You Created A Monster

SFGATE:

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.

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'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.

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.