Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Specious Nonsense from Mukasey

So Mukasey (the AG) is before Congress urging passage of the FISA bill. And he came up with some line to the effect of "back during the Second World War industry was not on the sidelines"--equating, essentially, the mobilization of Western industry to fight the war with complicity by telecoms to help Bush break the law by spying without a warrant.

For all those who thought that Mukasey would be a change and would be defending the rule of law, it turns out he's no better than Gonzo. What he's saying is that when the administration asks a company to do something--even if it's illegal--they should do it. He's saying that the invocation of that mantra, "national security," should be enough to justify any illegal conduct.
(And it's not like the lawyers for the telecoms wouldn't have known this. We're not talking about some fly-by-night institution with clueless general counsels.)

That is not the rule of law. That is tyranny.

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