To Whom Should We Listen?
Why would someone with a good job in the private sector, dependant upon his/her professional reputation (George Washington Law School Professor Jonathan Turley), risk everything to speak out against a sitting president’s abuse of power and sweeping claims of authority?
Nevertheless, people with everything to lose, and nothing to gain are doing it.
These are voices to which we should listen. You may hear such voices among the witnesses at the recent congressional hearing on the NSA’s wiretapping.
January 22nd, 2006 at 11:49 am
American citizens were in communication with known Al-Qaeda members over seas. The NSA listened to these communications. Not only was that a good thing but it was in keeping with thier responsibility to defend the people of the United States. Just think what would happen if a terrorist act was commited and it could have been prevented by listening to those in this country helping the terrorists. 911 very well could have been stopped if we had of been listening to phone conversations by the 911 highjackers to thier Al-Qaeda controllers over seas.
January 22nd, 2006 at 2:27 pm
Ken!
Again, with great respect, I think you miss the point, “Just think what would happen if a terrorist act was committed and it could have been prevented by listening to those in this country helping the terrorists.”
No one is preventing the president from listening in on anyone. So I’m not sure how your point relates to the president’s circumnavigation of constitutional checks and balances.
January 23rd, 2006 at 3:44 pm
The other issue is that of spying on groups that are ideoligically opposed to Bush & Co, like the Quakers in Florida.
The Quakers teach non-violence which is the opposite of terrorism. They state their beliefs publicly — there is no reason to spy on groups like these if the intention is to stop terrorism. But I can see that to a corrupt government, peaceful protest may be more dangerous than terrorism.
March 10th, 2006 at 3:41 pm
So here is a a fine line. Monitoring phone conversatons and email communications from known (suspsected) terrorist with those people that live here in the United States. Now honestly if you are calling people who are terriosts, or they are calling you, most likely you are doing other things that have caught the attention of NSA, Homeland Security. Isn’t that what the Patriot Act was for? So now we can squabble over whether this is illegal or with in Executive Powers. Instead of pointing fingers, we should focus on whether or not this directive was used for other phone tappings that actually did not purtain to Terrorist activity.
Every President we have had has found themselves in simular situations to this one, I am sure there has been more than wire tappings being performed. The questions is does it serve the greater good, does it violate any of our civil liberities? If it does do we allow it for the greater good, and if we do, where do we draw the line once that boundary has been broken? Or has these activities and the one like them been used for political gain, misuse/abuse of power?
If the act is kept to what it was ment to be, and that is to preserve American Freedoms and way of life, do we find fault in that, or do we find fault in the fact we were kept in the dark?
J.W.
March 10th, 2006 at 5:06 pm
“So now we can squabble over whether this is illegal or with in Executive Powers. Instead of pointing fingers, we should focus on whether or not this directive was used for other phone tappings that actually did not purtain to Terrorist activity.”
So you are saying, if Bush DID tap phones for political purposes THEN we should stop him? Thats not how it works.
I think the issue is oversight. The question is, do we just trust a federal agency to follow the laws designed to protect our civil liberties?
The main premise of the consitution is balance of power though checks and oversight.
The founding fathers understood well how dictators consolidate power and thought long and hard about how to prevent it. No matter how cumbersome, you don’t violate those concepts, you don’t let anyone in power say “just trust me.”
March 10th, 2006 at 8:31 pm
The founding fathers could not forseen the world we live in or have lived in, they could not have foreseen the cold war, and Sept. 11th. If we can’t trust our leaders to protect us, then our problem is with the leader. What I was refering to was J. Edgar Hoover type abuse of power. Simply going after people on the premise that he just didn’t like you or your values. Or Nixon and Watergate. In the position of President in this post 9/11 era for some types of people it would be easy to loose sight of the objective and abuse power for other purposes, i.e. political.
We can only speculate what the founding fathers may have thought if they had the knowledge of the world today. Of course it would only be speculation. I mentioned the fine line when it comes to our civil liberties and drawing and redrawing of boundaries. This is a fine line, the greater good, our civil liberties, and the abuse/misuse of power.
I also point out the purpose of the Patriot Act is to locate individuals who are operating with the intention to complete a terrorist act against Americans and here at home.
So, the fine line, do we redraw the boundaries of our civil liberties? If we do when do we say enough is enough? Is the issue that we didn’t know or is the issue did they use wire taps for more than just monitoring terrorist activity?
The question I am waiting to see asked is in the case of them listening in, what brought them to the conclusion that they were communicating with terrorist activities. What was the evidence that proved to the President that these phone calls were worth listening in on? If they went before a judge they would need to prove that point to get the authorzation, so now that the cat is out of the bag this would be the great time to present their case.
J.W.