Silly me. Until now, I had thought that it would be a Republican administration that imploded our democracy.
Then I learned Verizon had been ordered to give up the metadata for all calls between April 25-July 19 of this year to the National Security Administration. The data doesn't include the content of the calls, but it does include the phone numbers involved, length of calls, location and the like.
It's all in the name of fighting terrorism, right? Right? RIGHT? The silence is deafening.
I was pretty much on board with the Obama administration until about a month ago. Benghazi seemed to be a trumped-up scandal to give Fox News something to do and to help the Republican blockade in Congress avoid doing anything useful. (With blocking like that, the Dallas Cowboys would have won the Super Bowl last year.)
I didn't much like the IRS targeting the Tea Party, even though it's the Tea Party. And I certainly didn't like the Department of Justice going after Associated Press messages and investigating that Fox News reporter.
Yes, you need to investigate leaks, and I don't blame the administration for doing so -- if you were running a business, wouldn't you want to find out how competitors were finding out your trade secrets? But you do it internally...investigate the in-house communications and, if you have to, your employees' phone and computer records. You don't trample on the constitutional rights of the people they talk to. All they did was take advantage of a hot story.
Now, I'm not a Verizon customer -- hmmm...maybe President Obama is really an agent of AT&T, trying to scare people away from Verizon. Conspiracy theorists, unite! -- but I don't feel particularly comfortable with my phone metadata being in the hands of government officials. It violates my privacy, possibly violates the Fourth Amendment and it sets horrible precedent.
Yes, the W. administration did the same things, but they were targeted to specific people who may have been terrorism threats. In my first-ever defense of the policies of President George W. Bush (as opposed to those of Texas Gov. George W. Bush, which I admired), they didn't need to know that Ursula was calling Deborah Sue to ask if she heard Hugo and Kim were going steady.*
It's obvious the Obama administration is looking for enemies, and it doesn't care whose privacy or constitutional rights it tramples on to find them.
So we have one side that is against freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the right to privacy, capitalistic success and, possibly, the entire Second Amendment; believes in unlimited welfare; and wants to control people's personal dietary choices.
And we have another side that is against freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion (except certain forms of Christianity) and poor and unhealthy people; believes the Second Amendment allows absolutely no regulation; and has an unhealthy obsession with what people do in their bedrooms.
It's been almost four years since I've written on this blog. Seems we need a reminder of what the Consistency Party means. Things are not good.
*-This reference to "Bye Bye Birdie" is a shameless plug for the Plaza Theatre Company's production of this musical -- which my wife and I are stage managing and in which our son is dancing -- June 28-Aug. 4 in Cleburne, Texas. Visit www.plaza-theatre.com for information about this song-and-dance extravaganza.
Then I learned Verizon had been ordered to give up the metadata for all calls between April 25-July 19 of this year to the National Security Administration. The data doesn't include the content of the calls, but it does include the phone numbers involved, length of calls, location and the like.
It's all in the name of fighting terrorism, right? Right? RIGHT? The silence is deafening.
I was pretty much on board with the Obama administration until about a month ago. Benghazi seemed to be a trumped-up scandal to give Fox News something to do and to help the Republican blockade in Congress avoid doing anything useful. (With blocking like that, the Dallas Cowboys would have won the Super Bowl last year.)
I didn't much like the IRS targeting the Tea Party, even though it's the Tea Party. And I certainly didn't like the Department of Justice going after Associated Press messages and investigating that Fox News reporter.
Yes, you need to investigate leaks, and I don't blame the administration for doing so -- if you were running a business, wouldn't you want to find out how competitors were finding out your trade secrets? But you do it internally...investigate the in-house communications and, if you have to, your employees' phone and computer records. You don't trample on the constitutional rights of the people they talk to. All they did was take advantage of a hot story.
Now, I'm not a Verizon customer -- hmmm...maybe President Obama is really an agent of AT&T, trying to scare people away from Verizon. Conspiracy theorists, unite! -- but I don't feel particularly comfortable with my phone metadata being in the hands of government officials. It violates my privacy, possibly violates the Fourth Amendment and it sets horrible precedent.
Yes, the W. administration did the same things, but they were targeted to specific people who may have been terrorism threats. In my first-ever defense of the policies of President George W. Bush (as opposed to those of Texas Gov. George W. Bush, which I admired), they didn't need to know that Ursula was calling Deborah Sue to ask if she heard Hugo and Kim were going steady.*
It's obvious the Obama administration is looking for enemies, and it doesn't care whose privacy or constitutional rights it tramples on to find them.
So we have one side that is against freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the right to privacy, capitalistic success and, possibly, the entire Second Amendment; believes in unlimited welfare; and wants to control people's personal dietary choices.
And we have another side that is against freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion (except certain forms of Christianity) and poor and unhealthy people; believes the Second Amendment allows absolutely no regulation; and has an unhealthy obsession with what people do in their bedrooms.
It's been almost four years since I've written on this blog. Seems we need a reminder of what the Consistency Party means. Things are not good.
*-This reference to "Bye Bye Birdie" is a shameless plug for the Plaza Theatre Company's production of this musical -- which my wife and I are stage managing and in which our son is dancing -- June 28-Aug. 4 in Cleburne, Texas. Visit www.plaza-theatre.com for information about this song-and-dance extravaganza.
