The W007...a President's New Phone

A lawsuit was filed with US Federal court in San Francisco to invalidate the new law which allows wiretapping without a court order. The suit was filed by lawyers from the Center for Constitutional Rights, who also represent the Guantanamo inmates. Apparently, the FISA court seemed to be delaying US govt's earnest attempts to catch terrrrrists. In fairness, this legislation could probably be plugging a loophole by explicitly removing barriers for interception of any communications with foreigners.

From my perspective, at least this new legislation has a sunset clause and needs Congress to renew it in six months. Hopefully, there'll be enough Americans who dare to talk about the President's new clothes...to restore their constitutional rights and fix the root cause of the problem. I honestly believe that the root cause is a foreign policy that creates many more problems than are intended to be resolved.

There's already some fallout, with Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe citing the US program to justify using "the dictator's toolkit". So before you think I'm engaging in Bush-bashing, I'll come right out to say that the same issues are occurring in many more countries with much less debate or oversight.

There also seems to be an attempt to apply the law in retrospect in order to grant AT&T immunity in the lawsuit filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Ironically, AT&T testified in court during the 1920s, "The telephone has become part and parcel of the social and business intercourse of the people of the United States, and this telephone system offers a means of espionage to which general warrants and writs of assistance were the puniest instruments of tyranny and oppression."

As Bob Dylan used to say, the times they are a-changing. All that we've grown to understand about peace, war, dictatorship, democracy, elections...are a-changing. Pretty soon, the concept of property ownership will also be reversed back a few hundred years. Back then, search warrants weren't required, since all property belonged to the state.