Another slanted NY Post op-ed: Blame Obama for the NSA's power and the IRS's revenge. Funny how none of the groups "targeted" by the IRS were actually denied C4 status. Funny how President George W. Bush appointed Lois Lerner in 2006 as head of the IRS Exempt Organizations Division. Funny how we only hear about "Tea Party" groups targeted by the IRS, when they also targeted groups that used red-flag words like "Israel," "progressive" and "Occupy." Funny how the NSA spying started right after the Patriot Act was enacted by a Republican Congress and signed into law by Pres. Bush on October 26, 2001. The US certainly has become a fascist police state, and we have Pres. Bush and the Republican Congress to thank for it. And we have the NY Post to thank for keeping its mouth shut about these outrages from 2001 to 2006 when their party was calling all the shots. I'm a Libertarian who complained about Republican excesses constantly, back when they were happening. My complaints fell on deaf ears then. Complaining about this stuff now is too little too late.
> Funny how the NSA spying started right after the Patriot Act was enacted by a Republican Congress and signed into law by Pres. Bush on October 26, 2001.
NSA was spying on US citizens long before that date.
The NSA's been around since 1952, but what the 2001 Patriot Act did was to amend the 1978 FISA law to setup secret courts to issue secret warrants to conduct secret searches, and the NSA only had to report the number of such warrants obtained per year to Congress, meaning there was no real accountability. The US Constitution allows for spying on US citizens, but there was supposed to be accountability to the Courts and Congress. Now the checks and balances are gone.