Question re: My LTTE

The letters in my local rag defending *'s illegal wiretapping and shredding of our Constitution have me steamed and I intend to call a traitor a traitor. As far as I'm concerned, anyone who puts their party above the People and their Country is indeed a traitor. I'm writing a response, but I need help with one of my theories about why the BFEE was doing this and I'm not sure if its possible.

If the NSA could tap into any phone or data line they pleased, is it also possible that they could manipulate data going over those lines? My thought is that they could have tapped into the lines sending election results from the central evoting tabulators to whereever and changed the data. Is this a plausibility? If so, I think it really explains a lot. My computer knowledge is not enough to verify if this could happen. Help please, I need backup so I don't make a fool of myself. Thanks for the anticipated info!

and, if they tapped the lines for election results, all they would hear would be chirping - much like dial-up internet connections or fax machines sound.

However, they could download that info for use, but what good would that have done? The tabulators were programmed to change votes, so there would have been no need to download the info for manipulation.

I think you should probably stick to the theory that BushCo. was tapping into the Kerry campaign. It's more plausible.

makes sense. Glad I asked before I wrote. I am positive that they've been listening to anyone who opposes their evil agenda, just thought there could be even more.

First, I'm not not a fan of conspiracy theories (especially unprovable ones), and have never subscribed to the "we wuz robbed" hypothesis Not every state and county uses electronic ballots, and they're not necessarily tied to a central server whereby the NSA or anyone else can electronically jimmy them. Add to that the fact that, bureaucratically, there are fare too many people involved in election management who would have to be in on the plan AND keep their mouth shut.

All that being said, if your goal is to address the ethics of wiretapping, don't dilute your message by diverging into another subject. Stick to the facts: the Constitution provided protection from unreasonable search, the law provided a mechanism to get a court order, Bush SAID he'd need a court order to wiretap someone, Bush violated the law AND lied about it.

Don't get off into a tangent on vote-fixing theories. However, you should note that in the very short time the story has been out, the scope of the taps keeps expanding and expanding. I think it's legitimate to wonder who the Bush administration wanted to tap without oversight from any other agency, and if those taps might have included political targets as well as terrorist targets.

You should stay away from conspiratorial speculation and stick to the facts, or as we really don't have any solid facts, to substantial allegations.

By the way, the NSA's snooping system is not 'wiretaps' in the traditional sense. Google Echelon. The system is like a giant electronic communications vacuum cleaner. It collects all communications from every point of attachment - a phone switch, an internet switch, microwave relay switches, satellites, etc. The messages are then processed for keywords and stored in a giant database that basically knows who talked to who, when they talked, and what keywords were contained in their conversations. The enormity of this monitoring system, which has been legally operational on international communications for quite some time, has just plain been passed over by the MSM, who are hell bent on insisting that it is just a few extra 'wiretaps'.

doesn't it seem that those who write letters defending such action really don't care if constitutional liberties are destroyed as long as it is "conservatives" doing the destroying? How loud and large would the cacophony from the right be if said activities were conducted by one Bill Clinton? Their patriotism is merely situational.