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I will agree with those that say that the article is weak. However, what can we expect? A second Daniel Ellsberg? Ellsberg was pilloried, threatened with jail, and his psychiatrist's office burglarized for insider info on him. What would happen to him today, post-9/11? Do you think government officials don't get that? No, they (especially the military) leaked like a sive to try and keep Bush under control. Didn't work. And those men and women have since either retired or been hussled off to billets from which they can do the powerful no harm.
We do know this: Bush admitted on national television that he broke the law. Even Elephantman can't dispute that. He said that he deliberately did not go to the FISA court to obtain warrants, in clear violation of the law. He could have, as the law stipulates, started wiretaps on people and sought approval ex post facto--he did not, becasue he wanted to establish that he was ABOVE THE LAW. He has employed the CIA and NSA to spy on American citizens in the United States, also in clear violation of the law (we pay billions for an FBI that is supposed to perform those functions in a legal manner). These are established facts.
What people seem to be looking for is the equivalent of the signed statement by Hitler authorizing the holocaust. We will never see this. Yet the perponderance of evidence indicating that our Constitution and laws have been violated is overwhelming. You can either say, "who cares?" like Elephantman et al., in which case you have abidcated your freedoms, forever, or you can look it squarely in the jaw. In which case, you are forced to consider three options: work within the system to try and change things, take up arms against the system if you feel it has gone too far and no redress is possible, or leave the country. I'm still going with the first choice, but am afraid that my own government will force me to say goodbye to the nation of my birth and object of my loyal affection.
