back to article Bush-authored warrantless wiretapping suffers abrupt defeat

The last of the US warrantless wiretapping cases has come to a rather surprising and abrupt finish. Judge Vaughn Walker hearing the case formerly known as Al-Haramain vs Bush has ruled for the plaintiffs and against the US government on a motion for summary judgment, essentially telling the government it had no case. This …

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  1. Eddy Ito
    Thumb Up

    I, for one, am shocked!!

    No, seriously.

  2. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

    Pay attention now ...... This is the way Banking and IT work for You Together ...

    .... in Derivative Options of Mutually Beneficial Futures.

    "Judge Walker has scheduled a hearing to determine the nature and scope of damages, which will probably be the end of one of the strangest cases in American jurisprudence." ......

    :-) I'm smiling because no matter how much is awarded, it is just quantitatively eased into the system [ for it will always be something with a relative cash/printed currency value] and added to the world's debt figure ... and that is credit which available to others for colossal spend, although I suppose world bankers think that they have the right to distribute that mountain of squandered money/national wealth as they see fit, and that would be quite naturally to their very good friends and/or gullible fools easily parted from their money. But their friends should ideally have some grand notion and great plans to make the gifted credit do something remarkable, or not rock the boat/derail the gravy train.

    Go to a good/great bank with a good/great idea, and as the world is awash with trillions of debt to credit to purveyors of good and great ideas, is money to freely and lavishly spend on such plans, [which are always just great ideas/SMARTer Intellectual Property], never ever a problem. Oh, and the money credited, which you would be spending on such great and good plans, it goes straight back to where it came from .. the Banking System .....so they can do it all again ..... with the benefit of what you would have done with it, creating whatever you would have spent it on and generating industry and powerful currency flow.

  3. Tom 13

    The word "traditional" never belongs

    in the same sentence as "Ninth Circuit of San Francisco" which is the most overturned Circuit Court in the US, except when in the negative. This invalidates your entire post.

    1. RanTalbott
      Thumb Down

      Read much?

      There is no "Ninth Circuit of San Francisco", any more than there's a "Fourth Circuit of Richmond": the Ninth Circuit covers 9 States and various Pacific territories, and includes about 20% of the U.S. population. Since it's larger by far than any other Circuit, there would be something seriously wrong somewhere if there were NOT more reversals (in absolute numbers) of cases from it. Your assertion is like claiming that American whites are "economically disadvantaged" because there are more of them on welfare than there are of other ethnic groups.

      Of course, that point is rather moot, because the author was applying "traditional" to the VIEW expressed in the case, not to the Circuit. Tip o' the day: in modern English, the adjective pretty much always modifies the next noun that follows it.

      Your Pavlovian regurgitation of neandercon talking points casts doubt on everything you post.

    2. asdf
      FAIL

      yep traditional is east texas

      East Texas is so much better than them hippy liberal commies on the left coast. Thats right in East Texas not only do they have the largest community of KKK sympathizers in the US but the courts are the friendliest to patent trolls as well. Rednecks would be a lot more entertaining if they had less power and didn't shout so much.

    3. asdf
      FAIL

      either a great troll or unfortunately about %35

      of the American public. Thats right if we shout loud enough and ignore things that get in the way, like facts, maybe just maybe we can wear down the lefties enough where we can realize our dream nirvana of the 1950's (lovely decade of McCarthyism, %50 marriages due to pregnacy, and Jim Crow laws) but even better with only one strong man in charge and us safely in our middle management spot above the unwashed masses.

  4. Thomas 18
    Thumb Up

    punitive damages

    Since the government can print its own money, maybe damages should be a plot of land, say the bush ranch.

    1. John A Blackley

      Good idea but....

      He has a very large house in Dallas that's worth more.

    2. LaeMing

      Nah

      They would just find a way to grab the land out of a Native American reserve.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    Proof positive

    G. W. Bush is proof that not only cream rises to the top, but scum also.

    Anon, as though the black helicopters can't see through that!

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    False: "the most overturned Circuit Court"

    Tom 13: [9th] "...which is the most overturned Circuit Court in the US..."

    This claim is essentially false, and in a way that is highly and intentionally deceptive.

    The claim was first made by the late whack-job Jerry Falwell (of "Teletubbies are gay" fame).

    In fact, the rate that the 9th is overturn is in the middle of the pack using any reasonable measure (keyword: "reasonable", as opposed to deceptive).

    Here are the facts: http://mediamatters.org/research/200511090012

    I hope this helps...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Flame

      Linked Article Misleading @AC 1859

      Unfortunately, the article you link is just as disingenuous as the original comment. It talks about the reversal rate of those cases that the Supreme Court agrees to hear. This is called, in statistics parlance, a selection bias. The Supreme Court agrees to hear only cases that are contentious, and therefore likely to be overturned. The only statistic that is relevant in this case is the percentage of the total caseload that is overturned by the Supreme Court. I don't know that figure, but a quick bit of googling seems to show that the 9th circuit is about 40% bigger than the 5th and has 40% more cases overturned each term. But cases that are overturned by the Supreme Court are few and far between. The Supreme court only reviews under 2% of the cases sent to it. The 9th circuit only has about 10 or 11 cases overturned per term.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    send them to gaol

    Do it now.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    To the editor

    There've been many requests on El-Reg for a "stupid" icon. When I saw this article listed in your home page I was sure you finally found it. But no, just another lead picture...

  9. James Woods

    looks awfully political to me

    Is the administration of transparency working for the American people? Well it seems they are if your out to bash the previous administration.

    But let's see when the rest of the transparency. Let's see when we finally find out those in our justice system that go into court as "United States of America" yet previously represented terrorists.

    Let's see the presidents birth certificate. Let's see his college transcripts. Let's see the healthcare debate on c-span like he promised. Oh wait that's already been rammed through, sorry no transparency there.

    Call it what you want, the only hope this country has at this point is truly finding out in a few years that this guy was in fact illegible to be president and all his crap is repealed.

    And as far as the warrantless wiretaps go. Last I checked in some states the police are able to pull over truck drivers for no reason what so ever and that can lead to thousands of dollars in fines to the truck drivers if in fact the truck is found to have a problem. If you lefties think wiretapping is a problem perhaps you shouldn't plan your next scheme over the telephone. Or perhaps all you good lefty lawyers can get together and start representing all of the people instead of just muslims and terrorists.

    1. Naughtyhorse
      FAIL

      title goes... somewhere

      how exactly do you pronouncify bushtard?

  10. Walking Turtle
    Thumb Up

    Thank you, Your Honor!

    Now may we have ALL our prior privacy back in one unbroken and seamless piece, please?

    And HONEST PAPER BALLOTS with proper oversight, even on recounts, with NO MORE top-down nullifications and NO MORE abuse of the IT industry by means of the Diebolding of our sacred though desecrated elections, Sir?

    And our wonderfully strong and beautiful "Truth in Labeling" laws applied to ALL those corporate-packaged cabbage-products in Human Suits, both while campaigning AND post-election, please?

    And - oh yes - a wholesale return of the Rule of Conscience and Law (and Conscience!) to ALL our NeoTard-infested Halls of Governance and Regulation, such that we shall have NO MORE lawless willy-nilly mortgage securitizations, "Too Big to Fail" bailouts, First-Strike Wars of Aggression and multi-trillion Phantom Share cases such as the "CMKM/CMKX versus the SEC" suit now under litigation in open court? And no more Enron-style Brownouts for Profit? And NO MORE Controlled Demolitions of multiple inhabited office towers EVER AGAIN, let alone the mass murders of the occupants thereof being passed off as *FOREIGN* deeds of terrorism?

    Um, a full-scale return to REAL public education, including a VERY sharp veering-away from the post-Reagan "Setup for the Punchline" decades of dumbings-down that now every day reliably affront our own normal non-faulty intelligence and destroy our childrens' very viability as Functional Genuine Human Beings would be really good too. Sir, can and indeed shall we now arrange for these things IMMEDIATELY?

    Your Honor, kindly DO let these things be done, so that all of the above Elements of Humble Petitioners' Mass Prayer are at once buttressed and fortified well out of and away from the present-day FAIL Zone! Let us truly and with genuine compassion this Easter Season seriously consider the lives of our children and the available quality thereof, shall we, Sir?

    Oh and by the way, Your Honor, what ARE those merry, fun-loving "Ethnic Pennsylvanians" now doing with all that International Settlements money anyway? Aren't we s'pozed to be paying for ten years of bought-on-credit cheap plastic crap and toxic baby formula (not to mention the pet food, Heaven rest 'em all) with /those/ trillions, just like honest consumers who are not criminal bums always prefer, Sir?

    Thank you, Your Honor, for the initial sharp, strong and entirely beautiful blow against the Criminal Empire that you HAVE struck today! Surely there shall be many more in the years to come! Granted only those entirely necessary things and all that naturally follows from them, Your Honor, surely normal sanity shall return to our nation and to our world, shall it not?

    It is a beautiful day. :)

    1. Ugotta B. Kiddingme
      FAIL

      ALMOST a perfect post

      That, sir/madam, would have been a perfect post EXCEPT for one sentence:

      "And NO MORE Controlled Demolitions of multiple inhabited office towers EVER AGAIN, let alone the mass murders of the occupants thereof being passed off as *FOREIGN* deeds of terrorism?"

      Really? Finally got that tinfoil hat back from the cleaners, did you? Come now, sir and/or madam. That one oddly constructed sentence completely ruined an otherwise excellent post.

      1. TimNevins

        Naaah

        I think it is the inclusion of that line that makes it perfect. Five minutes on the web should find all the proof you need.

  11. Walking Turtle
    WTF?

    Tut tut now...

    @ Ugotta B. Kiddingme:

    "That, sir/madam, would have been a perfect post EXCEPT for one sentence:

    "And NO MORE Controlled Demolitions of multiple inhabited office towers EVER AGAIN, let alone the mass murders of the occupants thereof being passed off as *FOREIGN* deeds of terrorism?"

    Really? Finally got that tinfoil hat back from the cleaners, did you? Come now, sir and/or madam. That one oddly constructed sentence completely ruined an otherwise excellent post."

    == == == ==

    Excuse me a moment, O Beloved Benighted One, whilst yet I clean the coffee off me poor wee slickit shiverin' pet mousie. (Fortunately the system hardware was spared this time.)

    Not that I for one ever expect mere forensic evidence, most if not indeed all of which is resident in the Public Record, to ever convert thine own opinion to mine. For indeed,

    All folk convinced against their will

    Are of the same opinion still.

    All in all, O Beloved Benighted, I for one am of the considered opinion that the hard-won and extensively peer-reviewed forensic evidence that has emerged over the prior decade of concerted top-down assault on We the Normal and Non-Faultily Intelligent People of America (and indeed all around the entire world) strongly supports the proffered though isolated-and-then-denigrated assertion.

    OTOH, such a sneering /ad/ /hominem/ make-wrong assault, especially when held forth as any manner of countervailing opinion, reliably raises a number of Red Flag points to any non-faultily intelligent observer, now does it not? Not to mention veering the forum, which is about the Bush Administration's State Secrets Doctrine and the like, 'way off-topic if pursued further.

    Beyond that, should we ever indeed choose to carry the point any further, such instant schoolyard-bully vileness as that terribly sorry context-distortive bit surely (at least to some whose excitement someone with a Joking Handle might wish to either avoid or manipulate, depending) reliably lends itself quite well indeed to some rather telling real-world speculative musings as regards likely motivations, sensible frames of reference, and even (big shame if ever indeed so; kindly refer to the full spirit of the other, not-objected-to Factual Bits for the full-featured general notion) Pay Grade of one behaving as many a Counterintelligence Operative (or shill or patsy or what-have-you) indeed will.

    With respect, such vituperative "volunteers" as one occasionally finds here and there Webside, a-posting in such a genre against all manner of reason and forensic science, seldom if ever go so far as that without (shall we delicately put it) a wee taste of the Imperial Treasury (or Imperial Coercion, depending) first taken in hand (or on the chin, depending), now do they ever?

    Either way, an Old Turtle feels for and prays for them all. Good morning!

    As for that (indeed potentially hat-size, yes) piece of fine oven-tempered though denigrated tinfoil: Actually, it's back from the baker's shoppe with a fresh wedge of still-warm fairy-cake safe inside. Would thou, O Beloved Benighted, be so kind as to have a seat within this-here utterly fine and *entirely* harmless Total Perspective Initiation Device while the maintenance tech renews the necessary connection? Always good of one to do so, thank you.

    BTW, both of the two gender-designators presently available in the English Tongue do indeed express a certain basic respect for the person addressed, all that did follow in the subsequent force-wrong attempt notwithstanding. But that is Turtle Business and really need only concern other Turtles, shan't it?

    Now if one will kindly just swing the TPV unit's door shut and hold tight for a few nanos, this will not take long at all... The Light comes on by itself, yes. :)

    Hey, I was up for a light workout anyway. No harm done! So nice try at any rate. Jinnantonix for you? My pleasure! Just another cup of sweet-and-light coffee for me before I go, and a nice fat cricket to keep me mousie company too, if available, thank you...

    Gotta' love an Open Forum. It is indeed a most beautiful day, isn't it? :)

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