Ignorance is not a virtue

Jay Stephenson demonstrates that his ignorance of history can’t stop his bloviating:

Jeff Mittman repeated the popular false mantra of comparing a program of listening in on the telephone conversations of American citizens talking to suspected members of al Qaeda to illegal wiretapping of Dr. Martin Luther King.

“In the 60’s we spied on Dr. King illegally and in response we passed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which is binding on the president. His spying program is not legal.”

Freedom of speech is a beautiful thing. Among many of its glories is that raving moonbats can demonstrate in public and make total idiots out of themselves.

Alas, in this case the total idiot is Jay Stephenson himself. FISA was, in fact, passed in part in reaction to the King wiretaps. As documented in one of the Church Committee reports:

The FBI collected information about Dr. King’s plans and activities through an extensive surveillance program, employing nearly every intelligence-gathering technique at the Bureau’s disposal. Wiretaps, which were initially approved by Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, were maintained on Dr. King’s home telephone from October 1963 until mid-1965; the SCLC headquarter’s telephones were covered by wiretaps for an even longer period. Phones in the homes and offices of some of Dr. King’s close advisers were also wiretapped. The FBI has acknowledged 16 occasions on which microphones were hidden in Dr. King’s hotel and motel rooms in an “attempt” to obtain information about the “private activities of King and his advisers” for use to “completely discredit” them.

And it was, in fact, as a reaction to the excesses documented by the Church Committeee that FISA was enacted.

Freedom of speech is indeed a beautiful thing. It allows Jay Stephenson to demonstrate his abysmal ignorance of history, and his preference for cheap shots over informed debate.