TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Re: Public Wants Court to Okay Wiretaps

Re: Public Wants Court to Okay Wiretaps

Phil Earnhardt (pae@dim.com)
10 Jan 2006 17:01:22 -0800

On 10 Jan 2006 07:43:29 -0800, davidesan@gmail.com wrote:

>> And no mention that Hoover's FBI, with the approval of JFK, RFK and LBJ
>> committed far worse violations of the wiretapping laws in going after
>> the various leaders and organizations of the civil rights movement.

> Dad, its not so bad that I broke the window. Billy broke a bigger
> window last year!

> Bad behavior is bad behavior.

A conjecture is a conjecture.

> It should not be condoned because someone else did it.

The "it" in that sentence doesn't antecede very well!

You shouted below; I'll shout here: there is NO COMPARISON between
those historical wiretappings and what is happening now.

> It should be condemned because its WRONG!

Actually, it should be condemned IF it is wrong. AFAICT, this is more
of a balance of power issue than a question of legality.

> We don't need to rehash Democratic wrongs when discussing Republican
> wrongs, or Republican wrongs when discussing Democratics wrongs. They
> are all bad.

> Any reason that you didn't include the gross abuses of power by
> Richard Nixon in your list?

As already noted, the ACLU has already attempted to paint this issue
exactly that way.

Is there any reason that there's almost no public debate about this
issue?

Instead of creating "news" -- contracting for self-serving polls that
are providing essentially zero information -- why can't the Katherine
Shraders of the world write some articles about the Executive's
constitutional role in protecting us from foreign enemies?

Why is there no mention in AP articles of the history of FISA: what it
was designed to do and why it is a flawed mechanism for dealing with
the current threat?

--phil

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