rangerBlog - August 7th, 2007

04:36 pm - Dear Congress...

I've spent the last few days trying to figure out how I feel about the new law giving the government wide-ranging warrantless wiretap powers (which was passed as a rush-job after the courts affirmed that yes, this was illegal, and yes that does mean you too.)

On the one hand, I'm not a fan of government surveillance in any form. On the other hand, they promise to only use it on bad foreigners!

Fortunately, Ed Albaugh captured my angst for me:

The American intelligence community was performing illegal warrantless wiretaps knowing they were illegal (no one seriously thought they were, the only question was how long the courts would take to officially declare them so.) Clearly when the speed limit is 55mph, they feel they can go 65. Raising the speed limit to 65 mph doesn't put them on the straight and narrow- it just tells them they can go 75.

Our intelligence community believes any mandate worth following is worth exceeding.

The Democrats were put back into power by promising to curtail the Bush Administration's erosion of civil liberties. Bush shook his finger and said he'd veto any bill that didn't give the NSA the power they thought they needed- and the Democrats him exactly what he asked for.
The Democrats aren't stupid they know damn well "to only use on foreigners" really means that years we'll be back in court 2 years from now because they're using it on American citizens. I'm so fucking disgusted.

Vote the Bastards Out. All of them. They're all bastards.