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Is This About the Patriot Act?

Forget the California gubernatorial recall. On a day when nearly everyone's attention was diverted, why does the Federal Bureau of Investigation admit it bugged the office of Philadelphia mayor, John Street? The Bureau seems to think there's some major corruption occurring, and while Mr. Street is fighting a bitter election campaign at the moment, he seems to think that this is the work of the Bush administration trying to win Pennsylvania. How all of this interrelates is anyone's guess. How the FBI got a federal warrant to plant the bug is another. Now it's no secret that Karl Rove's calculations place Pennsylvania as a "in play" state. Somehow though, it seems a bit of a reach to assume that Rove is taking a line from Tom DeLay and using federal law enforcement to further his electoral goals. The article mentions that other warrants were served, so a judge would have to have signed off on those as well.

Nevertheless, the most curious actor in the story so far is Sen. Arlen Specter. The wunderkind of the trial lawyers, Specter effectively faces a primary and general election campaign to keep his senator seat in the Keystone state. He probably wants to appear as moderate as possible by demanding answers from the US Attorney's Office down the street. Nevertheless, thanks to the PATRIOT Act it's unlikely the FBI has to respond right away, and considering some of the businessmen involved in the alleged corruption are Arab, and Republican mayoral candidate Sam Katz is presumably Jewish...(along with Specter and Gov. Rendell) it's clear that someone is in deep trouble.
posted by Thomas at 9:45 PM 0 comments