Dear Mr. Bush and Mr. Rumsfeld;

I know you're both really busy guys and don't have lots of spare time to do extensive research before testing out your new scary terminologies to use on the American public at large. I know it's really important to you guys to impress upon us citizens how we are under a constant and severe threat from the "enemy" and in your struggles to define "the enemy" for us - you are continually in need of new tools, verbiage and brushes to paint them with. So I can appreciate how we slipped back and forth from "Terra" to "extreme hatred" to "violent extremism" and then back to "global terra" a few times before comfortably settling into the 'GWOT' again, like an old pair of bedroom slippers you just can't abandon.

July 3, 2006
When I was growing up in Little Rock, the Fourth of July was a day we looked forward to for the fireworks. But as I grew older, I realized that there is a lot more to the Fourth of July than just a summertime celebration.

Independence Day commemorates a remarkable event when brave Americans put their lives on hold -- and at risk -- to resolve and act for the rights of their fellow citizens, for their liberty and individual freedom.

To hear my full thoughts on the importance of this special holiday, please listen to my Fourth of July ClarkCast via iTunes or another podcasting service or directly download the podcast here.

The Declaration of Independence, a document whose power sparked a revolution in the 13 colonies -- and has motivated a revolution that persists around the world even today, exactly 230 years after it was signed -- still holds an incredible intensity that translates far beyond the English language:

“We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

More Government Spying?

Tell the Bush Administration to respect our privacy!

Contact your Senators today!

When John Aravosis purchased my cell phone records from an online data broker in January and then wrote about it on his AMERICAblog, he demonstrated to me and millions of other Americans how vulnerable our personal information is to thieves and hackers.

Well this week we learned the problem is even worse than we first thought.

On Tuesday, the Associated Press revealed that federal and local law enforcement agencies "bypassed subpoenas and warrants designed to protect civil liberties and gathered Americans' personal telephone records from private-sector data brokers" -- the same data brokers who sold my personal cell phone records to John for less than a hundred dollars in January.

Unscrupulous data vendors are bad enough. But the government using these brokers to access our personal telephone records without getting necessary warrants? Government can't make laws and then break them. That constitutes a real abuse of power, and it's illegal.

These actions remind me of the actions taken by other governments that would cynically make laws that they knew they would break. We called such governments undemocratic and anti-American. We said that they didn't respect freedom and dignity of every individual.

I need your help to stop this abuse.

Urge your Senators to pass "The Consumer Telephone Records Act of 2006" to outlaw the sale of personal telephone records now!