What bugs me about this whole
"eavesdropping" thing is the number of people who believe it automatically means the government is listening in on us all just willy-nilly. I had this argument with my sister over the weekend. There has to be something to make them want to listen...like a phone call to or from the US by a name on a list, for example...something that causes a raised eyebrow. I tried to explain to her that the government has not the time or resources to listen to her discuss soap operas with her friend.
I don't think that they "don't" get it. I think to them it just "sounds" good.
I would ask next time to anyone that brings up the eavesdropping issue "how much money do you make?" How much did you donate last year to charity?" These are truly none of your business questions. So unless these same folks want to get all riled up about citizens having to give this information every year to the government, then I don't want to hear about collecting info on something to keep us all safe.
True -- if they catch such a call there's no guarantee someone will be able to listen to it in a timely manner. Especially if Qaeda sympathizers greatly step up the number of "suspicious" calls in an attempt to overwhelm the system.
It's not that the government lacks the "time or resources" but that it arguably lacks the authority, absent probable cause. What the administration is claiming is that they can listen in, under the President's authority as CinC, to any message and decide, at their own discretion, whether to continue listening. This may or may not be a good thing in practice but it certainly removes the Presidency from the system of checks and balances.
my 'buddy' Mike actualy thinks Geo. W. is bugging his phone - not the FISA/NSA snafu but that W has a phone in the Oval Office on his desk and in the White House living quarters that rings when mike's home phone rings. Then, W. can pick it up and listen in. Mike knows this is true because he 'can hear the phone line click'.
Mike is a chronicaly unemployed commie whose wife has supported him over the years with any number of low-skill, marginal, minimum wage jobs. Mike refuses to work because he is 'too smart'. But Mike knows Geo. W. is listening in because Geo. W. 'fears and hates' Mike because of Mike's 'community activism' (i.e. Mike stays drunk at the bar and announces to anyone and everyone at the top of his lungs how much he hates Geo. Bush).
If you ever need to figure out how Geo. H. W. Bush paid Ossama to fly the planes into the WTC so that Dick Chaney and Haliburton could suck war profits from Saudi Arabia and the Carlysle Group and so that Geo. W. could become the theocratic holy new-roman emperor of the west, just ask Mike. He's got all the answers...