More on Domestic Wiretapping

I found a very interesting article through Slashdot. Robert X. Cringley of PBS did some extensive research into the wiretapping done by this administration. He found some amazing fact going all the way back to before World War II. For instance:

One fun fact from that monitoring: The CEO of International Telephone & Telegraph (ITT) reportedly spoke with Adolf Hitler on the phone from New York City every week of the war. According to the book The Sovereign State of ITT, the call was placed from New York to South America, and then used a cable from South America to Berlin. Key companies that maintained the German telephone network were ITT subsidiaries at that time, and communications were obviously of strategic importance for Germany; thus Hitler needed to speak with the CEO every week.

He offers no opinion as to the wiretapping being illegal or not, but it looks to me that it is very illegal.

The Slashdot discussion is very insightful if not heated in some points. Slashdot user "Mrs. Grundy" Put forth this which I think sums up the situation perfectly:

This controversy gets a little old as people argue the various ethical merits of government wiretaps. The issue is not whether eavesdropping on communications is necessary, right, or wrong, but whether we want to live in a country where the executive charged with running it is not bound by the law. I'm sure the lawyers in the DOJ will put forth some very creative arguments, but I think it is clear to most people that this breaks both the letter and the spirit of the law. As this plays out, we will be well served to remember that congress writes the laws and the executive branch enforces them. When the president and his staff decide they need not adhere to the laws congress has authored, it is time to consider the meaning of 'high Crimes or Misdemeanors."

The article goes on to say that The wiretaps probably didn't get the proper judicial authorization because they COULDN'T get it. The Bush Administration continued anyway. That's where I find the fault. If you knew you didn't have the evidence to get a warrant legally, you also knew you didn't have the evidence that the person you were tapping was doing something illegal in the first place. They are fishing and hoping to catch something. I think the article had enough information in it to make that assertion but it did not, probably to appease the new PBS ombudsman put in place by a bush crony to make PBS more "balanced".

Read the article and make your own decision. I think it's an article every American needs to read.

Here is the link to the article:
Hitler on Line One

Here is the link to the discussion on Slashdot:
Cringely on Domestic Eavesdropping

Technorati tags: Wiretap, Cringley, NSA, FBI Hoover