What’s the biggest risk facing the US today? Rogue members of the CIA who insist on leaking national security secrets to members of the media who’s primary focus is a Pulitzer prize.
Captains Quarters has more about the exposure of another key counterterrorism program.
Hopefully, this is more than just an end of the year bone being thrown.
The Justice Department has opened an investigation into the leak of classified information about President Bush’s secret domestic spying program.
The inquiry focuses on disclosures to The New York Times about warrantless surveillance conducted by the National Security Agency since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, officials said.
The Times revealed the existence of the program two weeks ago in a front-page story that acknowledged the news had been withheld from publication for a year, partly at the request of the administration and partly because the newspaper wanted more time to confirm various aspects of the program.
White House spokesman Trent Duffy said Justice undertook the action on its own, and the president was informed of it on Friday.
And then Duffy serves up the ultimate weapon – logic.
“The leaking of classified information is a serious issue. The fact is that al-Qaida’s playbook is not printed on Page One and when America’s is, it has serious ramifications.”
This is the most important point that’s been missing from the debate, until now. In this post 9/11 world, why would anyone want to publicize national security secrets and procedures? Why would anyone want to give our plans and defense mechanisms to our enemies? Why would anyone want to endanger the lives of their fellow Americans?
It’s because they hate Bush and everything he stands for.
Additionally, they hold a leftist political agenda and an ideology that we deserved what happened on 9/11. There are those who believe we were attacked because the US mistreated Muslims. If we just “understand” their needs and sacrifice a little of what we have then they’ll be happy and we will be safe. The manifestation of this mindset births leakers who expose our secret prisons, bang drums of investigation over whether the US tortures prisoners, and work to strip our president of the very powers given him to protect the nation he leads.
Will it stop with this investigation by the Justice Department? I’d hope so, but I’m afraid it won’t. Unfortunately, I think none of this will change until we experience another attack on American soil. That’s the real tragedy.
There’s precious little to blog about. The week between Christmas and New Years day is filled with more fabricated news than any other week of the year. There’s also plenty of ‘top list of 2005’ like news, which is always boring. Weird news, like the wildfires in Oklahoma, which seem pretty strange to me (unless you’re from that area and are used to these hitting around this time of year). What does seem common is winter storms in Colorado. I mean really, it’s high up, it’s cold, and it snows. But, this week, it’s news. They’re still flogging the “iPod is bad for your ears” news. Oh yeah, and there’s Nick and Jessica news, but who cares about that?
See what I mean? Nothing to blog about.
Michael J. Totten writes:
“When you visit another country, it’s hard to get a feel for what it’s actually like until you leave your hotel room, go for a walk, take a look around, and hang out while soaking it in. Not so in Libya. All you have to do there is show up. It will impose itself on you at once.”
I’ve enjoyed reading Michael’s blog over the past year. His photography is first rate. Go check him out.
Hey, how long have these things been available in high definition? I just saw a few tonight and noticed the alternate option. The larger viewing window and the higher quality is how I like to watch movie trailers. The small windows embedded in the HTML were weak, at best.
Prime Minister Harold Wilson discussed whether there were too many “hippies” in the BBC in 1975 in talks with the corporation’s chairman, it has emerged.
BBC chairman Sir Michael Swann discussed “hippie influences” when he met Wilson at a dinner party.
He said he would not say the BBC was clear of such problems but it was a “picnic” compared to his time as head of Edinburgh University.
Swann was worried young BBC producers were too hostile in their journalism.
Forget about the hostile journalism, what if that guy in the picture came running down your hallway in the middle of the night, screaming “Die, Die, Die!”
Now that’d be scary.
This is what I like most about blogs. They’re real life. And this is as real as it gets.
After reading the Reuters story about the Pope’s stance on the sanctity of life, I found this. Read the following quote. Can you guess who the speaker is?
“That is why the Constitution called us three-fifths human and then whites further dehumanized us by calling us ‘niggers’. It was part of the dehumanizing process. The first step was to distort the image of us as human beings in order to justify that which they wanted to do and not even feel like they had done anything wrong. Those advocates of taking life prior to birth do not call it killing or murder, they call it abortion. They further never talk about aborting a baby because that would imply something human. Rather they talk about aborting the fetus. Fetus sounds less than human and therefore abortion can be justified”.
If you guessed Rev. Jesse Jackson, you’re correct. He said this back in the 1970’s, when it was politically important for him to emphasize that he nearly ended up being aborted. But you’d be hard pressed to hear the good reverend repeat these words today.
It figures.
French President Jacques Chirac offered to help makers of “The Da Vinci Code” film in the Louvre, and suggested they cast his daughter’s best friend in the leading female role, Newsweek magazine said. “We thought it was going to be a five-minute thing, like a trip to the Oval Office — a photo and a handshake,” said producer Brian Grazer of the hour-long meeting he and director Ron Howard had at Chirac’s office in December 2004.
Newsweek said Chirac offered to smooth out any problem they might encounter in their request to film some scenes at the Louvre — where The Da Vinci Code’s murder-and-religion mystery begins and ends.
In addition, said Grazer, Chirac suggested his daughter’s best friend — whom Newsweek describes as “an actress of some acclaim in France” — for the film’s leading female role, which in the end fell to Audrey Tautou.
Chirac also “wondered aloud, half seriously, if they could sweeten the paycheck for actor Jean Reno,” Newsweek said. Reno plays the detective assigned to the case.
“That was hilarious,” said Howard of the request on Wednesday. “Fortunately the deal was already closed.”
No matter if its Opie Cunningham or Saddam Hussein, Chirac makes it clear that France can be bought. It would behoove the French to look at their German friends and follow along by making a leadership change, unless of course, they enjoy being disrespected by the rest of the world.
Now that everyone has gotten all uppity over the news that the Bush administrations used unique surveillance tactics to weed out post-9/11 terror suspects, lawyers for the convicts now want to go back and look at aspects of cases where convictions occurred. If the eavesdropping was illegal, and the lawyers can prove that key evidence was withheld to gain a favorable decision, the terrorists could get off scot free.
Terrorists out in the open, ready and willing to plan the next attack. That would be a BAD thing, right? If you asked the New York Times, you might get a different answer.
Defense lawyers in some of the country’s biggest terrorism cases say they plan to bring legal challenges to determine whether the National Security Agency used illegal wiretaps against several dozen Muslim men tied to Al Qaeda.
The lawyers said in interviews that they wanted to learn whether the men were monitored by the agency and, if so, whether the government withheld critical information or misled judges and defense lawyers about how and why the men were singled out.
The expected legal challenges, in cases from Florida, Ohio, Oregon and Virginia, add another dimension to the growing controversy over the agency’s domestic surveillance program and could jeopardize some of the Bush administration’s most important courtroom victories in terror cases, legal analysts say.
The question of whether the N.S.A. program was used in criminal prosecutions and whether it improperly influenced them raises “fascinating and difficult questions,” said Carl W. Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond who has studied terrorism prosecutions.
“It seems to me that it would be relevant to a person’s case,” Professor Tobias said. “I would expect the government to say that it is highly sensitive material, but we have legal mechanisms to balance the national security needs with the rights of defendants. I think judges are very conscientious about trying to sort out these issues and balance civil liberties and national security.”
You’d think the New York Times and the Libs believe we’ll never be hit again. They’re certainly acting like that’s the case. I hope they’re right, but I want to be ready, in case they’re not.
I used to be really big on government keeping to themselves and staying out of my business, but everything changed after September 11th. Now, I want the government to stay busy finding these bad guys and either killing them or putting them in jail, on a far away island, until they rot and die. Now listen, I don’t want government officials standing outside my house for days on end, or sneaking around my property. But, I do want them to have the tools necessary to find the terrorists and thwart the next attack.
If we become obsessed with gazing at our own navels, we won’t look up in time to stop the next terrorist attack.