| News broke earlier today that when he was U.S. Attorney, Chris Christie authorized the monitoring and tracking New Jersey's citizens through their cell phones without obtaining a warrant. That is, pinpointing them within feet, wherever they were, homing in on their personal cell phones carried on their person.
So, let's see. What kind of a day is Chris Christie having today?
At 3pm, the Associated Press reported that Christie wasn't talking about the warrantless tracking: Christie, the Republican front-runner in the race for New Jersey governor, says he can't comment while the case is in the courts. Hmmmm... Maybe Christie forgot he was running for Governor and actually has to account for himself now, and answer questions, now that he's not U.S. Attorney anymore.
A mere four hours later, by 7pm, Christie was talking but being very, very careful with his words: "There was no action of the U.S. Attorney's Office that was done without the consultation and approval of the court," Christie said Thursday. "Any suggestion to the contrary is ill-informed." That's some good tapdancing. But if you look carefully, Christie appears to acknowledge he didn't always get a warrant. And it's a warrant he was supposed to get, nothing less. Here's the difference:The less rigorous standard of obtaining a court order rather than a warrant was used in 98 New Jersey cases since Sept. 11, 2001, resulting in 83 prosecutions, according to the documents. Two other New Jersey cases remain under seal. Here's the bottom line. Chris Christie authorized the warrantless monitoring of cell phones in almost 100 cases. Knowing he did not have a warrant, he chose to follow the Bush administration's lead to monitor and track New Jersey citizens. And now, he doesn't want to answer questions about it (another quality he learned at the knee of his Bush/Cheney mentors). Both the wireless monitoring and the refusal to discuss his possibly illegal actions to the voters are unacceptable. Chris Christie has some serious explaining to do. The argument they use to justify monitoring is that if you're not guilty you have nothing to hide. I would say that rationale applies here too. |
