Founders didn't think 'trust me' was enough

.. Besides, as President Bush put it Thursday after the latest details of the government's domestic surveillance program were exposed, "the privacy of ordinary Americans is fiercely protected in all our activities."

Pardon our skepticism, but we're not buying that at face value. Our system of government doesn't, either. The founders wisely built checks and balances into it.

The executive branch deserves some legal leeway in times of war, but this administration has taken that to mean it shouldn't be second-guessed. It has even shut out its own Justice Department, which called off its probe of NSA phone tapping because its lawyers weren't allowed security clearance ..

The president, the attorney general and others have insisted that the government's "terrorist surveillance program" was limited to tapping phone calls to and from points overseas. But USA Today revealed Thursday that the calling records of tens of millions of U.S. households and businesses had been compiled in an NSA database. The agency reportedly analyzes those records to identify suspicious calling patterns but does not listen in on or record individual telephone conversations - which doesn't mean it couldn't ..

http://heraldnet.com/stories/06/05/14/100edi_editorial001.cfm

balances response!

Valerie Plame

If they get their hands on it, they'll use it for political purposes.

does this Sergeant Schultz congress need to do their job and protect the Constitution from being turned in to toilet paper?