Would You Buy a Used Waterboard From These People?

Let's see here:

El Presidente signs an executive order allowing the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on international telephone calls and e-mail messages of "hundreds -- perhaps thousands" of citizens ... without a warrant and under the cover of secrecy. And although the NYTimes published this fact this a.m., the newspaper is complicit in keeping this information secret from the public for a full year.

"Nearly a dozen current and former officials ... discussed [the secret surveillance] with reporters for The New York Times because of their concerns about the operation's legality and oversight."

Seems significant when you get Bush administration officials sufficiently nervous with this current regime to start blowing the whistle on behalf of all the rest of us devil-worshiping liberals out here, whose fears about government power are routinely dismissed as mere hysteria.

That's just one chilling news story this a.m. The other deals with the Pentagon's illegal database keeping tabs on "peace activists" and anti-war demonstrations.

All of this activity from the freedom-loving administration that (until the heat got too strong) liked the sound of a little torture in the morning.