That wasn't quite a yes or no answer, but am I correct in interpreting your repetition of the claim that Liberals Are Destroying America as signaling that your position is that if it upsets Liberals, it must be a good thing? Got it.
We'll just have to agree to disagree. I don't buy the nitpicking argument that pattern analysis of phone records is so completely different from actually recording calls. Monitoring is monitoring; information about us becomes known to the government. And at least the illegal wiretapping programs can claim the fig leaf of probable cause, since there are too many conversations to make a comprehensive surveillance program feasible. Bush's defense of that illegal program rested entirely on its specificity, in fact; over and over he's asserted that it's OK precisely because it's so specific that they only listen to calls to and from Al Qaida. By the standards Bush himself is asserting, this phone record database is wrong because it's a broad and indiscriminate fishing expedition. It does the very thing he tried to reassure us wasn't being done. This is worse than the illegal wiretaps.
I've come across analyses by people who think that Republicans are setting up this issue to be the rallying point for their last stand in November. Bring it on. Nothing will so clearly illustrate the difference in values than to see who's ready to jettison principles the moment the going gets tough, and who stands up for them. American values are not a weakness we can't afford in time of war. American values are the very thing that give us the strength to prevail. We can't afford leaders who cut-and-run on the Bill of Rights.
Current Events » in reply to re: Surrender
Surrender
The whole thread (69 posts)
- The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans
- Here is something interesting - good or bad?
- re: The New York Times article from last December
- HIgh crimes and misdemeanors
- Brace for spin
- Tens of millions of Americans?