Big Brother 16

Bill Gallagher, a Peabody Award winner, is a former Niagara Falls city councilman who now covers Detroit for Fox2 News. His e-mail address is gallaghernewsman@sbcglobal.net.
Hij schrijft: 'The Busheviks 05/26/06 "NFR" -- -DETROIT -- When the Liar in Chief declares, "We're not mining or trolling into the personal lives of innocent Americans," the enlightened know that is precisely what his fascist government is doing. President George W. Bush lies in small matters -- like his absurdly folksy claim that his greatest thrill and the "best moment" of his presidency was catching a fish. So when it comes to covering up his domestic spying program, you know he's spewing his Orwellian whoppers big-time.
The only problem the Busheviks had with their secret wiretapping program was they got caught. But don't worry, Bush assured us, it's only those "international communications" he wanted to "aggressively pursue." Always the master of the deceptive oversimplification to buttress his point, Bush added, "If there are people inside our country who are talking to al-Qaeda, we want to know." Little details like the law and the Constitution couldn't restrain our "wartime president" who claims absolute, unfettered authority to do anything he wants to "protect" our nation. So now he's caught kicking it up a notch to include widespread surveillance of domestic phone records and spying on millions of innocent Americans. USA Today blew the lid off the National Security Agency's spying and monitoring of domestic phone activities. One source told USA Today that the NSA spying program has produced "the largest database ever assembled in the world." This Big Brother snooping was done with the ignominious cooperation of phone company giants Verizon, AT&T and Bell South. Qwest, to its great credit, refused to cooperate in the sordid deed of betraying its own customers. Joseph P. Nacchio, Qwest's former CEO, refused to provide the NSA with private phone records of its customers. Nacchio -- who's under indictment on an insider trading charge -- smelled serious legal issues when the NSA came knocking on his door. In a prepared statement for The New York Times, Nacchio's lawyer, Herbert J. Stern, said the government first approached his client in the fall of 2001. "Mr. Nacchio made an inquiry as to whether a warrant or other legal process had been secured in support of that request," Stern stated. He added, "When he learned that no such authority had been granted, and there was a disinclination on the part of the authorities to use any legal process," Nacchio became suspicious, figured the NSA requests violated privacy requirements and told his people "to refuse to comply." Any officer at Verizon, AT&T and Bell South who did comply should be summarily fired. Company board members should be outraged, and shareholders should be demanding accountability. This may be the incident that sparks the biggest class-action lawsuit ever. The company officers broke the law and their contracts with their customers. A $5 billion suit has already been filed against Verizon for sharing customer information with government spies. "This is the largest and most vast intrusion of civil liberties we've ever seen in the United States," said Bruce Afrin, one of the attorneys who filed the lawsuit.' Lees verder: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13198.htm