Eaves-dropping and using data mining to spy on U.S. citizems

The U.S. government thinks it is okay to spy on it’s citizens under the guise of ‘national security’. They say they are only looking out for our ‘best interest’. King Bush the lesser thinks it is okay to do this spying without a warrant of any kind. These are facts. He has already authorized this spying through the National Security Agency. He acknowledged this back in 2004.

He won’t admit to ‘data mining’ which means he denies sorting through and picking out ‘relevant’ information from the data collected. Right.

Why would the government collect information through eaves-dropping and not use that information? What they expect us to believe is that they have gone through the expense, financially and time-wise, to collect information from us without our knowledge (and they think this is okay) but they won’t even look at what they have collected because, they say, that would just be wrong.

Does this scenario make sense to anyone? It doesn’t make sense to me.

There is only one reason why data is collected. It is so it can be used.

One side of the argument surrounding this controversy is that they are looking out for us and if you have done nothing wrong then you have nothing to worry about. This thinking is what allows the government free-reign to trample all over our civil liberties.

The other side of the argument is that there are unscrupulous individuals that can, and will, use this information for their own gains. No one can deny that the government is loaded with these individuals, especially in the NSA and the CIA. They are spy organizations. This government, especially under George W Bush, cannot be trusted with any data collected about us behind our backs. Only thieves and people with bad intentions sneak around the law to collect information on unwitting citizens.

Trust me, if these people are collecting information on us then they will use it on us.

One of the lies that the U.S. Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, has been hiding behind concerns this data mining issue. Former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft did not want to participate in spying on his fellow citizens. Alberto Gonzales has no qualms about it, which is why Bush wants to keep Gonzales in this position. Ashcroft resigned and Bush ‘greased’ the path to get his puppet into place. Before Gonzales became Attorney General, he attempted to get Ashcroft to sign off on the issue (while Ashcroft lay in his hospital bed recovering from gallbladder surgery, real classy move Gonzales) so that he, Gonzales, would not have to have any responsibility for it. Now that Gonzales is being questioned about that meeting he is bastardizing the meaning of ‘surveillance’ (which technically uses eaves-dropping as a tool to ‘collect’ information as opposed to data-mining which technically ‘uses’ information collected) to his benefit. His interpretation of the word, as it relates to the questioning, is about ‘eaves-dropping’ and not ‘data-mining’ so that he feels, in his own mind, that he is answering truthfully when he denies the issue is about, the broader issue, ‘surveillance’.

This is ‘splitting hairs’, and it is exactly what makes lawyers and politicians ‘slimy’. Splitting hairs is what deceitful people do in an attempt to justify their behavior.

Even though eaves-dropping and data-mining are both considered spying, by everyone who knows what spying is, and both fall under the purview of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, Gonzales continues to doggedly fulfill his ‘masters’ wishes to collect everything he can about every U.S. citizen. This blind obedience is exactly what Bush wants in an underling. This is why Gonzales is being protected.

Congress knows Gonzales is lying, members of congress like Senator Russ Feingold-WI acknowledges publicly that Gonzales has “lied to Congress and may have committed perjury”. Why does Feingold pussy foot around this? He knows Gonzales has committed perjury since he is lying and that is what perjury is. Why say it as if there is some doubt? “May have committed perjury”? Come on Feingold, now you are splitting hairs. Do something about it.

Representative Christopher Shays-CN says “He doesn’t have much credibility”. Bold words there Representative. Now how about representing us by getting him out of that office instead of just talking about it.

Prominent lawmakers from both parties are calling for Gonzales to resign. How about doing something more than just spouting off words? How about doing something more than just ‘jumping on the bandwagon” and patting yourselves on the back for “joining in”?

Here’s one guy that really makes me shake my head in wonder. Senator Orin Hatch-UT says he has “a lot of respect for the man, he’s willing to hang in there.” This guy is either so totally naïve that he ‘believes ‘ in everybody or he is blatantly sucking up to Bush. It makes me wonder what he has done that he will need King Bush’s good favors?

Four Democratic senators called for a special prosecutor to be appointed to investigate whether Gonzales committed perjury. Unbelievable! You all know he committed perjury. What is to investigate? Why spend more of our tax dollars to learn something you already know to be true?

Congress thinks the only ‘action’ to take is to ‘form a committee’ while you all slap each other on the backs convincing yourselves that you are doing what you can. Well let me tell you, time is slipping away and nothing is getting done. Why are you guys turning congress into this big ‘social club’ where everyone talks about what needs to be done and then assigns some ‘special investigative commission’ to learn the facts and then do nothing with the findings because no one can agree on what to do with the facts?

This is really getting laughable. You politicians talk, talk, talk and nobody does anything worthwhile.

This is not what our forefathers had in mind when they set up this government. You should all hang your heads in embarrassment.

EDIT-Will Dwinnell left a comment to point out a misconception attributed to me. I want to thank him for taking the time. I had stated earlier that data mining is spying. It is in fact not technically 'spying'. Data mining is the process of finding correlations or patterns among dozens of fields in large relational databases. Since the federal government built these databases through illegal surveillance, it is, in this case, an extension of the definition of spying.