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Maybe it wasn't just me who mailed it in, but I'd like to think it was me...

Rush, I'm giving this to you before I post to my blog. Let me try to write it as you would read it:

In a time a war, the question of privacy in electonic communications and the President's authority over them, was settled a long time ago. Not by Bush 41, Nixon, Johson, Truman, FDR or Wilson. No, go back another century.

At the start of an undeclared war, the President took decisive action to obtain a total interception of electronic communications.

The year was 1861, the president was Abraham Lincoln, and he ordered without judicial or congressional authority the secret seziure of the email and cell phone recordings of his day: the telegram.

As Civil War historian Shelby Foote records: "In late April 1861, for security reasons, [Lincoln] authorized simultaneous raids on every telegraph office in the northern states, seizing the originals and every copy of all telegrams sent or received during the past year."

Only days earlier, Lincoln took office and Fort Sumter was fired on. Congress would not be in session and declare war until summoned by Lincoln on July 4th later that year.

Foote, Shelby; The Civil War: Fort Sumter to Perryville; Vintage Books: New York; page 67; ISBN 0394766236

Both Rush and Hannity started to refer to the seizure of telegrams by Lincoln this week. I mailed it over the weekend to Rush.

The power of the new media.