You can hear the excuse-making revving up in Republican circles already:
The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, people with direct knowledge of the arrangement told USA TODAY….
The NSA’s domestic program, as described by sources, is far more expansive than what the White House has acknowledged. Last year, Bush said he had authorized the NSA to eavesdrop — without warrants — on international calls and international e-mails of people suspected of having links to terrorists when one party to the communication is in the USA. Warrants have also not been used in the NSA’s efforts to create a national call database.
In defending the previously disclosed program, Bush insisted that the NSA was focused exclusively on international calls. “In other words,” Bush explained, “one end of the communication must be outside the United States.”
In other words, Bush was lying. Again. Impeach the deceitful bastard already. I suppose his defenders will argue that “it depends on what the meaning of ‘focused’ is”.
Now, it’s quite possible that this program is helping prevent terrorist attacks. But I have no doubt that it would be even more effective if the federal government simply locked every American citizen in a jail cell. Strange, isn’t it, how “to create a database of every call ever made within the nation’s borders” is possible, but somehow finding illegal aliens isn’t.
Ladies and gentlemen, with this latest revelation I believe we have just witnessed the election of your 2007 Democratic House and Senate. Sure, the Democrats will soon enact similar, perhaps even more superlative, abuses on the American people, but at this point, I’d rather vote Democrat than Republican myself.
Of course, none of this is exactly shocking to those who have known about ECHELON for years. Anyone still want to argue that it’s just a figment of a paranoid imagination?
UPDATE – No, I’m not saying I would vote Democrat. Never have, never will. But I have to say that I’ve never been less likely to vote Republican either. It’s like being forced to choose between Helen Thomas and the corpse of Betty Friedan. Actually, now that I consider it, I’d go for the corpse. It would probably smell better and talk less.