May 12, 2006:

In the past week, we have Porter Goss being forced out of the CIA, to be replaced with General Hayden, who was head of NSA when the warrantless wiretaps were put into place. Democrats predictably acted like a scared beaten dog and cautiously said nothing. The strongest voice of concern actually came from Republican Senator Arlen Specter. Also this week, with much less fanfare, the government ended an inquiry into the wiretapping program because the NSA refused to grant Justice Department lawyers the necessary security clearance to investigate. (Must be nice to be able to say "no" to the Justice Department.)

Now, USA Today comes out with a report that says what most of the liberal bloggosphere has been chatting about for months - that companies like AT&T and Verizon made deals in which they sold private phone records to the government, as part of a government plan to build a database of every phone call made in America. On the surface, it seems pretty benign, but in context of what has been going on, and what this Administration has been doing, the logical train of thought is frightening (good piece on Kos today).

Defenders will say that the list is only of phone numbers and calls made to and from those numbers, no names or addresses released. But any idiot can track down a phone number, so do you think the Military can't as well? And while this is not as invasive as the warrantless wiretaps against "suspected al Qaeda in America", naysayers should note that this plan does not merely track the calls to and from suspected al Qaeda, but of every American with a phone. And what do you do with all these numbers, who oversees their use and who calls foul when the data is abused? No one, of course. Big Brother Bush came out and said "we are not mining or trolling for information"... but what credibility does this man have after five years of saying one thing and doing another?

Shame on the phone companies who were so quick to comply with the government (bravo, Qwest for asking the government to act within the law, and the government refused!), shame on the Congress who as Senator Pat Lehey said, allowed this to happen; and shame on Democrat Nancy Pelosi - one of very few who knew about this program, said nothing, then acted surprised when the story broke.

As much as I want the Dems to take over in 2006, they desperately need new and progressive leadership.