Back to the bad old days

It's official - the Bush administration will go to any lengths to abridge your civil rights in order to maintain their veil of secrecy and deceit and hold onto to their political power. The Patriot Act, allegedly enacted to "protect" us from terrorism has not resulted in a single meaningful terrorist conviction but has been used to prosecute ordinary crimes that are covered under other statutes and is being used to spy on activist groups engaging in lawful political speech. The FBI confirmed it has at least 1,200 pages of records stemming from their surveillance of the ACLU, Greenpeace and other similar activist groups like MoveOn.

Those are the ones we know about because the ACLU forced the admission with an FOIA request. Chances are, if you're blogger or journalist that hasn't been a dutiful steno for the White House press releases, they have records on you as well. I doubt Rush, O'Reilly, John Hindracker, Glenn Reynolds, or the Mudville Gazette for instance have anything to worry about, but for the rest of us, if you've been wondering why your phone or computer is running erratically, don't discount that you're on the White House enemies list. Feels like the 60s all over again.

Be concerned. As Joe Wilson can attest, these thugs are willing to go to any extreme, and spare no cost - including breaching national security - in order to exact their petty revenge.

Pam's House Blend has more details on this story and on the launch of the ACLU's new activist site built around Patriot Act reform. A must read post.