Re: Public Wants Court to Okay Wiretaps

> And no mention that Hoover's FBI, with the approval of JFK, RFK and LBJ
>> committed far worse violations of the wiretapping laws in going after >> the various leaders and organizations of the civil rights movement. > Dad, its not so bad that I broke the window. Billy broke a bigger > window last year! > Bad behavior is bad behavior.

A conjecture is a conjecture.

It should not be condoned because someone else did it.

The "it" in that sentence doesn't antecede very well!

You shouted below; I'll shout here: there is NO COMPARISON between those historical wiretappings and what is happening now.

It should be condemned because its WRONG!

Actually, it should be condemned IF it is wrong. AFAICT, this is more of a balance of power issue than a question of legality.

We don't need to rehash Democratic wrongs when discussing Republican > wrongs, or Republican wrongs when discussing Democratics wrongs. They > are all bad. > Any reason that you didn't include the gross abuses of power by > Richard Nixon in your list?

As already noted, the ACLU has already attempted to paint this issue exactly that way.

Is there any reason that there's almost no public debate about this issue?

Instead of creating "news" -- contracting for self-serving polls that are providing essentially zero information -- why can't the Katherine Shraders of the world write some articles about the Executive's constitutional role in protecting us from foreign enemies?

Why is there no mention in AP articles of the history of FISA: what it was designed to do and why it is a flawed mechanism for dealing with the current threat?

--phil