I generally don’t like to merely comment on news stories, but since this one hits on several issues mentioned here before, here it is: Google, U.S. Clash Over Online Searches - Yahoo! News

I don’t even know if the Bush administration is in fact being evil in the case at hand. Maybe there is a compelling interest in protecting youth in subpoening search records from major search engines, the putative rationale for the subpoena. What the case shows me, rather, is that they just don’t get it. Hot on the heels of a myriad of allegations of human rights abuses from detentions without trials, first encouraging torture and later insisting on refusing to take a firm stance against it, and finally with illegal wiretapping, they just don’t seem to get that more and more people fear and distrust the Bush adminsitration. Effectively, the Bush administration is like a convict on probation with everyone on the left and many traditional conservatives who are in favor of limited government. Anything with a semblance of wrongdoing is going to be interpreted as malfeasance, given their consistent record of malfeasance, but they still seem to think that they have some ethereal political capital to spend based on the narrowest of electoral victories. All in all, I’m starting to like the Bush adminstration more and more, since I can’t think of anyone since Nixon who has done as much to harm the Republican party.

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Quick quiz: what does the Bush administration stance on torture, and their stance on wiretaps have in common? Disregard for constitutions and treaties? Well, that’s obvious, but how so? Disregard for human and civil rights? Sure, but exactly how so? There is something fundamental that ties together much of the Bush administration’s policy from the Ashcroft inJustice Department to the Gitmo detentions without trials. Before reading on and having your mind corrupted by my screed, think for a couple seconds about your take and drop it in a comment.
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