"Mining or trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans..."
A couple years ago when I was a local prosecutor, there was a previously convicted sex offender who tried to snatch up a young girl in our town. This man was from out of state, and we identified him through his license plate number. We found out that he had a cell phone, and wanted to get his phone records to see if we could corroborate that he was actually in our town at the time of the crime.
I applied to our local district court, and had to swear out a statement setting forth probable cause to believe this man committed a crime before the judge could authorize a court order to obtain his phone records. I had to do this because the phone company told me they would not give us his records without a court order.
Now, the latest revelation of illegal Bush activity is that three major phone companies have apparently turned over wholesale information of ALL their phone records on everyone, to the federal government! USA Today reported on May 11th that AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth telephone companies began turning over records of tens of millions of their customers' phone calls to the National Security Agency program shortly after the September 11, 2001. The report has been essentially confirmed by Senator Trent Lott.
Apparently the NSA wants a massive database of who called who. While this could certainly be useful for tracking terrorist networks, it is a massive invasion of our right to privacy. (A federal right to privacy has been found to be implied in the U.S. Constitution by the Supreme Court).
King George has of course blasted THE LEAK of this inofrmation, and insists he was not "mining or trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans..." However, that is EXACTLY what he allowed the NSA to do.
Our country has functioned quite well for 217 years with constitutional protections for everyone, even suspected sex offenders. If local authorities can work through this system to show 'probable cause' to get needed phone information, and get court orders to make sure privacy rights are honored, the federal government can certainly do the same.
We need to be outraged, and to let our senators and congressmen and congresswomen know that we are mad. This administration needs to stop abusing their power, and follow the constitution. This is another brick in the wall of impeachment.
I applied to our local district court, and had to swear out a statement setting forth probable cause to believe this man committed a crime before the judge could authorize a court order to obtain his phone records. I had to do this because the phone company told me they would not give us his records without a court order.
Now, the latest revelation of illegal Bush activity is that three major phone companies have apparently turned over wholesale information of ALL their phone records on everyone, to the federal government! USA Today reported on May 11th that AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth telephone companies began turning over records of tens of millions of their customers' phone calls to the National Security Agency program shortly after the September 11, 2001. The report has been essentially confirmed by Senator Trent Lott.
Apparently the NSA wants a massive database of who called who. While this could certainly be useful for tracking terrorist networks, it is a massive invasion of our right to privacy. (A federal right to privacy has been found to be implied in the U.S. Constitution by the Supreme Court).
King George has of course blasted THE LEAK of this inofrmation, and insists he was not "mining or trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans..." However, that is EXACTLY what he allowed the NSA to do.
Our country has functioned quite well for 217 years with constitutional protections for everyone, even suspected sex offenders. If local authorities can work through this system to show 'probable cause' to get needed phone information, and get court orders to make sure privacy rights are honored, the federal government can certainly do the same.
We need to be outraged, and to let our senators and congressmen and congresswomen know that we are mad. This administration needs to stop abusing their power, and follow the constitution. This is another brick in the wall of impeachment.
posted by Mike Grayson @ 7:11 AM
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