Justice Department Subpoenas of AP Phone Records Unites Left, Right in Opposition to ‘Big Brother’

Photo Credit: J. Scott ApplewhiteThe revelation that the U.S. government used secret subpoenas to pry into Associated Press reporters’ phone records triggered two contradictory reactions in the political world.

“What the subpoenas did was remind the left that the right has reasons to fear big government and remind the right and left of the objectives they share politically,” said Joe Miller, the Alaska conservative who was the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate last year.

For conservatives, the phone-records story fortified their fear that, despite the best of intentions, government by its nature will tend to erode the freedom of the individual — and almost always in the name of protecting the collective good.

That conservative fear is one that liberals tend to regard as verging on paranoia.

Yet this latest Justice Department action — an action that for many on the right confirms long-held concerns about big government — is also, paradoxically, bringing conservatives and liberals together. Both ideologies, after all, share an interest in defending the freedom of the individual.

Read more from this story HERE.