Dueling headlines:
President Bush said Wednesday that a law hastily passed in August to temporarily give the government more power to eavesdrop without warrants on foreign terror suspects must be made permanent and expanded.
... Under the new law -- the Protect America Act -- the government can eavesdrop, without a court order, on communications conducted by a person reasonably believed to be outside the United States, even if an American is on one end of the conversation -- so long as that American is not the intended focus or target of the surveillance.
Putting aside the blatantly manipulative name of the law ("If you vote against the 'Protect America Act,' then obviously you hate America!"), this is hardly any surprise. After all, this President has not shown any self-restraint in trampling over civil liberties in the last six years, so why would he start now?
But before the Administration's apologists in the echo chamber start reassuring us that ordinary innocent citizens have nothing to fear, consider this:
Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell has previously said only about 100 Americans have been "targeted" for electronic surveillance, and he emphasized at a hearing here Tuesday that none of that eavesdropping has occurred without a court order. Doing so would be illegal, he added.
But when pressed by House of Representatives Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.) and other Democrats to estimate how many Americans who weren't necessarily "targets" have had their communications scooped up through the government's surveillance efforts, McConnell couldn't say.
So, even though the Director of National Intelligence has no idea whatsoever if the Protect America Act is inadvertently exposing your private phone calls and emails to everyone over at the NSA, President Bush insists that the law should be allowed to continue indefinitely, and promises you with a wink and a nod that you don't have to worry about any abuses or misuse of these unchecked powers -- because, gosh darn it, he's just so honest and trustworthy, he,d never ever ever lie to you about this. Right? Right?
...right?
(What right? You have no rights, citizen...)
Recent comments
2 weeks 3 days ago
3 weeks 13 min ago
6 weeks 4 days ago
6 weeks 4 days ago
9 weeks 3 days ago