The Sum of All Fears (The IRS audits and NSA surveillance flow into the same national anxieties)

Wall Street Journal ^ | 6/12/2013 | Daniel Henninger

[IbJensen]

Here is Barack Obama commenting last Friday on the National Security Agency's antiterrorist surveillance programs: "We've got congressional oversight and judicial oversight. And if people can't trust not only the executive branch but also don't trust Congress and don't trust federal judges to make sure that we're abiding by the Constitution, due process and rule of law, then we're going to have some problems here."

Uh-huh.

Herewith a partial list of political groups that said they were subjected to over-the-top audits by the Internal Revenue Service:

Greenwich Tea Party Patriots, Greater Phoenix Tea Party Patriots, Laurens County Tea Party, Northeast Tarrant Tea Party, Myrtle Beach Tea Party, Albuquerque Tea Party, San Antonio Tea Party, Richmond Tea Party, Manassas Tea Party, Honolulu Tea Party, Waco Tea Party, Chattanooga Tea Party and American Patriots Against Government Excess.

-snip-

Whatever inchoate anxieties predated this presidency are now worse: a politics rife with suspicion and retribution, and most of the people believing the government, for starters, threatens their freedom.

One may hope Mr. Obama has sufficient political skill to protect the antiterrorism structures he inherited. It will be the job of the next president to prevent the public's sense of personal political threat from heading toward 60% and beyond.

[IbJensen]

Mr. Mitchell says it best:

If Daniel Henninger is right that today's spate of political scandals and widespread distrust of government create "The Sum of All Fears" environment for a public backlash, it means that we have come full circle to the mindset of our republic's founders who also believed that government was the greatest threat to personal rights and freedom (Wonder Land, June 13). That is why they rebelled against British rule and then designed a convoluted and potentially gridlocked system of checks and balances to handcuff inevitable panderers, populists and power-mongers. The ruling elite in Washington have been filing through those handcuffs for decades, and their freedom from constraints, as the founders recognized, is a grave threat to our liberty.

Mr. Henninger is concerned that the public backlash from many conservatives and libertarians may stop programs such as the NSA's data-mining, and "that would be the one protecting us all from homicidal Islamist bombers." Maybe it would help if President Obama held a news conference and told us point-blank that the NSA surveillance is protecting us all from Islamist bombers. He will not and cannot do that because he has told us that there are no homicidal Islamist bombers, just some angry criminals, some of whom happen to be Muslim and happen to be homicidal bombers.

As long as President Obama and his team weave, duck and feint on issues of national security, the sum of all fears will continue to mount and will be fully justified.

Jim Mitchell

Williamsburg, Va.

[pepsionice]

If this NSA story had come out in 2010....I don’t think that many people would care. It’s the IRS abuse that drives everyone to doubt the neutral nature of the NSA now.

[Venturer]

The only American who trust this Government of Obama are those who are receiving entitlements and Gubmint jobs from it.

if people can’t trust not only the executive branch but also don’t trust Congress and don’t trust federal judges to make sure that we’re abiding by the Constitution, due process and rule of law, then we’re going to have some problems here.”

That’s the only thing Obama has said that was true in the last 5 years.

[IbJensen]

The sum of all this central socialist monolithic government totals evil encroachment on the lives of all Americans. It must be disassembled to a great extent regardless of the fact that millions of government workers will join the jobless ranks.

Our silence feeds this pestilence and our elected fools accommodate the growth.

[St_Thomas_Aquinas]

It took a week, but on all the Fox weekend shows, the verdict was virtually unanimous: there is nothing wrong with the NSA surveillance program.

Our country is hanging on by a thread, if that. The Long March Through the Institutions worked.

[jazzlite]

Have any of the abused groups followed up with their donors to determine how many individual supporters are being harassed by the IRS, as well? Rick Santorium was on Huckabee’s Saturday show and states that he did not apply for his foundation’s 501C status because he had information about what the IRS was doing to conservative applicants. He also stated that the stunning thing is that this practice has not slowed down since the revelations hit the public. If America ever had a need to fear for the life of our nation, it is now.

[MrB]

This information WILL be used if it is not destroyed or ceased in accumulation.

There WILL be a future tyrant that will use the information to root out “trouble makers” (like us).

[jazzlite]

...”It took a week, but on all the Fox weekend shows, the verdict was virtually unanimous: there is nothing wrong with the NSA surveillance program”...

It looks like their viewers might not agree with that quick assessment and other countries are weighing in with disapproval, considering that Mr. Snowden is being seen with sympathy from around the world and America’s leaders are viewed as Imperialists..not it’s citizens, but it’s leadership.

[Buckeye McFrog]

IMO a “sum of all fears” backlash is going to be extremely difficult with 47% of us depending on a gubbermint check each month.

[Travis McGee]

The Plan:

DOJ + NSA + IRS = KGB

[redgolum]

I find it, interesting, that many conservative pundits are defending the blanket wire tapping without specific warrants of US citizens on US soil.

[IbJensen]

NEO Conservatives.