BIG BROTHER BUSH:The president took a step toward a police state

[kpete]

Sunday, December 18, 2005

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

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.


The White House needs to tell the Pentagon promptly to destroy the records of protesters as required, within three months. It also needs promptly to tell the NSA to return to following the rules, to get the approval of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court before monitoring Americans' communications. The idea that all of this is being done to us in the name of national security doesn't wash; that is the language of a police state. Those are the unacceptable actions of a police state.
http://atrios.blogspot.com/
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05352/623818.stm

AND HERE'S ANOTHER GOOD ONE:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-security18dec18,0,5190326.story?coll=la-news-comment-editorials

[AlinPA]

1. I was just going to post it. Post Gazette editorial for Sunday - strong

words. It seems Bush** - Rove are going to have to work overtime to get America to drop this issue. Way to go Pitt P-G.

[The2ndWheel]

3. Isn't that a far leap to take?

Proclaiming that they'll have to work overtime to get America to drop the issue only a few days after it became an "official" story? This is America, give it a month or two.

[AlinPA]

5. I hear you. Yes, after all the football games are done.

[alfredo]

2. Wasn't illegal wiretaps one of the things that brought Nixon down?

[I Have A Dream]

4. I love the Post-Gazette's editorial page! n/t