the NDAA and intelligence

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Have you been living under a rock these last 10 years? We torture people and indefinitely detain them all the time. Our government has even started openly assassinating American citizens now as we saw with Anwar al-Awlaki.

Look at what they doing to PFC Bradley Manning!

First of all Yemen, where Anwar Al-Awlaki was killed, is in Saudi Arabia. AND he was a leader of Al Qaeda... which makes him a terrorist, I am sorry that you think killing him was a bad move... They should have let him blow up your neighborhood as well.

and Bradley Manning was arrested and changed for transferring classified data onto his personal computer, and communicating national defense information to an unauthorized source. I am sorry that a possible threat to your life is considered nothing to worry about... He was arrested and charged with a capital offense and will not get the death penalty...

... Have you posted confidental information online for your enemies to see? Are you a member of Al-Qaeda? No? Ok then, you have nothing to worry about

Firstly, so what if he was in Yemen? He was still an American citizen, and we don't give up our citizenship and the rights that go with it when we travel abroad.

Secondly, how do we know he was a terrorist? Because the government said so? The same government that went to court to prevent themselves from having to provide any evidence of him being a terrorist, let alone anything resembling a trial? The same government that wouldn't allow his father to challenge their actions on his behalf and yet tried to (and eventually succeeded) kill him every time he used a phone or otherwise communicated, like say to call his lawyer about getting a trial or something?

Finally, what did this man blow up? Who did he kill? Everything I've ever heard about him is that he was a propagandist for AQ, and if he did actually do anything beyond talking the feds have yet to enlighten us, having in fact gone to court to keep us in the dark.



Allegedly, remember?. Innocent until proven guiltily? Supposed to be the law of the land here? For (allegedly) blowing the whistle on multiple illegal practices by the state department, Manning has been held in conditions constituting mental torture for no legitimate reason (intimidating others and "softening him up to confess" are not legitimate reasons); it's not like he's charged with a violent offense or has the means to flee the country. No one has even been able to credibly argue that the Wikileaks discolures endangered any lives, what they did was embarrass the hell out of some powerful people. What he (allegedly) did was no different than what happened with the Pentagon Papers in the Vietnam era, an act now universally regarded as heroic. Again though, that is immaterial to the fact that Manning has essentially been punished before being convicted of any crime, made worse by the fact that it's been done at the hands of "the most transparent administration in history".

He was found guilty in a court of law, and I am sorry if you distrust the government enough for you a delusion a scam.

I told you the facts, you are welcome to speculate with half-truths, lies, and assumptions all you want.

Remember that Charles Manson, an American born terrorist, is still alive and well. I hope that makes you feel better.

and I don't think you would have hesitated to blow up or shoot Osama Bin Laden or Saddam Hussein if they just "happened" to be American born. And I am sure that you would not mind Anwar Al-Awlaki being murdered either if you had children, or family inside of the twin towers when they crashed down to the floor.

But hey, if you want to keep them alive as American citizens, you go ahead and do so! Harbor them in your house if you desire!

Who was found guilty of what and in what court of law? Links?



What you've done is state your opinion on a subject that is clearly beyond your knowledge and experience, and dripped condescension on people that are far more informed and insightful than you appear to be. Your posts are filled with naked assertions and naive faith that politicians always keep their promises and laws are never misused by the people charged with enforcing them.



Apropos of? Manson isn't a terrorist, he is a common criminal that committed some splashy murders, nothing more. He can rot in prison like any other murderer would.
Not sure of the relevance here, though I'm starting to see a pattern of non sequiturs in your responses.



Ahh, the appeal to emotion; the last refuge of the desperate arguer.

Saddam is another red herring, as the head of a hostile foreign country who we're openly warring with is a legitimate target, and he certainly wasn't a citizen. Osama was similar because he basically confessed on video to being responsible for 9/11, and was also the head of an entity who had openly declared war on the US, and was also not a US citizen. In any case I would have preferred to capture Osama alive and put him on trial, but I'm not mourning the fact that it didn't go down that way.

I did actually lose people connected to me on 9/11, and yet I still manage to keep my desire for revenge from overriding my belief in due process and holding the government accountable. I'm not willing to trade liberty for security, and allowing secret assassination orders against American citizens to be issued without trial is anathema to the ideals of a free nation, as well as my own idea of what my country should represent.

If these guys are so dangerous that the only option is to kill them in the field, than proving that need at a trial in absentia should not be a difficult case to make, and yet the government goes to court to prevent itself from even having to got that far in justifying these death warrants.

Just think about that for a moment, the state can order the death of a citizen without ever having to provide a reason, evidence, or allow the targeted a chance to defend themselves, all on their word that this person needed to go. If that doesn't scare you, then it's you who's delusional.



Where in my post would you get the idea that I would harbor anyone in my house? That's awfully close to what we PPR regulars call a straw man argument; ascribing a distorted version of someone's argument to them and then making a show of knocking it down. It's a logical fallacy, and generally considered bad form too.

You're relatively new to PPR, so I'm going fairly easy on you here. We like heated debate in here, but mass generalizations and personal insults, direct or implied, are not a good way to start a thread. If you think someone is wrong, show them where they're wrong, don't call them delusional or morons; that kind of behavior will eventually draw the kind of attention that no one here likes, and makes you look like a real as*hole besides. Welcome to PPR.

If you want to give "facts" and have them taken seriously, some supporting info is usually nice.

Bradley Manning was found guilty of leaking confidential information online for the enemy to see. Look it up! That's why Google and Bing were invented




I have yet to read one single adequate. logical, non-conspiracy theorist claim by these so called "informed and insightful" people. I am sorry if you believe it, next you'll go to chemtrails. I am not here to make the schizophrenic assessment that the government is out to get me.




Ok, he was a "cult leader to attacked many people in the name of his religious beliefs." sounds like a terrorist to me. And I am just seeing conspiracy theories in your responses... so...




But you are claiming that someone who helped them commit heinous acts, and was a terrorist for siding with them should have lived, or came here and died of the feath penalty anyways solely because he was born here... and many people use the "appeal to emotion" in literature they call it "pathos" and it is used with ethos and logos to form literary speech to persuade people... I am shocked you think of it as a bad thing. Saying you are using it yourself.



The state cannot do so, and to say otherwise is a lie. Unless you can name a few people within the last 50 years who was killed by the government for no reason. Oh right, you cannot find one because they all had trials... and were found guilty in front of a jury...

Funny how the only people mentioning this government attack are the people who believe the government is out to get them.

But I am done debating the issue of peoples schizophrenia on here. I do not kiss the governments toes, but I am not delusional and paranoid.

But if it makes you feel better to think the government has the right to kill you off without reason, than you go ahead and think that. Everyone can use a little religious thought in their life.

Are you incapable of debating without resorting to calling people schizophrenic?

As much as I would enjoy staying here and spending my entire life debating someone who will never see things differently. I will not do so.

I did not write this to debate people who have a biological and psychological implication to believe that the government is out to get them. I posted this to show people how crazy they are, and it seems to be a pretty clear peice saying I have a few conspiracy theorist debating me on whether or not the government is pure evil and will take you away, torture you, and burn you at the stake.

I prefer to live my life on the basis of facts. once you get a few, I may reconsider debating with you.

PS. I don't consider "facts" to come from "conspiracytheorist.com", etc.

If you think the government can kill you for no reason, please, do yourself and everyone else a favor and move to another country! Since you don't really believe that, I am sure you still live in the US... No need to be like Fred Phelps.

Good, then don't. Please leave. If you want to ignore facts and other people's arguments then PPR isn't for you. Maybe you'll see thinks differently when a TSA agent is elbow deep in you.

The government won't kill for no reason, they might do it if you have a missing finger.

Anwar al-Awlaki. This is what Google and Bing are for...

You also might try actually using those same tools you're touting on Bradley Manning, as it will take you about 2 seconds to see that he's still awaiting trial...

How can you be sure this has not happened to anyone? Do you really think they would tell the public if it did?

I don't mean this to insult or offend, just to notify you so you may want to reconsider your method of communicating...

Your posts are riddled with logical fallacies. Simply riddled. It's impressive even, as if you purposely studied to be able to insert so many distracting and off topic, poorly worded, and partially correct lies into your posts as possible.

If that is your intent, to misdirect and simply "win" a debate, or if you are just trolling the forum, I humbly ask that you desist. Sophistry is not generally well received here.

Here are some links to tools available to you to understand what it is you are doing, in hope that you do not understand why what you are saying is complete garbage and not worth uttering or listening to.

http://www.fallacyfiles.org/logifall.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy
http://www.logicalfallacies.info/

Please address this at some point if you want people who are capable of healthy reasoning to ever consider your opinion or point of view as worth anything, else you will generally be considered irrelevant, or worse, actively an enemy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophism

PS. I don't have an opinion on this debate, I'm fairly neutral on this topic. But had to comment on your bad form, it is simply overwhelmingly grotesque.

Existing federal law is irrelevant. If Congress has enacted legislation, then that enactment is the new state of the law. Federal law cannot constrain Congress from enacting legislation as it sees fit. State law cannot intrude into federal jurisdiction, so it, too, is irrelevant. International law is always subordinate to domestic law unless it is expressly been incorporated into domestic law--in which case, see the beginning of this paragraph, again. So all you're left with as constraint is the Constitution.

And who says, "they cannot torture us?" I think Abu Ghraib has served to demonstrate that "they" are perfectly capable of torturing anybody "they" want. The fact that it is illegal does not prevent it from occurring.



Read the Sixth Amendment again. Now focus on the first four words: "In all criminal prosecutions." The relevant rule of statutory interpretation is, "expressio unius exclusio alterius est." The expression of one thing excludes all others. So the right to counsel exists only in criminal law matters. The government is perfectly capable of standing up before the bench and claiming that a national security investigation falls within a different legal classification, to which the Sixth Amendment does not apply.



The Supreme Court don't get to swoop down from on high and pick off legislation pre-emptively. They have to wait for a federal case to work its way through two lower levels (with potentially two spearate hearings and judgements at the Circuit level) before they become seized of the matter. That's a process of years, during which the legislation continues to be good law. (The legal presumption is that law is constitutional and enforceable until a final judgement declares it otherwise. A decision under appeal is not final.)

At the end of the day, here's the problem: the executive and legislative branches of the government are engaged in a never-ending dance to test where the limits of their constitutional capacities lie. As a result, legislatures continue to test the limits of constitutionality of legislation, and bureaucrats continue to test the scope of their legislative authority.

It's all well and good to claim that the Constitution guarantees civil liberties, habeus corpus and the right to counsel. But if the government has legislation that authorizes it to arrest you without warrant, and detain you without access to counsel, and even to move you offshore, how do you propose that the Courts will ever have an opportunity to enforce those rights? How many people could wind up being arbitrarily arrested and detained before a successful habeus corpus action makes its way to the Supreme Court? And what if the Supreme Court, in its infinite wisdom, were to determine that the legislation does not--for some reason--demonstrate an infringement? After all, none of the rights set out in the Constitution are absolute. Every one of them is subject to exceptions, most of them defined by courts over centuries of jurisprudence.

I quite agree that for 99.99% of Americans, the legislation will have no direct impact. But even if only one person is affected, it is worthy of notice. A country cannot claim to be a democracy unless it demonstrates certain characteristics: free and fair elections, rule of law, free press and protection of civil liberties and minorities. Lose any one of these, and the others are threatened.

The NDAA essentially rips the Constitution to shreds. It gives the Government the authority to arrest whoever they please. Under this law, if you did so much as say "I don't like the President.", you could be considered a terrorist and kiss the First Amendment goodbye. I know in AZ people who defend the Constitution qualify as terrorists (not joking) even if they don't advocate violence against the Government. The Second Amendment is more than likely a gonner as well, since pretty much anyone who owns a firearm (even if only for protection purposes) could be viewed as a terrorist, as they posses a deadly weapon (and trust me, the war on guns is already huge). Third Amendment? Well, that'll probably have to go, too. The Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures (and guarantees a general right to privacy, as does the Third Amendment) is null and void under the NDAA, as it would probably allow for warrantless searches of homes, people, papers, effects, etc. and they would probably be allowed to torture you and do whatever the hell they please while you are in prison for whatever your crime was (violates right to privacy and sovereignty of body/person, an implicit right under Amendments 3 and 4). The Fifth, Sixth, and seventh Amendments would definitely burn to ashes since, under the NDAA, you would not have:

The right to remain silent. Hell, they are legally allowed to write out a confession for the accused, even if it is false.

The right to a lawyer/legal council.

The right to a trial by jury. After all, they are allowed to detain people for indefinite time periods thanks to the NDAA.

The right to know the charges against you (how the hell can you confess to anything if you don't know what you're in trouble for, anyway?).

Right to a speedy/public trial. (I could probably go on, but that's all on the Amendments as of now.)

What's really scary is that the definitions of "terrorist" and "threat" are so broad it's nowhere near laughable. Tell me exactly what qualifies as a "threat", if you could do that in the strictest terms possible then maybe, maybe I won't be so scared of this law. Until then. there's plenty reason to oppose it.

I bet this will have a bunch of unintended consequences.........

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