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Politics : View from the Center and Left

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To: thames_sider who wrote (8959)	1/13/2006 8:04:03 AM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (3) of 541375

Karen, I think you are missing a key point. It's not the random snooping... it's the snooping on people who (for whatever reason, personal or political as well as professional) the snoopers do not like or are disposed not to like. I appreciate that problem. I just don't see it as salient to the snooping-for-enemy-agents problem that is on the table. Give secret bodies the authority to do this and history shows they WILL abuse this No doubt. Here's the key point I think you're missing. The key words are "give" and "authority." I do not propose GIVING them the AUTHORITY to do that. What I'm doing is recognizing and asserting that they HAVE the POWER to do that regardless. Our giving or not giving of authority is irrelevant when they already have the power. If they want to do it, they will do it regardless of whether we officially approve it by giving them the authority. We have to be realistic about this. The folks who are fussing about warrants are not being realistic. The administration may not be able to get a warrant to snoop on people they just don't like but that will not keep them from doing it if they want to. We can't stop them. Until you recognize that, you cannot deal with this problem realistically. When I said they had better things to do than to snoop on the innocent, I mean the innocent like E and me. As for snooping on people they don't like, if they want to do that, they will do it regardless. They already have the power and nothing we can do in the way of warrant mechanisms can take it away. "Give" is not the same as "have" and "authority" is not the same as "power."

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