Comments on: Gonzales: NSA may tap 'ordinary' Americans' e-mail

During Senate hearing, attorney general declines to offer reassurances about a secret surveillance program.

[marileev]

Freedom

The question is who's watching the NSA watchers, so I defer to Mr. Benjamin Franklin: "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." --Benjamin Franklin, 1759.

Or maybe the FISA 15 day surveilence just isnt't enough for administration and it's a time management issues at the cost of the American populace - http://www.iwantmyess.com/?p=49

[therealCSMR]

Don't defer to Mr. Franklin

What liberty is essential. Freedom to remain alive? Very likely. Freedom to think? Very likely. What else?
The question here is not over liberties being essential but what "liberties" are legally mandated.

[Gpruitt54]

Re Freedom

"The question is who's watching the NSA watchers, so I defer to Mr. Benjamin Franklin: "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." --Benjamin Franklin, 1759."

I agree with your in initial statement. However, I believe that this administration has successfully used fear to give many people the idea that eradicating section of the constitution will make us safe from outsiders. What we will get in exchange will be greater danger from within. The constitution is met to protect us from an over-reaching government. Once freedoms are gone, we will not get them back.

[steve thomas--2008]

NSA tap

would this help the u.s. now that the whole world knows phone tapping is going on? could the u.s. be mislead by phony information,(deversion)and get blind sided by somthing else? as unprepared and unorganized as we were in 911,i have little faith.

[therealCSMR]

headline is biased to the point of inaccuracy

To have a headline "Gonzales: NSA may..." when what he actually said was "with a high degree of certainty" it does not, is biased to the point of inaccuracy.

[heystoopid]

A quote from the first president

Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.
George Washington

this standard form of oath applies to all government employees
"I (name), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and
defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies,
foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to
the same; that I take this obligation freely without any mental
reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully
discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So
help me God."

Oh well, the man is not above and beyond the laws of the land as enacted by congress until such time the laws have been rescinded!, nor does he have the authority to create his own rules and regulations outside that of the houses of congress!

What more can one say!

[jesdog]

Oh well he talks to Rev, Fallwell ("God" given

name) and Fallwell talks only with God; so, I guess maybe he does "honestly" ( a loose use of the word)think he's above the law, on level with God and all that.