Reply to Government Secretly Obtained AP's Phone Records

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Yes, this is going to be Big.  So will the IRS story.

Gosh this all seems so new to you.[/quote]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_warrantless_surveillance_controversy[/quote]

and your point is? ..............[/quote]

My point is the reason that the government so easily spies on the public is because we turned them loose to do it after 9/11.  I was absolutely opposed to the PATRIOT Act and the subsequent legislation.  I was opposed to the NSA warrantless wiretapping.  I am opposed to FISA.

Do you know what I heard when these things were being put into place?  Honest Americans don't have anything to fear.  The government is not going to spy on us and if they do we have nothing to hide.  We were attacked and we have to do something about it.  Republicans said it and Dems didn't say as much but they sure as hell voted for it.  That left people like me in the tiny, tiny minority.

Now (since '08) we have a Dem President and the far right has wakened to the possibility that the government might be using its power against them.  Suddenly we have senators worried about those spy drones and what information government is collecting about them and putting in the databases they built to fight the war on terror.   And now the press realizes that it has come to bite them as well, although to be fair to them at least the press covered all of these transgressions.

A week ago there was a thread wanting to know where the leak investigation went.  Republicans have been hammering about leaks, Obama is pissed about the leaks.  All reasonable positions.  Leaks involving the war on terror.  So this investigation was conducted - legally - using the same machinery that is used to chase after the bad guys.  Because in the logic of the war on terror, chasing down these leaks = chasing down the bad guys, and following the trail from the people receiving the leaks just makes sense.

So maybe the next time we decide to play fast and loose with civil liberties (assassinating citizens without trial for example) we might want to realize that when we allow government to do these things in the name of security, we allow it to develop the technologies and the mindset to do it to honest Americans as well.

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