It has been a while since I've posted. In the interim quite a bit has happened in the political world. A NYT's article came out claiming that the President of the United States has illegally ordered spying on U.S. citizens without warrant. The lefty blogs went wild! Rush Limbaugh noted that the writer of the article has a book coming out in a few days with this news in one of it's chapters. Hmmmm...
Well, waiting to blog on a subject is something I often do. I like to think it is to get a few more facts to either back up my original thoughts or find out I'm wrong. The real reason is because I have a lazy streak.
NewsMax.com came out with an interesting article that shows this action by bush is not new.
Clinton NSA Eavesdropped on U.S. Calls - During the 1990's under President Clinton, the National Security Agency monitored millions of private phone calls placed by U.S. citizens and citizens of other countries under a super secret program code-named Echelon. -
Hugh Hewitt has a fine article on the Powers of the President. This is presented in series form which has 5 parts at the time of this posting. The opening gambit of the series says: - Overlooked in most of the commentary on the New York Times article is the simple, undeniable fact that the president has the power to conduct warrantless surveillance of foreign powers conspiring to kill Americans or attack the government. The Fourth Amendment, which prohibits "unreasonable" searches and seizures has not been interpreted by the Supreme Court to restrict this inherent presidential power. The 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (an introduction from a critic of the Act is here) cannot be read as a limit on a constitutional authority even if the Act purported to so limit that authority.
prying1 sez:
I remember times past where the government had wiretaps on home grown terrorist groups such as the Black Panthers and the Weathermen. A lot of shouting happened then too. In the group of friends I hung with the real fear was that government thugs would soon come after us for being pot smokers. They didn't. The government was looking for real bad people. Murderers and terrorists.
From what I see our current government is doing the same thing. Looking for bad guys. People that would love to destroy even more than the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. People that would love to destroy all governments and rule the world. (Please don't think I'm exaggerating. What is the goal of these Muslum extremists if not ultimately world domination? They cannot leave any countries free to oppose them.)
Imagine this. During the operations of wiretapping, listening in on cell phone calls, reading emails, etc. someone in our government learns than a U.S. citizen is having an affair. Or that someone else has homosexual tendencies. Or that someone is smoking pot. Are they going to care? I doubt it. They are busy looking for terrorists.
Now in my own business. A terrorist whose wires are being tapped calls the printing shop I work for and orders business cards. Now our shop is on the list. Throw a switch, ZAP, and all our calls are being tapped. Within 1/2 hour whoever has the job of listening will know for a fact that we are not related in any way to the terrorist and they won't bother with us again. I can only hope that the conversations recorded will lighten the day of the person whose job it is to listen in. We joke around quite a bit with our customers.
So I'm left with a choice. Oppose the policy of our government to spy on it's own citizens and give more power to people that want to kill me (and you too dear reader!) or support the policy that allows one branch of the government to use it's constitutional authority to protect the nation.
I vote to support it.
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