Back to reality

I meant to blog this yesterday. The Bush administration has claimed that its domestic spying program is necessitated by an increased risk of terrorism. What hasn't been adequately addressed by the media is whether the program is actually effective in preventing attacks. Robert Byrd says it isn't:

What most Americans don't know is that FBI agents complained about the utility of the wiretapping program. Voluminous amounts of information and records that were gleaned from this secret eavesdropping program were sent from the National Security Agency to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. FBI officials repeatedly complained that they were being drowned by a river of useless information that diverted their resources from pursuing important counterterrorism work. Such complaints raise the question of whether the domestic wiretapping program may have backfired by sending our top counterterrorism agencies on wild goose chases, thus making our country less secure, instead of more secure.

Byrd goes on in his surprising eloquence, his capability for which I all too often forget, to remind us of what the consequences of this poorly conceived and illegal program may be:

The efficacy of our laws and our Constitution is at stake...

There is no doubt that Constitutional freedoms will never be abolished in one fell swoop, for the American people cherish their freedoms, and would not tolerate such a loss if they could perceive it. But the erosion of freedom rarely comes as an all-out frontal assault, but rather as a gradual, noxious creeping, cloaked in secrecy, and glossed over by reassurances of greater security.