Editorial: Big Brother Bush / The president took a step toward a police st

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05352/623818.stm

The Bush administration is continuing its assault on Americans' privacy and freedom in the name of the war on terrorism.

First, in 2002, according to extensive reporting in The New York Times on Friday, it secretly authorized the National Security Agency to intercept and keep records of Americans' international phone and e-mail messages without benefit of a previously required court order. Second, it has permitted the Department of Defense to get away with not destroying after three months, as required, records of American Iraq war protesters in the Pentagon's Threat and Local Observation Notice, or TALON, database.

Both practices mean that a government agency is maintaining information on Americans, reminiscent of the Johnson and Nixon administrations' approach to Vietnam War protesters. The existence of those records should be seen against a background of the Bush administration's response to criticism of the Iraq war by retired Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson. His wife's career at the CIA was ended in revenge for an article he wrote unmasking a dodgy piece of intelligence that President Bush had used in a State of the Union message to seek to support his decision to go to war.

It appears that the phone and e-mail messages of thousands of Americans and foreigners resident in America have been or are being monitored and recorded by the NSA. Such action is not supposed to be taken without an application to and an order approved by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Mr. Bush issued an executive order in 2002, months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attack, removing -- secretly -- that legal safeguard of Americans' privacy and civil rights.

[flordehinojos]

1. so who the hell wants to keep him in the oval office?

kick his ass out! evict him! impeach him! cart him out to jail! stop the tyrant dead on his tracks!

[Freedom_from_Chains]

2. We have been rapididly moving toward a police state

since Sept 11th. People have just refused to look.

[greiner3]

3. Nothing substantial will be done;

Until there is a Dem controlled house and senate. IMHO

[sduncang]

4. Afraid You're Correct....

This is all fluff until such time as the Dems get control of the House and/or Senate. But, it serves a purpose as this story is illuminating, (for some, most of us already knew this) and adds yet another nail in the coffin.

[rodeodance]

5. thats what Kings do.