Would you please do me a big favor then and let me know if I am one of the Americans you are spying on? Last I checked, the constitution was supposed to protect me from such activity and if it no longer does, I would certainly appreciate the heads up.

::::::::

What would happen if 300 million American men, women and children wrote to the NSA to ask if they were being spied on?

Outside of giving the Postal service fits, who knows?

So why don't we try it and find out?

The idea hit me while watching Illinois Senator Dick Durbin in one of
the more incredible exchanges with Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez at last week's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.

In the middle of his questioning, Durbin turned toward the Gallery and referenced a constituent who had written to the NSA hoping to find out if he was being watched. After 6 letters, he got a response saying the NSA would neither confirm or deny he was being spied on. Of course now that he's brought himself to their attention....

Anyway, the point is this:
The latest polls indicate that nearly half of all Americans either think
it's okay for the president to break the law, or they are just being
sucked into the mass media propaganda campaign designed to influence their opinion.

The media is certainly not doing their job of reporting the news on this issue. They keep writing what the President says. That is not news. News is the actual difference between what Bush or Cheney et al say and what the known facts in evidence already are.

As long as the headlines keep repeating Bush's deceptive propaganda that it's okay to illegally spy on terrorists, the fifty percent who are buying into it will never understand there is already a legal way to do just that. It's called the FISA court.

And if the president is afraid to put his program in front of the FISA
court, there can be only one explanation. It's not legal.
Remember it's not just the FISA Court he's circumventing. Even his own acting Attorney General James Comey is reported to have refused signing off on this program. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury I submit that when the folks who mix the Kool Aid stop pouring it, that's a sign something is not right in Bushdom.

So let's all get out a pen and paper or set up in front of the old
computer keyboard and tap out a little note to the NSA:

Dear National Security Agency,

It has recently come to my attention that you might be spying on
innocent Americans without their knowledge or a warrant to do so.

Would you please do me a big favor then and let me know if I am one of the Americans you are spying on?

Last I checked, the constitution was supposed to protect me from such activity and if it no longer does, I would certainly appreciate the heads up.

In the meantime, feel free to keep listening to the bad guys, but please leave me out of it. Life is tough enough without having to watch every word I say on the cell phone. Jeez, you'd think we lived in the Soviet Union or something.

Thank you for your service to our country.

Best Wishes,

Your name here.

A loyal American who abhors what's become
of his once proud and democratic nation.

NSA address: FOIA/PA office (DC 34), 9800 Savage Rd., Suite 6248, Ft. George G. Meade, MD 20755-6248.

By Fax to 443-479-3612
(Privacy Act requests submitted by facsimile are limited to 20
pages and should be marked to the attention of the FOIA/PA Office.)

NSA email address is: foianet@nsa.gov. Subject: Privacy Act Request

Barry Weintraub is a political comedian whose daily email newsletter the Headline Schmooze attaches context and punchlines to real headlines five days a week.

Subscribe to Headline Schmooze by writing to barry@comedyusa.com.

Submitter: Joan Brunwasser

Submitters Website: http://www.opednews.com/author/author79.html

Submitters Bio:

Joan Brunwasser is a co-founder of Citizens for Election Reform (CER) which since 2005 existed for the sole purpose of raising the public awareness of the critical need for election reform. Our goal: to restore fair, accurate, transparent, secure elections where votes are cast in private and counted in public. Because the problems with electronic (computerized) voting systems include a lack of transparency and the ability to accurately check and authenticate the vote cast, these systems can alter election results and therefore are simply antithetical to democratic principles and functioning.



Since the pivotal 2004 Presidential election, Joan has come to see the connection between a broken election system, a dysfunctional, corporate media and a total lack of campaign finance reform. This has led her to enlarge the parameters of her writing to include interviews with whistle-blowers and articulate others who give a view quite different from that presented by the mainstream media. She also turns the spotlight on activists and ordinary folks who are striving to make a difference, to clean up and improve their corner of the world. By focusing on these intrepid individuals, she gives hope and inspiration to those who might otherwise be turned off and alienated. She also interviews people in the arts in all their variations - authors, journalists, filmmakers, actors, playwrights, and artists. Why? The bottom line: without art and inspiration, we lose one of the best parts of ourselves. And we're all in this together. If Joan can keep even one of her fellow citizens going another day, she considers her job well done.


When Joan hit one million page views, OEN Managing Editor, Meryl Ann Butler interviewed her, turning interviewer briefly into interviewee. Read the interview here.

While the news is often quite depressing, Joan nevertheless strives to maintain her mantra: "Grab life now in an exuberant embrace!"


Joan has been Election Integrity Editor for OpEdNews since December, 2005. Her articles also appear at Huffington Post, RepublicMedia.TV and Scoop.co.nz.