Let’s be clear about this: illegal government spying on Americans is a violation of individual liberties, whether conditions are troubled or not. Nobody with a real regard for the rule of law and the Constitution would have difficulty seeing that. The law governing the National Security Agency was written after the Vietnam War because the government had made lists of people it considered national security threats and spied on them. All the same empty points about effective intelligence gathering were offered then, just as they are now, and the Congress, the courts and the American people rejected them.
It would be difficult to do justice to the ways our nation has changed since 9.11. It was a day that will forever serve as a “before and after” marker in our collective history. Every American, whether directly or indirectly was touched by the events of 9.11. We continue to feel the reverberations to this day and no doubt will for many, many years to come. Most of us will look at that terrible day as a defining moment in our lives, and virtually every one of us has an “I remember where I was when….” story of that horrible day.
We can’t change the past or the terrible things that occurred on that day. What we can do is have a positive impact on our present and our future…and frankly, the things that have been allowed to take place in our name do not bode well for either.
Our government’s response to 9.11 has to been to use 9.11 as an excuse for a series of ever more repressive and invasive tactics directed not at any terrorist threat, but by and large at the American people. The latest evidence of this is the revelation that Our Glorious Leader has been authorizing the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on American citizens. That’s right- you may not be safe from prying eyes and ears, and I may not be, either. Perhaps this is much ado about nothing, but allowing an agency of the American government to spy on everyday American citizens is just plain wrong, and there’s simply no other way to put it.
[S]ometime in 2002, President Bush signed a secret executive order scrapping a painfully reached, 25-year-old national consensus: spying on Americans by their government should generally be prohibited, and when it is allowed, it should be regulated and supervised by the courts. The laws and executive orders governing electronic eavesdropping by the intelligence agency were specifically devised to uphold the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition of unreasonable searches and seizures.
But Mr. Bush secretly decided that he was going to allow the agency to spy on American citizens without obtaining a warrant - just as he had earlier decided to scrap the Geneva Conventions, American law and Army regulations when it came to handling prisoners in the war on terror. Indeed, the same Justice Department lawyer, John Yoo, who helped write the twisted memo on legalizing torture, wrote briefs supporting the idea that the president could ignore the law once again when it came to the intelligence agency’s eavesdropping on telephone calls and e-mail messages.
“The government may be justified in taking measures which in less troubled conditions could be seen as infringements of individual liberties,” he wrote.
In other words, the only way to protect rights and freedoms is to infringe upon those rights and freedoms? Do the 51% of y’all who voted for the Prevaricator in Chief realize what you’ve done? You have, by your undemanding indifference, authorized a President who deems it acceptable to stomp on the Constitution in order to protect it. You have acquiesced in the beginnings of a police state…and if you really think it’s going to stop here, you need to remove your anterior from your posterior.
Let’s be clear about this: illegal government spying on Americans is a violation of individual liberties, whether conditions are troubled or not. Nobody with a real regard for the rule of law and the Constitution would have difficulty seeing that. The law governing the National Security Agency was written after the Vietnam War because the government had made lists of people it considered national security threats and spied on them. All the same empty points about effective intelligence gathering were offered then, just as they are now, and the Congress, the courts and the American people rejected them.
This particular end run around civil liberties is also unnecessary. The intelligence agency already had the capacity to read your mail and your e-mail and listen to your telephone conversations. All it had to do was obtain a warrant from a special court created for this purpose. The burden of proof for obtaining a warrant was relaxed a bit after 9/11, but even before the attacks the court hardly ever rejected requests.
The FISA court has been petitioned for warrants more than 18,000 times since it’s creation. It has refused a request only FOUR times.
The special court can act in hours, but administration officials say that they sometimes need to start monitoring large batches of telephone numbers even faster than that, and that those numbers might include some of American citizens. That is supposed to justify Mr. Bush’s order, and that is nonsense. The existing law already recognizes that American citizens’ communications may be intercepted by chance. It says that those records may be retained and used if they amount to actual foreign intelligence or counterintelligence material. Otherwise, they must be thrown out.
Come on, America; don’t think it’s about time to WAKE UP AND SMELL THE CAT LITTER?? Isn’t it about time we demanded that Our Glorious Leader stop looking for ways to break the law in order to preserve it and protect us? If the only way to protect our rights and liberties is to infringe upon them, did we ever really have them to begin with?
What is simply stunning is that so many Americans are so willing to acquiesce in this travesty. Call it the “Well, if they haven’t done anything wrong, they don’t have anything to worry about” syndrome. That’s a great attitude…until you’re the one in the government’s crosshairs…and don’t think it couldn’t happen.
It’s time for good and decent Americans to stand up and scream “ENOUGH!!” If the only way Our Glorious Leader can find to protect this country is to violate it’s laws and trample it’s Constitution, then it’s time to impeach him so we can install a President who will do the job he was elected to do- within the law.
WE DESERVE BETTER.
