Situational Civil Liberties

The DOJ wants to be able to read your emails.

Now before you think you'd somewhat prefer that Feds not be allowed to read the emails you send and receive, you should realize that the DOJ only wants to read the emails you've already opened and thus probably read! See!? Once you realize that doesn't an awesome wave of relief just wash all over your body? No? Yeah me neither.

But this is not a joke. The DOJ is actually arguing that your privacy in your emails depends significantly on whether or not you have already read the emails. They've reached this conclusion based on a loophole-tastic interpretation (that would put insurance and credit card company lawyers to shame) of a statute that has already been interpreted by federal appeals courts to mean exactly not that. Moreover, even if the statute said explicitly what they want it to mean, it would merely render the statute unconstitutional under the 4th Amendment since that Amendment protects Americans' privacy based on what they reasonable expect to keep private, not loopholes created by federal statute.

As much as every DOJ lawyer, administrator, FBI agent and any other member of the executive branch who at all participated in this travesty is cordially invited to go and start their own country that doesn't care about privacy or rights (might I suggest they call it "Gofuckyourselfshire"), the real point for today is to point out and predict how pathetic the American response to this issue will be.

Sure, you might say this is just some lawyers arguing about warrant issues in a criminal investigation, why should people care? But that would be a fucking dumbass thing to say. This is pretty significant because it affects people's emails and could set a impactful precedent going forward. But also, this touches on the very same issues that caused such a stir regarding the Patriot Act and Warrantless Wiretaps. Those were really big issues to many Americans and they were discussed heavily in the media. Remember?

Now that DOJ is borrowing some of the very same parts of those issues that made them so controversial - laxed standards to access information like library records and emails; and no warrants where warrants are specifically required by a clearly written statute - there should be a similar response, as there was to those issues, in our national discourse, no?

Good luck with that. As no one seemed to care when Democrats voted to re-up on the Patriot Act without any new limits or privacy protections (because some Republicans might have objected, and we can't have that!) absolutely no one will bat an eye-lash (other than maybe Olberman) about this new over-reach, and middle-finger to the law by Obama's administration.

And why? Isn't it bigger news when a Democratic Administration transgresses citizens' privacy rights? If new is "man bites dog" then surely this type of issue should get even MORE coverage than Bush's illegalities, right? I ask this rhetorically because, consistent with my predicting, I know this will be far less of a story.

My guess is that when Democrats do conservative things, it's just assumed as no big deal, it's "pragmatic centrism" or some bullshit. No matter how many campaign promises it violates, politicians "moving to the center" (for lack of a better term) is hardly ever news. Moreover, there can't be a news item just based on reporters recognizing, all by themselves, that a politician has lied or that an act is not legal. Someone else, like a politician, usually has to make it a story by pointing out the problem. At the time, out-of-power Democrats (including Obama) were all too happy to call out Bush's law-breaking, and prance around as the protectors of our important civil liberties. At the time these were matters of principle that could not be compromised. But now? I don't really know why they have compromised so easily, but what's definitely true is that there's really no one left to call out the President on this considering he's the leader of the only party that "cares" about civil liberties.

Whatever the intricacies of cause and effect, it's clear that the media and politicians only care about privacy, civil liberties and unlawful spying when it suits them.