Beck and Bachmann on fear of government intrusion 

First, let’s acknowledge how irresponsible it is to accuse any particular group for U.S. Census worker Bill Sparkman’s death.

However, the peculiar circumstances surrounding him being hanged from a tree – which law enforcement investigators in Kentucky have preliminarily ruled as a homicide – beg the question, why would anyone scrawl the word “FED” across his chest, and what would be their motive?

One could easily infer that it is possibly fear of government intrusion - see the video at the bottom of an article published today.  

Are Glenn Beck and Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann (R-Minn.) really that distressed over government invasion into our privacy?

Well, recall back in 2005 when the story broke regarding the fact that the National Security Agency (NSA), operating under the directives of the Bush Administration, had wiretapped millions of American citizens’ private phone conversations under the guise of  investigating possible links to terrorism.  This led to an investigation by Congress into the extent of the wiretaps, whether they were legal, and whether they were being properly targeted in order to protect national security as asserted by the Bush Administration.  

In order to assure the American public that the wiretaps were not directed at innocent citizens, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, in a White House press briefing, stated that these intercepts were only authorized when the government “has a reasonable basis to conclude that one party to the communication is a member of al Qaeda, affiliated with al Qaeda, or a member of an organization affiliated with al Qaeda, or working in support of al Qaeda.” and that one party to the conversation is “outside of the United States” [emphasis added].

When General Michael Hayden, former head of the NSA and then-acting Director of the CIA, was eventually called to testify before the Senate regarding allegations of unwarranted government intrusion into the lives of innocent American citizens, he unconditionally denied that the government was listening to private conversations that were not reasonably related to terrorist activity.  General Hayden stated, “[w]e are narrowly focused and drilled on protecting the nation against al Qaeda and those organizations who are affiliated with it,”

FACT:  some of the conversations were between American couples (even servicemen and their spouses/girlfriends) engaging in the most intimate communications that had nothing to do with national security.  That this is a gross invasion of privacy, and the most egregious form of governmental intrusion is beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Former NSA employee Adrienne Kinne, who was awarded an NSA Joint Service Achievement Medal in 2003, along with one of her fellow NSA peers, came forward in 2008 and pointedly criticized the NSA’s continued targeting of obviously innocent American citizens.  She proudly stated that sometimes the intercepts did result in information that may have interrupted potential terror attacks in Iraq, and therefore saved American lives. 

Yet, Kinne noted the problem was all of the wasted time and resources spent focusing on these innocent Americans, when it could have been directed towards finding the proverbial “needle in the haystack”.   As Ms. Kinne so poignantly stated, “[b]y casting the net so wide and continuing to collect on Americans . . .  it’s almost like they’re making the haystack bigger and it’s harder to find that piece of information that might actually be useful to somebody,” she said. “You’re actually hurting our ability to effectively protect our national security.”

So Glenn Beck and Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann. . . where was the outrage regarding government intrusion back then?