Definitions

I've been keeping track of the hoo-ha about domestic spying and frankly, the whole thing pisses me off. Gonzales on a tour trying to justify this, but the story keeps changing. The president keeps assuring us that is was perfectly legal and he had the right to wiretap American citizens without a warrant. Half the time the this is the argument. The rest of the time, Gonzales tells us,

"We would have told Congress or asked them to rewrite the law, but we didn't think we would get it."

Well, either you believe the president has the default ability to do this, or you believe congress should have been asked, but wouldn't have done it (so you didn't ask).

In April 2004 (and many other times) Bush has assured us many times that

"Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires-a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so."

And again,

THE PRESIDENT: Let me -- that's a great question. A couple of things that are very important for you to understand about the Patriot Act. First of all, any action that takes place by law enforcement requires a court order. In other words, the government can't move on wiretaps or roving wiretaps without getting a court order.

Here'a alonger list of assurances that a warrant is needed.

And then, just this thursday, he noted:

"We will not listen inside this country. It is a call from al Qaeda affiliates either from inside the country our, or outside the country in, but not domestically."

I know what the problem is. Bush doesn't understand the word "domestic". Or, at the very least, their arguments depend on what the definition of 'domestic' is. If you can't win with the accepted version, make up your own definition and apply that.

Inconsistent much?

I'm all for listening to every communication from anyone who may have contacts with terrorists. Fine. Just do it with a warrant, which is how the system is set up. Not getting a warrant is illegal and unconstitutional. Period.