DOJ Ends Illegal Domestic Wiretapping

Bringing up former presidents Carter and Clinton to excuse the Bush administration's clear violation of due process is not sufficient.  U.S. intelligence services have already been caught spying on domestic targets such as the Quakers, Food Not Bombs and individual activists like Cindy Sheehan, non-Arabic, non-Islamic American citizens on U.S. soil.  If, the Administration was following the law they would have had absolutely no problem with going through the proper channels.  Instead, the FBI, CIA  and  municipal law enforcement agencies have been having a field day investigating people who have no terrorist connections within the United States.  American alternative media outlets such as  Democracy Now as well as foreign media sources such as the BBC report boldly on these infractions while people like Dan Rather admit in England that U.S. news is decidely -one sided.  Americans won't accept that their rights are being violated in part because the U.S. major media refuses to cop onto it.

The fact is the Bush administration has lied to the American and global public about their internal intelligence probes into private citizens.  They told the public that it was only foreign communications but it was a ruse.  They did it under the radar and in the dark of night.  They could have and should been much more transparent, just like they demand of other nations.  The Bush business group has even gone so far as to privatize the intelligence gathering, like they privatize everything else that eventually has shown itself to fail.  To what effect?  With all the snooping and violation of individual privacy rights, not one verified terrorist has been identified among the targeted American activists or the organisations that work in solidarity with them.  However, White Supremacist and neo-Nazi organisations have been proven to support Al-Quida on American soil resulting in two successful sting operations.  Yet, such organisations have been officially removed from the federal terror watchlist while pacifist groups such as the Quakers remain on the list as a "credible terrorist threat."

The administration did go through proper channels because they knew full well that their actions were in violation of the constitutional rights of private American citizens and organisations that do not cloak their open dissent with American policy.  The neo-conservative drive to blame everything going amiss on previous democratic administrations is not only dishonest but deliberately misleading to any real understanding by a zombiefied general American populace.  Nancy Grace and Bill O'Reilly aside, no one on any side of the political spectrum is prepared to say that the United States is spinning out of control.  When governments begin spying on private citizens, it is a sure sign that the government and those who pull the puppet-strings fear their public.  Average people are suffering the effects of this administration's domestic as well as foreign policy and the establishment is apparently willing to ignore not only the law but its own self-promoted tradition of accountable government and security in one own privacy.

And while I understand your dismay with Sen. Leahy, as far as I am aware his actions did not lead to the deaths of more than 3000 American soldiers because he and his crew decided to stick up the Middle East.  And that's just the short list.

This is quite a diatribe. Just a few points. 1. Surveillance uncovered the Lackawanna Five. 2. Dan Rather is no longer with CBS because he used forged documents to smear President Bush. 3. Al Qaeda is usually spelled as shown.