NP: Gomez

On the one hand, I'm concerned that the left is going to try their hardest to turn this story into "the government is listening to all of your phone calls," which is one of those willful distortions of the truth that is the lingua franca of politics these days. On the other hand, holy fuck, they're tracking nearly every call made in the U.S.?

The latter is why the former is so infuriating to me. There's no need to exaggerate this, and yet I guarantee you it's gonna happen, if it hasn't already. And this is where the allegations that are being thrown around about the truthfulness of AG Gonzalez's Senate testimony get more nuanced than I think the left would like to admit. When asked about surveillance of calls, did the Attorney General take that to mean listening in, and not gathering other data about the calls?

Webster's defines the word as "close watch kept over someone or something," which would seem to put AG AG (Why did I only just notice that? And why does it make me think that the entirety of Dubya's reasoning for nominating him for Attorney General was that his initials are "AG"?) in a tough position, but in the strict legal sense, that may be a gray enough area to wiggle out of.