So if, in two years, Alito isn't as extreme as you and others have made him out to be are you willing to issue a public apology for such extreme rhetoric?
@Glen Fisher - My original post specifically said "Those past wrongs in no way excuse the wrongs of today, but proclaiming that PATRIOT and the NSAs actions are somehow new is intellectually dishonest."
Other chose to attack that viewpoint - I assume - to prove that Bush is, indeed, the most evil man of all time.
If John Adams had had the technology to spy on every American (or at least those that disagreed with him) I'm reasonably certain that he would have done it. Pointing out that the details of the current situation are a bit different than those of the past is hardly enlightening. We have never had a "war" on a tactic or ideology before, we have never had the means to monitor all communications at all times simultanesouly before, I don't understand how this makes the substance of this administrations actions substantively different than prior actions. Everyone that spoke out against the war (WWI, WWII, 1812, etc) was a suspect before the only difference is that now they have the technology to spy on people that communicate internationally.
American history (including the World Wars) are frought with infringments on civil liberties. Japanese internment during WWII, domestic spying on citizens of German decent, Alien and Sedition Acts of the 1800s and WWI. The list is long and is rightly looked down upon.
Those past wrongs in no way excuse the wrongs of today, but proclaiming that PATRIOT and the NSAs actions are somehow new is intellectually dishonest.
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|---|---|
| 2006 | 5 |
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