On Democrats, Surveillance and Being Flaccid

We are often bothered by politicians “flip-flops,” think Kerry. Then we have those that are likely not flip flops, but the necessity in the necessary revealing the opposite of your public positions or pronouncements (denouncement is fitting as well.).

At the first column, top position sets “Democrats Seem Ready to Extend Wiretap Powers,” with the summary sentence of:

“Democrats remain nervous that they will be called soft on terrorism if they insist on strict curbs on gathering intelligence.”

Democrats will be hard pressed in doing the right thing when so often, at least in part doing the right thing is that which they have pilloried endlessly in the past. This tends to cut off legitimate options that if allowed to be cut from debate and/or discussion will leave them with little of worth or substance to work with; a fact that would make the “soft” on security.

Regarding a bill being offered by the Democrats on NSA surveillance from foreign locations:

“The House bill would also require the administration to disclose details of the program. Democrats say they plan to push the administration to turn over internal documents laying out the legal rationale for the program, something the administration has refused to do.”

Why might there be a hesitation at handing over something of this importance? Sure, there is the “they’re up to something bad, so wish to protect their evil enterprise;” but there also is the concern that honest review and debate about these legal rationales will be used more for partisan political purposes and leaked all over so the media can do its usual misrepresentative and leading reporting.

I submit that their concern at the time was more in line with thwarting the present administration in an effort to garner popularity and paint the administration as evil or criminal. Rather than support the idea and attempt to work within its difficulties, the Democrats along with the media portrayed it as spying, eavesdropping and anything else that would serve the connotation of negativity and Big Brother.

This makes what is necessary in surveillance all the more difficult due to its being painted and misrepresented at times as nothing more than Orwellian. Make no mistake there should be concerns about what is being reviewed and the purposes for review of communications for activities other than security.

The debate on this subject has never been healthy and now that Democrats actually have to vote or stand on something and be held accountable to it, it is only about a concern for not appearing weak on security, when in reality they likely did not have the deeper concerns they shouted from the rooftops earlier.

Just like working on ethics reform and/or just about anything else since taking the majority last November, when they have to do something it’s a lot harder than they remembered. Democrats now have to relearn how to legislate as they have become too comfortable and expert at vilification without having to offer anything of substance in its stead.

Caroline Frederickson, director of the Washington legislative office of the American Civil Liberties Union is quoted as saying:

“There’s a ‘keep the majority’ mentality, which is understandable, but we think they’re putting themselves in more danger by not standing on principle.”

The NY Times, Caroline Frederickson and many others feel comfortable in considering the Democrat aims or concerns as “keeping the majority;” would it be that these supporters applied the same skeptical criterion or view of the Left that they do the Right, they might accidentally enlighten themselves.

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FISA and the Imperial Judiciary

What if a data packet could be purposely sent through the U.S. networks? What if Joe Blow in California and Joe Dunno in New York were having a conversation via cell phone or some other wireless communication device? What if the recent legislation passed before the kids in DC went on summer recess hadn’t been passed at all?

For one The NY Times editors and perhaps the FISA would be pleased with this turn of events, as the editors this morning made clear they don’t care for the president viewing his role in intelligence gathering as constitutional. FISA might be happy as a recent ruling protected foreign to foreign communications; so Mahmoud and Mustapha in Pakistan or elsewhere would be protected in their communications with each other while planning an attack in the U.S., unless of course as proscribed by the FISA court, a warrant were obtained.

If you read or have read Andrew C. McCarthy today at NRO you might wonder where exactly the Times and other Leftists get their constitutional knowledge in swatting at the presidents role?

All the hubbub and brouhaha made by the Times editors doesn’t change the facts, but it does change the “facts” as they possess the power of the presses and inappropriately influence public opinion and knowledge many times. This is most noticeable when you have read McCarthy and his mentions of the Times and Leftists in their hue and cry over NSA wiretaps as he points out that the concern should be with the FISA court and not the president:

“We should be equally affronted by the hypocrisy of congressional Democrats and the leftwing commentariat. It’s not national security or the “rule of law” they care about. It’s politics — plain, simple, and brass-knuckled. The calculation: If George W. Bush can be hurt a polling point or two (yes, there’s still room to go down) by posturing over law-breaking, it’s okay to roll the dice with our lives.”

“For nearly two years since the New York Times blew the NSA’s warrantless-surveillance program, the Left has transfigured itself into a whirling dervish of indignation over President Bush’s imperious trampling of “the rule of law.” Why? Because he failed to comply with the letter of FISA, which purports in certain instances to require the chief executive — the only elected official in the United States responsible for protecting our nation from foreign threats — to seek permission from a federal judge before monitoring international enemy communications into or out of the United States.”

Of the recent ruling by the FISA court regarding foreign to foreign communications, McCarthy points to the four types of communications FISA regulates:

“(a) those involving a particular, known American citizen or permanent resident alien who is in the United States and has intentionally been targeted for monitoring, no matter whether the interception takes place inside or outside the United States;

(b) those involving someone inside the United States, even if that person has not been intentionally targeted, if the interception occurs within the United States;

(c) those in which all parties to the communication are located within the United States; and

(d) those rare contacts which are neither radio nor wire communications, “in which a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy and a warrant would be required for law enforcement purposes.”

Note as Mr. McCarthy points out that none of the above fit within the foreign to foreign communications. For the moment we can rest a little, but as McCarthy suggests that until FISA is ended and replaced with something more appropriate to our times; the imperials of the court will ultimately be the ones protecting us…

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The Times; Afraid of Fearing the Right Thing to Fear

“why, six years after 9/11, is this sort of fishing expedition the supposed first line of defense in the war on terrorism?” – The New York behind the Times Editors

The NY Times editorial board is getting really angry with the Democrats, as are the Kos-mynauts; forget about Bush, oh yeah they hate him, but the Dems are really letting them down. This morning’s editorial is rife with misunderstanding and msm, Leftist “fear mongering;” the fear mongering that they are best at. There is so much to pick and pull apart that I chose to pick one paragraph only to look at; the boards logic and line of thought is mentally exhausting:

“But the problem with Congress last week was that Democrats were afraid to explain to Americans why the White House bill was so bad and so unnecessary — despite what the White House was claiming. There are good answers, if Democrats are willing to address voters as adults. To start, they should explain that — even if it were a good idea, and it’s not — the government does not have the capability to sort through billions of bits of electronic communication. And the larger question: why, six years after 9/11, is this sort of fishing expedition the supposed first line of defense in the war on terrorism?”

“…if Democrats are willing to address voters as adults,” Democrats do not know how to treat “voters” as adults as they rarely act like adults themselves. As for the Times, this spoon feeding editorial as with most of them is not speaking to adults as much as it is speaking to the immature child in all of us; leading child of course being the “board.”

In this one paragraph the board appears to treat the technical issue, “the government does not have the capability to sort through billions of bits of electronic communication,” as though like “immigration” it doesn’t have the man power. These “billions of bits” are not something physical that someone will “listen” too, but would in one instance identify whether the data was a domestic call rather than terrorist to terrorist in nature; one of the many pieces that will help protect against the “spying” on Americans the board is so concerned about.

Further and again, in this paragraph alone:

“And the larger question: why, six years after 9/11, is this sort of fishing expedition the supposed first line of defense in the war on terrorism?”

The board is comprised of completely clueless individuals or it is just so cynically disingenuous that it is blinded to the most basic elements of security and the need for data to sort or sift through; what don’t they get? This “larger question” is quite possibly the most stupid question I have ever heard and reveals the utter lack of understanding of their chosen subject to whine about.

A few weeks back the NIE was released; a commonsense reaction to it and to me an example of how bad the Times (and msm in general) is at reporting and is available at TCSDaily and written by Pejman Yousefzadeh. If this is how the reporting goes, why should I expect anything better from the Board?

From “Unintelligent Intelligence”:

“It may be that for different people, different parts of the NIE stick out. The part that stuck out for me was the reference to the fact that AQI was "the most visible and capable affiliate" of al Qaeda and that al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) is "the only one known to have expressed a desire to attack the Homeland." Contra the Times story, of course, nowhere in the NIE does it say that the war in Iraq "spawned" al Qaeda. Even if you want to argue that the war in Iraq did spawn AQI, you cannot say--as the Times did--that the NIE makes such an assertion. Indeed, nothing even resembling that comment appears in the NIE. Curiously enough, the Times story completely downplays language in the NIE discussing how al Qaeda's efforts have been curbed . . . while—again—making up claims about how the NIE says the Iraq war "spawned" AQI. Apparently, writers at the Times don't think that the rest of us can actually get access to and read the NIE.”

Also of interest should be “FISA: Don’t Mend It, End It” from Andrew C. McCarthy at NRO; again, does the NYTimes have a clue?:

“We should be equally affronted by the hypocrisy of congressional Democrats and the leftwing commentariat. It’s not national security or the “rule of law” they care about. It’s politics — plain, simple, and brass-knuckled. The calculation: If George W. Bush can be hurt a polling point or two (yes, there’s still room to go down) by posturing over law-breaking, it’s okay to roll the dice with our lives.”

“For nearly two years since the New York Times blew the NSA’s warrantless-surveillance program, the Left has transfigured itself into a whirling dervish of indignation over President Bush’s imperious trampling of “the rule of law.” Why? Because he failed to comply with the letter of FISA, which purports in certain instances to require the chief executive — the only elected official in the United States responsible for protecting our nation from foreign threats — to seek permission from a federal judge before monitoring international enemy communications into or out of the United States.”

Lastly, "Right is Right" had some interesting words yesterday on this very subject, not the Times but the MSM/Dem/Leftist lack..."Granting the President Power"

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The Antediluvian Era of Telecommunications

Today it seems we have more chance of finding Noah’s ark, than getting Democrats and their adherents like the NY Times editorial board to see the light.

Last Friday 8/3 I avoided posting about the NYT editorial board and its continuing hissy fit with regard to NSA wiretaps et al., because I had had just about all I could take from them and the media in general on this subject. Rather than report honestly, each issue that comes up is treated as the latest "dirt" affording the hopes of the next Pulitzer. As to the usual course they went at the administration as stampeding Congress:

“Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Bush administration has repeatedly demonstrated that it does not feel bound by the law or the Constitution when it comes to the war on terror. It cannot even be trusted to properly use the enhanced powers it was legally granted after the attacks.”

Read this opinion and almost any other and if you didn’t know where you were reading it from, throw in a couple four letter words and you would be surprised when told it wasn’t from Kos.

Over the weekend as the Congress let out for vacation having accomplished little more than the national government of Iraq it passed temporary acknowledgement of the authority to monitor international communications to the executive.

In perfect NYT fashion, the board still living in the Nixon era sees “conspiracy” and the latest Bush version of Fascism:

“Ever since, the White House has tried to pressure Congress into legalizing Mr. Bush’s rogue operation. Most recently, it seized on a secret court ruling that spotlighted a technical way in which the 1978 law has not kept pace with the Internet era.”

This morning we get a taste of what it means to have passed the barely appropriate version of foreign surveillance from the view of the editors at NRO:

“That task has never been more vital than it is today, when transnational terror networks, seeking access to weapons of enormous power, vow to attack us after killing nearly 3,000 Americans. Yet our defense is hindered by an improvident and outdated legislative scheme, the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. FISA was an overreaction to Nixon-era abuses, which included employing the CIA to conduct domestic spying on the administration’s political enemies. FISA purports to require that the president, before monitoring foreign communications, satisfy a federal court (specially created by FISA) that there is probable cause to believe the surveillance target is an “agent of a foreign power.”’

If the Democrats are not serious, we know a group, it’s affiliates, off-shoots and wannabes are; so do we continue playing games or are we going to give ourselves a fighting chance at keeping up as best as we can with the communications and/or possible communications of our enemies?

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White House Wiretap Subpoenas

In addition to subpoenas issued to the White House, the VPs office and the Department of Justice:

“the panel is seeking materials on related issues, including the relationship between the Bush administration and several unidentified telecommunications companies that aided the N.S.A. eavesdropping program.”

So upon the question of illegalities in the NSA program, the usual games of rhetoric and politics can be played. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) called the response prior to the subpoenas issuance as ‘“stonewalling of the worst kind.”’

May saw the testimony of James Comey a former deputy AG during which he described a March 2004 “confrontation” between Justice officials and White House aides regarding the “legality of the wiretapping program.”

Of the testimony Chuck Schumer (D-NY) in fine politically tuned rhetoric said:

‘“The Comey testimony moved this front and center. Alarm bells went off. His testimony made it clear that there had been an effort to circumvent the law.”’

These types of comments, of which the Dems have become very adept with their use of effectively, continue the public and media belief of illegalities where illegalities may not be.

A “confrontation” does not a circumvention of the law make.

Schumer’s the guy whose conversation about seats was gleefully shared by the Majority Leader, Harry “Hang ‘em High” Reid that “we are going to pick up Senate seats as a result of this war.”

These folks are the same that want an “end” to the action in Iraq regardless of outcome or reality; the same that see a war lost without actually knowing anything or listening; the same that want voices unheard and call it “fairness.”

These are the folks that I trust less.

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The Tip of the Iceburg – Libby and the Veep

After searching The Corner at NRO, I found this quote from Mark Steyn, which Bill Bennett referenced in part this a.m. on Bill Bennett’s Morning in America and at The Corner regarding the Libby trial (italics mine):

“The resilience of Joe Wilson’s scam is remarkable. I’m getting gazillions of e-mails castigating me for defending Scooter Libby, a man who apparently “recklessly endangered the life of a covert agent and her fellow operatives in Africa and elsewhere”. I wish the CIA had covert agents in Niger. But it doesn’t. That’s why it has to fly in Joe Wilson to sip tea by the pool and interview bureaucrats. And the fellows the CIA does have in Africa are a very curious bunch, including a former station chief in Khartoum who subsequently signed on as a lobbyist for Sudan’s genocidal government."

"But nevertheless an anti-war deputy secretary of an anti-war department leaking to an anti-war reporter the name of an anti-war analyst who got her anti-war husband a job with an anti-war agency is supposedly an elaborate “conspiracy” by Cheney, Rove and the other warmongers. Looked at more prosaically, it’s a freak intersection of bad personnel decisions, which is one of the worst features of this presidency. So many of the Bush Administration’s wounds come from its willingness to keep the wrong people in key positions: Tenet should not have been retained at the CIA, Armitage should not have been at State.”

The driving force behind this entire fiasco is more in line with political retribution; not the political retribution that Wilson/Plame and those of the “rabid” Left claimed the Administration instigated in response to Wilson/Plames scathing editorial in The NY Times regarding his trip to Niger. But retribution for daring to challenge the status quo of the international arena; for daring to deny the veracity of a “diplomats” editorial report in, basically a political game intended to further the nation away from the truth.

The media not only jumped on the band wagon, but built and serviced it, allowing it to make its multi-year trek to the verdict that is now apparently (again?) only the “tip of the iceburg.” We are reveled with remarks from all over, including and allowing Joseph Wilson/Plame the opportunity to further his lies:

"Well, I think the President and the Vice President both owe the American people a full explanation of what they know about this matter."

Thanks to a willful disregard of Wilson’s claims by the media from the get go; Wilson can state the above and somehow oddly remain unscathed by his and the oppositions scam.

Revelations that might have widened the reality of what had happened may have been reported once by each of the media outlets yet were dropped beyond that in order to continue the scandalous and manipulative evil administration reporting going. Meanwhile, we get stories on secret CIA operations for holding individuals in Europe and leaks regarding the NSA program (which is a lesson in how to avoid any real substance), that earn their authors Pulitzers. Future stories involving Fitzgeralds prosecution and investigation always mention the administration for summarizing purposes, you know to get us up to speed if we’re slow. But each of these stories invariably ignores the questionability or at least revelations of the Wilson claims. This does a service to administration haters, which is one thing and a disservice to the public. Am I just biased or wrong? Maybe, but that’s more than the msMEDIA can say; which undeniably did not get to the bottom of the story no matter what side you stand on.

I personally, as many do, feel Libby was railroaded. However, it was for the court to decide, just like it was for OJ, regardless of how one feels about the outcome. That aside, forget about Libby for a moment, We the People, are being railroaded with partisan politics being played “as usual,” the Left (I’m sure the Right is in here as well, but being canted to the Right and need to keep my membership duties up to code, I won’t mention it) and worst of all the msMEDIA.

Why do I say “worst of all the msMEDIA?” Because they are the “self-proclaimed” watchdogs to the public good. Because they say the are not Liberally or Conservatively biased yet they do lean in a direction which to me is to the Left, but this does not matter to the ultimate point I am so poorly trying to make.

The Fourth Estate, does not contain any individuals that are voted for and/or elected by “We the People.” Yet, it is their day in and day out drone that drives what is important to us. They have chosen a mantle and deceive us and likely themselves that they are not biased and are just reporting it as they see it. To report as one “sees it,” is to report it as on “sees it;” this is not unbiased no matter how unbiased one is. To see only the administration’s “deceptive” side of the story ignores the Wilson “deceptive” side of the story. To chase leads based on an ‘anonymous’ source with possible ulterior and partisan/biased motives is to be lead by the nose after a bogeyman that may not be at all.

This entire chapter, which unfortunately is still being written (“Libby Framed Around Vile Scheming, Skip Armitage, Tie in Reagan” ignore Wilson, but include him in the stories because he started it), at full speed after the imaginary “bogeyman.” ‘Time for another and/or more investigations; you bet, and we, the msMEDIA are on it, don’t worry about a thing.’

Think the Bush Administration twists “intelligence?” Think again who exactly twists reality because it doesn’t fit into the storyline.

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AG Gonzales to Release NSA Program Details

From the NY Times:

“Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Wednesday he will turn over secret documents detailing the government's domestic spying program, ending a two-week standoff with the Senate Judiciary Committee over surveillance targeting terror suspects.”

“The records will be given to Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and the panel's top Republican, Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., who two weeks ago lambasted Gonzales for refusing to turn over documents that even the FISA Court's presiding judge had no objection to releasing.”

“The documents also will be available to lawmakers and staffers on the House and Senate intelligence committees. These people already were cleared to receive details about the controversial spy program.”

How long will it take for details of this to leak? Weeks, days, minutes, seconds……?

For those of us that have no idea what this is all about, the NY Times provides the much necessary details:

“The program, which a federal judge last August declared unconstitutional, monitors phone calls and e-mails between the United States and other countries when such a link is suspected.”

Oops, sorry, my bad….it would appear the “Paper of Record” is becoming a forgetful “gray old lady,” and is missing some records/detail….

Judge in question: Anna Diggs Taylor, 6^th Circuit

CNN story regarding Judge Anna Diggs Taylor ruling (sorry about the weak source): “NSA eavesdropping program ruled unconstitutional” – August 17, 2006

Powerline reaction to Judge Anna Diggs Taylor ruling – August 18, 2006

Almost forgot, the NY Times has a hyperlink to the Rightwing Nazi Arlen Specter, but not the “ever even keeled, middle of the road, likely multi-tasks as well as Nan, gee this country needs more like him,” so here t’is Patrick Leahy.

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