Don't Burn Out Already

It does seem like the 2008 Presidential Elections have been going on forever, doesn't it. Some of the pundits are talking about Obama burnout, suggesting that we have seen too much of the senator and are wearying of his face and words. I don't know if that is so. I rarely watch mainstream television, and the few commercials I've seen during the Olympics have been innocuous at worst, and fairly informative at best. I hadn't seen the Obama is the Anti-christ website until a few days ago. Although I found it laughable, it was also scary knowing how many people would swallow that horse pucky without question.

I have no doubt that this is the most important election of my lifetime, and perhaps in America's history. If the policies of the Bush regime are further cemented, and make no doubt that is what a John McCain Presidency will do, I fear we will never turn this country back to the land where people and their needs come first, where government is shaped by personal necessity rather than corporate greed, where diplomacy comes before warfare, where individual rights are protected with the diligence of a mother bear protecting her cubs.

I want to address the issue of individual rights, especially, because the Bush Administration is attempting to make a final end run around our rights before their occupancy ends. The United States Attorney General wants to make investigative requirements for the FBI standard for all investigations. Now on the surface, that sounds like a good thing. One common standard understood by all. In fact, it may be the single most serious threat to individual rights Americans have faced so far. What these "reform" proposals want to do is make it easier for the FBI to investigate anyone it chooses by making the requirements the ones now applied to national security threats from foreign sources on American soil. If the changes Mukasey has his way, the FBI will drop the need to demonstrate good cause for opening an investigation on anyone. There are hopeful signs this may not happen. Many of the old guard in the FBI do not want to become the nation's internal intelligence agency. They are happy being the nation's police force. Current standards require that agents show reasonable cause for opening an investigation, much like the police or district attorneys' offices must show just cause for the issuance of a search warrant. Lowering the requirements to the national security threat standards is a danger to us all. If anything should be changed at all, the requirements for national security investigations should be raised.

I encourage you to investigate further and if you agree that this proposed reform poses a serious threat to the individual rights and freedoms of all Americans, I encourage you to write to your Congress Critters and urge them to vote against this so-called reform.