Pining for the Cold War

Scarily-Warily
Alberto Gonzales
Menaces journalists
(Print and tv).

But perhaps measures so
Machiavellian
Seem less like DOJ,
More KGB.

On Sunday, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales stated that "the government will not hestitate to track telephone calls made by reporters as part of a criminal leak investigation." This statement was made in the context of a discussion of how reporters could be prosecuted for printing leaked information that compromised national security--I assume by his standards. The current administration seems to be working from the playbook of the former Soviet Union these days: we justify torture, wiretap Americans without warrants, monitor domestic phone records, and threaten to prosecute journalists for reporting the misdeeds of the government. And these are the things we know. It makes me a little nostalgic for the days when the US government used to associate these types of actions with our enemies rather than claiming them as patriotic.