[T]he program has clear antecedents in a widely rumored
surveillance program called Echelon, which was hotly
debated across the Internet back in 1999 [but NOT in the
liberal MSM] - nearly two years before President Bush
took office.
THIS WEEK'S TREASON
NEW YORK POST
Editorial
May 12, 2006
Far from disqualifying Gen. Michael Hayden from the job of CIA director, the political and news media uproar over a report that the National Security Agency is mining data from domestic phone calls only reinforces why Hayden should be confirmed.
For all the hyperventilating on the TV news and on Capitol Hill - by Republicans as well as Democrats, sad to say - there is little new in yesterday's "disclosure" by USA Today. And even less to cause Americans concern.
As a matter of fact, prominent stories in both The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times reported the details of the program months ago. And a lawsuit filed against the NSA in January spelled out specific details.
Plus, the program has clear antecedents in a widely rumored surveillance program called Echelon, which was hotly debated across the Internet back in 1999 - nearly two years before President Bush took office.
None of which stopped the pols from sputtering their outrage every time a TV camera started taping yesterday.
"Our privacy as American citizens is at stake," yelped Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.).
"We're really flying blind on the subject," added Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), who vowed to haul officials of the nation's phone companies before his panel.
Nonsense.
Even taking the USA Today story at face value, a number of things are clear.
No one is listening in on domestic phone calls, as the NSA is doing to a limited number of international calls involving Americans suspected of terrorist links.
What this database does is record phone numbers, in search of calling patterns that might tip terrorist activity.
No names, no addresses. No personal information. Just phone numbers.
(Still scared? Google your own phone number, and see what pops onto your screen.)
Indeed, notes the Media Research Center, that's far less personal information than another government agency - the IRS - maintains on Americans, including investments, banking activity and even medical expenses. The Census Bureau, too, maintains a database with much more personal info than does the NSA.
President Bush, while not confirming the existence of the alleged program, stressed that
"we're not mining or trolling the personal lives of
millions of innocent Americans individual privacy is
being "fiercely protected."
Indeed, all of the outrage neglects the stark fact that preventing another 9/11 demands the use of any sophisticated investigative techniques now available to law enforcement. Sophisticated enough to stay one step ahead of the terrorists.
Equally troubling is that people in extraordinarily sensitive positions think nothing about leaking highly classified information to sympathetic reporters. As the president said yesterday,
"Every time sensitive intelligence is leaked, it hurts
our ability to defeat this enemy."
It seems clear that the latest leak was designed to keep Hayden, who is heavily involved in NSA surveillance activities, out of the CIA - which only shows just how much the spy agency needs to be shaken up.
As columnist Robert Novak noted yesterday, the CIA in 2004 was a place where "criticism of George W. Bush and support for John Kerry were rampant," and where Director Porter Goss "found an entrenched bureaucracy" in which "CIA staffers savaged him in leaks to friendly journalists."
That situation, coming on top of the agency's manifest intelligence failures, cannot be allowed to continue.
It needs someone like Hayden - who understands the need to maximize efforts actually to defeat the terrorists - to whip the CIA into shape once and for all.
nypost.com |
