Loose lips, sink ships (about the NSA)

When is it OK to sacrifice national security for personal gain or political one-upmanship?

In the years since Sept. 11, an odd assembly of Capitol Hill-types, their staffers and disgruntled federal employees from myriad intelligence agencies have played the "gotcha game" with the White House's methods of protecting the citizenry.

These leaks and the media circus surrounding them will continue as long as there is no downside. As it is now, the leakers are hailed as civil-rights patriots by the media, congress gets to puff it's chest and cloak themselves in the mantle of Saviors of the Republic, and the media gleefully documents it all, with embellishment, and congratulates themselves on a job well done. Unless (some of) our elected leaders step forward to stop this national secrets garage sale, expect more of the same. I wouldn't hold my breath--last I heard, Jane Fonda is still a free woman.

Objections to General Hayden as CIA director ignore Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s decision to return William Donovan to active service as a major general to form the OSS, predecessor to the CIA. He finished service in WW I as a full colonel, and earned three Purple Hearts, the Distinguished Service Cross (2nd highest award for valor), and the Medal of Honor (highest award for valor) among other awards. Imitating FDR for this appointment signals determination to return an ossified bureaucracy to significance in time of war.

The Senate is acting reprehensibly, if not treasonously, by arranging election year theater around General Hayden’s confirmation and NSA surveillance. Electronic surveillance is a most secret program, and should be known by only a vital few in Congress. Our basic Constitutional liberties are not endangered by interpreting administrative laws, arising from sixty years of extraordinary prosperity and remote hostilities, to protect this nation from calamitous, barbaric, cruelty. We are forfeiting an exceedingly precious and perishable opportunity, but instead choosing to enlighten terrorists about their vulnerabilities, and energize them to enhance communication security. The 2001 legislation “to use all necessary and appropriate force” obviously included the full spectrum of communication intelligence, because it has been a precondition to, and inherent within successful military operations at least since Sun Tzu discussed “foreknowledge” over 2,000 years ago.

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