Say Anything Blog

I’d like some liberal to explain this double standard to me.

Don’t hold your breath.

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If liberals were intellectually capable of explaining such things in a nominally rational manner, they wouldn’t be liberals in the first place.

“Poverty of goods is easily cured; poverty of the mind is irreparable.”

I’m having a hard time seeing how a database of gun purchases has anything to do with the government listening in on private conversations.  Perhaps you could expand.

Perhaps you could try looking beyond leftwing rhetoric to the fact that the NSA program was a database of call data, not eavesdropping.

Nice try at splitting the issue, though, because I know you oppose the idea of the NSA having a database of call data too.  But you’re all for tracking gun ownership.

Hypocrite.

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

-- Thomas Jefferson

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jpe,

You keep repeating that the government was “listening in on private conversation.” Please supply some authoritative and objective documentation that this is/was the case.

“Poverty of goods is easily cured; poverty of the mind is irreparable.”

Subpoenas are being issued, so information will be forthcoming, hopefully.  Nonetheless, they were obviously wiretaps rather than call data.  That point has never been disputed in any of the legal documents and hearings.

At any rate, to be comparable to the NSA warrantless wiretapping, what would have to happen is for Mayor Bloomberg to hack into the ATF database and get the information in direct violation of federal law.  What we’re looking at now isn’t a violation of law ala the NSA program, but a change in the law.

I should’ve pointed out that yall are half-right: the NSA operated a call data collection program in addition to the warrantless wiretap program.

The gun data program is one where the government has forced private companies to sell transaction data to them.

How in the world is this different than AT&T sharing call data with the NSA?

It isn’t.  Hypocrite.  But keep squirming.

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

-- Thomas Jefferson

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

You should probably recall, Rob, that left and libertarian ire was reserved for the warrantless wiretap program.  The data collection program was a blip on the radar, probably because it’s not an obvious violation of rights. 

Again, it’s important to note that the Bush administration just went ahead and did it.  Mikulski etal, by contrast, are, y’know, changing the law.  Rule of law and all that.

Subpoenas are being issued, so information will be forthcoming, hopefully.  Nonetheless, they were obviously wiretaps rather than call data.

jpe,

I take it then that you have no substantive documentation to support your assertions, nothing authoritative to back up your accusations, and nothing more to prove your point.  Apparently, you know nothing of the structure of NSA and how it operates, nothing of the technology being employed and nothing of the information that is being gleaned or how it is processed, analyzed, collated, and reported on.  The fact is, you can’t even offer any support for the technologically adolescent notion that the program we’re discussing should rightly be categorized as “wiretapping,” never mind whether or not it has been successful and thus worthy of objective evaluation.

Its not as though you Lefties are new to the idea of selectively shrieking all manner of accusations in faux outrage with no more substantive purpose beyond listening to the sound of your own voice.  Still, I’m not sure this is a can of worms that liberals really want to open in public.  The Bush administration is doing nothing that it Democrat predecessor couldn’t have done if only the Clintonistas had taken the threat of Islamist terrorism seriously.

If the NSA program(s) are shown to have been effective, its not the Republicans who will suffer the consequences of having acted, but those whose prior dereliction of duty led to so many innocent deaths at the Khobar Towers, the two US Embassy bombings, and the USS Cole.

“Poverty of goods is easily cured; poverty of the mind is irreparable.”

You should probably recall, Rob, that left and libertarian ire was reserved for the warrantless wiretap program.

You mean the wiretap program that exists only in the imaginations of certain liberals and libertarians?

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

-- Thomas Jefferson

Rob’s recently listened-to songs: