They're watching you right now...

I don't understand this sudden fixation on privacy by the Liberals. When it comes to what average American citizens are doing, saying, watching, listening to and buying, we are scrutinized by 10,000 eyes every single day. You can't drive your car, use your credit card, go to the library, walk into a bank, sit on a park bench, check the news or buy cold medicine without giving up your right to privacy. In some places in the Orwellian (and overwhelmingly Liberal) city of Chicago, police cameras are perched on light posts, ready and able to zoom into every nook and cranny -- maybe even your living room -- on the off chance that they might catch you doing something you shouldn't be doing. Thank you, Mayor Daley. And yet, the Liberals argue, if you want to pick up the phone and give Osama Bin Laden a call to discuss plans for the next 9/11, the government should force itself to jump through every possible bureaucratic hoop before even thinking about listening in on your conversation. "Domestic spying" they call it. Now they're using the words of our founding fathers to twist the truth even further. "Those who sacrifice freedom for security deserve neither" they remind us, in the words of Ben Franklin. Apparently, this means that governmental monitoring of calls destined to, or originating from, known terrorists, somehow constitutes "sacrificing freedom". Honestly, I don't think Mr. Franklin was talking about turning a blind eye to known enemy threats. We're all spied upon every day by the millions of cameras, sensors and data collection devices scattered around us in the name of "our own good", and yet, for some reason, the Liberals feel that people who are almost certainly breaking the law and communicating with known terrorists should somehow be exempt...? Am I the only person who sees this as more of an opportunistic jab at the Bush administration than anything else? What surprises me most is that no one on the Right has bothered to remind the country that illegally obtained evidence is still illegal. If the government tries to prosecute someone based on illegally obtained evidence, the case gets thrown out of court with prejudice, as it rightfully should. This makes evidence obtained through marginally-legal eavesdropping techniques worthless -- except for the fact that the "spying" in question here has another use -- as a legitimate and effective tool for curbing terror attacks. If the government, through clandestine means, legally or illegally, obtains information that allows it to thwart a terrorist attack before it happens, WHO CARES if the information was obtained legally or illegally?? And what if there is another terrorist attack, and it happens because the government was waiting for a piece of paper from a judge? Is the Left so concerned with smearing the current administration, under the guise of some non-existent utopian ideal, that they don't care if innocent American lives are lost in the process? I agree that government information gathering techniques should respect the rights of the citizens, of which I am one. But I also want to know that everything possible is being done to protect American lives, even if it means sacrificing the freedom to talk to terrorists in privacy.