The thing is that one's political affiliations can trump one's view of what is constitutional, or even ethical. I'm guilty of that. I don't know John Ashcroft personally, but we have had mutual friends in the past and have been members of the same church. I did have the privilege of meeting his father, the late Dr. J. Robert Ashcroft, who had a tremendous impact on my life and my Christian faith. I think John Ashcroft is a decent person, though not very intelligent -- probably about average for a lawyer and politician. He's certainly a regression toward the mean from his father. When Ashcroft was Attorney General under Bush, I did not like the Patriot Act, the Department of Homeland Security, the TSA, and all the other post-9/11 intrusions into privacy. But, I was fairly confident that Ashcroft would not use those tools for partisan purposes.
That doesn't change the nature of the tools. Drug use is a bad thing; nevertheless, curbing drug use is no excuse for trashing the Constitution in terms of, for example, due process, as has been a common practice for nearly forty years. A no-knock warrant served via SWAT ninjas may protect police officers and gather more evidence, but it is the tool of a police state and probably should not be used at all. It certainly should require overwhelming proof that the accused (innocent until proven guilty, right?) is too dangerous to be picked up in a less dramatic fashion.
It would have been one thing to implement some of the travel restrictions and anti-privacy practices of the Patriot Act on a very temporary basis for a few months as the nation got on a war footing. Congress should have been required to vote on a formal declaration of war. They should have been required to clearly define what constituted victory. That was not done. The Bush Administration, with a complicit Congress, took advantage of the state of fear present in the aftermath of 9/11 to greatly expand the scope of government without limit. That was, perhaps, understandable, if ill-advised, in the short-term. It never should have been allowed to become permanent.
The question is not whether I trust Eric Holder more or less than I trust John Ashcroft. The tools and the potential corruption and misuse of those tools is the issue. Know this, if a tools can be misused, it will be misused by someone at some point. That's human nature. We hold individuals accountable for the way they use a chainsaw, a car, a knife, a firearm, or even a communication device. We have to be able to hold our agents in government accountable as well. Obama said in the last couple of days that if we can't trust the executive branch, the Congress, and the courts then we have a problem. Of course, this is the same partisan hack who said Congress was lying about the gun control bill he wanted passed. So maybe it's Obama who has a problem.
The language being used in all the denials and attempts to assuage the ire of the public is typically evasive. No, they are not listening to all conversations. Their computer algorithms are scanning for key words. Someone might say, "I was in terror the other day because I was attacked by a swarm of yellow jackets. I bombed their nest with bug spray afterward, but I wrapped up like a Muslim beauty queen before I got close." If that kicked out and was analyzed for content, and, though it would be unconstitutional, it might be somewhat excusable in light of imminent terror threats. I wonder if it would also kick out something like: "I just got back from the party. They didn't have any diet soda, so I just drank some unsweetened tea. I was about to die in the heat while talking to the PTA president. She loved my blonde joke. They just kill her. We have everything arranged for the next meeting, and it will be a blast." I'm pretty sure, though, that you can thwart all monitoring by frequently dropping the word "kardashian".
The media seems to be emphasizing the fact that it is metadata that is being logged. Metadata is a lot more meaningful and powerful today than it was even ten years ago when far fewer people had cell phones, let alone smart phones, phones with built-in GPS and cameras, fakebook pages, twitter, tumblr and all the other social media stuff that is out there.
I'm ambivalent about the status of Edward Snowden. The left normally exalts these guys while the right eviscerates them. I can't help thinking that Snowden is, if not exactly a hero, deserving of whistleblower status and protection from prosecution. What the NSA is doing is probably, mostly technically legal, but it is not ethical, right or constitutional, and, as far as I'm concerned, it is not justifiable. It needs to stop.
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