Occam's Razor and Illegal Wire Tapping by BushCo

If you are an adherent of Occam's Razor or the simplest is usually the right answer, then Bush's bypassing of the FISA regulations can ONLY lead one to the conclusion that the spying wasn't restricted to "international" communications. The simplest reason that BushCo would have bypassed the "secret courts" is because they planned to use the wire taps for domestic political advantage and NO court would have approved. They cannot claim speed as a reason to bypass the law because the warrants can be issued RETROACTIVELY when time is of the essence. They cannot claim that they would have to argue endlessly for a warrant because since it's inception in 1978 the "secret" court has NEVER refused a warrant request. The only plausible reason for bypassing the law requiring warrants is because they planned to conduct domestic spying operations for political advantage.

And I want to extend my personal thanks to the New York Times for protecting me from that asshole's political enemies.

since they held on to the info for a year.

please note: no intention to be snarky.
the whole thing -- the president doing it -- nyt holding on to the info -- it all just pisses me off.

Their coverage was, shall we say, not sufficient. Kinda like this:

to be able to freely eavesdrop on the other party.

And how well I remember the phony brouhaha about "Hillary and the 700 FBI files."

But, hey, though you've outlined the excuses that they are logically precluded from using, let me just tell you that after reading a post about this at freeptardville, it appears that today's excuse will be an oldie-but-goody: "IT'S THE DEMOCRATS' FAULT."

The way it works, apparently, is, that the "gang of eight"--leaders and ranking members in congress--"knew" about this b/c they had to be informed. However, the congress people were legally bound not to DO anything whatsoever about it.

the whole story.

seems to indicate bubble-boy is desperate.

according to a couple of articles - the radio address was to be on the Iraqi(s)Elections....

Sunday's (tonight) 'address to the nation' is suppose to be more on how he plans on winning in Iraq -- wonder if he'll slip in crap about how the NY Times are unpatriotic for publishing the "bugging of Americans"?

Faux-spews was spinning it madly yesterday - re-framing the issue to the 'irresponsibility of NY Times' for publishing the story

caught a snippet of bubble-boy saying he would 'defend America as long as I'm President' --- ummm that could be easily fixed ya know...pssssttttt impeachment comes to mind

'Faux-spews was spinning it madly yesterday - re-framing the issue to the 'irresponsibility of NY Times' for publishing the story'

hilarious, as they just hired Novak! Can any of the American idiots not see the insanity?

The database is kept offsite and is privately funded.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5622178

source: http://www.eff.org/Censorship/Terrorism_militias/fisa_faq.html

"Individual judges of the FISC review the Attorney General's applications for authorization of electronic surveillance aimed at obtaining foreign intelligence information. The proceedings are nonadversarial and are based solely on the DOJ's presentations through its Office of Intelligence Policy and Review."

"Entities are not to be increased in number beyond what is required." Occam's Razor is a constraint on hypotheses.

Best paraphrased as "Assume the simplest answer that accounts for all the data is correct." "The simplest answer is usually the right answer" is more simplistic than Occam would ever have stooped to. As I've told students, that's the assumption: but it's frequently wrong, because our data are not complete. As a heuristic, it's sound enough, though, when it can be applied. Figuring out what's "simplest" outside of logically restricted questions and some mathematics is frequently a nightmare, and when there are two equally simple answers, Occam's axiom is of no use. The constraint's even weaker when we know there is data missing: the appropriate thing to do is find the data, or draw implications from what's know. I don't think the NYT would sit on domestic wiretapping data and judge that revealing it would hurt national security; they have little love for *, on the whole. Breaking *that* story would sell lots of papers.

What you're after is abduction: Any hypothesis that accounts for the facts is assumed to be correct.

Deduction, if the premises are sound, leads to a valid (i.e., always true) conclusion. Hence, "Socrates is a man; all men are mortal; therefore Socrates is mortal" is judged valid. In abduction, we reverse the premises and conclusion: Socrates is mortal; men are mortal; therefore Socrates is a man. Then again, "Socrates is mortal; guinea pigs are mortal; therefore Socrates is a guinea pig" works just as well. Peirce could properly say that abduction is fine for generating hypotheses, but not conclusions.

Thank you for the education regarding Occam's Razor. I hope the general thrust of my post was understood as it relates to the possible reasons Bush would have bypassed seemingly perfunctory steps required by law. The following is from Wikipedia Occam's Razor entry.

<< (also spelled Ockham's Razor), is a principle attributed to the 14th-century English logician and Franciscan friar, William of Ockham. It forms the basis of methodological reductionism, also called the principle of parsimony or law of economy.

In its simplest form, Occam's Razor states that one should make no more assumptions than needed. Put into everyday language, it says

Pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate
which translates to

Multiples should not be used if not needed.
But a more commonly used translation is:

Given two equally predictive theories, choose the simpler.
>>

My theory is that Bush didn't get court ordered warrants because the court would have never let him spy on ordinary americans and political rivals. I cannot think of another reason he would have done such a thing unless he thought the court was compromised by intelligence leaks.

thread (maybe two-three hours before my current post) linked to. They're worth looking at, and drawing conclusions as to what would be reasonable on 9/12/01, and what was reasonable in 12/2003. I come up with a range of what I'd do, depending on the date, LIHOP/MIHOP/terrorist attack assumptions, my assumptions about what the text of the various laws and statutes say, and what the court's biases and concerns were at the time.

I'm going to remain agnostic: nothing's forcing me to make a hypothesis or draw a conclusion this month; I have the luxury of just seeking out (or in this case, waiting for) more data.

You can teach us anytime.