Jay’s lying again

Jay Stephenson once again chooses to lie to his readers.

This is pure propaganda from the ACLU. Congress has realized the absolute necessity of the program designed to listen in on conversations where one end is a suspected Al Qaeda operative. The ACLU rebuking the program is a clear admission that they have no regard for the safety of America, and want to completely eliminate the program.

When Jay says “the program”, he means all surveillance of international communications, with or without warrants. How does the ACLU define the program? [PDF file]

This lawsuit challenges the constitutionality of a secret government program to intercept vast quantities of the international telephone and Internet communications of innocent Americans without court approval (hereinafter “the Program”).

There’s a little detail in there that Jay and his fellow wingers ignore (quite deliberately, I might add). The program the NSA is conducting is illegal. It violates the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, 50 U.S.C. § 1801. The ACLU is suing to do one thing: stop the interception of communications of American citizens without the warrants required by law.

Open and honest debate is a core requirement of a healthy democracy. But the only way to have such a debate is for the people doing the debating to stick to the facts. Jay Stephenson chooses not to do this. He chooses to lie to those who read his blog.

One has to ask oneself: Why?