Post-Gazette Editorial – 3/13/07

This page was last updated on March 13, 2007.

Perishable privacy: Bush’s latest breach comes through a reckless FBI; Editorial; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; March 13, 2007.

Rather than do a point-by-point critique, I’ll mention a point the editorial conveniently failed to note.

The editorial leads off with, “Americans learned Friday in a report by the inspector general of the Justice Department that the Bush administration, through the FBI, had once again trampled their rights, in violation of the USA Patriot Act.”

It appears the editorial author “forgot” the Bush administration runs the Justice Department, of which the FBI is a part. Therefore, as we should expect, the Bush administration DOJ performed oversight and reported its findings. Though it doesn’t say so outright, the editorial would like us to believe “the inspector general of the Justice Department” is some independent group that caught the Bush administration doing something wrong. That’s because it’s much less of a political story when you understand the DOJ actually investigated and reported on itself.