Reply #12: I agree. I actually think that the WH is blackmailing ... (LINKS)

[Nothing Without Hope]

some of these fine "Democratic public servants" to toe their line, and I'm not the only one with this idea:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x338735
thread title (2-6-06 GD): Ex-Reagan official- Dubya uses spying to blackmail media & Dems
Comment/excerpt: About the author:?Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review.

As I see it, it's circular - get spying program to gather blackmail evidence (and stifle dissent), then use it to blackmail to expand the secret spying programs and get more blackmail evidence and stifle dissent ever more completely and brutally.

And Russell Tice tells us it's not just the NSA wiretapping, there is electronic surveillance - data mining - going on too:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x421496
thread title (2-14-06 GD): TICE: There is ANOTHER Ongoing Top-Secret Surveillance Program!
Comment/excerpt: It’s DATA MINING, just like we thought. UPI link – “Russell D. Tice told the House Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations he has concerns about a ‘special access’ electronic surveillance program that he characterized as far more wide-ranging than the warrentless wiretapping recently exposed by the New York Times but he is forbidden from discussing the program with Congress.”