David V. Matthews – 8/28/06

This page was last updated on August 28, 2006.

What’s good for one …; David V. Matthews; Beaver County Times; August 28, 2006.

For background, in previous letters Mr. Matthews told us there’s no liberal media bias, President Bush committed treason, he’s positive creation played no role in our evolution, President Bush plans to nuke Iran this year, and “Centrism is Bushism”.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.

“In Wednesday’s letters to the editor, Dan Reeping and Paul Kahr separately condemn U.S. District Judge Anita Diggs Taylor for finding the Bush administration’s warrantless phone surveillance program unconstitutional.”

[RWC] I critiqued the Kahr letter, and those comments pretty much apply to Mr. Reeping’s letter.

Regarding the terrorist surveillance program, Mr. Matthews failed to note this is international wiretapping, not domestic. Unless you’re willing to call an airplane flight from Pittsburgh to Rome a domestic flight, you can’t call the NSA program a domestic wiretapping program.

Lest we forget, the wiretaps are only for communications into and out of the U.S. to/from specific foreign phone numbers and e-mail addresses tied to alleged terrorists. Many (most?) of these phone numbers and e-mail addresses came from documents and computers captured from known terrorists.

“Reeping asserts that in the war against terrorism, ‘common sense’ sometimes requires us to ignore the Constitution.”

[RWC] While I didn’t agree with a lot of Mr. Reeping’s letter, he raised a valid point Mr. Matthews ducked. Mr. Reeping noted we are subject to lots of searches without warrants, such as when getting onto an airplane. Mr. Reeping could also have included roadside sobriety checkpoints, searches by U.S.Customs when coming into the U.S., searches in subway stations, et cetera.

“Kahr thinks the judge is ‘a traitor in time of war,’ just like ‘the other liberal traitors who sit in Congress.’ ‘I wonder what they are hiding,’ he insinuates about those unnamed Congressional liberals.

“Are Reeping and Kahr sure the administration is not conducting warrantless surveillance upon them? Are they sure the administration will never consider them traitors with something to hide? Are they sure the administration will never show what it considers ‘common sense’ by giving them one-way tickets to Guantanamo?”

[RWC] Folks like Mr. Matthews also want us to forget the Bush administration briefed members of Congress of both parties about the terrorist surveillance program from the beginning and on a regular basis since. If you believe you’re doing something illegal, would you brief Congress?

Regarding Mr. Matthews’ questions, you can always ask those questions regardless of who’s in office and regardless of the legality of a program. Lest we forget, in Filegate, over 900 confidential dossiers compiled by the FBI found their way to the Clinton White House.