Monday, May 15, 2006

Cartoon of the day

DryBones chooses to poke fun at our latest NSA non-crisis crisis today. Very well done.

In the description he makes the following point.
It will be interesting to see how this Bush administration telephone story develops.
I would have to say that I disagree. I don't think it will be all that interesting. The liberal Bush-derangement-syndrome-infected antique media will continue to try and make this into some sort of illegal privacy crisis (carefully avoiding using the terms Eschelon, Echelon or Carnivore). The adults in this country have already decided that
  • this is not a big deal
  • there is no appearance that any laws were broken
  • the phone companies routinely SELL the very same information to marketers
  • FISA specifically allows the FBI to ask for this type of data without a warrant and REQUIRES the phone companies to give it to them (albeit it is not clear from FISA if the request must be narrowly tailored)
  • SCOTUS has ruled on similar issues in the past and found this type of thing to be kosher (word selection just for Yaakov ;-)
  • what the government, in the form of the IRS, routinely requires me to tell them about my life is FAR more intrusive than who I talk to on the phone
  • this information was leaked now because of Bush's choice for the next CIA director
  • attempting to attack the General on this one is going to be amusing to the audience but probably not the attacker
  • the antique media has yet again aided our enemies with information we would rather they not have just because they can

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