Newshoggers Comments
The real question is how did the Times sit on this story for a year, when if it had ocme out before the election things there might have turne out um differently?
See "Public Enemy" at http://gadflying.blog.com/457129/ .
I figure we're quite a few pages into living Sinclair Lewis' "It Can't Happen Here" -- because apparently it IS happening here.
NSA says, "trust me ..." by Glenn Disney February 9, 2006
"I don't have anything to hide and so I don't mind the government monitoring my conversations with others," he smugly proclaimed.
Lie! This disingenuous attitude presuming to know daddy Government stems from dangerous jingoism or stupidity. The constitutional founders who conceived search warrants, due process, and safeguards from a government on probation didn't have anything to hide either. But they knew about power and the inherent corruption potential of those acquiring it. Those who proclaim such trust in government are cousins of the old Soviet KGB snitches and of the same mold as your grade school tattle-talers. Beware of these people as U.S. government spying, under the guise of our protection, reaches maturity.
Let's clear away the Administration's propagandic decoy that begs, "the government must be able to monitor the enemy in order to protect our citizens," or "this is war and we must do all that we can do to protect the people." Variations of the same grandiosity go on and on. It's like selling bottled spring water promoting zero calories and caffeine!
1. Nobody argues the point of robust protection of our citizens.
2. Nobody's against spying on the enemy.
The question, resulting in an impossible guaranteed protection of constitutional rights, is how do you let the rodeo bull pass through the china store without wrecking a great deal of the valuables, in this case a person's property and that of which is privacy, implicitly provisioned in at least two U.S. Constitutional Amendments. President Bush's courage and impetous, prompted by some more intensely motivated, to excercise an arguable Executive power intercepting phone calls and emails, was the Patriot Act. If we're allowed a peek into the final "Act," the recent constitutional rape on ordinary rights afforded ordinary citizens is an award-winning preview.
Government employees, the "people" factor ...
We need to remember that whoever spies on us is still a government employee. All of that idiosyncratic baggage that comes with under worked, overpaid, inefficient, politically motivated, giant bureaucracies still exists, no matter how high-tech the infringement upon your private life and speech becomes. Things like quotas to turn in at least something at the end of the day, and one the more immediate corruptions of the Patriot Act by the mere fact a federal employee is involved, is reasonable expectation. The temptation to create something out of nothing, i.e., busy work, pigeon-holed for use against you at an opportune time is a real concern. These people desire promotions like anybody else. It's not just computers data-mining on whoever's phone call or email brushes up against a specific algorithm. It's people analyzing and molding your words with their own agendas and fallible perspectives!
Although periodic reports to Congress, supposedly an accountability measur
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