at 9:32 PM Rating: Good
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Wah wah trump got spied on by intelligence apparatus, but why are you mad that you are being spied on? Do you have something to hide?
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#2875 Apr 26 2017 at 9:36 PM Rating: Decent
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someproteinguy wrote:
Um I didn't say they chose leaders that met criteria. In fact I specifically said the opposite, that the intelligence services don't get to choose the leaders (well at least any more than anyone else with a single vote Smiley: rolleyes), so the smart thing to do is risk assessment instead.


No. The correct thing is for our intelligence services to stay the heck out of our political processes. The potential for abuse is so massive that it's best to just not go there. And I think you're being naive if you think this was applied equally and that Clinton was also surveilled as some kind of SOP by our intelligence services. Let's not forget that she was under active investigation by the FBI for that whole private email server thing, and I'm reasonably certain that they still did not obtain a FISA warrant and engage in surveillance of her or anyone on her team.

Don't you think we'd have known about it if she was? Remember the immediate response by everyone in the media when Trump claimed that he was spied upon? It was laughed at as a completely ridiculous thing that would simply never be done. Sheer tinfoil hat territory to think that our government would do that. And now you're trying to suggest that it's normal and reasonable? That's an amazing turn around. it's not normal. It's not reasonable. It's the kind of thing that authoritarian regimes do to keep in power and to prevent their political enemies from taking that power. The suggestion that Trump was surveilled by our intelligence agencies during his campaign and transition was laughed away as fringe conspiracy theory precisely because the default assumption is that our government doesn't do that kind of thing.

Quote:
Nobody is going to sit here and say it's impossible for information to be misused, but surprisingly there are legitimate uses for intelligence outside of political means. It's hardly the height of the cold war, but countries still routinely spy on each other, and you still have to protect sensitive information.


Yes, there are legitimate uses for intelligence outside of political purposes. Um... But spying on a candidate for presidents team is not one of them. It's impossible for that *not* to be political. Even if the motivations by those doing it are pure and whatnot, the impact of anything you find is going to be political in nature, right?

I'll ask again: What was the purpose of the spying? What did those doing it hope to find, or think they would find? Is there any answer to that question that doesn't include some negative ramifications for said candidate's political future? So Trump was such a national security threat that he was not surveilled until he became the frontrunner GOP candidate for president? His supposed secret deals with Russia were not a problem, but now were? Why? The only answer is political.


Quote:
What do you mean by "use it legally?" There's usually a fairly large margin for acting in the interest of national security. Hence the reason Trump's immigration restrictions actually have a chance in court, once they get past the hurdle of justifying the harm to the states against the potential national security threats.


I mean exactly that. What could they have legally done? The man won the election. He was the president elect at the time in question (during the transition). I've asked this question several times and no one has yet answered it. What could he or anyone on his team have actually said during the transition to the Russians that would constitute an illegal act? Barring handing over like secret access codes or something, I can't think of anything. Certainly, any discussions at that point become policy discussions, not treason. As I mentioned earlier, Trump could call Putin up directly and discuss selling Alaska back and that's not treason, and it's not illegal. He's the president-elect.

There is no national security interest because the president determines what national security interests are. If he wants to hand over all our military bases around the world to Russia, he can do that. Whether we want a president with that plan to go through with it is a political discussion, not a legal one (and I'm reasonably certain there's some Senate say in that sort of thing as well).

Was the FBI seriously going to start arresting members of Trump's future cabinet? I'm serious here. I'm not seeing any purpose to even going there except political ones.

Quote:
Um, if you are a person with access to top secret information you are followed closely. Information is collected on you, along with notable social contacts and family, any social contacts have to be reported, etc. Stuff like that is part of what makes incidents like Snowden such a rare occurrence. Why would the president and his family be considered an exception this? Maybe there's some argument for executive privilege? Can't imagine that gets you entirely off the hook...


There's a massive difference between followed closely and being spied upon without your knowledge. And yes, there is exactly the concept of executive privilege. It exists so that the president and his advisers and staff can float ideas and arguments (and counters to those) without fear that everything they say will be used against them in some way (er, political way of course). Again, it's just too easy for that kind of information to be selectively leaked to the media.

Quote:
So he only became of heightened interest to intelligence personnel when it appeared he might be granted access to classified information? Wow, color me surprised.


They do standard security checks and vetting of those granted said clearances. They don't engage in covert surveillance as part of that process. And that still doesn't explain the whole unmasking bit. I have never heard of this ever being done to a presidential candidate's team, much less a president-elects transition team before. This is not normal. That's the part you need to understand. It's not only not normal, it's darn near unthinkable. You'd have to have massive evidence of some terrible conspiracy to do harm to the US to justify something like this. And "harm to the US" can't be "I think his policies will be bad". You'd have to have something like Trump or someone on his staff plotting to use their new found power to expand their international drug trafficking, gun running, and child pornography ring or something.

I've not seen nor heard anything to suggest that is the case though. What I've seen and heard are vague statements like "they had conversations with ...", or "did business with ...", and a bunch of other things that just aren't that unusual. Where's the fire? I'm still waiting for anything concrete to come along, but all we have are speculations and innuendo. That's not good enough. The bar for this kind of thing should be incredibly high.

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Since when is counter-espionage not part of the job description of our intelligence services? Smiley: dubious


When it's not counter-espionage? When it's abundantly obvious that the primary objective has nothing to do with national security, but rather has to do with political gains? The answer to your question is in the reason why we mask US persons from the intelligence in the first place. We do that so that they can engage in their job of counter-espionage without infringing the rights of US people. The act of unmasking them means you are targeting them. Doing that to members of a president-elects transition team is pretty obviously political.

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Um, yes it is, or potentially is at least. Not once he becomes President of course, but normal citizens are not allowed to do diplomacy on behalf of the United States.


And? Are you going to arrest him? Let's imagine that Trump calls up Putin during the transition and talks with him about the idea of selling Alaska back to Russia. What exactly do you think would or could happen legally? Nothing, right? That's the point. Any action by police or military or whatever would constitute a coup at that point, and hurl us into a constitutional crisis. It's not going to happen.

Again, this is all policy and politics. You can make hay about it, say it's a breach of protocol or whatever. But no one seriously is going to try to arrest the president-elect, nor any of his staff. Not for merely having a conversation, at least. But those things can be used as political fodder, right?

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Believe it or not there's people that have loyalty to the country itself and not to the various smaller subsets of the population that go on bickering about abortions and taxes and racism and such.


Yes, there are. And there are also a lot of people who will abuse power that they have. To blindly trust that those with the power to spy on you are going to use that power fairly and correct is naive. Again, this is precisely why we passed FISA in the first place.

It's why our intelligence services are supposed to be non-political. Unfortunately, the previous president seemed to relish using supposedly non-political agencies for political reasons. The IRS is not supposed to allow the political alignment of organizations to influence their non-profit status application process. But they did. The FBI isn't supposed to operate a gun running operation designed to ensure that a ton of illegal guns walk across the border, increasing the number of shootings there, and allowing the president and others in his party to use the "violence on our border" as a lever to push their gun control agenda. But they apparently did. The CIA isn't supposed to alter intelligence reports to remove references to existing anti-American organizations operating in Libya and replace them with references to an offensive video. But somehow that exact thing happened somewhere between the regional intelligence sources and the briefing handed to White House staff.

I'm sorry, but in that context, I have no problem at all believing that the spying on the Trump campaign and transition team was done deliberately and for political reasons.


Edited, Apr 26th 2017 8:38pm by gbaji

Edited, Apr 26th 2017 8:46pm by gbaji
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#2876 Apr 26 2017 at 11:39 PM Rating: Good
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No. The correct thing is for our intelligence services to stay the heck out of our political processes.


What's even the point of having an intelligence service then?
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