Wiretapping and Surveillance-- Why it matters

The republicans see no problem with giving the government all of our telephone records for review. After all, the government assured us that this technology is only used to find terrorists.

Maybe this technology will be used to find snipers, like Mohammand or Malvo, who were characterized as terrorists, and who terrorize urban areas with their violence.

After that, the technology might be used to find serial killers. After all, if this technology can save lives, are we going to use the technology, or are we going to wait for the next victim to die?

After that, it will go to track down child pornographers and child prostitution rings. Who are you going to side with, the molesters, or the innocent children? What's more important than saving our children. An argument can be made that this is more important than anti-terrorism.

After that, other interest groups will see that this technology is being used in law enforcement inconsistently. They will argue that it is just as important to use this in the War on Drugs, to catch tax evaders, for Corporate corruption and White Collar cases, Illegal immigration, to watch the Klan, and for other purposes.

Soon, Congress will see inconsistencies with the use of this technology. They will pass a law to "overhaul" law enforcement, which will make this technology more easily available by the police. Then they will crow about being tough on crime while their opponent wanted criminals to "get off on a technicality".

That's how a right becomes a technicality.

It has been recently revealed that the NSA had been eavesdropping on Americans before 9/11. The constitutionality of this program has been under review for some time now, instead of determining whether it is or isn’t the senator Arlen Specter wishes to give the white house even more power to monitor Americans. It was none other than Arlen Specter who had promised to get to the bottom of this issue and to subpoena the NSA documents. Instead he chose to protect the program and give the illusion of oversight.

http://www.thought-criminal.org/2006/07/15/bamboozled-again-far-too-many-of-our-politicians-are-worthless/