Robert Parry writes, "So, just when the people need government the most – to literally save the world – government is giving them more reasons to reject government. It is a moment when Obama’s proclivity for careful political calibrations adds to the danger. "If he doesn’t move quickly and decisively to let American citizens in on as many of the government surveillance secrets as reasonably possible – and dial back the dragnet on people’s personal information – he risks playing into the hands of anti-government extremists like the Tea Party who are now casting themselves as the protectors of America’s constitutional rights. "That is as much a masquerade as the Tea Party’s Revolutionary War costumes, since Tea Partiers voted overwhelmingly for George W. Bush and other Republican officeholders who were instrumental in vastly expanding the surveillance state. "It was Bush who presided over the 9/11 intelligence catastrophe and then overreacted by launching ill-conceived wars overseas and authorizing a massive expansion of government surveillance against the U.S. population. Indeed, the current law, which is facing criticism for allowing the storage of huge amounts of data on phone calls, represented an intervention against Bush’s even more breathtaking intrusion on civil liberties, the notion that a President could order wiretaps on electronic communications without a warrant."
Posted on: Wed, 12 Jun 2013 22:37:03 +0000
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