Letter: Americans should be upset by NSA spying

Tuesday, May 16, 2006 | 7:47 a.m.

A May 14 letter by Lee Gliddon Jr. suggests Democrats are opposed to the NSA spying because they want power, while the most important thing in "a war on terrorism" is security from terrorist attacks. I cannot speak for the politicians or, as Mr. Gliddon does, for "the majority of America," but it seems to me that there are sound reasons to be upset by the NSA spying.

First, the terrorists know we are monitoring almost everything, so how effective can it be? Second, our government is based on checks of power and not on trust. The massive NSA spying was done without oversight. The Fourth Amendment guarantees our privacy. Is a little sense of security worth the price of our constitutional rights? And just how trustworthy has the president shown himself to be?

President Bush used our fears of the 9/11 attack and the manipulated CIA evidence to take us to a war for the control of Iraq's oil reserves. Anyone who dared tell the truth was punished. For example, Valerie Plame was exposed as a CIA agent because her husband told the truth about the yellow cake "evidence."

Now we have less information about what Iran's nuclear capability might be because it was the job of Plame and her connections to find that information. Is Bush the president that Mr. Gliddon trusts to protect him and not abuse the power of the NSA?

Jerry Bitts, Las Vegas