Today's comment is by Mark Nestmann, a member of the Sovereign Society Council of Experts and author of The Lifeboat Strategy, a book on privacy rights and tax planning.

Dear A-Letter Reader: 

As the nation now knows, President Bush admits that he ordered the National Security Agency on more than 30 occasions to carry out secret wiretaps without obtaining warrants as the law requires. He claims all the investigations were terrorist related, and we hope that's the truth. But his administration's track record doesn't give much support for his assertion. 

Bush justified the wiretaps because he says a 1978 law that requires the government to obtain a warrant before it wiretaps a suspected terrorist or foreign spy isn't flexible enough to fight the mmediacy and the needs of the war on terror as he sees it. 

The law in question, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), authorizes wiretaps of international calls or other electronic communications after the government obtains a court order from a special federal court that deliberates in secret. Under this law the government can apply for a warrant up to 72 hours after it begins wiretapping. So long as it provides "probable cause" tying the surveillance target to terrorist or foreign intelligence activity, the court will give its approval. Given this established law and procedure, the only reasonable justification for what the president did is that he and his administration didn't think they could establish probable cause against their chosen surveillance targets. Thus he chose to ignore the law, something no president or other government official has a right to do.

Even so, the FISA court practically has been a rubber stamp: it approved all 1,758 requests submitted to it in 2004. But, these 100% odds apparently weren't favorable enough for President Bush. Since 2002, the administration has monitored the phone calls, e-mails and other communications of hundreds and perhaps thousands of people without a warrant. 

Who were the targets? Bush says the investigations were all terrorism related, but his administration's record has issued more than 30,000 "National Security Letters" under USA PATRIOT Act to investigate organizations opposed to its policies, such as PETA, Greenpeace, the Catholic Workers group, along with "militant vegetarians." Like the secret wiretap program, Bush says National Security Letters are an essential tool in the war on terror. Does he seriously think that groups like Greenpeace want to blow up shopping malls or carry out similar acts? And the PATRIOT Act has been used for numerous questionable prosecutions that have nothing to do with terrorism. 

Almost daily, it seems, new revelations emerge about domestic surveillance programs. U.S. News & World Report reports that the government secretly has been monitoring radiation levels at mosques and other private Muslim buildings in six US cities. The New York Times reports that undercover city police have infiltrated political protest groups in New York City. NBC News reported that the Pentagon has assembled a 400-page database listing "threats" from domestic protesters, including the Quakers. The document listed 1,500 "suspicious incidents" (suspicious to the Pentagon) in 2004 and 2005. 

But are the American people concerned about these unconstitutional, unauthorized invasions of privacy? We are reminded of Ben Franklin's memorable words, "Those who would give up essential liberty in the pursuit of a little temporary security deserve neither liberty nor security." Unless Americans demand an end to these abuses, we won't deserve liberty or security, and we wont have either. 

Mark Nestmann 
Editor, The Sovereign Individual 
E-mail: assetpro@toast.net

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Gold rose to a two-week high on speculation that central banks, the biggest holders of the precious metal, may buy more bullion to bolster their reserve assets. China should increase its gold holdings to 2,500 tons from 600 tons, say economists in the official Xinhua News Agency. Russia, South Africa, and Argentina also have said this year they will hold more gold. Central banks, mainly in the US and Europe, hold almost a fifth of the world's gold.