2011-03-10
The proposed legislation would remove the presumption of relevance from that showing and require also, before the information is examined, proof of how it relates to an investigation - which is to say, information may be sought only to confirm facts already known, not to investigate and determine what the facts are. The same illogical requirement would be imposed regarding phone records, even though one cannot know how numbers dialed to or from a telephone relate to an investigation until one knows what those numbers are and to whom they belong.
... from an OpEd piece in the Washington Post, by Michael Hayden, former CIA director, and Michael Mukasey, chief civil rights abuser under Bush.
If you care about civil liberties and democracy, you should read this quote carefully. Mukasey and Hayden are actually, literally, complaining that Homeland Security would actually lose the right to investigate any citizen they feel like investigating even if there is no evidence at all-- nothing-- that the individual has committed any crime. It's another sorry chapter in the Republican "why should we have to wait until after someone has committed a crime before we can lock them up" theory of jurisprudence.
Part of the ongoing Republican strategy of demanding the preposterous and settling for the ridiculous.