I can’t believe this is real, but it really is:
Like Hansel and Gretel hoping to follow their bread crumbs out of the forest, the FBI sifted through customer data collected by San Francisco-area grocery stores in 2005 and 2006, hoping that sales records of Middle Eastern food would lead to Iranian terrorists.
The idea was that a spike in, say, falafel sales, combined with other data, would lead to Iranian secret agents in the south San Francisco-San Jose area.
The brainchild of top FBI counterterrorism officials Phil Mudd and Willie T. Hulon, according to well-informed sources, the project didn’t last long. It was torpedoed by the head of the FBI’s criminal investigations division, Michael A. Mason, who argued that putting somebody on a terrorist list for what they ate was ridiculous — and possibly illegal.
We are truly ruled by morons.
Please tell me why each and every one of our Democratic Senators and Representatives isn’t fighting to get in front of this one. It defies common sense.
Where are our esteemed Presidential contenders? Hillary Clinton? Barack Obama? Not a thing. No leadership. Their silence suggests complicity. Is that really so? We’re not only listening, we’re watching your every move.
Harry Reid? He’ll sell out the American people for $22,000 in Telecommunications contributions from 2001 - 2006 (I can only imagine what his take will be for 2007, now that he’s the Majority Leader). And seriously, $22,000 — is that all it takes? He could easily raise much more in an hour with a decisive stand, and motivate thousands of people to become even more intimately involved in his cause.
Jay Rockefeller? Sure, he’ll write a stern letter and talk a mean game, but folds at the first sign on conflict. Is it really this hard? Yet again, he seems perfectly content to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Not even George W. Bush is this incompetent.
It seems only Chris Dodd understands what’s at stake. And it’s clear to me that this isn’t about politics, or winning the election, it’s about standing up for what is right; it’s principled leadership, pure and simple. And just in time too. George W. Bush and his corporate cronies are hell-bent on “saving” us from our freedoms, the very way of life that is guaranteed by the Constitution.
Thus far, only one man stands in between democracy and the destruction of all we hold dear. It sounds preposterous, hysterical even, but think about it: are we all subject to the same laws, or are the President and his benefactors / beneficiaries solely above the law?