From Slate’s "Low Concept" feature, an excerpt of Robert Raben‘s recent missive to the chief executive:
Dear Mr. President,
I think it’s ridiculous that some of my friends on the left, and some in your party as well, are complaining about the fact that you and some of your colleagues in the executive branch have been monitoring and maintaining personal and professional records of ordinary Americans as part of your important effort to keep us safe from those who would harm us. I totally agree with you that in order to be free, we have to be safe, and I think your instincts on this point are right on.
Like you, I was horrified when the New York Times let on that you are tapping into international records of financial transactions, including records of major domestic banking institutions. I don’t think we should be giving terrorists a road map of how we monitor them; that just doesn’t make sense.
But Mr. President, here’s the thing. In return for my unconditional support of all your secret surveillance programs, I was wondering: Could you do me one small favor? For a closing deadline I’m trying to meet for work, I need my April and May statements from my Sun Trust account. I was on hold with Sun Trust forever this morning, and then they finally said they would make me a copy of my own records, but at, like, five dollars a page. Also, it’s going to take them about five to seven business days to get them to me. Look, I know it’s my fault for leaving this till the last minute. But could you just e-mail me those two months? That would be so great. Should I just ask the CIA for them? Can you give me the name of whoever it is that is tracking my accounts and I can follow up? Apparently I need both the front and back of each page; that’s a big deal I guess.