Senator Rand Paul has done it! He has managed to keep the Senate from approving the continuation of the authorization for the NSA to collect telephone metadata. Those provisions of the Patriot Act have expired. It's a heck of triumph for the senator from Kentucky.
Of course, the Senate will approve that extension either today or tomorrow. The NSA will once again be collecting telephone metadata. Everything that happened during the one or two day hiatus in the program will be given to the NSA by the telephone companies themselves since those companies have collected this metadata ever since phone bills began. In other words, nothing will have changed. Senator Paul's big triumph is just a big show with absolutely no substance to it.
So what was the point of Paul's performance. Maybe he thinks of it as a performance art installation, a bit of theater that show his artistic merit. It certainly does not show his good judgment. All Paul did was to raise phony issues based upon lies. After all, the metadata that NSA has been collecting is not private information. We all know that the phone companies keep track of it, so none of us could have expected the information to be secret or private. That led Paul to start talking about metadata in terms that indicated that the government was actually listening to the conversations. That would be wiretapping, it requires a warrant. It's also not part of the NSA program. Sorry, but the government is not monitoring your discussions about what groceries to buy on the way home from work.
So now we have Rand Paul actually scaring and outraging people by telling them lies. I know that Paul wants to be president, but copying the worst aspects of Barack Obama is not the way to get there, at least not as a Republican. The real truth is that Paul ought to be ashamed of what he has done.
Of course, the Senate will approve that extension either today or tomorrow. The NSA will once again be collecting telephone metadata. Everything that happened during the one or two day hiatus in the program will be given to the NSA by the telephone companies themselves since those companies have collected this metadata ever since phone bills began. In other words, nothing will have changed. Senator Paul's big triumph is just a big show with absolutely no substance to it.
So what was the point of Paul's performance. Maybe he thinks of it as a performance art installation, a bit of theater that show his artistic merit. It certainly does not show his good judgment. All Paul did was to raise phony issues based upon lies. After all, the metadata that NSA has been collecting is not private information. We all know that the phone companies keep track of it, so none of us could have expected the information to be secret or private. That led Paul to start talking about metadata in terms that indicated that the government was actually listening to the conversations. That would be wiretapping, it requires a warrant. It's also not part of the NSA program. Sorry, but the government is not monitoring your discussions about what groceries to buy on the way home from work.
So now we have Rand Paul actually scaring and outraging people by telling them lies. I know that Paul wants to be president, but copying the worst aspects of Barack Obama is not the way to get there, at least not as a Republican. The real truth is that Paul ought to be ashamed of what he has done.
No comments:
Post a Comment