Shame on you, Squinty McGee

One of the biggest mistakes of my life has been voting for George W. Bush when he ran against Al Gore. I don't claim full responsibility for this decision, since Gore ran the most dull and lifeless campaign and came off like a lifelong Washington politician, while Bush came off as the opposite. The highs and lows of his presidency have been well documented, but one of the things that particularly raised my ire came out a month or two ago when it was revealed that the National Security Agency had been obtaining phone call records of American Citizens for years. Obtaining them without warrant or probable cause, and thus far for no announced reason other than “national security” To put it plainly, the government has been keeping track of who you call, when you call them, and how often they do it. Verizon? BellSouth? AT&T? Sprint? They’ve all been handing over their phone records for years, again, without a warrant. This is illegal, by the way.

So when this came to light, naturally millions of people were understandably pissed off. So an investigation was launched by the Justice Department, trying to find out what, who, and why. In order to investigate who authorized this illegal invasion of American’s privacy (and is a criminal) with regards to “matters of national security”, the lawyers and investigators from the Justice Department have to obtain security clearances, since they might come in contact with sensitive information. This is pretty much standard procedure for any sort of government investigation.

Standard, until President Bush said no.

“Someone in your administration is breaking the law and spying on Americans, may we please investigate who is doing this that we might bring them to justice?”
“No.”

By denying security clearance to federal attorneys from the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) seeking to gather evidence in the NSA illegal surveillance scandal, President Bush has effectively blocked the Justice Department’s investigation into the matter of who exactly authorized the illegal actions to take place. The president is apparently able to strictly control who does and does not have security clearance to examine documents regarding the program, citing that giving more people access would endanger national security. His denial is the first of its kind in American history. Last time I checked, when Richard Nixon committed obstruction of justice, he didn't get to keep his job.

Oh well, what’s one more lie, one more obfuscation of the truth to ol’ Squinty McGee? But hey! At least he hasn’t gotten it on with an intern.