A few weeks ago, I saw some interesting opinions in the editorial page in The Detroit Free Press, but I was waiting to find some more information on domestic spying, this time the hat tip to Kip and MSNBC.

Because, well, it’s not really spying b/c one end of the phone call is abroad? Yeah, and, if I got really drunk and I don’t really remember it, then it didn’t really happen, right? What about the other end of the phone call? You know, the one that’s “in” the united states? Let’s put aside the fancy semantics here…

Gonzales is quoted as making comparisons to the reasonableness of the fourth amendment requirement— but the question that begs to be asked is, if all you require is that same old reasonable standard, why are we being asked to carve up the constitution in order to achieve what it already permits?

From the aforementioned Free Press article, some typical ex post facto arguments:

“If we had better spying procedures in place before 9/11, we may have been able to avoid bombings of embassies and the S.S. Cole and the World Trade Center … Now we want to know who is calling whom from known terrorist havens. Can someone show me why such private conversations should not be monitored and evaluated?”

“A restraint on legal rights during wartime is nothing new.”

and last but not least: “What is even worse is that it is perfectly legal to engage in spying without court approval as long as it is applied for within 72 hours, but this administration doesn’t even bother with that. They obviously feel they are above that.”

yeah, that pretty much drives the point home. Look, we’re afraid that when rights start being infringed, restricted, taken, etc., that it lays the groundwork for eliminating them – permanently depriving us of them in the future.

a little more reading from Congressional Research Service, also available in PDF if you prefer