Dear America, 

Where the opportunity for corruption exists, sooner or later, someone will take advantage of that opportunity. Sad, but true, as we are now seeing in the current hullabaloo over the misuse of National Security Letters to unlawfully obtain personal information on thousands of American citizens.

First of all, let's call this what it is: 1) corruption; 2) criminal activity; and 3) betrayal of trust.

With the current press all in an uproar about whether or not Attorney General Gonzalez should keep his job in the wake of the reasons behind the firing of numerous U.S. attorneys, the focus of Americans is misplaced. Scandalous? Unethical? Maybe so, but the fact remains that it is within the AG and administration's purview to fire and hire U.S. attorneys. Criminal? Probably not, but it could still, and perhaps should, cost Gonzalez his job.

The FBI National Security Letter topic, however, is where we, the people, should be spending our time and efforts and outrage. Here we have the premier domestic law enforcement agency in the country unlawfully collecting information on citizens in a manner that appears to be both widespread and knowingly conducted. Here we have the FBI engaging in institutionalized criminal and unconstitutional activity.

National Security Letters allow the FBI to demand the private records of citizens for emergency purposes, and I'll admit that this can be a valid and useful use of them. When there's a bomb ticking or a life about to be lost, by all means use them. But in non-terroism, non-emergency situations, damnit, you'd better well jump through every damned constitutional, bureaucratic and legalistic hoop that's out there in order to lawfully pursue your investigation.

As Adrian Steel, assistant to former FBI director William H. Webster put it, "While apologies and promises of reform from the current FBI director and attorney general (and belated congressional concern) are welcome, they are too late. The harm to the public, breach of trust and loss of confidence have taken place."

Sadly, the problem runs even deeper. This National Security Letter debacle is just the latest example of the American public being satisfied with the opportunity to sit back and thumb their noses at a government agency and administration with a 'Nyah-nyah, we caught you!' And much of Congress does just the same. This instead of concern about the rampant opportunities for unconstitutional abuses and the underlying constant expansion of governmental powers.

Childish name calling and I-told-you-so's instead of what we should be doing: demanding the resignation of FBI Director Robert S. Mueller, demanding the firing of every FBI agent who knowingly misused the National Security Letters, demanding the repeal of Patriot Act provisions that made the use of such Letters both easier and less subject to oversight, and demanding that those pledged to serve our nation and its citizens recognize their rightful position as servants, not masters.

You want to sit back with satisfaction and pump whatever political agenda your chosen party supports? You want to revel in your naive belief in a benevolent and kind government? You want to rationalize the desecration of our founding ideals in the name of security?

Fine. Go along your sheepish way. Don't say you weren't warned. Hopefully one day you'll realize that whenever the public fails in its responsibility to rein in the expansion of governmental power and corruption, the result is tyranny.

Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms [of government] those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.
—Thomas Jefferson

 Yours in freedom,

      ShadowMonkey

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