I heard an interview with Attorney General Gonzalez yesterday regarding the NSA wiretaps stating that getting a FISA warrant was too much of a burden and that the wiretaps were akin to when you go to the airport and get searched or enter a government building and get searched.
I find those to be appalling examples, but getting on an airplane or entering a building are voluntary actions undertaken by the searchee who consents to being searched as part of the action they're carrying out.
When my mom calls Germany to talk to her family she didn't consent to be listened in on by the NSA. It's an involuntary search, and that is the reason why we have warrants. It's gives us the assurance that an independent judge has at least reviewed the merits of the case and it passes muster.
I'm 100% fine with the NSA and FBI wiretapping people as long as there are stopgaps in place, like FISA, which ensure that civil liberties are protected.
But for Bush, and by proxy, our Attorney General, to claim that they have the authority to flaunt the Constitution and its protections of our civil liberties is distressing.
I find it ironic that Bush is more worried with trying to build a democracy in a country half-way across the globe while so glibly destroying and dismantling the one we have here at home. The same democracy he was elected to be the steward of.
Comments (2)
I find it ironic that when you heard about NSA wire-tapping Al Qaeda phone calls that you immediately worried about your mom being illegally wire-tapped during her phone calls to Germany.
Posted by Scott | January 30, 2006 1:58 PM
Posted on January 30, 2006 13:58
The only reason I can think of why Bush wouldn't want to get a warrant is so he wouldn't have to tell a judge who they were spying on and why the wire tap was necessary. These were ordinary phone taps not some 'New Fangled' datamining techniques that make FISA warrants obsolete dispite what the right wing media machine is saying.
Posted by Boongieman | January 30, 2006 2:28 PM
Posted on January 30, 2006 14:28