No Privacy For You – Unless You’re a Right Winger
NYT:
Originally created to spy on foreign adversaries, the N.S.A. was never supposed to be turned inward. Thirty years ago, Senator Frank Church, the Idaho Democrat who was then chairman of the select committee on intelligence, investigated the agency and came away stunned. "That capability at any time could be turned around on the American people," he said in 1975, "and no American would have any privacy left, such is the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn't matter. There would be no place to hide."He added that if a dictator ever took over, the N.S.A. "could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back."
Rush Limbaugh and his lawyer had these competing quotes on privacy and the right to discover if crimes have been committed. First Rush:
“Liberals and Democrats,” Limbaugh claimed, “are only opposed to this because they don’t want anyone finding out what they’ve been up to. … What have you folks been doing that you so desperately want to keep hidden?”
- Rush Limbaugh, from his radio show on December 22, 2005
On the other hand when it happens to be Rush…
Rush's attorney Roy Black with Wolf Blitzer on December 15, 2005:
BLITZER: If Rush Limbaugh has nothing to hide and has done nothing wrong, what’s the problem with letting the prosecutor speak to the doctors and go through all the records?
BLACK: Well, Wolf, that’s an excellent question. A lot of people ask this all the time. You know what? We have a right of privacy in this country that I think is important for us to hold onto. I mean, we could let prosecutors and police into our bedrooms, search our computers, watch us having sex. We could let them do all these things, but then we would have a police state. We would no longer have a democracy. I think it’s very important to fight these privacy battles—and Rush Limbaugh has taken on this battle of privacy with your doctor, and I think it has really been a public service for him. Not only for himself but everybody else who wants their medical records and medical treatment kept private and not to be disclosed in the press or with the police or prosecutors or anyone else who has no business being there.
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Isn’t that interesting. When it’s not Rush it’s perfectly OK to invade someone’s privacy. But when Rush’s records concerning his shopping for doctors to prescribe Oxycontin which he ground up and snorted as hillbilly heroin we have a right to privacy and any infringement in Rush’s right to privacy makes our country a police state. Hypocrite!
Hats off to firedoglake.blogspot.com for these dueling quotes.
Originally created to spy on foreign adversaries, the N.S.A. was never supposed to be turned inward. Thirty years ago, Senator Frank Church, the Idaho Democrat who was then chairman of the select committee on intelligence, investigated the agency and came away stunned. "That capability at any time could be turned around on the American people," he said in 1975, "and no American would have any privacy left, such is the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn't matter. There would be no place to hide."He added that if a dictator ever took over, the N.S.A. "could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back."
Rush Limbaugh and his lawyer had these competing quotes on privacy and the right to discover if crimes have been committed. First Rush:
“Liberals and Democrats,” Limbaugh claimed, “are only opposed to this because they don’t want anyone finding out what they’ve been up to. … What have you folks been doing that you so desperately want to keep hidden?”
- Rush Limbaugh, from his radio show on December 22, 2005
On the other hand when it happens to be Rush…
Rush's attorney Roy Black with Wolf Blitzer on December 15, 2005:
BLITZER: If Rush Limbaugh has nothing to hide and has done nothing wrong, what’s the problem with letting the prosecutor speak to the doctors and go through all the records?
BLACK: Well, Wolf, that’s an excellent question. A lot of people ask this all the time. You know what? We have a right of privacy in this country that I think is important for us to hold onto. I mean, we could let prosecutors and police into our bedrooms, search our computers, watch us having sex. We could let them do all these things, but then we would have a police state. We would no longer have a democracy. I think it’s very important to fight these privacy battles—and Rush Limbaugh has taken on this battle of privacy with your doctor, and I think it has really been a public service for him. Not only for himself but everybody else who wants their medical records and medical treatment kept private and not to be disclosed in the press or with the police or prosecutors or anyone else who has no business being there.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Isn’t that interesting. When it’s not Rush it’s perfectly OK to invade someone’s privacy. But when Rush’s records concerning his shopping for doctors to prescribe Oxycontin which he ground up and snorted as hillbilly heroin we have a right to privacy and any infringement in Rush’s right to privacy makes our country a police state. Hypocrite!
Hats off to firedoglake.blogspot.com for these dueling quotes.
posted by Joe | 12/26/2005 04:33:00 PM
2 Comments:
Roberto,
Since you’ve deleted your blog and all other info about yourself leaving no way to reply but here, that’s where I’ll do it. I disagree with you completely. If Barbara Streisand had shopped for doctors to give her Oxycontin prescriptions so that she could grind them up and snort them making them an illegal drug and the prosecutors wanted to investigate her for breaking the law I would definitely agree with the authorities’ right to investigate an illegal drug user. I don’t care whether she’s a “left winger” or not. So you are the hypocrite, Roberto, not me. You think that I’d behave the way you and the entire right wing do excusing law breakers if they happen to be Republican but not if they are what you call the “left.” For example Bush can violate FISA law and the constitution, but Clinton should be impeached for lying about an affair. Clinton was impeached for this, but the Senate rightfully determined that since it didn’t materially affect the outcome of the Paula Jones law suit it wasn’t perjury. I and most right thinking Americans would want Babs in jail if she did what it is believed Rush did. I don’t care what her politics are. And if she had the cojones to go on the air and claim that others should not be granted the right of privacy she claimed for herself as Rush has I would want her exposed to the world as a HUGE HYPOCRITE (which Rush and you are). Remember the “libs” as you call them are only asking that the prosecutors be allowed access to Rush’s evidence in their investigation of a crime. Not that it be broadcast everywhere as the salacious details of Clinton offering to insert a cigar in Monica’s orifices was. The very Republicans who said that graphic sexual content should not be made available to those under 18 over the Internet or printed in newspapers gleefully released the graphic sexual details of Clinton, Monica and the cigar and all the other salacious details of their affair over the Internet and to the media which I read in the Chicago Tribune and found on many Internet sites courtesy of the Republican Leadership in Congress. Long story short: The Republican Party are a bunch of hypocrites and so are you and you are a coward for deleting your blog other info before I could respond to your response to my post.
Thank you,
Joe
Again remember that the issue here is whether prosecutors investigating a crime that was committed should be able to look at the evidence of that crime. “Libs” say yes. Roberto and the rest of his right-wing Republican apologists say no if it happens to be a Republican, and try to throw a hypothetical situation involving Barbara Streisand (who didn’t shop for doctors in order to become an illegal drug snorting criminal) as a red herring. But the laughs on Roberto and his like because if Babs had committed the crimes that Rush is accused of we libs would be demanding that the prosecutors be allowed to look at that evidence as well. Well, Roberto? Do Prosecutors have a right to look at evidence of criminal activity? Or do you say only when the criminal happens to be a lib. That’s what makes you and your like hypocrites. Clinton’s lie about his affair became an impeachable offense, but no crime that Bush has committed including violating FISA and the Constitution is allowed to be. Babs should be prosecuted, but Rush should be given a right to privacy from the prosecutors that the rest of the American public doesn’t have according to Bush and his administration. Is any of this starting to sink in at all? I’ve had similar discussions with Bush Supporters and when their arguments become indefensible they always bring up Clinton lying about his affair or claim that anyone that disagrees with Bush is a traitor. So I have little hope that I’m getting through to you.
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