The ABCs of domestic espionage
Brian Ross and Richard Esposito from ABC have a blurb today stating that a high level government source has warned them that the government is tracking their phone calls. They are doing this not to stop terrorism, but because they're trying to track down leaks in the Bush administration. Ross, by the way, is the network's chief investigative correspondent.
"It's time for you to get some new cell phones, quick," the source told them.
ABC news has a disclaimer in the article that they don't know how the government got their phone records, and they can't prove that this was part of the recent NSA brouhaha in which Bush admitted that the government had coerced the records from at least three major telephone companies.
I wrote a blog a few days ago talking about some of the damage that the government could do with what appeared to be the innnocent telephone records that listed the calls, times and numbers, but not the content. I missed this one.
What an obvious thing that the Bushies can do with these telephone records; use them to track down and squash domestic dissent and investigative reporting.
These people have to be stopped. Somewhere there's a line and I think that they've just crossed it. That line defines the demarcation between legitimate counterterrorism efforts and political abuse of the system.
If it turns out that what I suspect is true, is; that the Bush administration used these phone records in even ONE instance, to try to plug a leak or in any way spied on domestics with no direct connection to Al Quaddeh...if that happens, then I say that it's time to impeach President Bush and try him for illegal spying on Americans. Regardless of whether or not the Democrats take back the House this November.
Posted on May 15, 2006
