NSA Wirertapping
Max Boot has written a great column in the LA Times on the NSA wiretapping issue. Here’s a couple of the central arguments Mr. Boot makes:
I can certainly understand the uproar over President Bush’s flagrant abuses of civil liberties. This is America. What right does that fascist in the White House have to imprison Michael Moore, wiretap Nancy Pelosi and blackmail Howard Dean? Wait. You mean he hasn’t done those things? All he’s done is intercept communications between terrorists abroad and their contacts in the U.S. without a court order? Talk about defining impeachable offenses downward.
Simply delicious. Don’t you love the sarcasm dripping from that opening paragraph. Especially after Al Gore’s equating the NSA wiretapping with J. Edgar Hoover’s wiretapping MLK to get blackmail information on King. Gore, like Ms. Pelosi, is utterly clueless on the politics of this issue. According to Mr. Boot, here’s why:
All you have to do is recite this litany of excess to realize the absurdity of the cries of impeachment coming from the loonier precincts of the left. Muttering about “slippery slopes” isn’t enough to convince most people that fascism is descending. If the president’s critics want that part of the nation that doesn’t read the Nation to believe that he’s a threat to our freedom, they’d better do more than turn up the level of vituperation. They’d better find some real victims, the Eugene Debses and Martin Luther Kings of the war on terror.
In other words, if the American people don’t perceive that their rights are frequently and disturbingly being violated, they’ll take staying protected from another 9/11. Thus far, the Fever Swampers haven’t shown that President Bush is the maniacal dictator type that they characterize him as.
The American people have spoken and they’ve chosen safety over everything else. Especially when they aren’t certain that their rights are being violated.
Civil libertarians thought they were in luck when a college student in Massachusetts claimed that two FBI agents had shown up to interview him after he had requested a copy of Mao Tse-Tung’s Little Red Book. Ted Kennedy cited this incident to warn of the Patriot Act’s “chilling effect on free speech and academic freedom.” Relax, Senator. Free speech is safe. The student lied. The anti-Bush brigade hasn’t had any luck in turning up actual instances of abuse, despite no end of effort. The ACLU compiled a list of supposed victims of the Patriot Act. After examining each case, however, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, no friend of the administration, said “it does not appear that these charges rose to the level of ‘abuse.’”
The Left has tried to manufacture ‘proof’ that President Bush has abused his powers to no avail. Even Dianne Feinstein, “no friend of the administration”, declares that it doesn’t rise to the level of abuse. That’s the dirty little secret, folks, because THERE IS NO ABUSE. Just liberal’s illogical outrage. And that won’t cut it with the American people.
RELATED:
ACLU Files Suit Against Warrantless Wiretapping
Cross-posted at LetFreedomRing
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January 28th, 2006 at 1:16 pm
[...] In recent weeks, many having been expressing concern about protecting liberty and freedoms, but wiretapping is not the culprit. What should be really feared is the continued practices of forcing behavior and dictating speech. Group think, that which controls how people interact with each other is, by far, the greatest enemy of freedom. [...]