Bush Defends Secret Surveillance on Self

SP - In an unprecedented move, Bush disclosed that he had ordered around-the-clock secret surveillance on himself, quickly defending his actions, "The activities conducted under this authorization have helped protect the American people, not to mention their Commander in Chief." When pressed by reporters about the violation of civil liberties, Bush responded, "In the 'War on Terror,' you can never be to sure who the enemy is, and I for one don't want to take any chances. Too much is at stake, and we must take any measures that will protect our freedoms."

Patty Hurston, Chairperson of the ACLU chapter in Witsend, claimed the President's actions are inexcusable, not to mention unconstitutional. "The President is headed wown a slippery slope, and before you know it, everybody will be spying on themselves. Americans will stop trusting themselves, and this is a dangerous precedent to set. Just because the President doesn't trust himself doesn't give him the power to violate this distrust."

Bush said his authority to approve what he called a "vital tool in our war against the terrorists" came from his constitutional powers as Commander in Chief. He said that he has personally signed off on reauthorizations more than thirty times, and nearly half of these authorizations involved increased surveillance of his whereabouts and the comings and goings of the Oval Office, Air Force One, and his ranch in Crawford, Texas. "The American people expect me to do everything in my power under our laws and Constitution to protect them and their civil liberties," Bush said. "And that is exactly what I will continue to do, so long as I'm the President of the United States. Thousands of lives have already been saved due these security authorizations. I hate to imagine how many more people would've died on the global scale had I not approved surveillance on myself. As the security reports will show you, I shudder to imagine these catastrophic possibilities."

In a Witsend Daily poll,76% percent of respondents agreed that the President does indeed pose a viable threat to himself and should authorize secret surveillance upon himself. Forty six of Witsendians polled agreed that the President's authorization of secret surveillance on himself did not constitute a violation of civil liberties since he ordered it upon himself, although 97% said if they ordered the same surveillance on themselves, it would constitute a violation of civil liberties.

Witsend's Doc T. Paine, the Other Party's 2008 presidential hopeful, contended that anyone could authorize the Intelligence Community to spy on oneself, especially on the taxpayer's dollar. The bigger concern is whether or not the President actually reads the Intelligence gathered on himself. "Had he read this Intelligence in lieu of the faulty intelligence he used to authorize the war in Iraq, intelligence gathering would be one step closer to detaching itself from the oxymoronic family. And maybe, just maybe, this could be a more powerfull tool in combating metaphoric wars such as the 'War on Terror.'"