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Oh please, the FBI is too busy watching communists, potential revolutionaries, and the occasional Jewish intellectual to be bothered with such childishness.

Oh please, the FBI is too busy watching communists, potential revolutionaries, and the occasional Jewish intellectual to be bothered with such childishness.

It's not about whether the FBI monitors little old me. (Privacy advocates, hold on for a minute -- I care about little old me, too, but Gravis Zero doesn't).

It's about whether the FBI monitors popular political leaders and whether those FBI files somehow end up in the White House from time to time.

They understand that they're going to sometimes be defending unpopular positions and people. They defend the rights of white supremacists to march in public, for example. They've also defended Rush Limbaugh against what they view as intrusive attempts by the police to get at his medical records and show that he was "doctor shopping" to feed his addiction. They're making those choices consciously, according to principles which they state conspicuously.

You, meanwhile, don't seem to be doing anything more than bitch for reasons you haven't thought through.

First off: when, exactly, has the ACLU complained that not enough is being done to fight terrorism? Hello? Anyone home? Or were you just confusing "liberals" or "Democrats" with the ACLU?

And more to the point: "Potential terrorists"? When you start using a term like that, perhaps you'd like to devote some thought to it. Because the FBI has, in the past, regarded people like Martin Luther King, Jr. as a "potential terrorist." Because, you know, that let them bug his hotel rooms and accumulate evidence that he wasn't faithful to his wife, which put some nice blackmail material in the hands of J. Edgar Hoover.

The ACLU tries to protect American citizens from the abusive use of power. You, meanwhile, resent them for 'getting in the way.' What does that say about you, exactly? Maybe you want to think that through rather than sleepwalking through your life vaguely angry at those pesky liberals.

See? By defending the action instead of denying it, you've earned some respect (by way of karma) and come off as a rational human being.

The fact is, I'm not a knee-jerk privacy advocate, but I do believe we should keep an eye on our government to make sure they don't abuse this sort of power. If it's being used to prevent jet-liners from blowing up my place of work, great. If it's being used to intimidate political dissenters, not so great.

I wouldn't trust any administration, Democratic or Republican not to cross that line, but Republicans have certainly shown themselves to be much more eager to do so in the past.

Good point, but wrong example. Chaplin lost the paternity case because he couldn't prove he wasn't the father. At the time, "the blood type evidence wasn't admissible in California courts". See below for a better case. It's very recent (May 2003) and still very common (to date, only four States have repealed those stupid laws).

"Carnell A. Smith is a father who is forced by court order to pay child support for another man's child. This child is neither his biological nor adopted child. Smith has tried to get the lower courts to overturn the child support order, but they have refused.
[...]
Although this court ruling sounds unusual, it isn't. There are countless men who find themselves in Smith's situation."
http://www.ancpr.org/father_takes_dna_paternity_fr aud.htm

Oh, You mean this these?

abbie hoffman fbi files
adolph hitler fbi files
al capone fbi files
albert einstein fbi files
amelia earhart fbi/navy/state dept. files
bugsy siegel fbi files
cesar chavez/united farm workers fbi files
charlie chaplin fbi files
dwight d. eisenhower presidential papers
eleanor roosevelt fbi files
elvis presley fbi files
ernest hemingway fbi files
frank sinatra fbi files
franklin d. roosevelt presidential papers
gerald r. ford presidential papers
harry s. truman presidential papers
huey p. long fbi files
hugh hefner/playboy fbi files
j. edgar hoover fbi files
jackie robinson fbi files
john kennedy-jacqueline fbi/secret service/cia/nsa and other files
john lennon fbi files
john steinbeck fbi files
joseph mccarthy fbi files
joseph p. kennedy fbi files
josephine baker fbi files
leon trotsky fbi files
lucille ball/desi arnaz fbi files
lucky luciano fbi files
mafia monograph fbi files
malcolm x fbi files
marilyn monroe fbi files
martin luther king jr. fbi files
nelson rockefeller fbi files
oleg penkovsky - soviet double agent - cia files
pablo picasso fbi files
paul robeson fbi files
richard nathaniel wright fbi files
robert f. kennedy fbi files
ronald reagan presidential papers
spiro agnew fbi files
susan b. anthony historical documents
thurgood marshall fbi files
w.e.b. dubois fbi files
wallace d. fard/nation of islam fbi files
walt disney fbi files
walter winchell fbi files
watergate fbi files/nixon recordings and transcripts
wright brothers photography

I'm glad they were keeping tabs on people like W.E.B Dubois, Pablo Picasso, and Susan B Anthony. If we allow people to think for themselves and lead other people to think for themselves, the terrorists have already won.