3,501 Illegal Wiretaps!

Last year -- on the say-so of President Bush alone -- the FBI illegally bypassed the courts in at least 9,254 instances of secret domestic spying on at least 3,501 innocent American citizens. And that's only for 2005!

This just blows me away. In 1967, the US Supreme Court ruled that secret wiretaps by the executive branch are a violation of our Constitution's Fourth Amendment. In 1972, President Nixon tested the ruling by spying on radical groups in the US and the Supreme Court shot him down 8-0. Now, a Republican President is undermining the Constitution once again. After the Supreme Court slapped him down on his attempts secretly detain American citizens without trial or access to the courts, does President Bush really think they'll rule his way on this one?

The only reason President Bush is still President instead of a jailbird is because his political party controls the government.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) recently brought a suit against AT&T for providing President Bush with private information about American citizens without a warrant. Unable to halt President Bush's unconstitutional practices because of Republican Control of the government, the EFF is helping to chip away at the edges in an effort to get to the truth. Predictably, the President's "Justice" Department wants to block the suit.

The government, in a filing here late Friday, said the lawsuit threatens to expose government and military secrets and therefore should be tossed. The administration added that its bid to intervene in the case should not be viewed as a concession that the allegations are true.

It just kills me that President Bush can obtain this information legally and in a timely manner through the courts in accordance to the Constitution of the United States, but he chooses not to do so. It's obvious that dismantling our system of checks and balances to secure more power for the executive branch is a higher priority for him than securing this country.

tags: spy program  bush  wiretap