Not that I doubt the government frequently exceeds any bounds placed (whether legal, juridictional, or otherwise), but to have credibility, you need multiple witnesses attesting to facts without contradictions.

Also, a little physical evidence would help. Don't you have a scanner?

= = =

To prove that I'm not a bigot towards those who say the FBI might have exceeded a "healthy" level of jurisdictional power ...

How many people work for the FBI, CIA, and NSA? How large are their budgets? If some of these people really are as incompetent as the media portrays them, should we believe they are all this incompetent? Are the key people at these agencies (the people who actually make decisions that are acted on) competent? If not, why and how did they get there and stay there? If so, then which groups/people are actually receiving "good" intelligence?

Do we, as a nation, have the courage to either contemplate the possible answers to questions like those below or pose these questions to others?

Did the U.S. "cry wolf" (Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq)?
If not, .. where is the evidence? If there is evidence, why hasn't it been disclosed to the public? Who is not disclosing, and why?

If the claimed WMD do not exist, why did the U.S. "cry wolf"? Were there other possible reasons to "cry wolf"? .. geopolitical instability risks posed by Saddam's regime, terrorist groups threatening the economic stability of the economic empires of the world's richest / most powerful people, etc.?
What happens next time, if the wolf arrives?

Were key people really misinformed? If so, by whom? Why? If not, then why did they act as they did? Who are the key people?Haven't the intelligence agencies admitted repeatedly to managing massively complex misinformation campaigns (both inside and outside of Iraq) to bring about "desired" outcomes? Given the success of U.S. technology and companies, what degree of competency might be expected of the various U.S. intelligence groups?

Is the British/U.S. intelligence system so incompetent that they couldn't predict the lack of evidence found after the war?

Lastly, do you really believe that truthful answers to most of the questions above would actually be released to the public, or even most of the key public figures in our government?
If so, what past historical precedents support that theory? Sarcasm: Watergate? Waco? Oklahoma bombing? The first World Trade Center bombing (FBI admits agent was on inside whole time)? Consider the recent presidential election results in Florida (see http://dlis.gseis.ucla.edu/people/pagre/florida.html), especially "Did Illegally Counted Overseas Absentee Ballots Decide the 2000 Election?" [http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~kimai/research/ballots.h
tml]. Perhaps America's partial switch to "black box" computer balloting systems shows a precedent for truthfulness and democracy? (Conversion already complete in some counties across the country [ http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/politics/2617129.h
tm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp ]). How can votes entered into a computer be physically recounted or checked for manipulation?

If not, then who really "runs the show", effectively making such global-scale decisions impacting every life in America? Who really has access to the "good" intelligence produced by the competent intelligence agencies, groups, or operatives?
Do we really live in a democracy? Did you know congress recently approved a ~$4 billion project to "revamp" our election/voting systems, but the 4 people in control of the project will be two Democrats and two Republicans? Is America's political system biploar? Is Democracy bipolar?

How much of our freedom is illusionary?

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