The double-speak is back
Spying on American citizens is now the "Terrorism
Prevention Program"
So the Bush administration has been on a
barn-storming PR campaign to create credibility for the President's order to spy
on US Citizens without congressional or judicial oversight. We return to
1984-esque arguments and double-speak here. The actions were justified because
we are at war. The War On Terror is an unending war against a dispersed enemy. A
war that can never be won, and even if it was won, we couldn't be sure that it
was. Using a "War On Terror" for extra-legal actions is basically declaring the
presidency above the law for all time and administration knows it. If the
president gets away with this, the President can do anything he wants under the
guise of "protecting our freedoms." They already claim that people who disagree
with their policies are "giving aid and comfort to our enemies." The next
logical step is to jail dissidents. That is what Big Brother, The Cold-War-era
Soviet Union or Saddam Hussein would do. Maybe Bush will declare himself "Leader
for Life" because no one else could protect the American People. After polling
showed that the American people weren't so incensed if the spying on Americans
was done to find terrorists the spying policy was renamed the "Terrorism
Prevention Program" and that talking point was hammered home over and over on
TV. The problem is that we already know that the NSA net was cast far wider than
the Bush Administration would have us believe. They refuse to give out the
details for fear of alerting our enemies to our tactics, but that has become
boilerplate for the administration preventing the American people from knowing
anything about what is really going
on.
If we want to truly show the world
the power of democracy and freedom, we should be doing whatever we can to
protect the people while making civil liberties and general welfare the highest
priorities. The government should be welcoming light being shown into its
practices, not obstructing truth everywhere it can. The US looks more like the
oppressive regimes of the Middle East these days than the freedom-loving,
liberty-preserving beacon of hope that we claim to be.
Posted: Sat
- January 28, 2006 at 10:29 AM
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