An American Lion

This really deserves a post of its own:

When President Bush two years ago failed to name members to a federal board to monitor the protection of civil liberties, Democrats and activist groups were duly outraged, seeing it as one more example of his administration’s indifference to the subject.

But more than a year into a new presidency, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board—created by Congress in 2007—remains as much a cipher under Barack Obama as it was under George W. Bush. The White House has yet to nominate a single person to sit on the five-person board. It has no members, no staff, and no office.

Until now, the reaction to all this from the same civil-liberties groups and Democrats that bashed Bush has been largely muted. But that is starting to change. “I’m appalled,” said Sharon Bradford Franklin, senior counsel of the Constitution Project, a legal-affairs advocacy group that has usually been aligned with the Obama administration.

Unless and until the American people decide to stand up and demand a return to the kind of privacy rights that should be comprehensive for all Americans, this is exactly what both parties are going to do—they’re going to forget about the issue and go on their merry way.

Beware of the weasels and their need to have access to your secrets and your information. Don’t be surprised when there’s nothing private anymore and, it turns out, they’re giving away everything about you to make a buck. How else is the government going to pay for perpetual wars and permanent occupation of countries that cannot run themselves? Consider it another tax on what you thought was valuable. It turns out, nothing about you is really all that valuable, you see. Not when it comes to keeping shoeless ninjas from shadowboxing into the foodcourt at the mall.

You know who ought to be the next President? Whoever can explain why giving up privacy rights doesn’t keep us safe from terrorists.