From time to time, I feel compelled to note that yes, I understand that we do face a threat from radical Islamic terrorists. They did, after all, kill upward of 3,000 people six years ago, not to mention hundreds in Madrid and London. Fighting them is well worth the effort. My main objection has been going into Iraq to get them was fundamentally wrong in dozens of different ways, not least because you can make a much better case for invading Britain to stop terrorism.
My other objection, and the objection of many of my fellow liberals, has been that while fighting terrorism is a good thing, we shouldn't jettison all of our civil liberties in the process. We can do quite a bit to fight terrorism within the laws of our country. We don't need to torture, or surveil domestic calls. We can do things like monitor al Qaeda's intranet, for one thing. Keep an eye on it, see what they have to say, see if Osama bin Laden's saying anything. And we've been doing that.
Well, we were doing that. Unfortunately -- funny story -- the Bush administration kinda, sorta tipped off al Qaeda to that fact when they released Osama bin Laden's 9/11 tape early:A small private intelligence company that monitors Islamic terrorist groups obtained a new Osama bin Laden video ahead of its official release last month, and around 10 a.m. on Sept. 7, it notified the Bush administration of its secret acquisition. It gave two senior officials access on the condition that the officials not reveal they had it until the al-Qaeda release.
Within 20 minutes, a range of intelligence agencies had begun downloading it from the company’s Web site. By midafternoon that day, the video and a transcript of its audio track had been leaked from within the Bush administration to cable television news and broadcast worldwide.
The founder of the company, the SITE Intelligence Group, says this premature disclosure tipped al-Qaeda to a security breach and destroyed a years-long surveillance operation that the company has used to intercept and pass along secret messages, videos and advance warnings of suicide bombings from the terrorist group’s communications network.
Now why was the Osama video leaked? Well, remember that at the time, we were going into the Petraeus hearings. And the Bush administration wanted Osama as branding for that debate. There were political considerations involved.
And as always with the Bush administration, political considerations trump national security. The Bush administration chose to immolate a very positive intelligence program, one that I think all of us would support, one that was operating fully within the law and with respect for the Constitution, one that gave us a unique window into al Qaeda -- they chose to destroy that to score a few political points.
And yet they want us to believe that they need wiretapping or else the brown hordes will take Poughkeepsie. Sorry, guys. Clearly, you can't be trusted to safeguard the intelligence programs you already have. I don't want you having access to domestic calls, because it's certain that you'll release the first information you can make hay with.
My other objection, and the objection of many of my fellow liberals, has been that while fighting terrorism is a good thing, we shouldn't jettison all of our civil liberties in the process. We can do quite a bit to fight terrorism within the laws of our country. We don't need to torture, or surveil domestic calls. We can do things like monitor al Qaeda's intranet, for one thing. Keep an eye on it, see what they have to say, see if Osama bin Laden's saying anything. And we've been doing that.
Well, we were doing that. Unfortunately -- funny story -- the Bush administration kinda, sorta tipped off al Qaeda to that fact when they released Osama bin Laden's 9/11 tape early:
A small private intelligence company that monitors Islamic terrorist groups obtained a new Osama bin Laden video ahead of its official release last month, and around 10 a.m. on Sept. 7, it notified the Bush administration of its secret acquisition. It gave two senior officials access on the condition that the officials not reveal they had it until the al-Qaeda release.
Within 20 minutes, a range of intelligence agencies had begun downloading it from the company’s Web site. By midafternoon that day, the video and a transcript of its audio track had been leaked from within the Bush administration to cable television news and broadcast worldwide.
The founder of the company, the SITE Intelligence Group, says this premature disclosure tipped al-Qaeda to a security breach and destroyed a years-long surveillance operation that the company has used to intercept and pass along secret messages, videos and advance warnings of suicide bombings from the terrorist group’s communications network.
Now why was the Osama video leaked? Well, remember that at the time, we were going into the Petraeus hearings. And the Bush administration wanted Osama as branding for that debate. There were political considerations involved.
And as always with the Bush administration, political considerations trump national security. The Bush administration chose to immolate a very positive intelligence program, one that I think all of us would support, one that was operating fully within the law and with respect for the Constitution, one that gave us a unique window into al Qaeda -- they chose to destroy that to score a few political points.
And yet they want us to believe that they need wiretapping or else the brown hordes will take Poughkeepsie. Sorry, guys. Clearly, you can't be trusted to safeguard the intelligence programs you already have. I don't want you having access to domestic calls, because it's certain that you'll release the first information you can make hay with.
