-By Warner Todd Huston
It is interesting to see how Democrats react to abuse of power and invasion of private personal information. The Democratic Party made President Bush a pariah over his supposed act of “domestic spying” when Bush was attempting to stop terror attacks against citizens of the U.S. They called him all manner of names, tyrant, despot, etc., etc., even though no Americans were being snooped on by the Bush administration. And just recently, Democrats tsked tsked Verizon Wireless when it came to light that Barack Obama’s old cell phone records were snooped into by Verizon employees.
But, did they say a word as agency after agency in Ohio illicitly snooped into Joe the Plumber’s records so that they could find dirt with which to attack him? Did the Democrats find anything wrong with agencies and employees from the government of the state of Ohio illegally prying into the private records of Samuel “Joe the plumber” Wurzelbacher? Not much they didn’t.
Where was the left’s indignation at the undue harassment by government officials against Joe?
It is also instructive to see how the Obama cell records and the Joe the Plumber records searches have ended. After a series of investigations, the government abuse of records by employees in the state of Ohio have resulted in slaps on the wrist of the government employees involved. There have been suspensions but none fired for this blatant abuse of power.
But, what of the Verizon workers that snooped into Obama’s cell phone records? Well, Verizon fired them. Not merely slapped them on the wrist, but fired.
When all is said and done, Democrats decry the loss of personal security when Republicans seem to be responsible for it or when evil corporations are responsible for the breach. Democrats were all up in arms against the perceived Bush snooping and the snooping into Obama’s old cell records. But, the snooping BY DEMOCRATS in the state of Ohio into Joe the Plumber’s life went unremarked.
As in all cases, the hypocrisy of Democrats is complete. Snooping into private information is bad… unless THEY are the snoops.
(Photo credit: AP via BBC.com)
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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as newsbusters.org, Human Events Magazine, townhall.com, New Media Journal, Men’s News Daily and the New Media Alliance among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events. He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of publiusforum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston
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