We've all seen them, so no need to call out the guilty on this one.

I disagree, Jason. Der guilty vones must be routed und burned at ze stake. Ve must provide links and documentation. Ve must see ze evidence. Your facts vill be checked for accuracy. Zis iss your last warning.

- Der Fact Fuhrer

Agree, by the way. Totally.

If you knew how to type correctly, it wouldn't be a problem, would it now? Sloppy typing is a sign of a sloppy mind.

Huh?

She's said that she was. Some of us choose to believe her, since she seems to know what the hell she's talking about.

In you're interested, rtbag:

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/07/forgiving-the-fisa-cave.php#comment-2959718

She could be lying, but I doubt it.

Yes she is. She and I have both seen how the Fourth Amendment works in real life, especially for minority men who drive beater cars.

What we need, in this change movement (or "uprising," as Sirota wants to call it) is a constitutional convention. The founders believed and expected that we would do this from time to time. We can re-write that shitty pack of sentences that comprise the Fourth Amendment (it is piss poorly written), and re-write that even shittier pack of sentences that comprise the Second Amendment. If we don't want people to be able to walk down the street with an AR-15, we can just say that. If we want to stop fighting about whether there is a penumbral right of privacy, we can just write one in to the constitution. If we don't want the death penalty, we can just say that without having to shoot it down on a case by case basis using procedural arguments. We can stop fighting these knuckleheaded fights that comprise thousands of pages of Federal and State Reporters (books where legal opinions are published). We can be clear where the founders failed to be clear. We can be liberal where they failed to be liberal.

Really, there is no better time than now. We have seen how the constitution failed to adequately protect against abuse of executive power and we can correct it. We can see how they went wrong by allowing the president to pick Supreme Court justices with only "advice and consent" from that other branch. Perhaps branch two should have more say than that. Perhaps we can write in term limits for congress, if we think that's best. And while we're at it, let's write one person-one vote into the constitution. No more electoral college, or anything remotely like the electoral college.

It consistently amazes me to see people putting the Fourth Amendment on such a pedestal. It sucks. Let's write something better.

What a completely awesome idea. A little pro-bono fact checking from the legal profession? Badly needed in the blogosphere.

I agree, this is an awesome idea. There has to be some upside to all the attorneys we have in this country.

Certainly appreciate seeing you here. Thanks.

That's a good point. Most people don't know that in law school they don't actually teach us how to be lawyers. They teach us how to teach ourselves to be lawyers. We learn a little bit of law and procedure, but we forget most of it.

We don't learn all the right answers to legal questions -- we learn how to find the right answers through careful and thorough research. When I'm reading an opposing attorney's brief, I don't automatically know the proper legal response... but my bs-detector goes off on certain parts, and I research that specific issue until I find the right answer.

I think it works the same way in the political realm. For example -- Sure, McCain's talking point on "cutting taxes" sounds good on the surface (who doesn't want a little more cash in their pockets?), but there's something about it that rings a little false... you can't quite put your finger on why. So, what do you do? You research the issue until you figure it out. What do you find? You find that he's giving massive tax cuts not to you and me, but to the richest people in the country and the largest companies in the world. You also find that Obama's plan gives a bigger tax cut to the middle and lower classes, without giving a break to the top 5%.

Exactly. Too many bloggers get their "facts" from some "folk" attorney on DU or DailyKos. The half truths and bullshit expand outward from there, and eventually come to dominate the conversation. Even if someone knows what they're talk about (see Glenn Greenwald) it doesn't necessarily mean they don't have an agenda or an axe to grind. I mean, Greenwald has admitted that he doesn't even bother to vote which, for me, makes whatever he has to say completely academic. If he has a horse in the race, he's not saying. Which is why I've called him a pussy in the past, and why I'll continue to call him a pussy. One vote. Thirty minutes of his precious time. That's all it would take to make me care what he has to say.

If he did a 180, what angle would you have described it as if he had voted against the amendment to strip immunity? I'm not a fan of his final vote on this bill, but if you can't imagine a worse treatment on FISA, well, then your imagination needs some fine-tuning. ;)

You don't need to be a lawyer to realize that Obama did a 180 on FISA.

No, he didn't. Because when he said that he'd filibuster telecom immunity, the bill he voted for didn't exist. You want to hold him to a past statement that's not even relevant to the current situation. I just want him to make good decisions. And his vote on FISA, I believe, was the best decision he could have made under the circumstances. Was he in a leveraged position due to his candidacy? Of course. But you can't ignore part of reality while acknowledging another. It's all one big, fucked-up, integrated mess.

Acually, he did a 90, not a one 180, on telecom immunity, as opposed to FISA (opposed but didn't filibuster). I am not at all happy about the telecom immunity part because its wrong to let any industry buy itself a congressional reversal of a judicial opinion. That is destructive of the rule of law and emblematic of everything that's gone wrong with our system. No argument from me there. (Plus, I hate telcos just on GP's because it seems like they've been a pain in my ass since I first moved out of my parents house.)

But as to the substantive provisions in the rest of the law, well I finally broke down and read the damn thing a couple of nights ago and, frankly, it is not going cause me to lay awake at night waiting for the Thought Police to come kick down my, or my neighbor's, door.

I'm not crazy about living in a world where a law like that is necessary, and its probably inevitable that the new technical capabilitiy Bush created is going to be abused. But as to the law, I would really like one of the people who are really upset to cite the specific provisions that have them so upset and tell me why its upsetting. Not what someone else says about the law in general. Not what someone else says the law allows, even if that person is another lawyer, like Gleen Greenwald.

No, tell me the specific provision or provisions in the law that bother you--give me a cite or cut and paste the offending text from the bill itself. Then, maybe, we can have an intelligent conversation about whether this law is really the end of the rule of law and civil liberties as we know them. You may even convince me it really is a danger to all we hold dear as a nation--I'm not claiming that one read-though of a hundred and something page law with the usual maddeningly large number of cross-references makes me an expert on it.

But I do think my one read-through and my law license makes me more qualified to talk about it than someone who hasn't read it.

So give me a cite and then maybe we can have a meaningful discussion.

Then again, maybe not. Every time one of the TPM League of Actual Lawyers tries to explain something about this bill or the Fourth Amendment based on actual law, rather than something someone thinks the law is or oughta be, they just get a bunch of vitriolic abuse sprayed on them. This thing has become the liberal equivalent of wearing a flag pin--its a symbol that's become unmoored from its meaning and has turned into a halfwitted litmus test for one's Americanism.

Public opinion is, obviously, important, but you neglected to mention the fourth estate, so named because of its role in providing the truth to the electorate, so that public opinion is based on facts and truth, not propaganda and political expediency.

Sadly, that is rarely the case anymore, and so we desperately need media overhaul and oversight if public opinion is to mean anything.

The Blackstone one floored me.

I agree baby.

Thanks! I was surprised to see it bump up. :O)