Saturday, December 15, 2007

They Do Have a Point, Don't They

Last week, the court denied a request by the American Civil Liberties Union to release portions of past rulings that would explain how it has interpreted the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA. There are legitimate national security concerns at stake, but the court should share its legal reasoning with the public.

-The Times Editorial Board
Dear Children,

No, there aren't.

Best,
IOZ

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Times editorial board obviously loves Romance more than Truth. They only want to protect us so they must know what is best for us, right?

hipparchia said...

everybody loves Romance more than Truth.

Anonymous said...

I would have entitled this little snippet: "Don't get me wrong, but..."

As I recall, even at the end of the viet nam war when everyone was against it, if you wanted to make a public statement against it, you had to first make prefatory remarks about how much you hated commies and especially ho chi minh & them scurvy viet cong.

TGGP said...

SCOTUS is full of old coots that have young clerks do all their work for them, why would they be allowed access to classified information in the first place?

The Romans had it right with law: it needs to be publicly available for everyone to read. This Common Law stuff is just a foolish detour.

Anonymous said...

Not the Supremes, TGGP. The FISA court. Anyway, the board's right. The court should explain its reasoning. Any security concerns, should we momentarily assume that such exist, are irrelevant here.

Our host is hair-splitting. The board's with you, IOZ, at least here.

-Becker

IOZ said...

That's not hair-splitting. The concession to supposed legitimacy undermines the argument.

Adam said...

what would an illegitimate national security concern look like?

heh.

CK said...

Adam:
Iraq
New Orleans
Mogadishu

Matthew said...

Speaking of "don't get me wrong, but" Check out this post by Lambert at Corrente:

NOTE I thought Hillary would suck, since she has no plan to restore Constitutional government, but I didn’t think Obama would suck. I guess he plans to unite the country on the basis of his personal charisma and leadership qualities, rather than on qualities like keeping his oath, or on the Constitution.

TROLL PROPHYLACTIC I will vote for either Hillary or Obama in the general, and will even give them money and volunteer. Yes, if they don’t deliver on this basic, basic issue, they suck. But it’s one thing to suck, and it’s another thing to—like the Republicans—be possessed of suckitude so massive that even the pus-encrusted spawn of Chtulhu turn away in horror. Eh?

mistah charley, ph.d. said...

Atrios has an excellent summary of the three Democratic "frontrunners":

Shorter Candidates

Obama: The system sucks, but I'm so awesome that it'll melt away before me.

Edwards: The system sucks, and we're gonna have to fight like hell to destroy it.

Clinton: The system sucks, and I know how to work within it more than anyone.


http://tinyurl.com/2e77uh