Flip-flopping by both Sen. McCain and Sen. Obama this year is already in full swing, with few signs of improving. My latest beef with Obama's campaign is his blatant refusal to take an actual stance on anything without stabbing someone in the back. (Remember that although he names Jeremiah Wright as a personal mentor in his autobiography, he has now denounced him because he's hurting his campaign.) This time around, it's his own supporters that he is stabbing in the back. But check out this awesome campaign flyer I saw on the web today:

UPDATE 2008-07-16: There are some flowcharts on the web that attempt to explain the differences in the new FISA warrantless wiretapping laws, if you want to investigate this issue further.

Politicians would do well to keep in mind that we are not interested in their ideals or in them personally in serving Americans. We, the people, are primarily interested in them, the politicians, for appropriately representing our needs - not their personal agendas. A strong defense against oppressive tyranny was a clear subtext for the founding of this country, but I fail to see a reason for spying on your own citizens as a necessary step to protecting us from... ourselves? The new FISA rules overstep the bounds and reason for existence of our government by creating a "guilty until proven innocent" precedent for those who the FBI deems a potential threat to our country. When taken to its extreme but logical conclusion this precedent ultimately provides the impetus to assume that any citizen of this country represents a threat to the rest of us, and that ANY citizen is therefore subject to random search and seizure, unlawful imprisonment, and of course, warrantless eavesdropping. And who gets to make the rules about who is a threat? If the Republicans control the House and Senate, do they get to deem anyone discussing catch words like "democracy", "civil rights", or "racial inequality" a threat worthy of wiretapping, imprisonment, and random searches? If a Democratic President is in office, does he (or she) get to label anyone discussing "capitalism", "free markets", or "free speech" a threat?

Warrantless wiretapping is a dangerous idea, and it sets us on a well-intentioned, but poorly thought out path of social destruction that I don't think the majority of Americans want us to be on in the first place.