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Dec. 21, 2005 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:20
December 21, 2005, Wednesday, Hour #3
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And welcome back, folks.
It's a thrill and delight to have you with us for yet another excursion into broadcast excellence, the fastest three hours in media, two up and down and one to go.
This already Wednesday, by the way.
Telephone number if you'd like to join us, is 800 282-2882, the email address rush at EIBNet.com.
I was thinking earlier today, I don't remember a time in the history of this program where this time of year Congress has still been in town and been this busy and there has been this much going on.
We have with us Senator Larry Craig from uh Idaho, one of the four Republicans who voted with Democrats the other day to prevent the reauthorization of the Patriot Act.
And we posted uh his name and the three others on our website.
He wanted to call and explain his vote, so here he is.
Senator, great to have you with us, and welcome to the program.
Well, Rush, thank you, and thank you uh for allowing me on.
It is a very important debate uh and something that I think uh has uh certainly by Harry Reid and others been dramatically miscast as it relates to the intent of some of us who have constantly worked to assure that the Patriot Act did not tread on the rights, the constitutional rights of law-abiding American citizens.
You know, I've been here a little while and I remember Janet Reno and I remember Waco and Ruby Ridge, and I fear the day that we get a president, not this president, who has a very liberal attorney general and sees the opportunity uh to leap through the holes that are crafted in the Patriot Act uh that could tread on our civil liberties.
I say that having once voted for the Patriot Act, and and we'll vote for it again.
Uh and we're working very hard at this moment.
Uh we've been visiting with the White House the last few hours, along with uh Democrats and Republicans to try to resolve this because there is no question that a majority of the Senate, which includes some Democrats, uh do not want to see the Patriot Act expire.
At the same time, we see this as a once in a two or three year opportunity or four to make sure that it never gets misused.
That's permanent law we're talking about, uh not just something that we deal with on a day-to-day basis.
I understand that.
Let me let me focus on something you said at first here.
Uh you said that Senator Reed is is mischaracterizing uh some of the uh the loyal opposition on the Republican side of this, or I guess throughout the whole Senate.
And one of the one of the things I think that bothers people, and I'm sure you've been getting email and phone calls in your office from people who uh just know that you voted against it, don't understand it.
The reason they're upset is because they see a Democratic Party trying to undermine this president and uh sabotage the ability to wage war against this enemy, and the people who elect Republicans in this country expect them to go to Washington and understand this war is taking place and not side with them uh on things that hurt the president.
So that's the first thing.
People see that they don't understand it, and it makes them wonder what's the point of electing Republicans.
Well, you've made a very good point, and I uh don't deny that.
Uh uh the reality is that we are at war and we're at war with a uh a very formidable enemy.
Uh and you know my votes historically, along with a lot of others, uh, have demonstrated that.
Well, what are you primarily opposed to in the Patriot Act?
I know that there's I'm opposed very simply a rush for the right of our government secretly to break into a home and to take computer files and other files and never tell the homeowner.
I'm talking about a U.S. citizen.
Now I'm willing to blink, and a lot of us are willing to blink, and we said, okay, you can go ahead and do that.
This is under the FISA law, the federal the foreign intelligence surveillance act, we'll let you do that without telling the homeowner.
That's a major step.
Wait, wait a second.
But now wait a moment.
But within seven days after you've done it, if you find that you found nothing, and it will not damage your uh investigation, then you need to tell them.
And if you do find something, and it will damage your investigation, then you've got to do like you do in civil or criminal law.
You gotta go before a judge and say we have reason to believe and hear all the facts, and the judge says, go forth, be silent, continue To investigate.
That is a simple, simple request, and it is clearly a protection of our civil liberties.
Wait, but I'm I'm confused.
Uh you're you're coupling the Patriot Act with this the FISA controversy that you're You bet I am because it's a major provision within the Patriot Act.
Well, but but there's there's been no illegality in on on the part of the President in regards to any of this.
This is this is pure propaganda, Senator.
No, no, no, no, no.
We're talking two separate things here.
You're mixing up the current charges made against our president, which I disagree with as it relates to sidestepping FISA within his powers as commander of chief in a time of war that Carter used, that Reagan used that Clinton used, and that this president is using to do surveillance against incoming foreign phone calls to known operatives.
That's a separate one.
What we did in the Patriot Act with the FISA law, we said, yes, you don't have to direct it just at foreign nationals who are agents of foreign governments or spies.
Now you can direct it at U.S. citizens, and that's been in law since we passed it.
Well, has been has there been any instances of an innocent citizen being wrongly as as you described treated?
We don't know that.
Much of it's under a legal gag order, and we don't know that.
But that isn't the point.
And you know that as well as I do, uh, Rush, when we've got uh the Bill of Rights, well, nobody's ever going to tread on our gun rights, so we don't have to put them in law.
Nobody's gonna tread on the First Amendment, the right of free speech, so you'd never put it in law.
Well, our founding fathers saw differently, and thank God they did.
Here we see differently and say, no, no, you've got to make sure you double check and you get a third party position uh uh position in this instance uh, even though in Patriot we're allowing them to break into a home.
Literally do that, without notifying the residents for seven days.
Well, the House wanted a hundred and fifty, they compromised at thirty.
I think when something is this dramatic, a change in the character of the right of a private citizen, then we ought to make sure we have a double check.
That's one of the arguments.
The other one's national security and sneak and peak and a lot of other provisions.
Well, are you saying, though, this provision you just described where rogue agents can steal into somebody's house under cover of darkness like the Clintons did in the family of Alion Gonzalez down in Florida, they get to sneak in there and steal items out of the that's in the new version of the Patriot Act that was not in the old version that we have.
Well, that is in the old version.
My point is it is did you vote for that once, though?
What?
Did you vote for that provision once?
I did, and at the time I voted for it.
I said this is a major step in the wrong direction, but necessary for the moment.
But I will constantly review it and attempt to change it when that day comes for reauthorization, because we have to be under constant vigil against the enemy, and that enemy now is terrorism, and some of us believe that government at some times can also be the enemy.
Senator, I have been uh reading about this Patriot Act uh uh as any citizen who has the time and interest has been, and I haven't found I I this is difficult for me because uh the things that I have encountered, the people that have read it, legal scholars have analyzed it for me, have said the Patriot Act does nothing to change any of the assumptions such as search warrants and so forth that already exist in our legal system for American citizens.
Well, then separate uh the need of an investigator uh to get uh uh the permission of a court to enter a home or to collect records in a civil or a criminal test.
That's required.
You don't get a search warrant uh without uh uh passing through that test.
Yeah, but what I'm saying is the things I'm reading that that doesn't change under the Patriot Act.
It is the FISA court that grants the search warrant and the search warrant is confidential.
It's private, it's secured.
Is there are you talking about the the NSLs?
Is that is this one of the things that else is one of those, and in the NSLs, there's an implicit uh explicit gag order.
Uh and uh in doing so it says, well, okay, then if you consult an attorney because you've received one of these letters, you have to tell the FBI that's new in law.
Since when do you have to tell the government that you're getting an attorney to protect you because you believe your rights have been violated or you're being required to violate the rights of somebody else by the disclosure of records.
The main thing is, Rush, those of us who support the Patriot Act, and I do, want all of these things to happen.
But we want to make sure that there are the safeguards that cause the law enforcement not to be able not to do it, but to have to get the check to make sure there's a third party looking, in this case a federal judge.
Well I thought that's right and responsible.
Well but I thought that's exactly what the reauthorization did.
I thought it created a judicial review process that allows a judge to modify or set you know set aside any flawed sections of two fifteen orders or the uh uh the NSLs but I uh everything I've encountered in this says it's adding other protections as well.
I've people have told me that we're added thirty new civil rights protections and civil liberties protections in this reauthorization.
You're right we are so it well then there it it boils down there's one or two things in this that bother you so what's the solution are approximately four things that bother us uh and we've been very clear and upfront about them.
They're the basis of the Safe Act amendment that I authored over a year ago and gained the support to to write it and get the U.S. Senate to pass it.
The U.S. Senate has passed exactly what I'm asking for.
And it passed unanimously and the White House said it would take it.
It was acceptable it was good law.
And then of course the House saw it differently and we tried to work out our differences.
Over 202 House members voted for the Senate version of the bill, but they were denied that by the House processes.
So it has been very clear and very open all along.
But there have been no abuses in this Patriot.
Even the New York Times says there was an audit.
The ACLU has done an audit.
Dianne Feinstein, they can't find any abuses of this.
Are there examples that you know of, of these kinds of injustices you're concerned about?
That we can add to the list of fears that people have.
Well, do we wait for an injustice before we put the First Amendment in place?
wait for an injustice before we put the second amendment in place?
No.
We said these are fundamental basic rights of free citizens in the United States.
I understand but but therein lies the very I you know Rush I'm sorry I'm not gonna step back and say well if there's a violation then I'll move to protect the the the liberties and the freedoms of this country.
I don't operate that way.
I'm I'm not suggesting that you should.
I'm just the thing I can't get the political war out of my mind and the assumption behind all this that it bothers me as well that that um uh the the the the President of the United States or the uh the the government is presently constituted wants to do all this that it's got this in mind that that's why the advocates of the Patriot Act uh were for it.
So what we have here, we have four Republicans opposing the Patriot Act.
We've got Senator McCain pushing for adoption of terrorist rights, the Al-Qaeda Bill of Rights.
We're leading, Senator Specter and Snow are leading charges against lawful wiretaps of Al-Qaeda agents.
It seems like this is all part and parcel of an attempt here by the Democrats to totally tie our hands in waging war against a real enemy.
And we're making the assumption here that the purpose of the Patriot Act is to go nail innocent Americans.
I've never believed that's what the purpose of it is.
Oh I don't disagree with you.
That's why I staked this turf out nearly two years ago long before John McCain and uh torture, uh long before the well the war um and the president and our position on it began to be politicized by Democrats.
We're talking civil liberties here.
We're not talking politics in my opinion.
Now you're right I are though I happen to be allowed to be lumped into that argument.
That's why I appreciate the time you're giving me today to say wait a moment I don't agree with John McCain on torture and I agree with the president in his current position in the way he has handled information flow.
He has done what other presidents have done and I believe based on what I know now he has done it legally.
Have there been violations to the Patriots Act?
We don't believe so but then a third of it is under a gag order so we don't know.
But You know, guess what?
You and I both know John Ashcroft, a friend of both of ours, was the attorney general.
I trusted John and I trust him today.
I trust Al Gonzalez.
Janet Reno, another day, another story, the same law, a different situation.
That's what fundamental constitutional rights are all about.
Instead of arbitrarily changing them along the way to fit the political wind of the day.
Therein lies my frustration.
And that's why I'm not sure.
I have to I have to take a brief commercial break.
Senator, can you hang on because I have a couple more questions for you about where we're headed now given the impasse?
Senator Larry Craig of Idaho with us.
We'll be back and continue in just a moment.
Welcome back, folks.
Nice to have you with us here at Christmas time, Rush Limbaugh and the Excellence and Broadcast again.
We're happy to have with us uh Idaho Senator Larry Craig explaining his vote and position on the reauthorization of the of the Patriot Act.
Senator, you uh you voted for the Patriot Act, less the extra protections in the new bill three years ago.
We'll get thirty new protections because of the you said the extraordinary times uh right after nine-eleven, and that you could be reviewing it in the years ahead.
And I guess this is the question all of us have.
What's changed in these three years?
Are times less extraordinary now?
Are the Democrats right?
There is not the this terrorist threat that Bush uh told us about, the president told us about.
What what's changed in these three years to make the threat less to make you more concerned about the provisions you once voted for?
Well, Rush, it's a valid and an and appropriate question.
Uh throughout the last three years, as we've constantly reviewed the Patriot Act.
In many instances, I and others have said, did you need this provision?
And the answer was, well, no.
Uh well, we haven't used it.
We haven't found it necessary to use, but it's important we have it in the law.
And uh that has been said of three or four of the major provisions that we've sought to adjust some.
So in the end, when they were not used, and I would concur, not abused, but they were protections that law abiding citizens in our country had had in the past, that some illegal activities hid behind, there's no question about it.
Uh that's kind of the character of a free society.
Uh sometimes uh you have to take a little flexibility to assure your freedoms uh in some instances.
Well, then we said, okay, if they're not necessary, and we believe they have moved across the line and have weakened the overall protection of law-abiding citizens, let's put them back in place.
We'll allow you to use them.
We're not going to say you can't use them, but you've got to go the extra step to do so.
What was clear with 911 and the Patriots Act was that it was the firewalls between our intelligence community, our and a law enforcement community, and their inability to communicate.
And they're going to those firewalls are going to be rebuilt in one week.
Well, they could be rebuilt.
That's why we're working as we speak to you.
I just came off the floor in a variety of meetings with Democrats and Republicans and the White House, because a substantial majority of us here do not want to see those firewalls go up.
At the same time, now and then you have to take tough stands, and I've taken one.
Uh and it's in the circumstance in which you related a few moments ago, other issues have now boiled to the top, brought primarily bipartisan politics.
That doesn't change my position on what I believe is right for civil liberties.
So we're going to try to get there.
We're going to try to get the Patriots Act reauthorized, uh maybe an extension of time so we can revisit uh three or four of these provisions that we think are right, because uh, like I say, uh there will come a day when there will not be a George W in the White House.
And tragically enough, and I hope never, it could be a Hillary Clinton.
And now who will be her attorney general, and what might he or she do to your liberties and mine.
There is a lot of people.
I I I look at I understand it.
I appreciate you saying that, by the way.
That will help a lot of people understand your position on it because I have not heard you say that before.
But as to this extension, and I've got exactly one minute here, and I'll let you have most this extension.
If the extension is good for three months, why not good for six months or nine months or twelve months or on and on?
Well, uh, you know, I said three months, I'd take six months.
Twelve months means another full year.
I think that's too long.
I think that's too long to suggest that uh business records, and oh, by the way, my position, whether you like it or not, is supported by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Uh because they're fearful of the misuse of some of these powers for business records and others, uh without the appropriate protection.
But grand juries can subpoena those records now without a warrant.
Uh and and you don't you don't all the all of I think this is doing is extending the same power to terrorist investigators.
Great Senator, look at I I don't have time to say a proper goodbye.
I must ask you if you can stay by just three minutes.
I want to say I don't want to be rude and just cut you off, but I've got a hard break here.
Can you sit for three more minutes and I'll I want to say a proper goodbye and thank you.
Well, I'll do that.
Thank you.
Okay, thanks very don't don't go and I'll let you crap uh wrap up anything else that you want to say that you felt you were shortchanged on because of my rude interruptions back here in just a second.
And we are back, and I just I've I asked Senator Craig from Idaho to stick with us through the break because I didn't I I didn't want to be rude and have to just say, sir, time's up, we've got to go.
I wanted to say a proper goodbye and thank you for uh giving us this much time because I know you're busy at this time of year, you're seldom in Washington, and these are pressing issues that you're working on.
Nobody doubts your principled stand on this.
There's some that just uh the political battle is such and it's so partisan that uh with Harry Reid saying we're happy we killed the Patriot Act and then have four Republicans vote for him.
Some people just need to hear the explanation that you gave as to why.
Well, Rush, I do thank you for that.
As an Idahoan, uh I lived through Ruby Ridge.
I saw a family destroyed by misguided government and misguided information from government.
So it's uh a memory that is uh seared in my mind.
This is not about our president.
This is about long-standing constitutional rights and principles from which I stand, and you're right.
It's partisan.
It became that uh by Harry Reed's statement uh, and uh I'm certainly no apologist for Harry Reed.
But I do appreciate the courtesies you've extended me.
Uh Americans are concerned, uh, and they ought to be.
The war we're waging is a real war.
Uh three thousand lost lives plus now with all of our men and women in uniform.
I'm uh chairman of the Veterans Committee.
I go regularly out to Walter Reed to see our young men and women who have lost limbs and a big chunk of their life uh defending our freedom.
So uh if they can defend them in Iraq, uh doggone it, I'm gonna defend them here.
Well, I appreciate your time, and I I'm uh I'm glad to to speak to you about this.
And uh all the best to you for the holiday season and uh let us know if uh if anything changes uh on this so that we'll be among the first to know.
Do you think uh will something going to happen here to get this off the diamond?
I would hate for that wall to be re-erected in seven days that you you talked about.
As would I, and I think you'll know by the end of the day, and uh uh you've asked that we'll uh allow you to be the first to know.
All right, thank you, Senator very much.
I appreciate so at Senator uh Larry Craig from uh from Idaho, uh who has been explaining his vote on the uh on the Patriot Act.
It was it was uh you know, it's it's interesting he said uh among many things that uh he doesn't distrust this president with these powers, but he can't speak for future presidents of say if Hillary is president or Janet Reno is attorney general.
Uh my uh I mean they did all that without any kind of patriot.
That's my point to the caller we had from Idaho long ago, whether we have a Patriot Act or not, that's who they are.
They will do those kinds of things.
For example, I I don't want Hillary to be president either.
I I don't either.
But let's let's talk about nuclear weapons.
Do I want Hillary Clinton's finger on the nuclear button?
No.
Does that mean we get rid of our nuclear weapons?
So that she won't have them at her disposal when she's president.
No.
So it it's uh Yeah.
I know, I know Congress doesn't go away.
Uh Hillary will not have, if she is elected, she's not gonna have a Democrat Congress to go along and rubber stamp everything that she wants to do.
But at any rate, um we did put his name up there along with the other four, and he called and asked to explain himself.
And so uh we make the EIB network available uh in such circumstances because it's always a a uh uh an informative and educational thing.
Charlotte in Raleigh, North Carolina, as we go back to the phones.
You are next.
Thank you for calling.
Thank you.
Um I've been listening to you since I lived in Davis and you were in Sacramento.
Um I was listening to Senator Craig's uh conversation with you, and uh as far as I'm concerned, he's just going around the Mulberry Bush many times and uh not being supportive of our country and our president.
I don't know how he's saying that he should support the Patriot Act, and I emailed him and the other three senators who voted against it.
But uh, you know, my one little email and I'm sure many others, what impact did they have we're not even from their state.
Well, I I know he's getting a lot of email.
Uh uh, everybody whose name appears on our website does.
Um, including me.
But you know, it it it's it's uh it's interesting to listen to these people explain have you ever heard him say, for example, that uh one of his big fears is a future president from another party maybe not be as trustworthy.
Had he said that if he would say what if what that bothered me that he's saying what if, what if, what if happens later.
We're concerned about now.
And the Patriot Act has worked and we need to keep it.
No, I uh I'm you you and I are on the same page, and I understand that totally like the what if is what I was addressing here a moment ago.
Well, well, what if Hillary gets nukes?
Okay, let's ban nukes.
What if Hillary gets the justice?
Well, let's ban law so that she can't break it.
Uh you know, uh uh the what if question is is what it is.
But just from a purely political standpoint, now talk about if if if if Senator Craig or any of these other Republicans would go out and say, other than on this program, if they would have said in explaining their vote on the floor of the Senate, I don't trust a future Democrat president with this act.
Whoa, now that would have been fun.
He said it here.
Uh if he uh you know that that that would have I mean, and and he would have been right, but a lot of people would agree with it.
You got Harry Reed going out leading cheers for the fact that the Patriot Acts have been killed.
You don't get the impression from Harry Reid, he wants it resurrected in any fashion whatsoever.
Well, let's wait till the end of the day.
Let's that's what he said that they're working on it uh tooth and nail here and see what they uh what they uh what they come up with.
But I'm glad you called Charlotte.
Thanks, uh thanks so much.
Let's go to Richmond, Virginia.
Mitchell, hello, and welcome to the program.
Hey, Mr. Limbaugh, you know, I'm amazed.
I guess I'm gonna be guilty of being a seminar collection.
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, slow down.
Remember, I am hearing challenged.
You've got to slow down so I can understand you.
Now, my my apologies.
I I've just been amazed over the last three or four days that that anyone who's been a target of uh of a government like you have been, with your medical record, wouldn't be more in line with Mr. with with Senator Craig.
Uh if anyone in America should understand the power of government, if it's abused, it should be you.
And and I'm just amazed that that that you haven't been leading Mr. Craig.
I d were you listening to the program yesterday, you because you had uh uh your father called yesterday and asked me this question.
And I and I I answered this question.
If you didn't hear it, let me give you the answer to this question as and I, you know, I'm not one who likes to talk about myself, folks.
But as you see, I've I've I've been swerved into this.
In the first place, when you talk about gr uh the the the overreaching of of government.
We had a caller earlier who said a lawyer in Columbus, a criminal defense lawyer, says his biggest problem is with state and local people, not feds.
We can't find any abuses of the Patriot Act that you've described.
We can't find one.
There is not, they've done an audit, even the New York Times, which would love to find some, can't.
Even the ACLU, which would love to find some can't.
There aren't any federal abuses of this.
Grand juries today can subpoena your computer records, they can subpoena your even when you're not the target.
When you're not the target of an investigation, grand juries can already do that, Mitchell.
They can subpoena your computer records, they can subpoena a bunch of things without a warrant.
Even if you are not the target, don't dare try to disagree with me on this.
They can do it.
In my case, what we have here is a two-year investigation.
Harassment, where the prosecutors have admitted in open court in the last three months, they don't have one shred of evidence to complete the element of any crime that I have supposedly committed.
I haven't been charged in 26 months.
And they go into court and say we don't have any evidence.
And then after saying that, they ask a judge to violate my doctor patient privilege.
Not because of any probable cause, but because they have no evidence And they desperately want some, it's called a fishing expedition.
To compare what is happening to me with this nation's efforts to target terrorists who want to blow up this country misses the whole point of what this is about.
Yes, I consider myself to be an innocent citizen.
I consider myself to be a plus and an addition to any community in which I live and to my country.
I have presented the legal system of this country with zero problems.
I have presented them no problem, no ongoing problem.
I have I have not done one thing.
And yet I still, because of some bogus information that ended up in a tabloid, end up with this investigation.
Okay, that's what it is, but this isn't the feds.
And this isn't coming in and getting my stuff under cover of darkness by the feds.
It happened at the local and state level.
The feds can do it, but they haven't.
Now, I the this this comparison to me, and to equate what is happening with our effort to protect the country from another attack from an enemy which has stated blatantly and openly its objectives, misses the whole point.
But even as such, I have had avenues open to me to fight this.
I haven't been successful for a whole bunch of reasons except recently.
Last ruling was a big, big win.
Uh but the the system has been available to me and it has been open to me as it as it as it is to a lot of people.
But I'm not the first to think that I have been unfairly unjustly pursued.
A lot of people with names have that happened.
A lot of people with no names have that happen to them.
You never, you know, nothing's ever perfect.
And when you find yourself in it, you do the best that you can.
But at the same time, I'm not going to sit here and take the thing that's happening to me and suggest that my whole country is corrupt and that my current president is corrupt, and that they're going to go out and try to find people like me and blame people like me or you for wanting to blow up the Pentagon next or the Capitol building.
Because that's not what these two stories really don't have a whole lot in uh in common.
My case, when the prosecutors say they've got no evidence and they want to violate a legal privilege to get some, I mean, you know, that that that's that's pretty clear case of abuse, if you ask me, everybody can see that it is happening out in the open.
The business here with the Patriot Act does not target innocent citizens, and it doesn't target purely political enemies of this administration.
The Clinton people did that.
The Barrett report.
If you, you know, these concerns everybody has, show me some evidence of it under this administration.
You can't, but the Barrett report, which is all about IRS abuses in the Clinton administration, Democrats don't want that coming out, they're trying to suppress that.
Carl Levin leading the way on that one, Senator from Michigan.
Wacko uh or Waco uh invasion, Ruby Ridge, Alien Gonzalez.
I mean, you're barking up the wrong tree here at this time.
It's like I asked Senator Craig.
He thought the circumstances were so important after 9-11 that he voted for the Patriot Act.
Three years later, the Patriot Act has been strengthened and 30 new provisions added to go even further in protecting civil liberties, and he votes against it, saying that, and I because time has changed.
Three months, three years has gone, but what's changed in these three years?
The only thing I can see that's changed in these three years is the Democrats are trying to make the country believe there's no threat, that we have no enemy.
And I I believe to the contrary.
So, you know, I I understand why people have these these uh these these comparisons, but I think one of the you can make a whole lot of mistakes with taking a personal experience and then extrapolating it and say it happens to everybody.
And this is a reason because these kinds of things that have been happening to me have been going on, they're happening to delay, they've been happening since the beginning of our country.
No system is perfect.
Radical egalitarians are trying, they're demanding perfection in everything, Or we don't do it at all.
And it's not possible.
There are going to be mistakes made.
Patriot Act does its best to address when those mistakes have taken place, according to the way I've read it.
But I appreciate the call.
Another opportunity to explain this.
I hope sufficiently.
Quick timeout.
We'll be back after this.
One more thing on uh two more things on on my case.
People want to use it as a comparative.
Nothing to do.
My case has nothing to do with terrorism or the war on terror or the Patriot Act.
In fact, everything that has happened to me in this case has happened with the Patriot Act in place.
And it would have happened if there were no Patriot Act.
So the comparison just it doesn't, it doesn't hold up on a host of reasons, but I've explained it.
Let me move on.
Stephen Boise, Idaho.
Your next sir, welcome.
Thank you very much for the opportunity.
Your normally impeccable logic is somewhat flawed here.
Plus, I think you're missing one other critical issue.
As to the logic, you know, I think it's not a wise idea to talk about an audit uh that is impossible to have been done.
You can't audit an unknown.
So unless somehow the Times had uh uh access that is super access and everybody says isn't available, then they can't have done any kind of an audit.
We don't know uh whether there's any problems or not problems.
Okay, then tell me right, you think that this government has put a bunch of innocent people in the dock or has got a bunch of innocent people in the process now in the system.
Absolutely absolutely not what I'm saying.
What I'm saying is don't make the affirmative case in the other direction, which is what you're doing.
In other words, we don't know.
You're saying we don't know.
So do you know that we have I I've said that I've cited that here's my point.
I will I will I will bet you that there is an ACLU lawyer or person that would be willing to break the confidentiality law if he found out that such a circumstance had occurred, just to make the point of it, just to kill this act.
You don't think that there are a bunch of leftists out there would take the advantage of any shred of information, whether they got it, legal or not, to tell us that this plan is being abused?
I'm on your side in wanting our government to do well.
I'm not looking, I mean, I hate the ACLU.
Uh I think that Larry Craig may even be a bit of a liberal for me.
So that's not what I'm saying.
I'm saying don't use false logic to make a point.
But let's go on to the second point.
Why the question uh a guy like you or any thinking person should say is this.
Why does our government not want at any time in the process any kind of review?
That should scare the crap out of you.
I don't think that's true.
Well, it is true.
That's there's a lot of people.
No, it's not true.
It is this Congress gets a report of all these things.
There are not secret trials of U.S. citizens going on at this point.
I'm not talking about secret telephone.
Why, if I want to wiretap anybody, let's say they're guilty as sin, okay?
And I want to wiretap them.
Why do I never want to submit to some judicial, some congressional review and say, I need your approval to continue this.
Why would I not want ever to have any one logical reason?
Let me answer it.
Let me answer because I've got I've got limited time.
Here's the here's the answer.
The answer is because often in the war on terror, you don't know who you're looking for.
You don't have a specific suspect.
You have a flash bit of information, a phone number, a snippet of a phone call.
You don't have time to go through the process of getting a warrant of going through all the debating of it that's going to take doesn't exist.
The war on terror is a special set of circumstances, and these are not applied to the average everyday life of the ordinary American.
Um I understand people's concerns about this.
I really do, and I'm I'm I'm sadly uh out of time.
But if if you if you I can't go any further because I'm gonna really run up against it, folks, but there's always tomorrow, and we will continue this there.
Steve, thanks for the call.
Appreciate it.
Hard break time, gotta go.
Back in just a sec.
What are you laughing at?
You're laughing at my frustration.
I uh it.
I'm telling it is frustrating here today to try to unravel all of this mumbo jumbo.
And we have decent good callers.
I mean, these great Americans buying into this this hysterical garbage, and then they pretend they're not buying into it.
They're afraid of all these things happening, and so well, when do they have well they're not, but you're acting like they are.
And and it's it's uh but of course this is why they pay the guy behind the golden EIB microphone, the big books.
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