Domestic Spying is Not New

It caused a big flap when people found out that the government is and has been spying on us ordinary citizens (without warrants, cause or restraint), and the President demanded immunity for the companies involved but I wonder if the President was demanding those companies be protected to keep us from finding out what they'd been doing at his behest, or if it was to keep us from finding out just how long the spying had been going on.





The truth is, the government has been spying on us at least since the Nixon administration (Shamrock), and Nixon was as concerned about protecting the companies (ITT, for one) who were helping him as Bush is now--and for the same reasons. Not because what they are doing is illegal and un-American (in which case, those companies could and should refuse to cooperate) but because they might refuse to help if they know they would be subject to proceedings in a civil or criminal court. It seems the only thing that has changed is the technology used to invade our privacy--Nixon could only dream of the kind of spyware our government now uses (email didn't exist then). It's been years since they've had to use an actual "tap" on a phone; now they can simply intercept the signal, which is much easier to do and much harder to detect. If such technologies had existed then, we might never have known just how corrupt and criminal Nixon's administration was because no burglars would have been needed to spy on the DNC in their Watergate offices. No burglars, no alert security guard, no arrests, no Woodward-and-Bernstein articles, no investigations, no Nixon resignation.





And why are these companies cooperating in such an illegal and un-American government surveillance program against its own law abiding citizens? For the most part, it's not out of any sense of duty or patriotism--it's for access to information about financial transactions made by the public at large and rival corporations which they can use to their own advantage. It's bad enough that the Truth in Advertising laws have been sacrificed to the Bush Administration's insatiable greed (along with so many laws enacted to guarantee us clean air and water, safe food and toys, fair wages and access to health care) so that corporations can mislead us about the safety or effectiveness of their products, now they get to read our bank statements, too.





My question is: why use corporate entities to do what the government itself has ample resources for? If it's really about terrorism and protecting us from the "evil dooers," I would think that the FBI would have the proper authority to do the spying--why use ITT or AT&T unless it is because the arrangement is mutually beneficial. If AT&T is profiting financially from the government's illegal and unconstitutional spying on us, then they should be subject to whatever penalties apply to such an egregious breach of our privacy, and our President's push to protect them from those penalties, only shows, once again, where his interests truly lie--not with the American people and their well-being but with the financial interests of his corporate masters.



With all of the attention being focussed on the NSA spying, though, I think people have forgotten that it's actually the FBI who has the responsibility for surveillance regarding American citizens within the borders of the United States itself. The FBI is under the authority of the DOJ and until relatively recently, the DOJ was under the control of a known Bush lackey affectionately (and now appropriately) known as "Gonzo." Gonzo has the same kind of reverence for Bush that John Mitchell had for Nixon (Mitchell actually claimed that, "By definition, it can't be illegal if the president does it."). With someone like that in charge of the agency responsible for keeping tabs on the populace, is it any wonder that the Administration felt free to spy on us however it pleased? And as far as I'm concerned, Mukasey is just another Gonzo. He doesn't seem to have the memory problems that Alberto did, but then he hasn't had the opportunity or the need, either. The fact that Bush picked him makes his suspect, as far as I'm concerned--Bush only nominates those who march in step with him, which means we need to watch him closely, too.