The Obama administration is again invoking government secrecy in defending the Bush administration's wiretapping program, this time against a lawsuit by AT&T customers who claim federal agents illegally intercepted their phone calls and gained access to their records.I've already read a couple of right-wing remarks saying "see? Even Obama knows Bush was right!" This feeling of satisfaction will last a couple of days until someone, probably Glenn Beck, realizes that Obama can tap Glenn Beck's phone because of policies that Bush put into place. Then all of the sudden, the policy will be fascism.
Disclosure of the information sought by the customers, "which concerns how the United States seeks to detect and prevent terrorist attacks, would cause exceptionally grave harm to national security," Justice Department lawyers said in papers filed Friday in San Francisco.
Kevin Bankston of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a lawyer for the customers, said Monday the filing was disappointing in light of the Obama presidential campaign's "unceasing criticism of Bush-era secrecy and promise for more transparency."
I'm going to say it now, the policy IS fascism. Warrentless wiretapping is easily abused and completely unnecessary, and the fact that we didn't do it was one of the reasons why we maintained moral superiority during the cold war. An unwillingness to torture people was one of the others.
Is Obama going to use these tainted tools himself or is he just trying to avoid dragging the Bush administration though a costly investigation? Who knows? How can they? I'm less worried that MY phone will be tapped than I was a year ago at this time, but since I'm posting this opinion, maybe I better stick to coded messages from here on in.
6 comments:
So who is the "you" that is referenced in the title: Bush, or the bad guys?
You're overthinking... it's you.
You Republicans. You spent years defending illegal wiretapping and torture, and the expansion of executive powers, and now whose hands is that in?
A Muslim terrorist! Hahahahaahahah!
... even worse than a Muslim terrorist. It's a DEMOCRAT!
That's where we see things differently. You see it as a "monster", I see it as a tool to fight the bad guys. The tool is there for the Office, not the Party.
I'd glad that it is available for whomever is living at 1600 Pennsylvania. As I stated before, if that tool is abused or used improperly, there are penalties for that. I don't think you'll find that many Republicans that are upset with Obama using this tool.
Just Democrats that Obama lied to to get their votes.
In our favor, we are not afraid to voice our disappointment. You'd be pretty hard to find Republicans who would disagree with Bush about ANYTHING for those first four years. That's probably why his numbers dropped so low at the end.
Obama's numbers will go down as those that voted blindly for his "hope and change" slogan begin to see he's not what they thought.
Bush told us what he was going to do, then did it. Obama told us he was going to do the opposite, yet continued down the same path. Which group of supporters do you think will be more disappointed?
Hint: Keith Olbermann spent about 10 minutes blasting someone last night, and for once it wasn't Bush.
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