So the Bush administration is spying on Americans, without going through the process required by law. It's an impeachable offense, but Bush and Cheney have both said they intend to continue the spying.
In the coverage of this, I haven't seen any serious questions asked about who Bush Cheney et al are spying on, but the answer is obvious. The White House is spying on reporters and activists.
This ain't rocket science, it's just a short process of elimination. Maybe you figured it out before I did. If not, please follow along, and tell me if I've made a mistake:
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA) established a secret (and thus, in my opinion, shamefully unAmerican) court that churns out, on request from the Justice Department or the White House, not quite search and wiretap warrants, but permission to search and wiretap without a warrant.
According to this 2002 article, this super-secret court "granted over 10,000 FISA surveillance applications and rejected none" over its first 23 years at work, dating back to the Carter administration. Just ask, and the answer is always YES SIR. It's like Mr Burns giving orders to Smithers.
This secret court has, since 2002, turned down exactly four requests for its OK, while approving thousands more. So in the entire history of this secret court, there are four NOs, scattered among many thousands of YESes.
Clearly, getting this secret court's OK has been rubber-stamp easy, for decades. (Have you ever done "rubber stamp" work? Literally, smack the ink pad, smack the paper, repeat, repeat, repeat? Well, even when rubber-stamping, once in a while you miss the paper or drop the stamp. Which explains the four times the answer was NO.)
Did you know that in case of a "ticking time bomb" emergency, there's even a clause of the FISA Act that allows authorities to bug your phone, office, or home without getting the secret court's permission until afterwards. What could be easier?
Yet even this level of (in my opinion, preposterously unConstitutional) carte blanche is not enough for the Bush administration. And so, on the President's orders, authorities have bypassed even the rubber stamp of this secret court, and initiated an unknown number (it's a secret, remember) of wiretaps on an unknown (secret) number of unidentified Americans, who don't know they've been spied upon. Perhaps you're one of them.
There's only one reason for the Bush administration to bypass the secret court's rubber stamp approval: The White House knew that their spying was so outrageous, so unjustified, that even the rubber-stamp secret court would say no.
Which leads to the question the media hasn't asked: Who could the Bush administration be spying on, that they knew even the rubber-stamp court wouldn't allow it?
To answer the question, eliminate anyone who's even remotely, even implausibly connected to any group that presents any actual, or remote, or imagined danger to America, because it would obviously be a cinch to get the secret court's OK to wiretap anyone who comes within miles of presenting any real risk.
No, if the White House needs to circumvent the rubber-stamp secret court, then the targets of surveillance would have to be people who aren't even the slightest, vaguest, pig-in-a-poke threat to national security.
Reporters. Or activists. People who criticize the Bush administration's policies.
Logically, who else could it be?
© by the author.
What do you think?
I can't afford therapy, but boy do I need it. So as an affordable alternative, I pound my anger into a weekly column here.
Fair warning: My parents were repressed -- using any bad words would get my mouth washed out with soap, literally. I still remember the sickly flavor of DoveTM. So as an adult, vulgarity helps with the healing. If naughty language offends you, beat the rush and get offended now.
This page is for my own good, not yours, so you may not like it, but I don't care.
About the authors
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Helen and Harry Highwater have published Unknown News since 1997. We're a married couple sharing a byline à la Lennon and McCartney, and "I" can be either of us, or both of us. If you're consumed by curiosity, it's safe to assume the more boisterous and aggressive bits come from Helen, and anything ladylike or demure is probably Harry's work.
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If the White House needs to circumvent the rubber-stamp secret court, then the targets of surveillance would have to be people who aren't even the slightest, vaguest, pig-in-a-poke threat to national security.
Reporters.
Or activists.
Or people who criticize the Bush administration's policies.
Logically, who else could it be?
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Previous articles by Helen & Harry Highwater:
No, Virginia,
we're not libertarians
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Letter to the editor
by Proud American, with a response from Helen & Harry Highwater
A whisper of optimism
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Muhammad Ali is a scumbag
by Helen & Harry Highwater
On behalf of God Himself, I endorse Alito for Supreme Court
by Helen & Harry Highwater, as Jerry Falwell
The old guy in a sweatshirt
by Helen & Harry Highwater
The emperor wears no mental clothes
by Helen & Harry Highwater
I'm filing bankruptcy
by Helen Highwater
Our long national nightmare is just beginning
by Helen & Harry Highwater
"Mission accomplished" for FEMA
by Harry Highwater
Police roadblock freedom in America
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Our phone number
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Fuck you, George W. Bush
by Helen & Harry Highwater
A forgotten man, one of many
by Helen & Harry Highwater
The daily compromise
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Are you for freedom, or against it?
by Helen & Harry Highwater
The unspoken subtext of Karl Rove's treason:
Support your local CIA
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Cabbages don't count
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Back to basics: Question authority
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Anatomy of another lie
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Constipated and liquefied logic
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Be careful crossing the street, ya damn kids!
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Monsters in America,
from Deep Throat to James Watt to Christopher Cox
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Mainstream media:
Completely on board with Bush administration lies
by Helen & Harry Highwater
A Pope to be ashamed of
by Helen & Harry Highwater
What can we do about the stolen election?
by Atomicktom and
Helen & Harry Highwater
The President who cried "wolf!"
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Defeating terrorists without wars
by Helen & Harry Highwater
If you're not for Bush, you're French ... or al Qaeda
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Rescuing America from tyranny
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Separation of church and state
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Who would Jesus vote for?
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Godless hippie scumbag
traitors who hate the troops
by Helen & Harry Highwater
To tell the truth
by Helen & Harry Highwater
What kind of bloody savages
would kill people and drag
their corpses along the road?
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Our serial killer nation
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Judging Judging Amy
by Helen & Harry Highwater
An apology and an endorsement
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Rights, responsibilities, and acknowledgement
by Peace-Thru-Reason and
Helen & Harry Highwater
Los Angeles Times memo orders reporters to fudge the truth
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Our perspective on Terri Schiavo
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Who deserves freedom of speech? And who doesn't?
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Two years of lies about Sept. 11
The new Warren Commission
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Criticizing Israel
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Is it terrorism to be a patriot?
Or is it just like Red Dawn, only with turbans?
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Bush knocks on Armageddon's back door
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Why I won't be at the victory parade
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Company fined $6,000 for
answering customer's questions
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Clint Eastwood, and US foreign policy
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Do you love America? Do you?
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Google refuses our ad
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Reasonable deaths in a nonsense war
by Helen & Harry Highwater
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