If it keeps anyone from having a limb blown off, we say to the government, snoop all you want. We have nothing to hide, and while you are at it try to stop one of those major drug shipments.

Not that we actually wanted to volunteer to make this viewpoint known, but Robert M. Shettles of Liberty, Missouri forced our hand. It seems that Shettles mistook us for the Joplin Globe when he sent us an e-mail lambasting an editorial they wrote entitled, "Evidence that government grows more intrusive each day."

According to Shettles:

"The editorial titled 'Evidence that government grows more intrusive each day'... is a lightweight piece - oblivious of fact. What the federal government is doing per harvesting information via phone records, etc., is perfectly lawful. Congress approved the legislation and president Bush signed the Patriot Act into law - president Obama continues to implement the law. In my opinion, the editorial writer 'doesn't know beans' about national security needs or the Patriot Act. A good story can't be made out of lame phrases like 'this appears to be a full sweep with a big Orwellian broom.' Lastly, thrown in to the print bucket is the statement, 'Thats a broad net, and coming as it does after the incursion by the government into the political activity of tea party groups in South Carolina, and anti-abortion groups in Iowa, and the equally offensive intrusion by government into telephone calls by journalists, this goes beyond uncomfortable and into alarming.' Beyond uncomfortable and into alarming? How so dear writer? Its alarming that the Joplin Independent prints a story that is alarmist and makes readers uncomfortable with inferior reporting."

"A full sweep with a big Orwellian broom"--now that's a good line, but leading us to wonder if the author of it actually read George Orwell. Frankly we like this quote from Orwell:

"We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm." And taking that quote literally, we prefer a snooping computer to a drone missile.

Now we are wondering why Shettles became so angry over the Globe's editorializing that he became blindsided into thinking that we wrote it? Publishing can be a thankless business. Compliments are few and far between. It was nice realizing this time, no, not us (sic).

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