Just Say No to Domestic Spying

July 1, 2008
by Chris Lugo

Big brother is watching you and his name is AT&T. Sometimes he goes by the name of BellSouth and at other times he is known as AOL-Time-Warner. Big brother goes by a lot of names. He is listening to you while you talk and watching you while you type. Everything you say could be recorded so he can look at it somewhere down the line.

Now everyone knows that it is not polite to intrude on people in their private moments. The problem is that big brother doesn't seem to know that peeking into people's private communication is wrong and it should be illegal.

Unfortunately President Bush wants to continue to grant immunity to telecommunications companies in the name of the so called 'war on terror' which in actuality is a war on the American people and the telecommunications infrastructure is the front line in the gradual diminishment of civil rights that Congress has permitted in recent years.

We need representatives in Washington DC who support protecting Americans instead of distrusting us. As a candidate for federal office I support legislation to abolish the Department of Homeland security, that Orwellian agency constructed in the days after 9-11, which has crafted the war on the American people and their rights since.

I support the elimination of FISA loopholes and the closing of Guantanamo Bay and the return of all detainees to their countries of origin. I believe that the American people deserve full and open disclosure on all activities related to government spying conducted against her citizens. Finally, I support the elimination of discreet, undocumented funding of the Central Intelligence agency.

Our rights are not negotiable.

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Telecommunication companies have violated those rights and have broken the law in order to appease a corrupt and power hungry administration that is willing to throw out habeus corpus, the right to privacy and international law in a reckless drive down the road to never-never land. Corporations must be held accountable and the President and his cronies must be called to account for violating our basic constitutional rights.

Unfortunately, Senator Obama has been a disappointment on this issue and has refused to honor his commitment to filibuster this legislation. As a result, we are once again adrift without a rudder, a captain, a ship or an engine, being dragged along by the tides of fear.

It is time to reject the efforts of George Bush and anyone else who wants to grant retroactive immunity to corporations that spy on Americans. Congress has proven itself to be too weak-kneed to stand up to the fear mongers, but there is a new line of candidates running for office who are not so willing to roll over and play dumb.

Treason is not patriotic.

We all know that the government spying on us is wrong, and that any agency or corporation that assists in breaking into our most intimate communications is not behaving in a democratic fashion. The new reality is that our privacy is being compromised until we roll back FISA protections and strip immunity for corporations that spy on Americans.