Shortly after the FISA and wiretapping story broke, some idjit wrote the Stars and Stripes praising the President for the program. I wrote in a reply. I was very surprised to see that reply published in the paper today, especially since both times I've written before, they've had me redo it a few times for clarity and brevity, and they've needed to get a bunch of info from me. I guess this time I just got it right the first time, and taking a look at it in the paper, I really think I did. My goal was to educate on the issue of FISA. It's been horrendously distorted by right wing elements in the media; we aren't saying that the government shouldn't listen in on Al Qaeda. By all means, go ahead. If they find probable cause and get a warrant, they can listen in on me talking dirty with my girlfriend. I'm not happy about it, but that's how the rules work. The problem with "illegal wiretapping" is not the "wiretapping", it's the "illegal". So here's the letter I was replying to, and my own letter afterwards.
Bear with me friends, this will be painful. To make things a little easier and hopefully provide some amusement, I have added humorous editorial comments reflecting what I thought of their well reasoned viewpoints.
Maybe Bush got it right
(jabba- Maybe I am a sea urchin. This could all be a dream of mine. Anything is possible.)
Maybe President Bush is a lot smarter than the liberals think.
(jabba-see above. Also, I'd like to see some standardized test results to back that up.)
This Christmas and New Year holiday season, as families get together, they talked of the news of the day. (jabba- translation: good old fashioned rednecks bitching about all the liberal hippies who dare to question dear leader, and ignorantly making uninformed points like they're frigging political experts. It's why I don't go home for the holidays anymore.) Bush has been "outed" by some shameless liberals for taking signals from overseas calls into the United States to people of question, without a court warrant. (jabba- I heard a sound like thousands of grammar teachers crying out in pain, who were then suddenly silenced.)
Funny, I remember the Iranian hostage crisis and the granddaddy liberal of the Democrats, Jimmy Carter, [saying something similar]. (jabba- 1. I have no idea what Carter said, apparently [saying something similar] is their way of shortening down [something completely different that was taken entirely out of context]; 2. No assface, Jimmy Carter is not the granddaddy liberal of the Democrats. Lovable old uncle maybe. If you knew anything about Democrats, you would know that Franklin Delano Roosevelt is the granddaddy of the Democrats.) Only, as a Democrat, he was praised and protected. He was found to be legal. No conservatives were screaming foul because our government agencies were trying to protect us. (jabba- given that this was 3 years before my birth, I'm unfamiliar with the details. However, chances are that assface is wrong. Anybody from that time period know what was up? What they may be basing this on? Regardless, chances are that FISA, which only became a law in 1979, wasn't a law at the time of the wiretapping, and so Carter could have been doing so entirely legally.)
Is it now so different? We are at war with an enemy that professes death to us, with dispatch. (jabba- what?) The only thing really different is that there's a Republican in the White House. Are the Democrats just feckless? Do they really want to make us all targets while pursing that liberal agenda? (jabba- Go forth my minions! Purse that agenda! No! Don't use F7! Spelling and grammar checks slow down the process!)
Politics is no longer a local issue, it is global. (jabba- Welcome to the 20th century. Eventually you'll catch up.) If you don't believe that, talk to any present or past military member. I have seen the decades of liberal pathological behavior make America appear weak in the eyes of the world. The liberals have made us all targets! (jabba- Somebody ate their Crazy Flakes today. I have seen a vision, a sight of really really stupid people! It is an incredible sight! Wait, decades? Since when have liberals been in charge for decades? Looking at the presidency alone, we've had, for the last 38 years, a grand total of 12 years with a Democrat as President. That's not exactly decades.)
Maybe Bush was brilliant. (jabba- Sea urchin. Just sayin'.) Family conversations this Christmas will have profound effect this year. For your safety and peace of mind, please vote. When more average Americans decide to vote, our leaders will reflect those values. Maybe Bush got this season right. (jabba- for someone who seems pretty set in their beliefs, you use a lot of wishy-washy "maybe" crap.)
Assface (name changed to protect privacy)
Somewhere in Germany
Here's the best way to some up that letter, which was devoid of actual information and substance and relying instead on spurious emotional inflammatory claims. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Not a FACT in the whole fucking thing. Actually, it was a lot like watching FOX.
And from the people who use both sides of their brain, my rebuttal, which was printed in it's entirety:
Still must adhere to law
The letter "Maybe Bush got it right" is wrong in so many ways, and it displayed complete ignorance on the subject at hand by the letter's writer. The issue is not that there was surveillance collected of Americans or that its been done before or that people are trying to stop government agencies from protecting us. The issue is that the law was broken. Specifically, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, was violated. This is a 1979 law that was put in place to ensure that surveillance and espionage of American citizens is accomplished with congressional and legal oversight.
Here's some of the facts about FISA: complying with FISA will not slow down an investigation or keep the government from being able to immediately monitor a suspicious subject. FISA allows for immediate surveillance of a suspect, provided that the necessary warrant paperwork is completed within 72 hours (3 days) of the beginning of surveillance. FISA is a secret court, meeting in closed sessions, and as such, running things through FISA does not endanger national security. During the existence of the court, there have been 18,732 warrant requests. 18,728 have been approved, 4 have not. There was absolutely no reason for the administration to think that reasonable justifiable requests for warrants would be turned down. There is no reason why the administration could not have gone through the proper legal channels to accomplish their mission. No legal reason anyway.
FISA is a law, and it supports the 4th amendment. For those unfamiliar with the Constitution (and so many people are, and are willing to throw it away for illusory safety), the 4th amendment protects American citizens from searches without warrants. This is in our Constitution, and it applies to electronic surveillance as well. FISA exists to allow for speedier issuing of warrants for electronic surveillance, the exact thing the administration claims to want.
The laws are in place and when used they work. However, once that information is obtained, there is no guarantee it will be utilized correctly by the people we trust to keep us safe. Two messages from Al Qaeda were intercepted, legally, by the NSA, on September 10th, 2001. One said "the match begins tomorrow" and the other said "Tomorrow is zero day". These messages were not translated by the NSA until September 12th. Obtaining the information does nothing unless it is correctly utilized.
I think that works quite well.