I had a conversation the other day with a fellow who couldn't understand why liberals and Democrats didn't want to keep our country safe by letting the government (read "Bush administration") wiretap and eavesdrop at will to catch potential terrorists. I just looked at him and shook my head. I took the time to explain the true situation and he asked me why wasn't this information correctly explained to the public. I said there was no political gain in the truth for the administration and the conservatives.

This is the way it is: We liberals don't have a problem with wiretapping anyone who might be a potential threat to our safety. What we do have a problem with is when the law and our Constitution are not followed. Our 4th Amendment mandates a warrant signed by a member of the judicial branch of our government. To address the problem of an emergency need to quickly put a tap on someone, Congress passed FISA which allows such an immediate action providing that a warrant request is filed within 72 hours of the action with a special court set up just for this purpose. This was working pretty well as the FISA court retroactively approved 99% of all requests.

However, this did not please the Bushies. They did not and do not want to have to answer to anyone regardless of the fact that our Founding Fathers had set up a tripartite system of government with each section having checks and balances imposed on it by the other two. This was inconvenient to the Bushies intent to vastly increase the power of the Executive Branch so they have been ignoring the law and have pushed heavily for the right to do so. Our cowardly Congress has not stood up for our rights and has allowed encroachment by the Bushies in this area. The point is that our government and our security services already had the ability to do what they wished upon the spur of the moment. THE LAW WAS ALREADY THERE. The Bushies simply do not want accountability attached to their actions. (See the Iraq War)

So to say the liberals don't want to protect our country is a total and baseless lie propagated solely for political purposes. So what else is new????