Oh, I know John Ashcroft said it was a
good idea. But what does that prove?
And, sure, FEMA tried to set up
"Operation TIPS" under its Citizen Corps, with the idea that the postman and cable-guy would help keep an eye on us, but why should those of us with nothing to hide be afraid? Anyway, since Congress killed the program, we don't have to
remember it, do we?
And, yeah, it's true that John Poindexter of Iran-Contra fame dreamed up a massive domestic data-mining operation, DARPA's
Total Information Awareness program. But let's be fair: they
did quickly change the name to something that
sounded a little better. And, anyway, Congress
http://www.fas.org/sgp/congress/2003/tia.html"> shut that down, too. So we don't have to think about it anymore, either, even if the Administration was a
bit vague about whether they actually intended to shutter the operation.
So, some activists have ended up on the
no-fly list. Why would you think there's any agenda there?
And the FBI has monitored a few
peaceful protest groups, like
Food Not Bombs or those people who live in
Denver. And the Pentagon's CIFA has spied on several
war opponents. Couldn't these just be isolated instances?
OK, the California National Guard did spy on a Mother's Day rally and then set up a special unit to
track dissidents, in violation of the Posse Comitatus act, but the government promised an investigation, announced that the still-secret investigation had cleared everybody, and finally
dismantled the unit, I think. So what's the big deal?
Yeah, the NSA worked with local police to watch the
Baltimore Pledge of Resistence. Couldn't it all just be a big misunderstanding?
Some people get really worked up about
"sneak and peak". warrants. But without the PATRIOT act, could the FBI have framed lawyer Brandon Mayfield for the Madrid bombing and
seized his client files? Even Attorney General Gonzalez
admits "sneak and peak" warrants were used in that case. Of course, it's too bad that Mayfield was innocent but maybe his innocence is irrelevant.
Recently, the President has said that he
authorized warrantless wiretaps of Americans. This confused everyone. There is now an
investigation into the leak, which may one day reveal how Bush learned this.
The media, of course, is helping us sort this out
in the usual way, as many of us find ourselves perplexed by the convoluted wording of a difficult
1972 Supreme Court decision: "The freedoms of the Fourth Amendment cannot properly be guaranteed if domestic security surveillances are conducted solely within the discretion of the Executive Branch without the detached judgment of a neutral magistrate."
John Dean, for example, is thoroughly puzzled: "There can be no serious question that warrantless wiretapping, in violation of the law, is impeachable. After all, Nixon was charged in Article II of his bill of impeachment with illegal wiretapping for what he, too, claimed were national security reasons."
And John McCain is wondering why the President didn't simply
ask FISC for the warrants, although this is yet another example of why John is not President, because if he had paid attention, he would remember the Court has been snippy with the Administration, claiming
"the government .. misused the law and misled the court dozens of times".
So why would anybody think our President would spy on anyone? It's not like anybody can
find a lot of noisy extremists describing their political opponents as traitors who support America's enemies. Well, sure, there was that isolated incident where Ron Paige called the teachers' union a
"terrorist organization" ...