Bastards

Wonderful. The government gets caught behaving in a reprehensible fashion, breaking its own laws... and what do they do? They try to root out and punish the heroes who refused to keep quiet, and threaten the media with the same treatment.

The FBI has been interviewing dozens of CIA and NSA employees in an effort to uncover who told reporters about classified surveillance and imprisonment programs reported recently. News of the internal investigations follows last month's Justice Department assertion that reporters can be prosecuted under a WWI-era anti-espionage law because it does not contain a specific media "exemption." Media watchers, lawyers and editors say the rash of incidents represents perhaps the most extensive such campaign in a generation.

From the Washington Post

What I find hard to believe is that not only are they doing this in the first place, but apparently they aren't even ashamed about it. It seems every week or so there's something new that increases my disgust with the administration, with the bastards in congress (of "both" parties) who refuse to stand against it, and with the stupid citizens who believe that the whole thing is a reasonable response to terrorism.

Here's what I think: in a list of all things that Americans should worry about, terrorism might come in around number 50. Or, rather, it would be number 50 if the Bush administration wasn't going around actively trying to make things worse by knocking the legs out from under Iraq and then threatening Iran with the same treatment.

Here's what else I think: when government insiders point out that the government is acting like a repressive regime, the government should do all it can to clean itself up, lest an outraged populace decide to throw it out of office. But instead, the populace isn't very outraged, and the government doesn't seem to see this as a political problem, just as a military one.

I want to just wash my hands of the whole thing, and tell myself "well I didn't vote for them, so it's not my responsibility". But it is my responsibility. Democracy doesn't just mean letting people vote, it means expecting people to rule.

Just remember this: the only way to prevent terrorist groups inside the country from operating is for the goverenment to acquire so much control over its citizens that it can also remove any political opposition group it wishes. So don't be so eager to excuse abuse of power in the name of fighting terrorism -- the two are actually just different faces of the same thing.