Wiretapping

Here's where my concern over the "wiretapping" scandal comes from: the Bush Administration will not give enough details about it, even to U.S. Senators and Congressmen & Congresswomen, so that a thorough assessment can be made of whether the surveillance program meets constitutional muster.

Despite Bush's tight lips, though, plenty of people seem to think they know what the program entails, presumably from leaks, most likely from speculation or wishful thinking.

For example, James Risen, who helped break the story for The New York Times, has described the surveillance program on MSNBC's Hardball. He told Chris Mathews that the program involves the government getting access to communications hubs or nodes and listening to the full conversations of up 500 people at a time. Apparently, according to Risen, these are randomly selected conversations.

However, others have claimed that the program targets only suspected terrorists or terrorist accomplices. For example, in today's paper, The Birmingham News printed a column by Cal Thomas in which he says that the government is listening to only those calls between suspected terrorists outside the country and other individuals inside the country.

As an average American citizen, I have no idea whose description is right. If it's Risen, I would be very concerned. Not because I have any secrets to hide. But our Constitution does provide us a right to privacy, and that applies even if I'm only talking about whether Auburn will beat Bama this next season.

If Thomas is right, then I would at least be a bit more relieved, knowing that the surveillance efforts are more narrowly focused and more reasonably targeted to serve the national security. However, it would seem that if Thomas is right, then the Bush Administration has no reason for not going to the FISA court to get the search warrants ahead of time - or in the 72 hours allowed after emergency taps are made. Well, unless the Bush Administration is wondering if it can trust the judiciary to protect national security and do the right thing.

Of course, here's the problem. We cannot even evaluate the merits or demerits of the program - to know whether Risen or Thomas is right - because Bush has cloaked the whole program in a national security "need to know" cloud and apparently is not willing to let even legislators with security clearances know the details.

Americans seem to continue to lose sight - more and more each day - of what the founders wanted to accomplish with the Constitution. And the importance of accomplishing those things.

But should I be surprised that many Americans take the attitude that they have nothing to hide and so they are willing to relinquish a level of privacy in the service of the national good?

Am I surprised that yet again, we are told that if a majority is willing to sacrifice constitutional rights or protections, we in the minority are ignorant or unconcerned about our country's safety?

And all of this from an administration that claims to believe in the rule of law, not of men.

(And in case you are wondering, Auburn will beat Bama by 5 this year.)