Thursday, February 09, 2006
The attack that wasn't
One can't help but wonder how many of the lawyers working there believe that NSA's computers shouldn't be intercepting telephone calls between al Qaeda and the United States.
6 Comments:
By 
, at
Thu Feb 09, 06:46:00 PM:
None of them, of course. But there is no reason why the Bush Administration had to violate the FISA law to get the FISA court's permission to wiretap Aq Qaida members. In twenty-five years, the FISA court rejected something like six requests, including post facto requests.
Of course they certainly would have rejected a Bush Administration request to wiretap Christiane Amanpour's husband, but then he obviously has no more connection to Al Qaida than the Democrats's office at Watergate had to Ho Chi Minh. Funny, it's the same guys doing the wiretapping, too!
By 
TigerHawk, at
Thu Feb 09, 06:57:00 PM:
If the FISA court is such a rubber-stamp, then why is it useful for protecting against unjustified surveillance?
As for the Amanpour story, I wasn't aware there was any evidence beyond Andrea Mitchell's question to James Risen? Has anybody come up with anything else on that?
By honestpartisan, at
Fri Feb 10, 08:14:00 AM:
First of all, if you can find someone who thinks the U.S. shouldn't be wiretapping Al Qaeda's phone calls, I'll gladly join you in opposing them. Framing the issue as "they don't think we should tap al Qaeda's phone calls" is Rovian spin, not an actual statement of how most people concerned about the NSA surveillance program feel.
Second, I've read the account of the foiled LA plot and as admirable as it is, I've seen no evidence that intercepted communications from the NSA program had anything to do with it. Do you have any links?
By cakreiz, at
Fri Feb 10, 09:47:00 AM:
I don't know whether the NSA program had anything to do with the foiled attempt. But I'm sure of this: it's easy to embrace the abstract over reality, especially if you're a lawyer.
By , at
Fri Feb 10, 01:00:00 PM:
I don't think the President telling us about the foiled LA terror plot was intended to say "terrorist surveillance helped foil this plot", but to bring attention to the fact that these terrorists aren't going to give up trying to attack us.
And I'm okay with the surveillance of any phone call that ANY part of it is a phone number found in some terrorist's phonebook. Key members of Congress have been briefed on this program from the beginning. I believe the President has this power from the Constitution as Commander in Chief during wartime, and thus those powers cannot be abridged by the Congress (read "FISA might actually be unconstitutional"?).
By , at
Fri Feb 10, 03:14:00 PM:
None. There wasn't a chance that the shoebomb cockpit hijack scheme would work as it made no sense at all.
You're on a plane, someone yells "hijack!" or "Allah Ackbar!" they would be torn to pieces before they could get shoe one off much less to the door.
Ask the original shoe bomber.
