Irony is not a concept Republicans or conservatives appreciate. So I imagine John McCain does not fully understand how ironic his campaign’s response was to the news that his running mate’s personal email account had been hacked:
Hackers have broken in to the e-mail of the US Republican vice-presidential candidate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. […]
The campaign of running mate John McCain condemned their action as “a shocking invasion of the governor’s privacy and a violation of the law”.
Just for the record, here is the official response of the McCain campaign (given by McCain adviser Doug Holtz-Eakin) as to whether a McCain administration would also, just like the Bush administration, violate US laws against warrantless surveillance of US citizens, because of the all mighty powers Presidents have to do whatever the hell they want:
[N]either the [Bush] Administration nor the telecoms need apologize for actions that most people, except for the ACLU and the trial lawyers, understand were Constitutional and appropriate in the wake of the attacks on September 11, 2001.
Senator McCain has never stated, nor does he believe that telecoms should only receive retroactive immunity in exchange for congressional testimony about their actions. We do not know what lies ahead in our nation’s fight against radical Islamic extremists, but John McCain will do everything he can to protect Americans from such threats, including asking the telecoms for appropriate assistance to collect intelligence against foreign threats to the United States as authorized by Article II of the Constitution.
I should note that the reference to Article II highlighted above refers to the same dangerous and specious legal arguments advanced by the Bush administration to justify the rejection of the Geneva Conventions, the torture and indefinite detention of prisoners without trial, the power to designate Americans as “enemy combatants” who lose their Constitutional rights as a result, or the unfettered exercise of “executive authority” to authorize the NSA and FBI roam through all of your personal financial, medical, and other private records without a warrant.
In other words, here’s the shorter version of the McCain position on the privacy rights of US citizens:
Privacy? You don’t need no stinking privacy!
Unless you’re Sarah Palin, of course. Or John McCain.
