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[Jack Rabbit]

103. I agree

I probably blame Obama more than you do on this matter, but this is something a responsible Congress should have thrown in the face of any president (or usurper, in the case of the previous White House occupant) who told them he needed such an act.

No president should have the power to mandate the storing of personal data (and no, whoever wants to raise a stink about it, I don't care if the phone company technically owns that data) in order to research a crime that hasn't yet been committed. This is just one big, huge fishing expedition. If there are suspects, the government can start issuing warrants for their information any time. In the computer age, that information can be found easily enough.

There should be no secret laws, secret trials or secret courts. That's is perhaps the real problem here. The oversight of too much of this national security apparatus established since the end of World War II is insufficient to assure a defendant due process, the sin qua non of American jurisprudence.

The ultimate test should be the transparency of the process. If a defendant cannot face his accusers, then the process is unconstitutional. If a defendant is told that he cannot be informed of the charges against him because they are classified, then the process is unconstitutional. If the defendant or any one subjected to questioning is at any point in the process denied legal council, then the process is unconstitutional. If the Attorney General, whether it's Eric Holder, Alberto Gonzales or Robert Kennedy, says he doesn't need a warrant, then at least be very suspicious. Chances are that the process is unconstitutional.

We Americans are right to be alarmed about the present state of affairs. We were lied into a war that had nothing to do with national security and quite a bit to do with enriching Messers. Bush and Cheney's cronies. We were governed by decree and told that the Constitution those two reprobates and their underlings the power to rule by decree. I still haven't found in Constitution where it says that. We voted for President Obama because he promised a transparent government. Today, he continues to defend a system secret laws, secret trials and secret courts. Can any one honestly say he has delivered on that promise? Please, don't ask me to do it.