Posted on 01/22/2006 7:37:31 AM PST by baystaterebel
In a speech last week, Al Gore took another swing at the National Security Agency's electronic surveillance program, which monitors international communications when one party is affiliated with terrorists. Specifically, Mr. Gore argued that George Bush "has been breaking the law repeatedly and persistently," and that such actions might constitute an impeachable offense. The question he raises is whether the president illegally bypassed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). But the real issue is national security: FISA is as adept at detecting--and, thus, preventing--a terrorist attack as a horse-and-buggy is at getting us from New York to Paris.
I have extensive experience with the consequences of government bungling due to overstrict interpretations of FISA. As chief counsel for the Senate Intelligence Committee from 1981 to 1984, I participated in oversight of FISA in the first years after its passage. When I subsequently became deputy assistant attorney general in the Reagan administration, one of my responsibilities was the terrorism portfolio, which included working with FISA.
In 1985, I experienced the pain of terminating a FISA wiretap when to do so defied common sense and thwarted the possibility of gaining information about American hostages. During the TWA 847 hijacking, American serviceman Robert Stethem was murdered and the remaining American male passengers taken hostage. We had a previously placed tap in the U.S. and thought there was a possibility we could learn the hostages' location. But Justice Department career lawyers told me that the FISA statute defined its "primary purpose" as foreign intelligence gathering. Because crimes were taking place, the FBI had to shut down the wire.
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
Jay's got a miniscule mind.
So he tells us that we should be blind
And not ask smart hackers
To track our attackers.
I don't want advice from his kind.
Or, in the moonbat mind of Kos, we should blindly flail about in front of Al Qaeda Uzis we might otherwise have found or avoided using taps, showing them how unafraid we are to die!
Why are liberal democrats so goofy? (That's a rhetorical question...)
That's very good!
Thank you. The outrageousness of the Democrats is very inspiring.
Leftys, like Gore, have never cared about the "lives on the ground" when it comes to exposing the ways and means of fighting our enemies. How many have died over the years because of them? At this point, they've already compromised, if not entirely negated, the effectiveness of our intelliegence gathering. And they've done so solely for some kind of imaginary political gain. Anything - and I mean anything - that can be twisted into some "heads I win/tails you lose" talking point is OK with them.
Hey Al Gore! It's time for another reality check-you did not win in 2000 and you will not be president. Get over it.
The Rockefeller equation is this: Get excited about two deaths, when it's visible and voters might vote on that basis. Don't give a damn about 3,000 or more deaths, when it's not yet visible and voters might not vote on that basis.
Even if Rockefeller does not turn out to be one of the leakers to the NY Times, he is still a self-serving sleazeball who will do anything for political benefit behind the scenes, and lie about it in public.
Congressman Billybob
Latest column: "On Judge Alito, the San Francisco Chronicle is Unfit to be a Newspaper"
You've got Jay's number.
And why weren't Rockefeller and Byrd doing something for miners before?
Democrats aren't leaders, They merely react to headlines.
"Clinton-Gore...prohibited...intelligence...from even communicating with...law enforcement.The Left is truly bankrupt morally and intellectually. It has nothing to offer.The Patriot Act corrected this problem and the FISA appeals court upheld the constitutionality...
The court cited an FBI agent's testimony that efforts to investigate two of the Sept. 11 hijackers were blocked by senior FBI officials, concerned about the FISA rule requiring separation."
Its agenda has been stripped naked for all to see in all its ignominy.
If the American people were foolish enough to allow the Left to gain control of the government, America's foreign enemies would rejoice. Their fifth column in the U.S.A. would be in control of the U.S. government and America's destruction--it would seem to them--imminent. Nor would America's domestic enemies--this fifth column--the Left--fail to rejoice.
The Left can not be trusted
And must not be trusted,
With anything
But especially with something as vital as government--or national security.
There was once a limerick by me,
That didn't rhyme at all.
And it didn't have those two lines in the middle,
That are shorter then all the rest,
That limerick by me.
And it had one line too many.
Yes, since if they say what they are really about (International Socialist Utopia), they can't win an election at the national level.
Rockefeller, the former WV Secretary of State and WV Governor was wearing his "down home" garb, trying to act like a regular guy.
Is it true that, in the late 1970's, Governor Jay Rockefeller had tried to ensure states could wrest control of surface mining regulations away from the Federal government?
This controversy subsequently resulted in introduction of the so-called "Rockefeller Amendment" that was conceived by then Governor Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia. It was intended to amend the federal surface mining act to allow states to individually interpret the federal law and write their regulations based on each interpretation.
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