Scarborough: 'Be Very Afraid'

Pensacola's own conservative commentator and former congressman Joe Scarborough has weighed in on the latest NSA phone/internet dragnet tapping of tens of millions of American phone lines:

"Now, for liberals who‘ve long been going against almost all of these issues to defend privacy, the news has to be disturbing. But no less so the conservatives who have fought national ID cards and gun registration for years out of fear of big government.

"Now, whatever you consider yourself, friends, you should be afraid. You should be very afraid. With over 200 million Americans targeted, this domestic spying program is so widespread, it is so random, it is so far removed from focusing on al Qaeda suspects that the president was talking about today, that it‘s hard to imagine any intelligence program in U.S. history being so susceptible to abuse."

On this subject, Scarborough knows what he's talking about, as the full MSNBC transcript reveals:

"I served on the Judiciary Committee and the Armed Service Committee in Congress for four years, and no program I studied while using security clearances ever came close to the scope of this massive spy program. It is dangerous, it breaks FCC laws, and it endangers all Americans‘ right to privacy.

"But you know what? The villains in this spy program are pretty easy to target, almost as easy as your phone records. First you have the president, who‘s shown that he will break laws if they get in his way of spying. Second, Democratic leaders—they complain now, but where were they? They reviewed the program. Why no protest? Don‘t hold your press conferences now, Nancy Pelosi. Tell us about it when you learn about it!

"And finally, the phone companies, who actually profited from the government reading all of your phone bills. They should be sued and their CEOs fired.

"Hey, memo to the president and congressional leaders who signed up on this lousy program: We don‘t trust you anymore. We don‘t trust you with our phone bills. We don‘t trust you with our bank records. We don‘t trust you with our medical histories. From now on, if you want to look at Americans‘ private records, get a damn search warrant!"

Somehow, Joe seems to have overlooked the Republican congressional majority. No matter. There's plenty of blame to go around.

Rather than looking for someone to blame, the pressing question ought to be, "Who will put a stop to this administration's drift away from constitutional democracy?"