NSA Bill: Legalized Unwarranted Spying on Americans

Wired News: NSA Bill Performs a Patriot Act

In contrast, Specter’s bill concedes the government’s right to wiretap Americans without warrants, and allows the U.S. Attorney General to authorize, on his own, dragnet surveillance of Americans so long as the stated purpose of the surveillance is to monitor suspected terrorists or spies. (underline added)

Senator Specter has obviously gone off the deep end, going from calling Bush’s illegal unwarranted spying program "a festering sore" to sponsoring a bill that pours raw sewage on that open wound. For those you from PA, you may want to remind Specter that he’s accountable for his actions.

Despite its fervent claims, the government has never once shown how these unwarranted wiretapping programs either stop the bad guys or protect the rights of the innocent. It’s 100% "trust us, we’re the good guys." And given their civilian leadership and the repeated unrelenting and documented lies coming from BushCo, that trust doesn’t go very far.

People are afraid to challenge the program on the assumption that it works and is even useful. But is it? How do we know it isn’t just creating a mountain of investigative data that buries the real leads in a mile of shit?

And what’s with the secrecy at this point? Terrorists must already know their phones and email may be tapped. Mohamed Atta traveled overseas just to relay messages back and forth to al Queda. And that’s before 9/11. The only people routinely subjected to these technologies are the law abiding citizens. What good can that possibly do?

I’m going to go out on a limb and predict that it’s only a matter of time, maybe 2 years, before we find evidence (watergate 2) that this is being used for political purposes. Anyone want to bet their freedom on that? You may not have a choice.