Government's Google request sends chills up spines of Americans

[kentuck]

This is not about the war on terrorism. This is about Big Brother sticking his nose under the blanket in your bedroom. This is about Big Brother snooping too far. Most Republicans are no different than most Democrats on this issue. This is about privacy rights of American citizens. Google is to be commended for not going along with the Bush Justice Department.

The effect of the Justice Department request has been to add another fear to the menu of fear that Americans have been dieting on for the last 5 years. It is a fascist assault upon the free speech we have taken for granted all our lives. Even Republicans, the most blind and partisan types, feel and see where they are going with their request. This could be a major blunder by the Orwellian propagnadists in the Bush White House?

[Toots]

1. GOP and Alito say there is no right to Privacy

Democrats :rofl: are going to vote for him anyway....

[Ootah]

2. Privacy

I had thought Alito said he agreed with Griswald, which establishes the right to privacy and upon which Roe was based. The thing which scares me a bit is that he would not commit on questions from Feinstein about rights of president to ignore FISA. This assault on 4th ammendment rights, if ignored can endanger us in ways I would rather not imagine.

[kentuck]

3. He's lying.

Period.

[Ootah]

5. could be he's lying

I don't know about that. Still, I think the important issue is the assault on 4th ammendment rights and that to be distracted from that could be a mistake. And he did evade questions about that issue, which is the frightening thing to me.

[kentuck]

6. That's enough...

But there's more to worry about with Alito.

[Punkingal]

14. You and me both....

He is going to side with Bush on everything, and giving him the powers of a King is the thing that scares me most. We are being distracted with Roe V Wade. (Not that it isn't important. I just think they want us to concentrate on that, while they sneak other things under the radar.)

And welcome to DU!:hi:

[acmejack]

4. I thought he said that the Constitution did not grant an implicit right

to privacy. Either way with this Federalist zealot on the bench, our rights are toast. As if they aren't already...

[Ootah]

8. right

that is the thing. I agree. The infringement on our right against unwarranted searches and siezures is dangerous and, to me, that is the important issue goin' on here

[hang a left]

7. It's his radical position on the Unitary Executive theory that should

keep him off the court.

UDGE ALITO'S VIEW OF THE PRESIDENCY: EXPANSIVE POWERS
Court Pick Endorsed Theory of Far-Reaching Authority; Tenet of Bush White House

A Debate Over Terror Tactics

By Jess Bravin

...The Constitution "makes the president the head of the executive branch, but it does more than that," Judge Alito said in a speech to the Federalist Society at Washington's Mayflower Hotel. "The president has not just some executive powers, but the executive power -- the whole thing."

Judge Alito was describing the theory of the "unitary executive," an expansive view of presidential powers that he and his colleagues set forth while working in the Office of Legal Counsel of the Reagan Justice Department. Although the Supreme Court has not always agreed, he said in his speech, "I thought then, and I still think, that this theory best captures the meaning of the Constitution's text and structure."

In 2000, Judge Alito referred to the unitary-executive theory of presidential power as "the gospel according to OLC," a reference to his office in the Reagan Justice Department. The theory has since become the foundation for the current administration's assertions that it has the power to interpret treaties, determine the fate of enemy prisoners, and jail U.S. citizens as enemy combatants without charging them.

While serving on the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals, the president's first Supreme Court appointee, Chief Justice John Roberts, joined a June 2005 decision that gave Mr. Bush broad authority to try foreigners before military commissions. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal, and if Judge Alito is confirmed, he will help decide the case.

In written statements issued when he signs legislation, Mr. Bush routinely cites his authority to "supervise the unitary executive branch" to disregard bill provisions he considers objectionable. A statement Mr. Bush issued on Dec. 30 when he signed Sen. John McCain's antitorture amendment, for example, said in part that the executive branch "shall construe" a portion of the act relating to detainees "in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President to supervise the unitary executive branch and as Commander in Chief and consistent with the constitutional limitations on the judicial power." The statement raised questions among critics of the administration's policies about the extent to which the White House considers itself bound by the legislation.

"At its core, the unitary executive is the notion that the Constitution gives the president the executive power, and it includes the power to superintend and control subordinates in the executive branch," says Northwestern University law professor Steven Calabresi, who helped develop the theory in the Reagan Justice Department and has written extensively on its historical basis.

http://www.law.northwestern.edu/news/article_full.cfm?e...

[applegrove]

9. Dowd asked Cheney not to "Ogle her google". LOL

http://select.nytimes.com/2006/01/21/opinion/21dowd.html

Googling Past the Graveyard

By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: January 21, 2006

"I don't like the thought of Dick Cheney ogling my Googling.

Because what I'm Googling, of course, is Dick Cheney. I have to constantly monitor how Vice Voyeur is pushing the federal government to constantly monitor millions of ordinary Americans' phone calls, e-mail notes and Internet searches.

If you want to know why the Grim Peeper is willing to turn this country into a police state to take his version of democracy to other countries, just do a Google search under "antiterrorism," "government snooping," "overreaching" and "fruitcake."

It was hard to know which story yesterday was scarier: Osama bin Laden, still alive and taunting the U.S., or the Justice Department's trying to force Google to turn over a suspiciously broad array of information on millions of users' searches and Web addresses, supposedly to investigate online crime involving pornography.

The Internet is full of vile diversions, but prying without justification is just as vile. Innocent Americans - not just lonely guys in their boxers - could be swept up in the fishnet dragnet. Who decides what is porn? Will those who Google to find out-of-print copies of Lynne Cheney's juicy, cheesy lesbian Old West novel, "Sisters," be suspect? (The cheapest copy at Alibris.com is $195.)


... Snip"

[kurth]

10. Yep. People should stick with "rhubarb pie" and "Bush+great+presidents"

Avoid "g spot" or "dick size" or "lubrication" or "rapture" (correct syntax: "rapture+jesus").

[applegrove]

11. Well - who really knows what Cheney wants. Police have been

monitoring illegal activity on the net regarding porn for years. So really - that excuse doesn't hold any water.

[bklyncowgirl]

12. If Google hadn't fought this we wouldn't have heard a word about it.

Yahoo, AOL and MSN all rolled over quietly like scared little puppies. It might have made a few lefty blogs and a tiny snippet in the business section of some of the larger papers but that's about it.

Thank you Google.

[Nordmadr]

13. Refusing the White House, and suffering the largest drop in their stock.

Coincidence?

Olafr

[Toots]

17. Hell they only went public a short time ago

Any drop just about would be "the largest drop". There were a few other stocks that dropped like a balloon as well. Did they drop because google didn't turn over information to Bush* as well?

[leeroysphitz]

15. Thank god the "conservatives" are in charge or else we

might have alot of BIG GOVERNMENT intrusion into our personal lives.
(we might also be running big deficits and be engaged in "nation building" WHEW!)

[Hubert Flottz]

16. Well...

I can still laugh!

Uncle Sugar, Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me?

[Deja Q]

18. I think I agree. But... but...

The Supreme Court did knock down COPA.

There are plenty of ways to track down child porn sites, if they bothered. (Using google alone would probably be sufficient!)

Yet few people seem to care how big corporations (banks, google, et al) have all this and more. :shrug: My spending pattern tells Masturcard and my bank checking account records I'm into web and graphics design books & software, landscape photography, British sci-fi and comedy DVDs. A couple novelties (mostly music CDs, but some other products I can also find at walmart) from an "adult" store that also caters to the GLBT crowd. So what?!! It's technically none of their business either, but you can bet your sweet bippy they track all this stuff for "marketing" purposes too.

Well, I'm harmless. And they all will have seen THAT by now.

The NSA, ban ks, tons of people know what we do. It's inevitable. And even people on DU who have said things that would legitimately land them in prison are still here (mostly because the mods deleted the posts in time, thanks for the good work mods!!!).

[KharmaTrain]

19. Anyone Thought About A Data Mine Bomb??

Surely there has to be a critical max to what the NSA and whatever booosh regime snooper can either gather, hold or access. Just like flooding someone with spam mail or doing a DOS attack on a server, I thought it'd be funny to really screw with big brother...why not get 100 or 500 or 1,000 people...each with 10 or 20 blogs each that says nothing on it other than Al Queda and Osama. Billions (in my worst Carl Sagan voice) and Billions of data bits text with everything from cooking recipes to freeper rants and so on...all with "codewords" imbedded to drive Officer Mike goofy.

Yes, silly...but the visual of seeing the NSA explode under its own googling and snooping was just a nice thought. Seems like this regime is hellbent on continuing to spy on everything we see, hear and read. Orwell was an optimist.

[Ilsa]

20. I just posted something similar.

how about as many DUers as possible googling all kinds of shit to give the NSA something to talk about? Hell, they may have to hire more people. Or freaking give up.

[soothsayer]

21. Yep, and same with the trigger words on phone calls. Everyone

should use them all the time. Once in awhile someone posts the long lists of words that set off the phone taping thingy, and there's a nice variety to choose from.

[in_cog_ni_to]

22. WJ C-SPAN callers this morning...Democrats, Repukes and Independents

were ALL against the Government on this! (THIS was the first topic for call-ins) I think I heard 1 caller who favored it and he, of course, was a repuke, but all other callers were adamantly opposed to this crap.

GO GOOGLE! Don't let these rat bastards frighten you! Don't be intimidated! Stand your ground! The people are behind you!:thumbsup: