The Democrats and their media puppets have come down on a really catchy phrase for this year’s election: “Are we Safer?” The phrase is pregnant for possibilities – especially after the left has done all they can to make us unsafe! Number of attacks on US soil by Al Qaeda? Zero. That is pretty darn safe by any measurement. But the biting responses that float through the mind when a liberal asks this question are truly humorous.

For example one could answer “we would be safer if the NSA terrorist surveillance program was still secret and was not being threatened by a liberal judge”. Or – “we would be safer if the legal and successful terrorist financial monitoring program was still secret and successful”. Are we safer? Well, “we could be if the left hadn’t spent 3+ years calling for our surrender in Iraq so the insurgents would have decided it was hopeless because the US was showing no intentions of backing down”. Are we safer? “Depends on whether the NY Times has any more secrets they want to expose to Al Qaeda in some strange and crazy hope the news will hurt Bush”. Are we safer? “Yes, because thankfully the last terrorist attack was hatched in Britian where it is OK to monitor terrorist activities and not here were that is unconstitutional”.

Amazingly enough, the liberal media has been so wrong so many times it is now a given that any story they print has to be 50% wrong, and the big ones will be 100% wrong! Did the NSA bypass FISA? All the time – before 9-11. The NSA never sent a single lead to the FBI-FISA before 9-11, the leads went to the CIA where they all disappeared. NSA leads were not allowed to go to FISA.

What has happened since 9-11 is that the NSA leads NOW do go through FISA! Yep, that’s right. When the NSA detects someone in the US talking to known terrorists overseas (like those managing the UK Airline Plot) the NSA NOW passes the lead to the FBI, who investigates the lead and then takes those of concern to the FISA court.

Go back and read the original NY Times article (my 2nd post on it here). The linchpin of FIS Court Judge Robinson’s issue with the new paradigm, the one that caused his protest resignation, was the fact the NSA leads were being used to ‘taint’ the FISA process – not circumvent it:

Two associates familiar with his decision said yesterday that Robertson privately expressed deep concern that the warrantless surveillance program authorized by the president in 2001 was legally questionable and may have tainted the FISA court’s work.

Emphasis of course is mine. If you take out the Times phrasing for effect and replace it with precision the statement reads thusly;

Two associates familiar with his decision said yesterday that Robertson privately expressed deep concern that the use of NSA leads as evidence to the FIS Courtauthorized by the president in 2001 was legally questionable and may have tainted the FISA court’s work.

The NSA will spy on the terrorists and note who they call no matter what. That is their function and it is legal. They are not a legal entity, they are a military operation, and therefore there is no legal threat from the NSA. The NSA has not changed one iota in this respect since before 9-11. The question is what happens to their leads – and that is the key difference. There is no reason to get a warrant for a currently legal act (check out the sobriety check points and baggage searches at airports). What the ‘legal scholars’ have been moaning about is the use of intel as evidence for probable cause for making a US person a target of surveillance (meaning all their communications, not just those communications with the terrorists who are legal targets of surveillance). Well, the FIS Court judges worked out arrangements for that as well – they do not allow a warrant based on intel only.

Americans are pretty smart, and so are most judges. What I hope to see when the lame decision by Diggs Talyor is overturned is a sound legal reasoning that closes this matter for good. I want an opinion that makes it clear the NSA monitoring is not the issue, it is whether NSA leads should be fed into the FISC process so we can investigate potential attacks brewing right here on our soil. I want to see a decision that reminds people that anyone in contact with a legal target of surveillance can be caught up in that surveillance without any warrant on them personally. That makes the NSA leads fair game since terrorists are legitimate, legal targets. I want the courts to clear this mess up since the media and the pundits don’t have a clue what they are saying (but us lowly bloggers who use public records and public statements somehow find the right picture). I heard a repeat segment of O’Reilly were he made the ignorant claim that FISA would take any NSA lead and provide a warrant. How wrong can you be? That is simply false. The FIS Court refuses to issue any warrant based solely on NSA intel – and rightfully so.

The FIS Court judges have testified the program is legal, but they worry about intel being used as evidence and causing problems. Agreed, but that has been dealt with. The judge who resigned clearly sent the message he did not like intel being used to gain FISA warrants. He can have that opinion – but let the people decide. The NSA chief has publically stated that prior to 9-11, when terrorists reached our shore, they disappeared from the view of law enforcement (though the NSA and CIA could still pick them up when they talked to their bosses overseas or transferred money). This is all on the record, yet the media is too lazy or biased to correct their reporting. You think doctored pictures are bad? Geez, they are nothing compared to the NSA story details.

America is safer and the American people (with the exception of the deluded lefties) are very smart. 9-11 focused their attention and they are much smarter now about national security and the threats we face. And when they learn the truth, that the NSA ‘went around’ FISA by avoiding it before 9-11 – and that is why the attacks snuck by our defenses – there will be hell to pay for all those who claimed otherwise. The NSA leads now go to FISA after the FBI investigates them to determine if there are substantiating indicators to a risk. What is wrong with this? Nothing! There is not story here, if it was accurate. When lefties say this is not what should happen every sane person in this country is going to respond with “this is your idea of safer?” Count on it.