Yes. Well where wads he when Bush and Chaney put this plan into effect? Seems like he was all for it then along with Patriot Act! Back then he would call anyone a traitor who did not back this agenda! Let’s not forget the CONGRESS voted its approval for all this stuff and NOW all of sudden they are demanding to know who is responsible for this?? Have they tried looking in a mirror lately or are there none around the capitol building?

My point still stands – I didn’t say the GOP was ok with this specifically – I actually stated that this is different in degree to monitoring international phone calls (even though I don’t think we should allow our government to do either).

& as evidenced by things like – when Rand Paul filibusters not even the GOP helps him, the GOP has been in overall approval of Obama’s foreign policy – exceptions mostly speeches and other relatively meaningless items.

Lastly – if you wish to stand around and talk about Hannity being a hypocrite – it’s not that I don’t agree with you – it’s just that in this case – I think a reasonable person can say “I was ok with monitoring international calls, but not ok with blanket data-mining all US citizens” and do so without being hypocritical.

I say this because we all will draw the line of what we’re ok with and not ok with a little differently.

Again – personally – I think neither should be done by our government – but given most D’s & R’s (legislators here – not necessarily voters) agree with the Patriot Act 110% – I see very few signs which would make one think any of this is reversible anytime soon (though I am an optimist – there’s always hop).

& for me – that’s a little worse than what Hannity said recently, or in the past, or whether that agrees with other things he’s said.

But that’s why I stopped listening to him and almost all others on radio/tv years ago.

By doing so – it’s easier to read stuff like this – what do you think Noam Chomsky thinks about the current WH with regards to civil liberties? http://s2intel.us/171G9H5

yeah – hypocrisy is a consistent feature of American politics. Recall Obama and Co were talking about prison terms for FISA approved wiretaps – before he became President. Since, he’s signed the Patriot Act back into law, with the support of (at the time) a Dem controlled House & Congress.

He is also arguing, thru DOJ, in federal court that if the government deems you a terrorist threat, whether you are American or not, and with zero oversight from any branch of government other than the executive – they can kill you (so long as your not in the US at the time).

& honestly due to all of this – I get my news from reading only these days – so no love for Hannity (as I am not a conservative), but a couple points:

1) data-mining every single individual, including from social networking sites, is different in degree from monitoring all overseas calls (though that is wrong too).

2) More importantly – who cares if Hannity was for it before he was against it?

I mean – if you were inviting him to join your civil liberties-based non-profit, or are hiring him to make decisions, then all of this is important.

However from a strictly critical thinking point of view the only question one should ask themselves after reading/hearing any argument from any one (be it Obama or Hannity) is whether the argument proferred is “correct”.

In this case – as in most – it’s a value call. Many R’s don’t seem to care as much as D’s here (though that is R’s sticking to their beliefs – they were ok when Bush did it- ok now with Obama doing it), with one major exception – Paul…

The main problem here is the American public is going to get the bad end of this deal because the D’s don’t care anymore about civil liberties because it’s Obama doing it.

Which sucks – R’s have never been really good with balancing civil liberties and policing powers. Now that Obama is President – the D’s suck at it to.

Who loses? Hannity? Or all of us?

We need a national dialogue on the subject, not Hannity's partisan hysteria passed off as news.