Want to know WHY there is Executive Privelege in a time of war? Because American lives are at stake and the debate in Congress completely neutralizes our so called SECRET defenses against another 9-11. Check out this exposure in the Washington Post regarding NSA surveillance of known terrorists overseas and contacts with people here in the US:

The proposal, according to House and Senate Democrats, would permit a secret court to issue broad orders approving eavesdropping of communications involving suspects overseas and other people, who may be in the United States. To issue an order, the court would not need to identify a particular target overseas, but it would have to determine that those being targeted are “likely,” in fact, overseas.

If a foreign target’s communications to a person inside the United States reaches a “significant” number, then an court order based on probable cause would be required. It is unclear how “significant” would be defined.

Rockefeller and the Dems are notorious for spilling national secrets to the media. Who do you think exposed the fact we monitored not only the terrorists but who they contacted here in America after 9-11? We did this because all the intel we had on Atta and his gang once they hit the US was THROWN AWAY because there was no warrant allowing us to know 3,000 people or more were about to be massacred by al-Qaeda.

As for the idiotic proposal now publicized in the news media throw it in the trash can. Even I can now see how to totally subvert this. Let’s pretend I am a terrorist. Now that I know I can have 1 – 2 free contacts where the info will not be used (thrown away as was the case before 9-11) I can establish a revolving team of couriers in the US. Each courrier will receive and pass on 1-2 messages to the central cell planning an attack and then not be used ever again. Students will be perfect for this job since they cycle in and out of the US regularly. Once the information is in the US it can be distributed freely without concern.

This is why exposing these kinds of details totally destroys the effort. This is why wars are not waged in the public arena of Congress or the Courts. This is why we have a President. As I said, throw that proposal away. The fact I read it in a US newspaper makes it useless now.

Update: BTW, I want to indulge in a little self congratulations as I feel completely vindicated on what the issue surrounding the NSA story has ALWAYS been about. I said the NY Times misunderstood or lied about the essence of this story because what changed after 9-11 was not that Bush went around FISA (that was leftists spin), but that he required FISA to use NSA Intel as part of the probable cause deliberations. Prior to 9-11 NSA intel was gathered, it just could not be shared with local law enforcement to defend ourselves. Now the NSA leads go to the FBI and can be used, in conjunction with FBI information, to garner FISA warrants. I see this vindication in elements of the news reporting:

On Friday, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell submitted a proposal to Congress that asked for the authority to intercept without a court order any international phone call or e-mail between a surveillance target outside the United States and any person in the United States.

“Intercept” has two parts for those who know. It means actually intecepting the message and then RETAINING it and using it to uncover any future 9-11s. And we can see how hard Democrats are pushing to get back to our 9-11 levels of exposure to attack:

A Bush administration official, requesting anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said, “What we want to be careful about is not having FISA take on a role for which it was never intended, which is to essentially . . . extend privacy rights to foreigners located in foreign lands.”

A Democratic aide familiar with the negotiations said that if communications are determined to involve U.S. persons, then their names would be removed before any transcript is disseminated unless they were relevant to a foreign terrorism investigation.

Anyone notice want is broken here? Unless part of an ONGOING (the media is gifted in losing key words) the name of the US contact must be deleted. Of course, if this is a brand new lead this would basically lost that lead in the off chance the name of someone in the US showed up.

When we snoop on criminals, drug dealers, the mafia, innocent people they come into contact with are ALWAYS identified and named and checked into to CONFIRM their innocent contact. Only when dealing with terrorists do we offer special protections and anonymity from law enforcement. It is very important Americans understand the implications of these idiotic proposals. We had 9-11 intel once Atta and others entered this country. But because of archaic policies (these are not laws) we did not put the information together and 3,000 people died for that mistake. We cannot repeat this mistake – no matter how paranoid the lefties are.