3 responses so far ↓

• 1 Robert Anderson // Mar 16, 2008 at 12:37 pm

  I don’t read the LA Times (corporate media that helped draw us into a ruinous war), but I spotted your piece on Buzzflash.com. Finally someone gets it! I have no doubt that the Bush administration (given the records of Cheney, Rove, et. al.) use the illegal wiretaps to monitor political opponents, journalists, and others they consider a threat to their regime. There is apparently no one to stop them, so why wouldn’t they? Because they are nice guys? You’d be a fool to think that.

  The reason for warrants to get wiretaps, as Sanchez understands, is to protect us from those at the top who will always seek to abuse their power. Those warrants are what make us different from the Soviet Union, which we so dispised, but have come close to resembling.

  I am tired of hearing from people, “I have done nothing criminal, so I don’t care if the government monitors my calls and Interent.”
  It is about protecting your political thought. Even knowing that the government is monitoring everything, supresses dissent of all kinds. Think KGB.

  All the Republicans and Democrats (like Diane Fienstien) who want to shut down the judicial process and grant immunity to the telecom giants who knowingly granted the Bush people access to warrantless wiretapping and more, have utterly betrayed their sacred oath to defend the Constitution and should be voted out of office.

  I thank you Mr. Sanchez for your Op-ed piece, and the LA Times for (remarkably) giving a voice to such a fine defense of the Fourth Amendment.

  Robert Anderson
  Los Angeles

• 2 John Goes // Mar 16, 2008 at 6:25 pm

  Excellent article, Julian.

• 3 Alejandro Beutel // Mar 17, 2008 at 8:43 am

  As someone who also looks at security issues and civil liberties I was extremely impressed by your op-ed in the LA Times.

  One of the implicit points made in your article (which I think should have been made more explicitly perhaps) was that the loss of privacy and inevitable political spying that took place did nothing to enhance our security, in fact it probably weakened it by diverting limited resources away from more pressing issues.

  Privacy and civil liberties that restrain government abuse are not just a matter of political morals, but also a pragmatic means of forcing an efficient response to terrorism and other national security threats.

  Thanks again for your wonderful op-ed.

  All the best,

  Alejandro