1.11.2006

A little quirk of mine ...



To: The Pub-lick
From: Big Brother
Date: Two day before the day after tomorrow
Subject: [Insert 30 seconds of thinking up a vapid subject line.]

I have an extremely bad, hmm, I guess you could call it an idiosyncrasy. It exposed itself when news surfaced of Bush undermining the FISA act, therefore allowing the CIA to spy on American citizens.

My little eccentricity is this: I tend to not read or listen to news stories that could possibly have a huge effect on society — call it my attempts to sweep them under the rug. I want to believe that it’s not happening. I want to think somebody’s just fucking with me.

But eventually, these stories will hit me like an uppercut from Mike Tyson. Bam! What the fuck? This really is happening. It is legal now for my government to tap my phone and read my e-mails without iniquity or provocation.

“Eavesdropping,” they like to call it.

Was I really reading this headline? “Bush: Eavesdropping helps save U.S. lives.” Are you fucking kidding me? The shocking news, to me at least, is that this isn’t new. The government has been doing this since October 2001.

And Bush, being the piece of shit that he is, uses scare tactics, yet again, to justify his actions. Instead of trying to fully explain himself and our government, or maybe even give a few detailed examples of how this could be integral to our safety, Bush cops an attitude with America.

According to the story, “Often appearing angry in an eight-minute address [eight fucking minutes?!], the president made clear he has no intention of halting his authorizations of the monitoring activities and said public disclosure of the program by the news media had endangered Americans.”

Go ahead, Dubya. I thought you might forget to mention 9/11. I was wrong. “The activities I have authorized make it more likely that killers like these 9/11 hijackers will be identified and located in time,” Bush said. “And the activities conducted under this authorization have helped detect and prevent possible terrorist attacks in the United States and abroad.”

Oh, really? Any examples? No. He hardly had any time in his eight-minute address.

Nevertheless, it’s time to look at the big picture. Bush broke the law. Let that sink in for a minute. ... Yes, he broke the law. But he doesn’t believe so. “The American people expect me to do everything in my power under our laws and Constitution to protect them and their civil liberties,” Bush said.

“And that is exactly what I will continue to do, so long as I’m the president of the United States.”

The funny thing is, Dubya, that you don’t have the authority to do that. A professor of constitutional law at Georgetown University Law Center said Bush was “taking a hugely expansive interpretation of the Constitution and the president’s powers under the Constitution.” In other words, she was saying, “Hey, he can’t do that.”

All hail King George Jr. It’s funny the way he puts it. He said the program is employed only to intercept the international communications of people inside the U.S. who have been determined to have “a clear link” to al-Qaida or related terrorist organizations.

Then, Mr. President, why would there be any problem getting approval from the court to “eavesdrop” if someone had “a clear link” to a terrorist organization? There wouldn’t be a problem. It’s all bullshit.

I’m sick of this administration manipulating laws and even American minds at the expense of our guaranteed freedoms. I’m also sick of Americans thinking we can’t do anything about it.

My favorite part of the whole news story? Bush saying the news media acted improperly and illegally when they disclosed the story in the New York Times.

Yeah, shame on you media. What America doesn’t know isn’t going to hurt it.

1 comment:

Monstro D. Whale said...

You do know that "Eavesdropping" includes reading blogs. Ever since the last election when the news was watching what bloggers thought about the race, I think the Republicans have figured out there's this other forum for people to talk about politics. It used to happen more often, but it still goes on once in a while. Out of nowhere, someone you've never heard of will come onto your blog and attack anti-Republican posts. How do they find the blog? They aren't regular readers, so what woodwork did they come out of? And...are they getting paid to attack anti-Republican sentiments on the web? Or, and this is really important, am I just being paranoid?