Imagine that... NSA DOES take privacy seriously!

NSA has always been careful about protections like these. The agency has always played within the laws. The questions about the propriety of the domestic spying program all deal with the Administration's perversion of existing laws under which the NSA operates.

You'll note that one of the most serious critics of the Administration's actions and defenses of their actions has been General Odom, a former director of the NSA.

No, Petty, the problem isn't a systemic one, and it isn't a problem with the NSA nor the intelligence community as a whole. The problem is with this Administration and it's callous disregard for Congress, the rule of law, the Constitution, and the security of the nation.

 

Now I understand, it's American citizens who have relatives in Islamic countries that don't qualify for Bill of Rights protections.

I'm sure that you trust the national government of this and future administrations not to expand that list capriciously. After all, if it's not YOUR particular constitutional rights that are being threatened, then why worry. Big Brother in Washington knows what's best for us all.

In your spare time, Google "Reverend Martin Niemuller".

 

The existing law provides the administration all the flexibility they need -- even under the ticking bomb scenario.

I would NEVER give such a right. If they really do, "hate us for our freedom" then why give that freedom away willy-nilly. Somebody has been wanting to kill us every day since I was born -- even longer, sinc YOU were born. You don't dismantle the Bill of Rights for that reason.

Here's the problem, Petty. This administration and its acolytes have continually called protests, editorials, and other such public disagreements with the President or any of his policies "benefitting the terrorists" or "hurting our troops in the field." People who managed to question the President during the 2004 campaign about the war or the Patriot Act were shouted down by "true believers" as "terrorists."

So, given this administration's belief that dissent and disagreement equals disloyalty, and given that there's a war on and disloyalty is treason and an act of terrorism, it's a short logical step to determine that this administration, by by-passing the statutory system established precisely for this reason by Congress, is doing so so that they don't have to document just who they are calling a traitor or terrorist this week.

If that doesn't bother you, then you really are so deep into apologia for this bunch of "junk conservatives" that you no longer have any kind of judgment or persective at all.

The greatest potential danger to this country does not come from abroad. That has always been a powerful American government willing to trample over personal freedoms in the face of a hapless or careless electorate. How do I know this to be true? Because patriotic conservatives have been telling me that for almost 50 years and they were absolutely correct.

When I hear it from Teddy? I don't talk to West Ham forwards. Sheesh.