President Clinton has made it very clear that, as far as the United States is concerned, the intelligence agencies are there in the interests of America's economic supremacy, its corporate interests. Information being taken from these spy facilities, including here in Australia, is passed on to the corporate system--the Forbes 500 and the big multinational corporations--because it is in the interests of those big systems to get the drop on their competitors around the world.

http://www.geocities.com/pwdyson/brownspeech.html

This from 2000. Where is the outrage over giving information obtained to corporations? 
I guess this is all politics as normal.
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Or just maybe, the Senator from Tasmania, doesn't have quite the same level of access as a Senator from say... any state in the USA?

Just a Thought...
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Or said Senator was in fact knowledgable of what feed Australia was getting and giving.
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" The bill does refer to intervention in foreign phone calls--phone calls going out of this country--but what it does not say is that everybody's phone calls are being listened to, that everybody's phone calls are being scanned and, moreover, that the check on this system is not within our national boundaries. Australia has an arrangement with the UK, the United States, Canada and New Zealand whereby the downloading of selected phone calls--the intercepted calls which the Americans, in particular, want to listen to--go straight to Washington. I will be asking the government during the committee stages of this debate what control Australia has over this spy system based here in Australia. I think we will find that it is close to zero; that in fact this information is being relayed straight to Washington and to other countries without proper intervention by the Australian authorities. When this bill says, `Let's intervene in certain phone calls made by criminals and people with an intent that is not in Australia's interests,' it is really missing the point--that is, that everybody's phone calls are being listened in to and, as far as I know, this parliament has no control over that. This parliament is not informed about it. This parliament is not a watchdog on behalf of citizens. This parliament does not know what our spy systems are doing and, more particularly, it does not know what the foreign spy systems are doing which are getting the information out of the Australian infrastructure."

A closer reading reveals that as usual what you've referenced has little or no relationship to the current debate... if you were aiming this at the current flap over warrentless survielance of US Citizens on US Soil. Or, are you actually saying that it's illegal for US Intelligence Agencies to gather info on Foriegn Nationals, OVERSEAS?

My guess is that this is really just another transparent "shift the blame to Clinton" ploy.


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Ahhh ....  yes....  another one who has not paid any attention.  My point was not to shift blame, but reather this has been ahppening a long time, and I have no issue with it.  Basically I am telling you and everyone else this is nothing more then a media and democrat slam at Bush, because Clinton and crew was doing it as well.  The documentation has been out there for years, and just now is it becoming and issue because the lemming masses have no clue.
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Ahhh ....  yes....  another one who has not paid any attention.  My point was not to shift blame, but reather this has been ahppening a long time, and I have no issue with it.  Basically I am telling you and everyone else this is nothing more then a media and democrat slam at Bush, because Clinton and crew was doing it as well.  The documentation has been out there for years, and just now is it becoming and issue because the lemming masses have no clue.
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Ahhh ....  yes....  another one who has not paid any attention.  My point was not to shift blame, but reather this has been ahppening a long time, and I have no issue with it.  Basically I am telling you and everyone else this is nothing more then a media and democrat slam at Bush, because Clinton and crew was doing it as well.  The documentation has been out there for years, and just now is it becoming and issue because the lemming masses have no clue.
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There we go, everybody. Nothing more convincing than the arguments of:

1) Everybody else is doing it, so why can't I?
2) VABills doesn't have a problem with it (those 290 million other people can stuff it).

Truly, the cornerstones of determining U.S. policy.
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Just because they have been doing it for years or even decades doens't make it right.

Now excuse me as I must call my friend Ahmed from Saudi Arabia.  Hope noone is listening 
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It's not that it's right when either one does it, it's that the usual suspects complaining about it are the ones that would readily defend Clinton's use of it...or, in some cases, turning it into partisan spying on political opponents.  The big issue for some isn't that it's happening, it's that it's happening with a Republican in office. 

Which works both ways...quite a few of the usual suspects supporting the illegal wiretaps are likewise some of the most critical of the Clintons' abuses of the same kind.  Hypocrisy works both ways...
(P.S.  You're still an idiot.)
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