Thursday, July 26, 2007

Fairness Doctrine is Needed... for PBS

 
A recent PBS Frontline featured a retired "whistleblower" who claimed that "secret rooms" at AT&T facilities in cities throughout the U.S. had been tapped by the Government. The EFF filed a lawsuit in 2006, which is currently wending its way through the courts.

Notwithstanding whether anyone did anything illegal, I thought this portion of the interview was telling. I wonder if Mr. Klein has an agenda?

Q: There were terrorists who were living among us prior to 9/11. They were moving around; they were going to flight schools; they were renting apartments; they were traveling around. Doesn't the government need to do something in terms of gathering information to try to prevent the next terrorist attack?

A: ...you're asking this government -- which is full of prevarications and misleading statements and not very truthful and also a large component of simply [sic] incompetence -- handing them the keys to everybody's private information. I don't trust them with that... they're far more interested in just aggrandizing power for power's sake... the so-called war on terror, which is their excuse for everything they do. Everything is aggrandizing power secretly, with no oversight. And I'm against that. It's dangerous.

No oversight, that is, other than the bipartisan committees -- the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) -- that vetted and approved the wiretaps.

Hey, I've got an idea. How about the fairness doctrine for PBS, since we foot the damn bill?

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