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Tapped
By Todd A. Carges
Wed Mar 19, 2008, 12:42 PM EDT
Check out President Bush's comments earlier this week referring to our enemies in Iraq, Afghanistan and around the world: "These are vicious people who know no bounds of humanity. They would not hesitate to murder. It's essential for our citizens to understand this. And that is why this war must be fought and that is why this enemy must be defeated. I want to assure you, just like I assure military families and the troops: the politics of 2008 is not going to enter into my calculation. It is the peace of the years to come that will enter into my calculation."
Thank God for President Bush. He gets it.
And unlike other politicians in this country, he doesn't play politics with our national security. He knows far more than we do about the threats we face and understands exactly what it takes to defeat this enemy. From the beginning, he told us that we would use every tool available to win this war both abroad and domestically. We agreed. Since that time, he's coordinated our military and intelligence efforts to cripple Al-Qaeda and thwart several domestic attacks. That is worth repeating: we have not been attacked domestically since 9-11.
Sadly, the Democrats in the House of Representatives are putting this streak in jeopardy.
Lead by the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), the Democrats in the House chose not to extend President Bush's Wiretapping Program before they left for recess. That means that, potentially, right now, terrorists are using telephones and emails to plot attacks that we don't know about.
So, why did Nancy Pelosi (3rd in line for the Presidency by the way) leave for vacation while holding up a bill that authorizes the continuance of a critical National Security Program?
A: She doesn't care about the security of your family.
B: She is protecting the potential profits of big Democrat donors.
C: Maybe both A and B.
The answer of course is C. Let's take a closer look. The NSA Wiretapping Program was born from a presidential order in 2002 authorizing the National Security Agency (NSA) to monitor international telephone calls and email messages without warrants in order to track and monitor Al-Qaeda and other terrorist activity. Good idea right? Since that time, the program has been instrumental in thwarting terrorist plots. In other words, it has worked. Need an example: Iyman Faris pleaded guilty in 2003 to working for Al-Qaeda and attempting to bring down the Brooklyn Bridge with blowtorches. His plan was uncovered through the Wiretapping Program.
Need another one? In 2004, an Al-Qaeda plot to attack British pubs and train stations with fertilizer bombs was uncovered and thwarted because of the program.
Now opponents of the program complain that it violates civil liberties, and that without a warrant, it violates privacy and legal search laws. The fact of the matter is that only people with known or suspected terrorist ties are monitored and that President Bush briefed Congressional leaders and the judge that presides over the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) on the details of the program. Wiretapping has long since been used to monitor calls and emails in foreign countries, the expansion into domestic communications was logical, prudent and necessary after 9-11.
In 2005, details of the secret Wiretapping Program were leaked to the New York Times. Bush asked them specifically not to run the story because it would alert terror suspects and compromise security. Of course, the Times ran the story anyway. With the program exposed, it didn't take long for "watchdog" groups to find opportunistic lawyers and file lawsuits against the telephone companies that have been cooperating with the NSA to execute the program. The telephone companies asked President Bush for complete immunity, both future and retroactive, from these lawsuits in exchange for their continued assistance. A Bill authorizing the continuance of the program and granting such immunity was recently passed in the Senate, but Pelosi is holding it up in the House. Right now AT&T and Verizon face 40 lawsuits for assisting the government in catching terrorists since 9-11. President Bush put it best: "How can you listen to the enemy if the phone companies aren't going to participate with you? They're not going to participate if they get sued."
The lawsuits against these companies are frivolous. They agreed to cooperate in good faith because they were told it was legal by the NSA and the Whitehouse. So, why won't Pelosi support the immunity?
Whitehouse spokesman Dana Perino has a theory: "A wide bipartisan group of Senators and a majority of the House, if given a chance, believe that the companies acted in good faith. Only trial lawyers and their allies in the House, who have received millions of dollars in contributions from class-action lawyers, argue differently, and that's because they're putting greed ahead of fairness and national security." Could it be that Pelosi is protecting the trial lawyers that donate millions to Democrat party (trial lawyers are the second biggest contributor to the Democrat party you know)? Why else would she offer the immunity for future eavesdropping but not for past eavesdropping? And why authorize the program but not assure the critical participants of the program that they legally participated?
Like I said, either the Speaker of the House doesn't care about our security, or she is protecting the lawsuits. Or worse, both.
Securing the nation from global terrorists is hard enough. Why does Bush continually have to waste time securing the nation from Democrats, their willing accomplices in the media and greedy trial lawyers? Because we put up with it. That's why.
