Isilion

A while back I noted the increase in the number of Republicans over the course of 2007. Now Rasmussen notes a surge in Democrats since February:

In February, the number of Americans who consider themselves to be Democrats jumped to 41.5%, the highest total on record. Just 31.8% consider themselves to be Republicans. The partisan gap—a 9.7 percentage point advantage for the Democrats—is by far the largest it has ever been. The previous high was a 6.9 point edge for the Democrats in December 2006. Rasmussen Reports tracks this information based upon telephone interviews with approximately 15,000 adults per month and has been doing so since November 2002.

The 9.7 percentage point advantage for Democrats is up from a 5.6 point advantage a month ago and a 2.1 point advantage two months ago. The surge for the Democrats is especially notable because it reversed a modest trend in the GOP direction that unfolded over much of calendar year 2007

Lew Rockwell and I agree on the reason.

Glenn Greenwald sums it up better than anyone else I’ve seen:

Section 222 of the Communications Act of 1934 provides that “[e]very telecommunications carrier has a duty to protect the confidentiality of proprietary information of . . . customers.” 18 U.S.C. 2511 makes warrantless eavesdropping a felony; 18 U.S.C. 2702 requires that any “entity providing an electronic communication service to the public shall not knowingly divulge to any person or entity the contents of a communication” without a court order; 47 U.S.C. 605 states that “no person receiving, assisting in receiving, transmitting, or assisting in transmitting, any interstate or foreign communication by wire or radio shall divulge or publish the existence, contents, substance, purport, effect, or meaning thereof, except through authorized channels of transmission or reception”; and 18 U.S.C. 2520 provides for civil damages for any violations.

Like all statutes, those are all laws democratically enacted by the American people through their Congress and signed into law by the President. They were enacted precisely in order to make it illegal for telecoms to allow government spying on our calls and written communications without court orders

The principle those laws are supposed to uphold is foundational to the Constitution.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

The United States Senate has passed a bill, S.2248, and sent it to the House of Representatives which retroactively legalizes violations of the law by both the government and the telecoms and protects the telecoms from law suites specifically allowed by statute.

The are sixty-eight men and women who swore the following oath

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same…

These sixty-eight Senators violated their oath when they passed that bill. It cannot be reconciled with the Fourth Amendment. I sent a message to Barbara Mikulski, my Senator, and told her I was ashamed of the way she represented me asking her how she slept at night knowing she was undermining the foundations of or republic. Yours should hear from you, too.

[W]hat does Ron Paul do the day after he loses a congressional primary? His only firm, titanium-strength committment not to run third party came when he… was appealing to donors to save him in TX-14. If the Libertarian Party calls a defeated Rep. Ron Paul on March 5 and offers him its nomination on a silk pillow, does anyone think he tells them to go away?

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