The Bushies are spying on us? Shock horror.
Let's skip the handwringing and circular questions about the constitutionality and legal issues surrounding the NYT's revelations that the NSA is spying on American citizens in the name of fighting terrorism. This administration is quite clever at answering such questions using the logic of a 5-year old (e.g. "I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam and al Qaeda because there was a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda."). Bush tried it again today: "We do not discuss ongoing intelligence operations to protect the country, and the reason why is that there's an enemy that lurks, that would like to know exactly what we're trying to do to stop them." Let's not let legal issues cloud the debate the same way it's going with the Patriot Act. Civil liberty matters are important. But we shouldn't arrive at those discussions until we've established that specific tactics are even working. The same can be said of the torture issue.
We should first be asking the president to tell us how many terrorist plots have been foiled because officials did not have to wait an hour or two to get a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Mr. President tell us how many plot would have likely succeeded if law enforcement had taken the time to get to get those warrants. Don't tell us about sources and methods, just give us a number.
While we're on that subject, why not tell us the same thing about library records. How many times have library records helped stop and ongoing terrorist plot to kill Americans in this country? Why is does this manner of killing Americans warrant so much special attention when the plain old bullet to the head with a 9mm street crime doesn't. Dead is dead, right?
Let's not let this important issue get bogged down in legal matters that allow the White House to ignore issues of effectiveness. Demonstrate for us Mr. President exactly how this is keeping us safer. Let's keep our eye on that issue first and civil liberties a close second.
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posted 6:51 PM
We should first be asking the president to tell us how many terrorist plots have been foiled because officials did not have to wait an hour or two to get a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Mr. President tell us how many plot would have likely succeeded if law enforcement had taken the time to get to get those warrants. Don't tell us about sources and methods, just give us a number.
While we're on that subject, why not tell us the same thing about library records. How many times have library records helped stop and ongoing terrorist plot to kill Americans in this country? Why is does this manner of killing Americans warrant so much special attention when the plain old bullet to the head with a 9mm street crime doesn't. Dead is dead, right?
Let's not let this important issue get bogged down in legal matters that allow the White House to ignore issues of effectiveness. Demonstrate for us Mr. President exactly how this is keeping us safer. Let's keep our eye on that issue first and civil liberties a close second.
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