Dec 28 2005
More Leaks, More Tips To Terrorists
I cannot beleive the media is so blind to the damage they are doing to our efforts to find and stop terrorists out to kill us. It is just mind blowing. Now there is another article out, sourced by another bitter law enforcement agent who is probably more liberal than law enforcement, that again identifies ongoing investigations and methods:
U.S. law enforcement sources said that more than four years of surveillance by the National Security Agency has failed to capture any high-level al Qaeda operative in the United States. They said al Qaeda insurgents have long stopped using the phones and even computers to relay messages. Instead, they employ couriers.
“They have been way ahead of us in communications security,” a law enforcement source said. “At most, we have caught some riff-raff. But the heavies remain free and we believe some of them are in the United States.”
And now, thanks to these myopic reporters and partisans in law enforcement, the ‘heavies’ are aware that we know they are in the US – and will take actions to disapear and change their plans. Do these people not understand the threat an Al Qaeda ‘heavy’ is if in the US?
But they don’t stop transmitting warnings there, they continue on to tip of people under surveillance
The sources said the Patriot Act was based on the assessment that al Qaeda had established cells in Muslim communities in the United States.
Documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union confirm that the FBI has monitored and infiltrated a range of Muslim and Arab groups, including the Washington-based American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.
If there was an Al Qaeda agent in this group he has been tipped off. If there is not one, the group has just been smeared by the insinuation that surveillance equals guilt (which it doesn’t of course).
And what is the big stink about and why is the media tipping off our enemies? Because of this
The sources provided guidelines to how the administration has employed the surveillance program. They said the National Security Agency in cooperation with the FBI was allowed to monitor the telephone calls and e-mails of any American believed to be in contact with a person abroad suspected of being linked to al Qaeda or other terrorist groups.
At that point, the sources said, all of the communications of that American would be monitored, including calls made to others in the United States. The regulations under the administration’s surveillance program do not require any court order.
If my neighbor is in contact with Al Qaeda ‘heavies’ overseas, and the Feds listen in on their phone calls to me – I could care less. I would rather find and stop the next 9-11 rather than worry about irrelevant chatter.
UPDATE:
And most of America thinks the same way:
Sixty-four percent (64%) of Americans believe the National Security Agency (NSA) should be allowed to intercept telephone conversations between terrorism suspects in other countries and people living in the United States. A Rasmussen Reports survey found that just 23% disagree.
Sixty-eight percent (68%) of Americans say they are following the NSA story somewhat or very closely.
Just 26% believe President Bush is the first to authorize a program like the one currently in the news. Forty-eight percent (48%) say he is not while 26% are not sure.
64 vs 23. That puts all the liberals on one side of this issue, which will kill the democrats in 2006.
This story is just breaking so America is still digesting the impact it has had on our efforts to stop terrorists. Look for these numbers to get worse for the leakers and the handwringers more worried about terrorist’s civil rights vs their attack plans.
Rand Beers is now on HARDBALL (Dec 28, 2005) talking with substitute host Nora O’Donnell on the topic of NSA wiretaps and FISA…
Hhhhmmm, hhhhmmm, hhhhhmmmmmmmmm
I hope you will tell what Rand Beers said. I am not too good at interpreting hhhmmmms.
That dopey Ron reagan is commenting on this issue. He is claiming that Americans are “not crazy about the government spying on them.” He is such a tool.
I personally think that Bush is going after Al Qaeda, not law-abiding Americans.
The MSNBC news guy is now saying that Bush is going to give the terrorists a “get out of jail free card” because he used “illegal” methods.
How do they even know the details of these cases yet? These are just the defense lawyers fishing.
“U.S. law enforcement sources said that more than four years of surveillance by the National Security Agency has failed to capture any high-level al Qaeda operative in the United States.”
So?
How many attacks have been prevented?
How many bad guys captured overseas?
How many killed overseas?
The American people are leaning hard in this thing…and they aren’t leaning left.
Maid
Hhhhmmm, hhhhmmm, hhhhhmmmmmmmmm
indeed!
Dems need to step WAY WAY back from this and the media aholes that have sat idly by allowing these traitors carte blanche need to too. WAY BACK, this ones about to blow.
Promise?
Last 2005 Round-Up
According to this poll by Rasmussen Reports, 64% of Americans believe the National Security Agency (NSA) should be allowed to intercept telephone conversations between terrorism suspects in other countries and people living in the United States. Just…
Snapple,
Here is a partial transcript of HARDBALL, Dec 28, 2005 (subhosted by Nora O’Donnell), containing Rand Beers’ comments. The one which jumps out at me…another prime example of Mr. Beers’ clever slight of hands, is this one: “FISA is about looking at people who are agents of foreign powers, in this case al Qaeda.” What?! Is Beers saying al Qaeda was/is an agent of a foreign power? Or is he saying this for another reason?
So here’s a question for you FISA experts out there: Is FISA only applicable to “foreign powers” or does it apply to “non-state” actors as well? I.e., does the law constricting NSA wiretaps or collection targeting apply to “free-lance foreign terrorists” or only to “agents of foreign powers”?
begin HARDBALL excerpt:
O’DONNELL: Welcome back to HARDBALL. For more on the brewing legal challenges to the NSA’s secret domestic surveillance program, we turned to Rand Beers. He’s a former senior director for combating terrorism on the National Security Council under President Bush.
He quit his job in 2003 and became an adviser for Senator John Kerry’s presidential campaign, claiming at the time, that the Bush administration was making America less secure.
You have been in counterterrorism for most of your career. When you heard about this FISA program and secret spying, did you know about it since you were in the White House?
RAND BEERS, FORMER INTERNATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL STAFFER: No, I did not know about it while I was in the White House.
O’DONNELL: And what’s your reaction finding out about it?
BEERS: My reaction is that I’m concerned. Certainly, the president has the authority to look for foreign agents. That’s not the question. The question is, how did he go about this? Was he simply using a vacuum cleaner to look in every nook and cranny and then determining who they were? If he went that way, then I think he’s overstepped the boundaries that we would except for a president who was adhering to the constitution to follow.
O’DONNELL: The White House said yesterday, “This is not about people making calls to set up Little League games or to attend a pot-luck dinner. This is about bad guys talking to bad guys.†Most Americans say, “That sounds legit, we’ve got to catch these terrorists. We’re looking at people who are in the United States who may be affiliates of al Qaeda talking to people overseas. What’s so bad about that?â€
BEERS: There’s nothing wrong with that. That’s what FISA is about. FISA is about looking at people who are agents of foreign powers, in this case al Qaeda. But if we don’t know that that’s the only thing that was being listened to, and we don’t know that yet, then we have a problem that we need to understand.
O’DONNELL: So interesting. So you think when you read about this, and one of course, the very interesting stories we learned from “The New York Times†is that there’s a lot of data-mining going on. And in fact, NSA has been working with American phone companies at the switches and picking up a lot of information.
So you think that they may have been fishing around and getting a lot of other information, other than conversations between suspected al Qaeda people?
BEERS: It would appear to be that that’s the case, yes. That’s what I think was going on. Otherwise the procedures were well in place and could have easily been administered without having to go this.
O’DONNELL: Well if that’s true, then that’s a huge story. Then they are spying on Americans, or could have been without the proper safeguards.
BEERS: That’s right. And what they do with that information is what we should all be concerned about.
O’DONNELL: So what do you think happens then when this becomes huge hearings in the Senate? There are not just Democrats concerned about this on Capitol Hill, but Republicans concerned about that on Capitol Hill. You think this is going to turn out to be a blockbuster of a story, well through the first couple of months of 2006?
BEERS: I think it’s going to last well into January and probably into February, and I hope that Congress provides the appropriate oversight and I hope that we can resolve this in a legal fashion. I don’t want to see the FISA Act trashed, but I do want Americans to be safeguarded.
O’DONNELL: Now some people may say you’re a partisan. You quit the Bush White House and you went to work Senator John Kerry. At the time during the campaign, you made the charge that this president has made America less secure. But the president looks like using this, that he’s extremely aggressive, he’s extremely on the offensive using this. Isn’t he trying to make America more secure?
BEERS: I believe that the president thinks he is trying to make America more secure. And the question is, are we making America more secure in a way that diminishes our place in the world, that diminishes our ability to marshal forces, to go against terrorists around the world.
This on top of other actions that the president has taken with respect to torture and other things like that create an image abroad that creates a problem for us. We’ve got to find the right balance in order to be able to proceed appropriately.
O’DONNELL: Finally because you were the former senior director at the National Security Council under President Bush, I have to ask you about Osama bin Laden because we’re going to be talking about it in the next segment. Do you believe we’re going to find him anytime soon?
BEERS: I think if we find him, it will be an accident or a piece of good fortune.
O’DONNELL: Why? Why do you say that?
BEERS: Well because I don’t think at this particular point now that he’s been out and about, that we have the ability to cover the area in which he could be operating.
We have, together with our friends in Pakistan, sought to diminish the area in which he was operating. But as time has gone on and on, I am less of the view that we can do that effectively enough to be able to say that we’re actually closing the loop on him. So I think if we find him, it will be his mistake or our good fortune.
O’DONNELL: All right. Well thank you, Rand Beers.
end excerpt
Maid Marion,
Thanks for the transcript. I listened to it in the background, but did not hear anything important.
Per your question on foreign powers, FISA had to be amended to cover terrorists as foreign agents so as to allow for their monitoring. In this set of answers to Congress regarding FISA, the administration discusses the ‘lone wolf’ issue and how it evolved (page 5)
More on FISA here.