What’s the Surprise

<a href="http://www.billingsgazette.com//index.php?id=1&display=rednews/2005/12/16/build/nation/90-bush.inc">Report says Bush authorized NSA to spy on Americans</a><br />n<br />n<blockquote>Neither Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice nor White House press secretary Scott McClellan would confirm or deny the report which said the super-secret NSA had spied on as many as 500 people at any given time since 2002 in this country.<br />n<br />nThat year, following the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush authorized the NSA to monitor the international phone calls and international e-mails of hundreds – perhaps thousands – of people inside the United States, the Times reported. </blockquote><br />n<br />nWhy are people surprised about this? This is exactly what I expected to happen when Congress, almost unanimously, passed the "Patriot Act" after 9/11. It allowed searches and seizures of American Citizens without judicial consent and the President went and did it. <br />n<br />n[sarcasm]WHAT A FUCKING SURPRISE PEOPLE!!! Wake up and smell the horse shit.[/sarcasm]<br />n<br />nWhile this exact monitoring of people was not covered, the principle was there and he acted on it. It might be in one of the secret laws the Patriot Act allows. Who knows.<br />n<br />nI adamantly opposed the "Patriot Act" for exactly this reason when it was proposed, it gave too much power to the President to trample on our rights and now we are seeing it.<br />n<br />nSo who is responsible for this intrusion on our liberties? I hear a lot of people yelling at the President. Yes, he is ultimately responsible and should be held accountable for trampling on the Constitution, but every Democrat and Republican who voted for the "Patriot Act" after 9/11 is equally responsible for this outrage. <u>They gave the President the authority to do this</u>. The President should have never done it, even with the authority granted him by Congress, since it violated the Constitution, but he did.<br />n<br />nEveryone needs to quit acting so surprised about this and deal with the situation. Overturn the "Patriot Act" and the implied permission that allows this kind of thing to happen will be gone. It won't stop the unscrupulous but it removes temptation. If you are going to impeach the President over this, great, the Congress needs impeached too because they authorized it.<br />n<br />nOne last thought on all the yells for impeachment. President Dick Cheney. Kind of scary, ain't it.<br />n<br />n<b>Nobody was really surprised when it happened, not really, not on the subconscious level where savage things grow. Stephen King</b>