Editorial: The Fear of Fear Itself (NYT)

[struggle4progress]

Published: August 7, 2007

It was appalling to watch over the last few days as Congress — now led by Democrats — caved in to yet another unnecessary and dangerous expansion of President Bush’s powers, this time to spy on Americans in violation of basic constitutional rights. Many of the 16 Democrats in the Senate and 41 in the House who voted for the bill said that they had acted in the name of national security, but the only security at play was their job security.

There was plenty of bad behavior. Republicans marched in mindless lockstep with the president. There was double-dealing by the White House. The director of national intelligence, Mike McConnell, crossed the line from being a steward of this nation’s security to acting as a White House political operative. ~snip~

The votes in the House and Senate were supposed to fix a genuine glitch in the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires the government to obtain a warrant before eavesdropping on electronic communications that involve someone in the United States. The court charged with enforcing that law said the government must also seek a warrant if the people are outside the country, but their communications are routed through data exchanges here — a technological problem that did not exist in 1978.

Instead of just fixing that glitch, the White House and its allies on Capitol Hill railroaded Congress into voting a vast expansion of the president’s powers. They gave the director of national intelligence and the attorney general authority to intercept — without warrant, court supervision or accountability — any telephone call or e-mail message that moves in, out of or through the United States as long as there is a “reasonable belief” that one party is not in the United States. The new law all but eviscerates the 1978 law. The only small saving grace is that the new statute expires in six months. ~snip~

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/07/opinion/07tue1.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

[C_U_L8R]

1. Okay - they got what they want... now what ???

What would happen.. hypothetically of course....
if a large group of people, randomly inserted certain
key words into all forms of electronic communication?
Just out of curiosity... wouldn't the government data scoopers
be rendered useless by such info jamming? Hypothetically of course.

[MannyGoldstein]

2. OK Everyone, Say "B-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a"

And just keep voting for the same people.

:banghead:

[struggle4progress]

3. It might be more fun if citizens paid "friendly visits" to elected officials during

the recess. Having a few hundred (polite but really) grumpy citizens drop by or call, one after another, might do wonders with some of the nitwits