I'm with you two guys.  I don't use the phone much and any skeletons I might have had in my closet in the past certainly won't be an issue for anyone now.  ;-)

As for finding out when the first snooping was done without a warrant, I'd be willing to bet it was long before Gdub's presidency.  Even tho it's fiction..well...we'll leave that alone, In Primary Colors they snatched parts of conversations off cell phone/carphones to make up a campaign smear.  Now if they were making movies where it was brought up back in '99 or so, do you honestly think it's a new thing?

Repeat from my blog on Zimbabwe:

Associated Press
Monday, August 6, 2007; Page A04

President Bush signed into law yesterday an expansion of the government's power to eavesdrop on foreign terrorism suspects without warrants.

The law, which updates the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, was deemed a priority by Bush and his chief intelligence officials.

"We must remember that our work is not done," Bush said upon signing the bill at Camp David. "This bill is a temporary, narrowly focused statute to deal with the most immediate shortcomings in the law."

The new law, which aims to capture foreign communications that pass through the United States, will expire in six months unless Congress renews it.

Or this one?

http://www.boston.com/news/...

From the looks of the law, it doesn't appear they will be tapping your phone unless you're doing a lot of international calling.  It would appear your phone call to Aunt Minnie in Calamazoo will be private, and I doubt seriously if they'll be interested in my family phone calls.

Still, no one has addressed when unwarranted eavesdropping began.  Are you so sure this is just a Bush evil?

I know for a *FACT* that I have a file, most likely going back to the Reagan Administration and definitely expanded during the First Gulf War.  (Coincidentally.)

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There used to be a file that contained words designed to trigger the Echalon e-mail eavesdropping system, which was designed to be included in all your outgoing messages--to bury the signal in so much noise that it became useless.  Of course, foreign intelligence is *NOT* the intention of the current illegal wiretapping.

http://www.theregister.co.u...

  Yes, we are being snooped. "Justice Department sources told The New York Times this week that the disagreement within the Department involves data mining --massive computer searches of e-mail and phone records --not wiretapping." Source:  The Week.  Aug 10, 2007, p4, c2a.

  There are numerous accounts of the current Presidency ignoring its legal bounds. Readers who say they have nothing to hide should recall what happened when the Executive Branch made public the name of an undercover CIA operative because the Administration disagreed with that family's politics. 

  Are you saying that because you are one of millions, or that you are law-abiding, that you are unconcerned for the Bill of Rights? The public has tactilely gifted the President a very big hammer to pound down those nails that stick up higher than his people like. That illegal power is supposed to be curtailed  by the Constitution, but this Congress is unwilling to defend Constitutional law by holding the President's feet to the fire, i.e., invoking impeachment proceedings.

I guess I'll just have to be more blunt as no one seems to be picking up on what I'm asking.  Do you really believe that Bush is the first president to eavesdrop on private citizens?  This is not in defense of,  or in condemnation of , the Bush administration, it is merely a question to those who will use it to bash Republicans..again.   Are there no Democrat presidents who ever did such a thing?  I don't know that answer and that is why I ask.

I've asked repeatedly if anyone knows when the government first started looking into citizens phone calls, correspondence, or activities.  All anyone wants to say is that Bush broke the law.  Consider that this sort of thing has been going on for a very long time but we were not told of it.  Consider that this administration is hardly the first to break laws and trample on your rights.  I'm willing to bet that some of the Democrat Golden Boys have finagled the law around to suit their purposes as well.

Again, I'm not defending this administration but I'd like to see people be completely honest about politics for once...now THAT would be refreshing.

It may not have been you RF, but I distinctly remember the gleeful "we won, we won" announcements right here on this blog about how this new congress was going to make a difference and clean things up.

We all march on in hopes of a better world, a better day, a better administration, but the reality is that these politicians will say anything to get elected, and do anything to stay in "power."  Conservatives were mocked for believing in this administration and many of us have ultimately been disappointed.  I don't have a problem admitting that because none of us have a crystal ball that tells us how things will end up.  The Liberals believed their congress could make a difference and, in the end, they caved in.  (so you folks say).  If you believe things could be a lot worse if Dems. hadn't been elected in, then I can't argue with that.  It's YOUR belief.   I just don't happen to believe that this administration is any more crooked and underhanded than any of the previous administrations and that includes BOTH sides.

As for snooping,  one difference is that in previous administrations they didn't have the technology to track lives the way they do now.  That doesn't mean however, that they didn't use as sophisticated a system as they had to track citizens at that time.

Nancy, without the bare majority in Senate the the larger one in the House there would not have been any of the hearings which (quite likely) forced Rove's hand.

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The Republicans continue to be a roadblock on most of the nation's business, but the gaining of subpoena power was a watershed event.

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John Dean believes this administration is worse than the Nixon White House, and he's seen both.

I regret to say that I attribute the President's success in assuming kingly powers to the immaturity of the electorate. Most know the excesses the Bush Administration, but few care, and fewer yet realize that their united voices could stop the erosion of our civil rights and the gradual remaking of our county into a de facto police state. The excesses that Bush gains today will pass on to the next President, be that person a Democrat or a Republican. -Joe

"Sir, in my early years I read very hard. It is a sad reflection, but a true one, that I knew almost as much at 18 as I do now. My judgment to be sure was not so good; but I had all the facts." -Boswell. The Life of Johnson. pg 126.

which is why we need Congress to step up and start figuring out what happened

Actually, I think what we need the worst rated Congress to do is just go away....THey have proven they cannot handle the job...