The Attorney General is dedicated to civil liberties and is also a bald-faced liar

can anyone doubt alberto gonzales' absolute commitment to the civil liberties of the citizens of the united states...? even the most cynical will read this and be reassured...

I am here, as attorney general of the United States, to discuss how civil liberties factor into the fight at hand. I appreciate the topic of this lecture because it is critical that we never lose sight of civil liberties while we fight the war on terror, or any other war.

To achieve victory at the cost of eroding civil liberties would not really be a victory. We cannot change the core identity of our nation and claim success.

And our identity has never been in doubt - we are a free people, dedicated to liberty for the popular and the unpopular, committed to the ideal that the people govern themselves, and determined to have a government that cannot extinguish or suppress the rights that make us Americans.

with that as a lead-in, who could possibly question his sincerity...? but wait, there's more...

Free speech. Freedom of association. These values are repulsive to the radical Islamic terrorist. They fear them and suppress them whenever and wherever they can. Yet through those very means, we as a society are protective of that terrorist's rights.

This is ironic, but good. Because, as you well know, America has a unique responsibility to set the global standard for liberty and fair conduct. The world looks to us to set high standards for freedom, and we take that leadership role very seriously. Our commitment to leading by example - on issues from human rights to free speech - is strong.

ooo, gee... hang on just a sec... did he say that "we as a society are protective of [a] terrorist's rights"...? i could have sworn that he said "we as a society are protective of [a] terrorist's rights"... ah, but, never fear... even though we know those pesky terrorists don't really have any "rights," let's go back and hear abe out... he wants to make sure we fully understand just how carefully he and our government are protecting our own "rights..."

In spite of what I see as America's clear commitment to civil liberties, some critics have suggested that recent U.S. policy decisions are setting a bad example - that we are sacrificing civil liberties, and even that we are doing so in a futile effort against terrorism.

These are myths.

[...]

Some critics, pointing to the tools that are helping us win the War on Terror, have challenged them as inconsistent with our nation's historic commitment to civil liberties. I am disappointed that there are so many myths as a result of those questions, but I welcome the debate and the opportunity I have to address the facts surrounding the Terrorist Surveillance Program, the Patriot Act, as well as Guantanamo Bay and the recent Military Commissions Act - which do not directly relate to Americans' civil liberties, but which indicate how seriously we take even the rights of enemy combatants.

ok, i can't keep up the facade any longer... abe cites the most egregious violations of constitutional civil liberties this country has ever witnessed as examples of "how seriously we take even the rights of enemy combatants...?" OH-MY-GOD... these are such outright lies, it is not even possible for me to scrape together the words to communicate how appalled i am... and, even more impossible to believe, it gets worse...

The only purpose of the Terrorist Surveillance Program is to detect and prevent al Qaeda attacks before they can be carried out. It is narrowly focused in every way - by targeting only the communications of al Qaeda, by targeting only international communications, and by requiring high-level approval, as I mentioned before, approximately every 45 days.

Some people will argue nothing could justify the government being able to intercept conversations like the ones the Program targets. Instead of seeing the government protecting the country, they see it as on the verge of stifling freedom.

But this view is shortsighted. Its definition of freedom - one utterly divorced from civic responsibility - is superficial and is itself a grave threat to the liberty and security of the American people.

As Justice Robert Jackson remarked in the case Terminiello v. City of Chicago, "The choice is not between order and liberty. It is between liberty with order and anarchy without either. There is danger that, if the Court does not temper its doctrinaire logic with a little practical wisdom, it will convert the constitutional Bill of Rights into a suicide pact."

Justice Jackson's call for, quote, "a little practical wisdom," close quote, applies not only to those who misleadingly attack the Terrorist Surveillance Program, but also to those who endlessly repeat the refrain that the Patriot Act is a threat to our civil liberties.

It is a myth that the Patriot Act empowers the government to be overly intrusive, giving it power that could someday be used to pry into innocent Americans' personal lives.

i could continue to excerpt from this man's horrifically twisted speech, but i can't bring myself to do it... alberto gonzales is the attorney general of the united states of america, a cabinet officer of the bush administration, and a senior official of the most powerful nation the world has ever known... and he is a liar...

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