If Al Qaeda Phones Tell Them We Can't Take the Call

Wall Street Journal on Line ^ | February 10, 2006 | DANIEL HENNINGER

[yoe]

Let's start with the one thing we know for sure about the Bush administration's program to listen to al Qaeda's phone calls into and out of the United States: It's dead.

After all the publicity of the past two weeks, does anyone think that the boys working on plans for Boston Harbor, the Golden Gate Bridge or Chicago's Loop are still chatting by phone? If the purpose of the public exposure was to pull the plug on the pre-emptive surveillance program, mission accomplished. Be safe, Times Square.

At the least, al Qaeda's operatives in Yemen, Iraq, Pakistan, Hamburg and the U.S. will hold off phoning in the next mass-murder plan until the U.S. Senate finishes deliberating Arlen Specter's.......

[snip] But let us here consider something that tends to fall outside legal considerations -- effective management. On Tuesday, Vice President Cheney said, "You can't take 535 members of Congress and tell them everything and protect the nation's secrets." Mr. Cheney was reflecting the view, which arose at the time of the Founding Fathers, that foreign policy was disorganized under the Articles of Confederation and belonged under a strong executive. A primary reason for calling the Constitutional Convention of 1787 was the mess Congress had made of managing foreign policy.

[yoe]

Ronald Reagan wondered what the Ten Commandments would look like had the Congress gotten their hands on them.

[devolve]

            

[gathersnomoss]

There are approximately 300 Million people in the US. If each person made just 1 call a day that would equal 109,500 Billion calls in a year.

Last year the NSA monitored 1,750 calls....last year. You figure out the percentage. The politicians have this country's security by the balls for the purpose of bloviating. Now that the cat is out of the bag, each of them should be hung if we are attacked.

[mtbopfuyn]

Give them all lie detector tests but just for the fun of it, put a "T" on ALL their foreheads for "traitor".

[kevkrom]

Ronald Reagan wondered what the Ten Commandments would look like had the Congress gotten their hands on them.

I can guess that they were turned into 15,000 pages of federal law that had little, if anything, to do with the original content, and four new bureaucracies to manage them.

[kentj]

(put a "T") no no no that won't work

BRAND a "F'n T" on their forheads

This piece put me in a bad mood - I think I would like to fire someone - but I don't have anyone working for me - I know I will quit that is almost as much fun.

[davisfh]

"Let's start with the one thing we know for sure about the Bush administration's program to listen to al Qaeda's phone calls into and out of the United States: It's dead.:

And isn't that a pity? Thank you Democrats. You've done an excellent job of screwing up this country's intelligence gathering efforts. And, as another member of this forum said, you all deserve to have a "T" for traitor embossed in your foreheads.

[jshermn]

Don't forget thanking the New York Slimes!!!

[Rebelbase]

Whose taste are you talking about? Those who are fearful and wish to pander to the islamofascists as the religion of peace? I can see how they'd be offended.

[harpu]

And, the last paragraph in the article kind of says it all;

"At the Judiciary Committee hearings Monday, Sen. Leahy announced: "Mr. Attorney General, in America, our America, nobody is above the law, not even the president of the United States." Got it. But here's the bottom line on the surveillance program. It was going to work, and help lessen the chance of another atrocity in our America, only if it stayed secret. The odds of it staying secret would diminish as its existence spread through the Congress and judicial system. Now it is public, and its utility is about zero. What's left is the legal issue of whether it violated FISA. We can only look forward to the answer."

[MNJohnnie]

Remember this next time you hear the usual whiners complain "there is not a dimes worth of difference between the two parties.

Ummm YES there is.

[yoe]

Harry Reid - "We killed the Patriot Act!"

[balk]

That animation is an insult to the family and legacy of the man that you've animated in free fall. It looks like "Monty Python". A still image would make a more powerful statement.

[sgtbono2002]

Democrat politicians on Capitol Hill are the best Agents Bin Laden has. No wonder Bill Clinton didnt arrest him when he had the chance, The whole party is working for him.

[holden]

What's left is the legal issue of whether it violated FISA.

The Democrats, of course, even now all show their own little Criminal President Meters pegged at "GUILTY!", which, if they can just get the House in '06, they absolutely intend to use to impeach the President. There is just no mystery as to how that would unfold.

To them, it's analogous to setting up for a spike in a volleyball game.

The President has a genuine, honest, well-considered position based on careful study of the law. In horse-blindered fashion, the Dems imagine they see a future opportunity if they can just align their minions to ramrod their broken ideas and activities through the electorate and Congress.

If FISA legally precludes the President from doing what he's done, it would but show the FISA law to be potentially disastrously outdated and needing change. That is the only reasonable fact to be derived from a Constitutional-legal determination that the President might have violated such a law. But obviously, the Dems have zero appreciation of such, and would run roughshod over the tremendous importance of all of that just to catch their fingernails on the slim possibilities that they could claw their way back into power.

Democrats and RINOs that support such activity all deserve the "T", and we dare not sit idly by so as to allow them to be elected.

HF

[agere_contra]

You make a good point, Balk.

Devolve - please replace the animation with a still. Not your fault, but there's something humourous - and therefore starkly out of place - about the animation.

[balk]

Sorry, I don't mean to be personally argumentative, as your motives are in the right place.

[Cboldt]

And, the last paragraph in the article kind of says it all;

... But here's the bottom line on the surveillance program. It was going to work, and help lessen the chance of another atrocity in our America, only if it stayed secret.

I call BS on that. Here's why. The FISA program already provides for secret surveillance, sometimes without warrants and sometimes with secret warrants. But still, "secret" except for the number of appliations filed and granted each year.

It also stands to reason that a person who endeavors to hide his communications will not choose a communications method based on some legal nuance. Hidden communications are undertaken with the object of -NOT- being caught, period, and in that thought process, legal line drawing about "evidentiary hurdles" just doesn't have a major role.

[harpu]

Soon, the FISA court's constitutionality will be challenged.

Why? Because it's powers [from congress] circumvent the president's [which come from the Constitution].

Without a Constitutional Amendment [giving the FISA court its authority], the president's authority prevails.