Where’s the Outrage: Warrentless Wiretaps Skyrocket Under Obama

During the Bush years, leftists everywhere were outraged at the amount of wireless wiretapping he was doing in order to find terrorists.

Today, the ACLU finds Team Obama is doing far more than Bush.

Where’s the outrage:

After months of litigation and Freedom of Information Act requests, the ACLU obtained documents from the federal government proving that real-time monitoring of electronic communications inside the U.S. has climbed 60 percent since 2009 and far surpasses monitoring under President Bush.

The ACLU reports that the Dept. of Justice used “pen register” and “trap and trace” techniques 23,535 times in 2009 and 37,616 times in 2011.

A “pen register” captures outgoing data from a phone or email account while “trap and trace” captures incoming data.

During that same time period, the number of people whose telephones were the subject of pen register and trap and trace surveillance more than tripled. In fact, more people were subjected to pen register and trap and trace surveillance in the past two years than in the entire previous decade.

(ACLU’s bold above)

Besides the increase in wiretapping, there’s something else in that quote above that needs attention.

“months of litigation and Freedom of Information Act requests…”

This is supposedly the most transparent administration in history.  Why is the ACLU having so much trouble?

Where’s the outrage over that?

Now let me tell you a little bit about my political maturation and how the scales have fallen from my eyes.

When I started following politics, Dubya was in office and I supported him.  I still think a lot of what he did was spot on.

And I supported the use of warrentless wiretaps, because sometimes there isn’t time to get a judge.

But here’s the maturation part.

I’ve come to realize that what one man will use, another man will abuse.  If you grant a man you trust dangerous power, only to have another follow him, you give him the same power.

But you can’t trust him with the same power.

That’s why we have limits on power for government.  Because as Madison said, “All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree.”

Rather than excusing a violation of the Fourth Amendment by claiming there isn’t time to abide by the law, create a system that allows for proper review.

It’s possible.  We just need to do it.

What say you?