Big Brother Bush Is Listening

George Orwell's book "1984" was first published during the heyday of McCarthyism in 1949. In the society Orwell described, everyone was under surveillance by the authorities. The people were constantly reminded of this by the phrase, "Big Brother is watching you."

But are we venturing in to the world so many feared? Are we seeing the reality of "1984" twenty years late? And wht now? Is it "terrorism?'

The real motivation underlying Bush's unprecedented assertion of executive power was revealed by Dick Cheney: "Watergate and a lot of the things around Watergate and Vietnam, both during the 1970's, served, I think, to erode the authority I think the president needs to be effective, especially in the national security area. The President of the United States needs to have his constitutional powers unimpaired."...
Bush has gone far beyond what the Constitution authorizes, however. Only Congress has the power to make laws. Congress has not authorized the president to suspend the law. And FISA makes it a crime, punishable by up to five years in jail, for the executive to conduct a wiretap without statutory authorization.

So what is FISA? It is the acronym for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act established in 1978 and created to regulate electronic surveillance.

W did not ask Congress to suspend the law. He did not approach the courts prior to the wiretap. W broke the law, it is time to pay the piper.