NSA Heaven

If our telecommunications infrastructure were more like India's, do you suppose we ever would have had the whole kerfuffle over NSA surveillance? Me neither. Shanti.

FISA Passes Thanks To Dem Leadership Vacuum

"Power," says Don Surber, "hates a vacuum and the way Pelosi and Reid suck, someone had to step up to the plate and pass a bill to let our troops listen in on the bad guys overseas."

Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, shown here in happier, less tested times, have been around the Congressional block for years ... why are they still so amazingly dumb and inept? The passage of the new surveillance bill by a leadership-whacking 60-28 in the Senate and 227-183 in the House, with Dems by the dozens bailing on their leadership, shows why Congress is rated favorably by only 3% -- one-eighth Bush's rating -- on its execution of the war.

This was a simple bill. It recognized that in the decades since FISA was passed, communications technologies have changed, and there are aways to greatly expand our intelligence-gathering abilities without unduly stomping on the rights of Americans. And for those with any doubt, the bill offers a six-month sunset.

The Hate Bush Bullies don't get it.

"For Congress to carelessly give Bush these kinds of powers is asking for abuse and a grand scale. Lawmakers who voted for it ought to be ashamed." -- Crooks and Liars

“We are deeply disappointed that the president’s tactics of fearmongering have once again forced Congress into submission.” ACLU

"The NSA warrantless surveillance program had been one of the strongest and clearest grounds on which to impeach Bush. The program violated then-existing law, and Bush admitted it. What had been illegal is now fully legal -- thanks to a Congress controlled by the Democrats." -- Once Upon a Time

Lost on all these folks is the technological fact that foreign-to-foreign communications now route frequently through the US and should be monitored. For these communications, no FISA warrants should be needed, and the bill recognizes that simple truth. And for the other communications subject to the law, wherein one party is overseas and one is local, FISA is too slow in some cases to be effective.

Things have changed technologically since the 1970s when FISA passed, and they changed strategically since 2001, when Islamism's war on the West became something that could no longer be ignored.

That 28 senators and 183 representatives don't get this and feel it more important to appease the Impeach Bush/Netroots crowd than to protect our soldiers and citizens from terror is a clear sign that the Dems in Congress, and especially their leadership, is out of touch, stuck in a time warp.

We don't have time for timewarps. Kudos to the GOP leadership and to the Dems who put country ahead of party.

Now, finally, let's start snooping!

hat-tip: memeorandum

Vacation Pressure Moves Dems

Last year, Bush got the legislation he needed to detain foreign combatants. This year, he got the surveillance flexibility he needs to monitor international calls routed through the U.S.

Were these victories achieved because of some brilliant new Hill strategy from the White House? Naw ... the Dems just wanted to go home for summer break, so they gave Bush what he wanted instead of having to face a special session that would break up their summer boondoggles at taxpayer expense vacation plans.

Gosh, as I recall, just a couple months ago the Dems were all piss and vinegar over the Iraqi parliament taking off for the summer.

They would counter that they were able to push a lot of legislation through in the last couple of weeks ... but they can't complain like this ...

"My Republican colleagues [and the necessary 16 Dems] chose to rubber-stamp a flawed administration proposal that fails to provide the accountability needed in the light of the administration's past mismanagement of key tools in the war on terror," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

... if it was the desire to get out for summer break that moved them to accept the bill, then turn around and attack the Iraqi parliament's summer plans.

hat-tip: memeorandum

What Is A Domestic Phone Call?

Congressional Dems on intelligence committees were briefed on the NSA's Terrorist Surveillance Program since its inception and didn't raise a peep until the NYT ran classified information on the program, in a serious national security breach.

Suddenly these hypocritical Dems were opposed to the program they knew so well, because it involved "domestic" "wiretaps."

Of course, "wiretap" is a misnomer. NSA was electronically monitoring masses of transmissions for key words, not planting mikes in apartments.

It turns out "domestic" is also a misnomer. I believed this from the beginning, but had no idea how big a misnomer it is until I read today's WSJ editorial on it:

This has turned out to be an enormous mistake that has unilaterally disarmed one of our best intelligence weapons in the war on terror. To understand why, keep in mind that we live in a world of fiber optics and packet-switching. A wiretap today doesn't mean the FBI must install a bug on Abdul Terrorist's phone in Peshawar. Information now follows the path of least resistance, wherever that may lead. And because the U.S. has among the world's most efficient networks, hundreds of millions of foreign calls are routed through the U.S.

That's right: If an al Qaeda operative in Quetta calls a fellow jihadi in Peshawar, that call may well travel through a U.S. network. This ought to be a big U.S. advantage in our "asymmetrical" conflict with terrorists. But it also means that, for the purposes of FISA, a foreign call that is routed through U.S. networks becomes a domestic call.

Only someone idiotic enough to cling to extreme liberal views of privacy would consider trolling through such calls to be domestic spying.

And there are 11 FISA judges just that idiotic, who routinely demand documentation and sloooow procedures before approving FISA operations.

WSJ continues:

Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell more or less admitted the problem last week, albeit obliquely, when he told the Senate that "We're actually missing a significant portion of what we should be getting." That's understating things. Our sources say the surveillance program is now at most one-third as effective as it once was.

Does anyone believe the 11 idiot FISA judges, the Congressional Dems and the braying Left are raising all these objections to TSP because they're concerned about the rights of Mohammed in Peshawar? Of course not! It's all just a way to get Bush -- even if the cost is our security.

Photo: McCullough.org

Court: Paranoid Libs Have No Standing

Does the mere fact that you're a paranoid lib convinced that Bush is personally out to get you give you standing to sue the feds for fueling your paranoia?

No, says a federal appellate court. (story here)

The ACLU, which brought the lawsuit to challenge the NSA electronic surveillance program, tried to paint the suit as reasonable, not the nightmare-fired rant of their demented constituents:

In a 2-1 decision, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals today dismissed a legal challenge to the Bush administration’s warrantless surveillance program. The challenge was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of prominent journalists, scholars, attorneys and national nonprofit organizations who say that the unchecked surveillance program is disrupting their ability to communicate effectively with sources and clients.

Even though the plaintiffs alleged a well-founded fear that their communications were subject to illegal surveillance, the court dismissed the case because plaintiffs could not state with certainty that they had been wiretapped by the National Security Agency.

That's really interesting, because everyone knows the NSA surveillance program was focused on people having communication with people with suspected or known al-Qaeda affiliations overseas. Either these foam-mouths didn't believe that (despite everyone else's acknowledgment of it), or they were having regular chats with people who hang out on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

It turns out to be the latter, says the decision:

[Plaintiffs] assert a mere belief, which they contend is reasonable and which they label a “well founded belief,” that: their overseas contacts are the types of people targeted by the NSA; the plaintiffs are consequently subjected to the NSA’s eavesdropping; the eavesdropping leads the NSA to discover (and possibly disclose) private or privileged information; and the mere possibility of such discovery (or disclosure) has injured them in three particular ways.

Of course, they could prove none of this. Why would NSA give secret info about their program to people who admit they are in contact with the "types of people targeted by NSA?" And on that note, the judges pitched the complaint. Can't prove harm? Get outta my court.

The Left will grumble because a Republican majority tossed the suit before the legality of the NSA program was determined, and in a way I agree. I would like to see the warrantless program get a stamp of approval, given its strict construction and justifiable application.

That may still come. AP says the ACLU may ask the full court to rule.

Whatever happens, it's important to know who these people are who feel so threatened. According to the ACLU site on NSA spying, those involved in the suit include:

• The Council on American Islamic Relations, in an apparent admission that they do talk regularly with al-Qaeda operatives
• Joshua L. Dratel, of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (John Edwards types), and co-editor of The Torture Papers: The Legal Road to Abu Ghraib.
• James Bamford, author of some nasty sounding books: A Pretext for War: 9/11; Iraq, and the Abuse of America's Intelligence Agencies; Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency, and The Puzzle Palace: A Report on NSA, America's Most Secret Agency. Can you say "obsessed?"
• Christopher Hitchens, as if we need more proof that this is one complex dude.'
• Tara McKelvey, who appears to be just a tad of an anti-American feminist, who bio notes she has "written extensively about the Middle East, Iraqi detainees held in U.S. custody and women's issues in Iraq. McKelvey is the author of an upcoming book about U.S. legal efforts to fight torture and is editing an anthology about women and torture ...."

These people either are on the up and up and have nothing to hide and nothing to fear, or they aren't, and they do.

No Cheney Stories On The Right Side Of The Blogosphere

The other day, I chastised Leftyblogs for running away from news that positioned Iran as a warmongering state that is actively involved in acts of war against U.S. and Coalition troops in Iraq.

In the interest of a degree of fairness we can never expect from the left, let's look this morning at the shoe that's suddenly on the other foot. The story is a significant one -- the Senate's issuance of subpoenas to Bush and Cheney for NSA surveillance materials (with three Republicans on board with the vote), and the refusal of the Administration to comply.

I'll use the same measuring standard I used last time, which admittedly is hardly scientific: The "Discussion" posts attached to the articles picked up by Memeorandum on the story. It's not a balanced sight:

The first story, Impeach Cheney from Slate, tacks on these Discussion blogs: The Impolitic, At-Largely, Danger Room, Democrats.com and State of the Day. A Lefty bunch.

Next comes Salon's The Imperial Vice Presidency, tagged with the blogs BartBlog, The Washington Note and Prairie Weather, another group of "Dick Cheney is the Devil" types.

That's followed by Harper's Cheney and the National Security Secrets Fraud, with just a tag from The Moderate Voice, who's opinion is, well, moderately anti-Cheney.

Finally, there's NYT's White House Drops Vice President's Dual Role Argument as Moot, with tag-alongs The Carpetbagger Report and TPMmuckraker.

Not a Power Line or Malkin or Hewitt or LGF among them. Suspicious, I checked each, and the story's not there. As usual, Memeorandum is scrupulously objective.

This is the weakness of the blogosphere: We tend to feed only in the cafeteria line that pleases us, and if we don't broaden our data gathering beyond our favorite blogs, we will be at risk of becoming like Germans limited to the one-sided outpourings of Goebbels. We're seeing this already on the left side of the blogosphere, where if you don't toe the party line, you're drubbed out in shame.

The story merits the attention of conservative blogs more familiar with the matter than C-SM. For my part, I stand by the NSA program as completely defensible despite the shots fired against it, and believe that therefore a vigorous defense is necessary. But I also feel the program is vitally important, so questions regarding its proper use need to be resolved -- hopefully without public squabbling.

I am deeply troubled by Cheney's recent behavior. I see no justification for his "dual role" argument and see it as dangerous to the principles of the Republic. I'm therefore gratified that the White House has charted a separate defense, and decided not to support Cheney's attempt to carve out a new definition of the vice presidency.

We would all be well-served to remember that Al Gore was once a vice president, and the current definition of the office served us all quite well then.

I despise the Congressional subpoena-fired witch hunts because they look backwards for blame when we should be looking forward for victory in the war on terror. While the NSA programs must be well-defined so presidents can be free to use them without fear of scandal, the course the Congress has taken is appallingly cavalier about national security.

Subpoenas and grandstanding Congressional hearings are the worst way to accomplish clarifying the use of electronic surveillance internationally and nationally in the war on terror. It would be far better to hammer out the process through the Intelligence committees, the Attorney General's office and the White House.

That will not happen, however, not because Bush is Imperial, but because the Dems have so poisoned the water with their Bush Derangement Syndrome that such solutions are impossible.

And if I were linked up to Memeorandum, that's what I'd say.

Why Can't The Left Win Gracefully?

Glenn Greenwald is a seasoned Bush critic who harps a lot about the Patriot Act. That link will take you to a page listing these titles:

• A Tragic Legacy: How a Good vs. Evil Mentality Destroyed the Bush Presidency
• How Would a Patriot Act: Defending America Values from a President Run Amok

Greenwald must be tragically disappointed that here, in the waning months of the Bush presidency, W. has yet to call out the National Guard to shutter abortion clinics, or round up Muslims from the street corners and truck them off to Manzanar, or send the FBI spying on vocal critics of the administration like, oh, Glenn Greenwald.

Like most Leftist terrors, this one is still hiding under the bed with the dust bunnies and hasn't come into the open. But Greenwald is so certain that Bush has a sinister plot to strip America of its freedoms that he hasn't stopped to notice that Bush is actually busy protecting our fundamental freedom to keep breathing and have our head attached to our shoulders, despite the efforts of radical Islam to deprive us of those freedoms.

He's at it again today in Salon, digging way, way back to the NSA "wire tapping" (make that electronic surveillance of communication data) program.

The testimony yesterday from James Comey re-focuses attention on one of the long unresolved mysteries of the NSA scandal. And the new information Comey revealed, though not answering that question decisively, suggests some deeply troubling answers. Most of all, yesterday's hearing underscores how unresolved the entire NSA matter is -- how little we know (but ought to know) about what actually happened and how little accountability there has been for some of the most severe and blatant acts of presidential lawbreaking in the country's history.

He might have missed it because he was hiding under the covers, but the NSA "scandal" is resolved. Bush lost and shut down the program; so unlike authoritarian peril and presidents run amok.

He goes on to recount how well government sometimes works, but of course he doesn't see it that way. Early on, the NSA program was reviewed and many within the administration, including top Justice officials, said they didn't think it was legal. Greenwald apparently didn't notice that none of these critics was jailed, lost their jobs or were beheaded by people shouting Allah Akbar!

He really works up a head of steam:

How is this not a major scandal on the level of the greatest presidential corruption and lawbreaking scandals in our country's history? Why is this only a one-day story that will focus on the hospital drama but not on what it reveals about the bulging and unparalleled corruption of this administration and the complete erosion of the rule of law in our country? And, as I've asked many times before, if we passively allow the President to simply break the law with impunity in how the government spies on our conversations, what don't we allow?

Small type wow.

The greatest presidential corruption and lawbreaking scandals were -- opinons may well vary here -- the Teapot Dome scandal, which was a money for influence affair that, if left uncorrected, would have corrupted government thoroughly, and the Watergate scandal, a political shenanigans affair that, if left uncorrected, would have corrupted the electoral process thoroughly.

The NSA matter is a split decision. Unlike Teapot or Watergate, opinions on the program's legality differed. Unlike Teapot or Watergate, it was predicated on the defense of America in time of war, not the accumulation of wealth or power.

Where is the unparalleled corruption? How many Bush officials have resigned after a public disgrace? How many of Clinton's?

Where is the complete erosion of law? The case was heard and Greenwald's side won. You'd never know it by how he rants so, showcasing perfectly a longstanding and very well-honed skill of the Left: Never, ever, ever being able to take a victory gracefully.

The other showcasing here is the Left's ability to repeat a lie long after it's been fully disproved. Here, Greenwald still says NSA "spies on our conversations." Is he admitting that he regularly converses with people in known terrorist haunts?

Of course not; that would make the lie much less compelling, his emotions much less raw.