I've never seen the President angrier than he was this past weekend, after the NYT published its story, based on maliciously leaked information, about the National Security Agency's monitoring of overseas cell phone calls and emails from individuals with suspected ties to terrorism. Amazingly, this story was published at the same time the Democrats declared that they had "killed the Patriot Act." Here is probably the best summary and defense of the NSA program, written by Jed Babbin for The American Spectator.
Apparently these events lit a fire under the President, for his Sunday night speech and Monday press conference were given by a man emboldened with a sense of purpose and determination rarely seen in the White House. Perhaps, finally, President Bush understands that the Democrats and their media house organ, the New York Times, are engaged in full-scale warfare with the Republican party, and that their only goal is to damage the Republican party thoroughly enough to win back control of Congress and the White House -- all else, including our safety, be damned. Maybe he finally gets it. And maybe he will fight them as he should have been fighting them since his re-election.
The Democrats seemed caught totally off guard by Bush's fiery response, particularly his insistence that top leaders of both parties were briefed on the NSA communications intercepts a dozen times, and had never called on the Administration to curtail its activities.
The best the Democrats could come up with was the Sgt. Schultz defense -- "We knew nothing!! N-n-n-othing!!!" But in their haste to plead ignorance or claim that the eeeevil Darth Cheney "misled" them, they apparently left a number of holes in their story. And of course they have set themselves up to do some serious explaining during next year's elections - if they are this easily and continually "misled" by the dumbest man ever to inhabit the White House, then how are they going to deal with truly calculating and evil people like the Iranians and the North Koreans?
(Now Sen. Jay Rockefeller has honestly admitted "I'm stupid!" in a facsimile of a conveniently hand-written letter addressed to Vice President Cheney over two years ago. Frankly, I'd be highly suspicious of any Democrat "memos" that suddenly appear in the next few days, particularly if they appear first on CBS News.
Senator Pat Roberts, Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, responded: "I have no recollection of Senator Rockefeller objecting to the program at the many briefings he and I attended together," Mr. Roberts said. "In fact, it is my recollection that on many occasions Senator Rockefeller expressed to the vice president his vocal support for the program," most recently, "two weeks ago." Ouch. )
Further, the claims made by Democrats and the New York Times that the Bush administration somehow engaged in an "unprecedented" effort to intercept suspect communications are also somewhat less than water-tight. Matt Drudge dug into the "60 Minutes" archives and pulled a story by Steve Croft from March 2000 about the Clinton Administration's "Echelon" communications monitoring program. Byron York has a piece at National Review Online that recaps Bill Clinton's 1994 arguments for full Presidential authority to order physical searches (that is, break-ins) for the purposes of gathering foreign intelligence. Rush Limbaugh also provided more links to similar stories yesterday: The Truth and History of the NSA: NRO: Mark Levin | NewsMax American Spectator | American Thinker | 60 Minutes | SFC.
Before I discuss this subject further, I'd like to remind my readers of two important words: "Zacharias Moussaoui." Remember him? The "twentieth hijacker" in the 9/11 attacks? Moussaoui was arrested in August 2001 for immigration violations, but law enforcement officials also suspected that he was involved with foreign terrorists. Officials seized his laptop computer along with 747 flight manuals and information about crop dusting planes. But the FBI and the Justice Department became entangled in red tape and requests to search Moussaoui's computer hard drive fell flat. It was only after 9/11 that FBI officials finally searched the laptop - and found it chock full of information about Al Qaeda terrorist activity.
There is no doubt in my mind that Moussaoui's laptop was a central reason for the Bush-authorized NSA wiretaps. And don't forget that we also had files on many of the other 9/11 hijackers. The officials who broke the Able Danger scandal explicitly stated that the DoD had a dossier with a photo of Mohammed Atta, and knew that he was dangerous. This would seemingly explain how government officials and the press were able to release photos and information on most of the 9/11 hijackers within hours after the attacks -- many pundits noted this fact shortly after Able Danger's existence surfaced this past summer.
The truth is that investigations subsequent to 9/11 proved, without any doubt, that we had a disorganized intelligence gathering system, bogged down in red tape and restricted from the open sharing and assimilation of raw data. And in many instances, like the Moussaoui case, meaningful data couldn't even be collected. The Bush administration tried to change this sad state of affairs. Their solutions weren't perfect, but they contained undeniable progress.
I believe that President Bush summed up the importance of the Patriot Act and the integration of our intelligence gathering capabilities, including the NSA monitoring program, pretty well during his Monday press conference:
Let me say something about the Patriot Act, if you don't mind. It is inexcusable for the United States Senate to let this Patriot Act expire. You know, there's an interesting debate in Washington, and you're part of it, that says, well, they didn't connect the dots prior to September the 11th -- "they" being not only my administration, but previous administrations. And I understand that debate. I'm not being critical of you bringing this issue up and discussing it, but there was a -- you might remember, if you take a step back, people were pretty adamant about hauling people up to testify, and wondering how come the dots weren't connected.
Well, the Patriot Act helps us connect the dots. And now the United States Senate is going to let this bill expire. Not the Senate -- a minority of senators. And I want senators from New York or Los Angeles or Las Vegas to go home and explain why these cities are safer. It is inexcusable to say, on the one hand, connect the dots, and not give us a chance to do so. We've connected the dots, or trying to connect the dots with the NSA program. And, again, I understand the press and members of the United States Congress saying, are you sure you're safeguarding civil liberties. That's a legitimate question, and an important question. And today I hope I'll help answer that. But we're connecting dots as best as we possibly can.
Let me be clear about this -- what the New York Times and the Democrat party willfully did, with the NSA story leak, is the hypothetical equivalent of a 1943 news story revealing the fact that the Americans had cracked the Japanese military communications code, and had set up an operation code named "MAGIC" in order to intercept Japanese military communications. Such a story would have been considered an act of treason 60 years ago. It should still be today. And the Justice Department should spare no effort to find and prosecute those responsible for leaking this information.
Add this latest leak together with previous leaks involving CIA satellite intelligence and clandestine CIA prisons for terrorists, and it becomes painfully clear that the Democrats' current strategy is simply to destroy everything that President Bush has tried to do since 9/11. And they couldn't give a flying rat's ass about how many people are compromised, killed, or otherwise sacrificed in order for them to label George W. Bush a "criminal." As long as Bush is the one "connecting the dots," and might get even a smidgen of credit for it, America the Democrat Party is in grave danger, and must be saved at all costs.
Just to clear this up one more time -- we are at war. We are at war with a malicious, evil enemy who seeks to kill anyone opposed to its radical religious ideology. They use terrorism, deception, torture, and murder to achieve their goals. They are not men who can be reasoned with. We are fighting them and killing them because the less of them that there are, the safer we are. That is cold reality. It pisses off the "kumbaya" crowd, and quite frankly it makes me a little uncomfortable, but if I had to make a choice between a dead Islamofascist terrorist and a bomb killing my three precious, innocent children, then God forgive me, I know which one I'd make.
This isn't about protecting the "civil liberties" of terrorists, or anyone else, before we defeat them. They must be stopped in order for our civil liberties to be preserved. That is the honest truth. There has yet to be a war won by the United States that did not involve a suspension or modification of civil rights and civil liberties during its duration. That is simply history speaking. Making the "civil rights" of terrorists, or even civilians, a priority over defeating evil is just plain stupid. Most Americans know this. Rush Limbaugh puts it this way:
We are trying to protect to save lives. Your civil liberties are worth dirt, your civil liberties are worth zilch if you are room temperature. It doesn't matter what your civil liberties are if you're dead. That's not why wars are fought. We don't go to fight wars because two out of ten people are unhappy ... This is national security, and for the first time in my lifetime we have a major political party which has now chosen sides -- and the side they've chosen is defeat of the United States of America.
As I said, most Americans know this. But limousine liberals, ivory tower intellectual elitists, the "Kumbaya" crowd, and the leadership of the Democratic party doesn't get it. As long as they don't understand, they will lose elections. Thank God they do.
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ADDED 12/21/05 from Drudge:
Bill Clinton Signed Executive Order that allowed Attorney General to do searches without court approval
Clinton, February 9, 1995: "The Attorney General is authorized to approve physical searches, without a court order"
WASH POST, July 15, 1994, "Administration Backing No-Warrant Spy Searches": Extend not only to searches of the homes of U.S. citizens but also -- in the delicate words of a Justice Department official -- to "places where you wouldn't find or would be unlikely to find information involving a U.S. citizen... would allow the government to use classified electronic surveillance techniques, such as infrared sensors to observe people inside their homes, without a court order."
Deputy Attorney General Jamie S. Gorelick, the Clinton administration believes the president "has inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches for foreign intelligence purposes."
Secret searches and wiretaps of Aldrich Ames's office and home in June and October 1993, both without a federal warrant.
Government officials decided in the Ames case that no warrant was required because the searches were conducted for "foreign intelligence purposes."
Government lawyers have used this principle to justify other secret searches by U.S. authorities.
"The number of such secret searches conducted each year is classified..."
Jimmy Carter Signed Executive Order on May 23, 1979: "Attorney General is authorized to approve electronic surveillance to acquire foreign intelligence information without a court order."
Also, President Bush had a private, face-to-face meeting with NYT officials and personally asked them not to run the NSA story. If I were him, I'd be livid too.
And this, via Malkin:
Democrat Rep. Jim McDermott of Seattle, who leaked the contents of an illegally recorded cell phone conversation between former House speaker Newt Gingrich and Rep. John A. Boehner, is complaining about the NSA's warrantless surveillance progam.
Audio clip here.
Chutzpah.
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