Sunday, January 13, 2008

Feeling Secure?

I did send to you
For certain sums of gold, which you denied me
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) dramatist, poet

Speaking of Big Brother, who exactly is in charge here? Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff is not making me feel secure or confident about who is in charge. How secure we should feel in this country, especially when the FBI has carte blanche to wire tap most anyone at any time under this administration, but then they get cut off in the middle of surveillances for lack of payment, according to the Wall Street Journal:

A Justice Department audit released today revealed telecom companies recently cut off some FBI wiretaps on suspected criminals because of the bureau's repeated inability to pay bills on time. The audit blamed the FBI's lax oversight, ironically, of money used for undercover jobs. A wiretap in at least one Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act investigation was "halted due to untimely payment," the audit found. The report offered recommendations to improve tracking and management of the funding system, including telecommunication costs.

Why is it that FBI interruptus apparently okay if our country is always in imminent danger of attack?

AT&T doesn't care what your higher mission is if you have not paid your bill, the country be damned

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

NPR's Morning Edition is running stories every day this week on the DHS, marking the fifth anniversary of its founding. It's an interesting capsule review of its history thus far. You can listen to all the installments online; here's a link to Wednesday's show, which has further links to the previous days' installments: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18118652