Secret wiretapping illegal... thank God

A judge finally had the good sense to say that the warrantless wiretapping that the Bush administration is doing is illegal. It's about time.

I don't think you'd find a person in this country who is against wiretapping. Putting aside all of the fear creation about the "war on terror" (which has nothing to do with Iraq, still), there's no question in my mind that you can catch bad guys by wiretapping. What's not acceptable is doing it without a warrant or any kind of accountability.

Think hard about this, particularly in a day when the feds are jailing journalists. Do you really trust the government to wage a war on the "enemy" without clear definition, that does so in the name of protection without indicating who is at risk, or what the actual threats are? That scares me more than terrorists. What are you really worried about exposing that you won't go through the legal and accountable channels?

I finally saw Good Night, And Good Luck, and listening to the McCarthy speeches reminds me a lot of the things government officials say today. There's so much fear, and Americans are buying into it enough to overlook what a court now says is outright unconstitutional. That's the scary stuff to me.