I was listening to folks calling in to Washington Journal this morning, and I must admit that I was stunned. I listened for about a half hour as person after person called in to support Bush. I must say that the characterization of this presidency left me with grave concerns. The general tenor was that the democrats were digging up one "little thing" after another to "smear" Bush with. The minimization of the egregious actions of the administration floored me. At the top of the list was a 28 year old man from Florida who said that nobody cared about the government "eavesdropping" on Americans. It was the tone in this man's voice that triggered a large concern about characterizing Bush's authorizing broad scale, indiscriminate, spying on people as "eavesdropping."

My guess is that most people who speak American English have certain associations with the word "eavesdropping." At the light end of the spectrum is inadvertently overhearing someone else's conversation. At the other end is deliberately sneaking around to overhear someone's conversation. What comes to mind is a child hiding outside her or his parent's bedroom while they talk about what presents to get the kid for her/his birthday. Of course, "eavesdropping" may take on a somewhat more ominous meaning when someone "listens in" with hostile intent. Regardless, I think that most people take that word to me something pretty innocuous.

I did a google news search on "bush eavesdrop." What came back surprised me. Sources across the spectrum from "liberal" to "conservative" were using "eavesdropping" to characterized Bush's actions.

When Bush authorized the NSA to engage in spying on people without a warrant he went far beyond "eavesdropping." His program (which still continues today as far as I can tell) was non-specific wiretapping and data mining of massive amounts of electronic communication. It did not just target "suspected terrorists." The operation was the deployment of NSA technology at a number (unspecified) of U.S. communications switching stations. As I understand it, everything that went through those hubs was captured. The spying was done without any form of oversight by Congress or the courts. It was done without any warrant whatsoever. The data was processed against other databases and passed on to other government intelligence and legal agencies. Now the questions arise as to whether whatever "suspected terrorists" were apprehended must be released.

Why? It is the "fruit of a poison tree" issue, and whether all evidence used was accessible to defense attorneys. As the program was secret, it is clear that not only was any evidence from the NSA spying excluded, the existence of the program was excluded as well. . Risen and Lichtblau explore in their article Defense Lawyers in Terror Cases Plan Challenges Over Spy Efforts.

But let's go back to the issue at hand. How many people in the United States do not see their privacy as an issue? How many do not care about Constitutional protections of their freedom? I have a feeling, that many have no idea why the Constitution, and law, stands between the abuses of government and their lives. I don't know whether they trust government that much, or whether they do not see the consequences of the loss of privacy (from wiretapping, to surveillance, to covert searches of their property), or that they see themselves as immune from any of these violations. Perhaps it is some combination of those, or something else entirely. Regardless, it does not bode well for the United States.

Perhaps people really don't see the personal and national risks of the course Bush has taken. Perhaps they don't see how information about them, in their normal daily lives, might be taken out of context to land them in hot water. Maybe they don't see how their child checking the out Kevin Phillips American Dynasty might bring additional scrutiny to their daily lives. Or maybe they don't realize how calling Great Aunt Mimi in France might find them under surveillance. Or even a broader stretch that a friend of a friend showed up at a peace rally and how that swept them into the net. Or the awful truth - that most of the abridgements of our Constitutional protections have been in the "war on drugs," not the "war on terror."

Perhaps they cannot extrapolate how people's concern about how actions and interests in their daily lives may place them under scrutiny, and therefore they circumscribe their lives to fit what they think is a "safe" profile. They watch what internet sites they visit. They do not engage in any kind of dialogue that might be considered "unpatriotic." They do not give their opinion, and they avoid anyone they think might remotely place them under the microscope. Perhaps they do not understand how fundamental the right to privacy is, and how important the protection from its abuse is to a "free" country. Afterall, bad things (like being disappeared) happen other places. Innocent people are not imprisoned here, only in those "unfree" places in the world.

So what's the big deal with massive surveillance activities by the NSA, or the DIA, CIA, FBI, or local police force? Afterall, it's only "eavesdropping," and it only targets the "bad guys."

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