Bush Uses Santa Claus Defense for Spying

President Bush said Saturday he personally has authorized a secret eavesdropping program in the U.S. more than 30 times since the Sept. 11 attacks and he lashed out at those involved in publicly revealing the program.

"This is a highly classified program that is crucial to our national security," he said in a radio address delivered live from the White House's Roosevelt Room.

In a later special meeting with the White House press corps the President compared his work to that of Santa Claus.

"What I do is kinda like that old Christmas song about Santa comin' to town. Only instead of looking at the kids I'm looking at bad people, and instead of rewarding the good ones with presents and the bad ones with lumps of coal, I'm rewarding the good ones with freedom and the bad ones with a one-way life-time ticket to Gitmo. Santa doesn't need a warrant to watch everyone and neither should I. If Santa didn't have 24 surveillance on the kids and a list to check, a bad kid could get a present, and nobody wants that. Besides, if I wasn't allowed to eavesdrop on American Citizens, Osama Bin Laden would never have been caught."

Aides to the president later said that the President meant to say Saddam Hussein and that the president still thinks that Santa is real and requested reporters voluntarily withhold that sensitive information from the president during this time of war.

Of course the song President Bush is referring to is "Santa Claus is coming to town" which features the ominous lyrics.

He sees you when you're sleeping
He knows when you're awake
He knows if you've been bad or good
So be good for goodness sake

As commentator H. Comet said about Santa, "This is a clear statement of 24 hour surveillance. Unconstitutional if the government does it, quite illegal is an individual or a corporation does it. You are being watched, and your activities logged for later review. Not only that, but you're being judged based on these actions."
He also noted, "Notice that there are NO options for appeal or introduction of extenuating circumstances. The ONLY indication we have of the parameters of how we are being evaluated come from the beginning of the song and the list of prohibited behaviors."

In an article The Technology of Santa Edward Willett addresses the methods that Santa uses for surveillance and how they were most likely adopted by the NSA.

"Consider Claus's ability to maintain year-round surveillance on all the world's children. As the seminal paper on the subject states, Santa 'sees you when you're sleeping, he knows when you're awake, he knows when you are bad or good...' But how? asks Willett.

Satellites, of course. "In the last few years we've developed satellites capable of reading a license plate from orbit. Santa Claus has had them for centuries. A powerful computer scans incoming data for those actions Claus deems "good" or "bad." Infrared sensors, which pick up body heat, can give a pretty good idea of what's going on even inside a house, and anyway, Claus has ample opportunity every Christmas Eve to plant listening devices and miniature cameras. When the time comes to plan deliveries, Claus simply asks the computer to print out a list of those boys and girls whose good deeds outweigh their bad." stated Mr. Willett

Is Bush like Santa? Does Santa use illegal surveillance like the President? We may never know. The truth lies somewhere in the middle. For SBOnline news this is Karen Ryan reporting.