You Have Been Warned

By Cenk Uygur:

If the President feels he has the authority to clearly break one federal law, how many others does he feel he has the authority to break? If the President doesn't need to abide by the Fourth Amendment, does he have to abide by any of the rest?

And if you're a Republican who adores this President so much that you will stand by his every decision, I urge you to finally use some caution here. If you set the precedent that a President can ignore any of the amendments he feels impede the security of this country, what will stop a Democratic president from ignoring the second amendment to take away the guns of potential "enemies of the state"?

If this President has used the FBI and the Pentagon to spy on anti-war and other political opposition groups domestically, what will stop a Democratic President from spying on right-wing militia groups and pro-life organizations that might turn violent?

President Bush is playing his favorite game -- opening up Pandora's Box and seeing what flies out. If you thought that was a bad idea in Iraq, wait till you get a load of it here.

Once you allow the President to be above the law, there is no telling what could happen. Even if you like this President, there will one day be a President you don't like quite as much. It's almost as if the founding fathers were right to limit the powers of the executive branch. Smart fellows, those founders were. Maybe it's not such a good idea to ignore that little constitution they wrote.

Slate has more interesting background on the NSA here. An example:

In the Reagan years, Rep. Norman Mineta, D-Calif., who served on the House intelligence committee, neatly summarized the relationship between the spies and the committee: "We are like mushrooms. They keep us in the dark and feed us a lot of manure."