In a speech given at the Brookings Institute, the governor of one of our more liberal states suggested today that we should start wiretapping Christian churches and conducting surveillence of students coming over from Europe in order to combat religious zealotry and eurocentrist thought processes.
Yo, conservatives, does that piss you off?
In reality, it was a Republican who suggested that we treat law abiding mosques in the US in this manner, and that we place students from Islamic countries under surveillence. The Boston Globe reports:
Governor Mitt Romney raised the prospect of wiretapping mosques and conducting surveillance of foreign students in Massachusetts, as he issued a broad call yesterday for the federal government to devote far more money and attention to domestic intelligence gathering.
While it may seem a bit harsh, a Romney spokesperson puts our mind at ease, fortunately:
”The governor believes we can strike a balance between what is necessary to protect our homeland while respecting individual freedom and liberty,” Teer said.
It seems the only freedom they are concerned about protecting is their own. If you are moslem and live in Massachussetts, expect to get your ass tapped.
Update by Stephen VanDyke: In a related surveillance story, when the government watches an actual terrorist, and then screws up at catching that terrorist before they complete their mission, the answer seems to be: destroy the evidence (via cryptogon).
A Pentagon employee was ordered to destroy documents that identified Mohamed Atta as a terrorist two years before the 2001 attacks, a congressman said Thursday.
The employee is prepared to testify next week before the Senate Judiciary Committee and was expected to name the person who ordered him to destroy the large volume of documents, said Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa.
Weldon declined to name the employee, citing confidentiality matters. Weldon described the documents as “2.5 terabytes” – as much as one-fourth of all the printed materials in the Library of Congress, he added.
sucker, ʟʟᴄ