I do agree with you… but I think this provides great insight into the mindset of the Bush admin. Not Bush per se, I personally think he is quite average or less in intelligence and really quite the bumpkin… but his handlers.
Not to give him a pass, post- or pre-9/11, but you can at least see the reasoning for spying post-9/11, even if you think it is illegal, at any time or place. But for this to have started within just a few weeks after the admin took office, it shows a totally different (and far more sinister IMO) mindset. They hit the ground running thinking that NONE of the 300 million Americans were to be trusted, and they should be eavesdropped on as one of the first priorities of the administration. First 100 days (or much less) as it were. It shows a monumental distrust for all the American people. Guilty until proven innocent.
And, you know, I haven’t heard Hillary say much of anything, to date, about her views on the proper allocation of power between the executive and leglislative branches.
Come to think of it, I haven’t heard any of the presidential candidates, Dem or Pub – not even Ron Paul or Dennis Kucinich – say much about that. Probably because they all hope to be president, therefore they don’t want to say anything that might be quoted against them once they’re in office.
The issue is whether it’s OK to wiretap without authorization from the FISA court. That has nothing to do with 9/11, and everything to do with Cheney wanting to expand the President’s power.
I agree. I’m just saying it reveals the mind of the administration. I thought that the real push toward illegal wiretapping started after 9-11, but apparently it was the first thing Cheney et all went for. I thought Cheney wanted to expand the president’s power in the aftermath of war, and because of the war. But it seems it was his intention all along. 9-11 had nothing to do with it. That is the distinction I’m trying to draw.
I can understand a gung-ho effort after 9-11, even if it is still illegal. But to (I’m assuming) plan this long before they even were “elected” is just reprehensible. Double-plus ungood…
There’s a big attitudinal divide that is seperate from the political, to some degree. That’s people who just feel that the gov having power to spy doesn’t matter, 'cause if you’re not guilty of anything, you got nothing to sweat.
Reminds me of a buddy of mine from back in the day, doctrinaire lefty, only person I still know who can use a word like “proletariat” with a straight face. Anyway, he was always on about how the FBI was following him, poking around and shit. I mocked him mercilessly at the time, like, sure, they got time to hassle some academic lefty like you, c’mon, get real.
Then one day he invited me over to look at his FBI file, from the FOIA act (this was years and years later…) Sucker was about four inches thick, full of notes and photos, And if this guy was a threat to national secutiry, well, so am I, and so are you.
Oh, yeah, the punchline. “This photo will interest you, particularly. Got your best side, don’t you think…?”
IMHO, the issue should be is it okay to wiretap US citizens at all? Because I’m going to say, “Fuck no.” Back when I was involved in Activities Which Shall Not Be Named[sup]TM[/sup], the surest way to earn a beating was to mention anything that remotely sounded illegal on the phone. SOP was to assume that the phones were tapped and your mail was being read by Imperial forces.
Mind you, we were strictly small time, and didn’t have access to things like scramble phones and the like, but we had evidence that at least some of us were under the microscope, as it were. If small fry like us could figure that out, I’d imagine that folks running the big time operations, complete with scramble phones and the like are smart enough to take precautions. Given that with all the snooping we’ve been doing we haven’t been able to locate Goat Fucker Number 1 (aka Osama), I’d say that they are. This means, of course, that any folks they catch via wiretaps are such drooling idiots that they’d be caught anyway, so why are we wasting our tax dollars on listening to people?
Not even with a court order? Do you also think it’s not OK to detain a US citizen, even with an arrest warrant? How about searching a home with a proper search warrant?
Very few people would go to that extreme. For most of us, the issue is who has the right to authorize wiretaps: the court or the President.
The U.S. government spied on its own population for several decades, whether we’re talking about infiltrating peace groups, reading mail en masse, or tapping phones. The Church Committee in the '70s really fucked things up and upset the applecart. As far as I can tell that was the last time anyone in government tried to fight against authoritarianism. The pendulum finally swung the other way and the situation is firmly in control again, so don’t worry. Does anyone really care if some old man knows what kind of porn you like? Maybe he’ll get a new favorite.
Besides, there’s no point in worrying about it – there’s nothing we can do about it.
Can I suggest that the claims of government wrong doing, by someone who is in the process of being prosecuted by that same government for financial crimes should be taken with some skepticism?
I’m suggesting we only have Nacchio’s word that number two in your list took place. I’m sure such a request would have been made in writting and with much paper trail, I’d rather wait until such a paper trail is available before I just take Nacchio’s word.
Well, we could have a Congressional investigation, but, darn! its a national security matter, and the Bushies only have to tell you what they figure its ok for you to know. Bit of tilt on the playing field, I’m afraid.
He appears to be trying to say that the government wouldn’t possibly let such information out were it in fact true, thereby lightly implying that any desire for actual evidence is somehow naive.
