is george bush out of control?, spying on us citizens Options

[illumineering]

Is this "War on Terror" getting out of hand? It has been disclosed that Bush ordered wiretaps against US citizens without first getting warrants. Click here to read the NY Times article.

His comment that those who oppose him are putting the nation at risk is, in my view, are way out of line. How is breaking the law going to safeguard us when it's a violation of the very liberties he is supposed to be protecting?

Arlen Specter, a PA Republican Senator, is conducting hearings next year to investigate possible illegal activity.

Personally, I'm glad the renewal of the Patriot Act is stalled and people are starting to voice concerns over this whole "War on Terror." The total cost of the war now exceeds $220,000,000,000. That's about $700 for every citizen of the US? Do you feel that much safer after shelling out that much money? Here's a link to a site that keeps a running total of the cost.

I think it's time to take a hard look at what we are willing to sacrafice in order to fight terror.

[*mipadi*]

Bush has admitted to allowing the NSA to spy on the American people. The Justice Department "interpreted" the law to allow Bush to circumvent the court that was set up to monitor such surveillance--which is funny how the Justice Department keeps "interpreting" American law to allow for domestic surveillance, torture of prisoners (who are arguably illegally detained), the detention of foreign nationals who are not soldiers, allowing for such detainees to be classified as "enemy combatants", rather than POW's, and thus arguing they are not subject to the rights accorded prisoners of war... So yes, there is no question that Bush authorized domestic surveillance. And there's really not a question of legality--it's illegal. End of story.

As for lies, start with lying to Congress about the reasons for the war in Iraq, and move up from there. Since then, there's been a string of lies in order to justify the war. Let's see, the reasoning originally was that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. Bush claimed we had solid, irrefutable evidence--evidence that suddenly evaporated once we actually occupied Iraq. I can't even remember all the reasons that have been used since then. I think the current one is "Bringing democracy to the Iraqi people." (I guess torture and illegal detention are considered a way to spread democracy.)

And what of the Valerie Plame affair? Scooter Libbey has already been indicted. Karl Rove likely had something to do with it. I wouldn't be surprised if the masterminds are even higher up. Of course, this hasn't been proven--yet--so it's not an impeachable offense, but it's just another illustration of the abuses of power of the Bush administration since it came to power. And besides, it doesn't matter if it's not impeachable--there are enough other impeachable offenses that the House of Representatives should seriously consider drawing up articles of impeachment, if only to save their own skin--there's growing discontent with the Republican Party and their insistence on "toeing the party line," no matter how out of control the Congressional and Presidential leaders are.

Of course, examining Congress leads to a whole other list of offenses and corruption--Tom DeLay being but one of them--but we don't even need to examine that in order to see how out of control the current administration is.