No, I'm not going to let you get away with obfuscating principles with partisanship. Bush's secret spying programs stand or fall on their own, and I think they're absolutely wrong.
Don't try to imply hypocrisy on my part, either. When the NSA convinced Clinton to try to ban strong encryption and institution the misbegotten Clipper Chip, I was on the front lines prepared to engage in civil disobedience by sending random noise in emails, which is indistinguishable from strongly encrypted data. Don't go there. I've earned my cred on this issue.
Nor will I let you get away with blurring the distinction between public and private. Your analogy with police surveillance of taverns is ludicrous. Your expectation and right to privacy when making a phone call bears no resemblance at all to the understood lack of privacy of a public place like the street outside a tavern.
Nor will I stand for twisting words. "Monitor" means exactly what everyone understands it to mean:
monitor transitive verb
to watch, keep track of, or check usually for a special purpose
Merriam-Webster
I like Princeton's WordNet for the simple directness of their definition: "keep tabs on; keep an eye on; keep under surveillance".
The use of the word "monitoring" is in news stories hardly serves to confuse the issue. I think you find it embarrassingly clear.
Current Events » in reply to Differences
No
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?