December 16, 2005
Real Leaks & MSM Hysteria Endanger AmericaThe Valerie Plame kerfuffle was much ado about nothing. She wasn't a covert agent and her identification doesn't seem to have harmed national security, much less endangered her. But revelations about secret CIA prisons and, now, NSA communications intercepts have direct and deleterious ramifications on national security.
While Washington and the MSM made a big deal about the insignificant Plame case with the requisite sanctimony about national security, it appears to be doing nothing about the CIA and NSA leaks that undermine America's intelligence war against terrorist groups. Michelle Malkin has much more and you should read it.
The real headline news is...that the blabbermouths at the Times chose to disclose classified information in a pathetically obvious bid to move the Iraqi elections off the front pages...Her whole post on this is required reading to get past the Times's breathless misinformation. This, along with the potential lapse of the Patriot Act and the hysteria over "torture," exemplifies how liberals will blow things out of proportion, and then complain when all steps were not taken to prevent the loss of American lives.The Times attempts to create a national uproar over something called a "special collection program" launched by the National Security Agency sometime after the Sept. 11 attacks...
Those who actually read the piece will note that the paper must grudgingly acknowledge that it is talking about the NSA's monitoring of international communications (e-mails, cellphone calls, etc.) only; the agency still seeks warrants to monitor entirely domestic communications.
And not until the 16th paragraph, some 1,110 words into the massive piece, does the paper tell you the important context in which the program was created and used
What the agency calls a "special collection program" began soon after the Sept. 11 attacks, as it looked for new tools to attack terrorism. The program accelerated in early 2002 after the Central Intelligence Agency started capturing top Qaeda operatives overseas, including Abu Zubaydah, who was arrested in Pakistan in March 2002. The C.I.A. seized the terrorists' computers, cellphones and personal phone directories, said the officials familiar with the program. The N.S.A. surveillance was intended to exploit those numbers and addresses as quickly as possible, the officials said....As a result of the NSA program, buried down in the 11th paragraph, we learn that the terrorist plot involving convicted al Qaeda operative Iyman Faris was uncovered--possibly saving untold lives, not to mention New York bridges and possibly Washington, D.C. trains...In addition to eavesdropping on those numbers and reading e-mail messages to and from the Qaeda figures, the N.S.A. began monitoring others linked to them, creating an expanding chain. While most of the numbers and addresses were overseas, hundreds were in the United States, the officials said.
Civil liberties extremists pretend there are no tradeoffs, no costs, to putting legal absolutism over national security. That is simply not the case. Had Faris remained free, he may have likely kept forging ahead until he found the right tools, the right bridge, the right trains, and the right time to execute the al Qaeda plot
...Once again, hindsight hypocrisy rears its head. If the Bush administration chose to pursue FISA warrants, failed to obtain them, let the information go to waste, and allowed another attack to occur as a result, is there any question the finger-waggers at the NYTimes would be the first to attack the President for failing to do everything necessary to prevent it?
Posted by Jonathan R. on December 16, 2005 02:10 PM
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Comments
We need to get to the bottom of these leaks--the ones that really count. Instead of wasting all that time on the non-outing of Plame, we need to focus on who is blabbing the stuff that compromises our security. Whoever it is (or whoever they are)--Republican, Democrat, whatever--they should be brought to justice.
Posted by: conservatismo ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.gopbloggers.org/nav-commenters.gif)
at December 16, 2005 07:58 PM
I don't know why people keep insisting that there was no damage done from the Plame leak.
Three points.
1) The CIA has not performed a damage assessment, though several media figures (including this author) imply that they have.
2) Because of the leak, Plame's employer -- a Boston firm -- has been exposed as a CIA front. All business and persons associated with this firm are now suspect. All her activities and anyone associated with those activities are at risk.
3) The "outing" of a CIA operative clearly has a "chilling effect" on active and potential future CIA operatives. Would you want to put your life (and possibly your family's) on the line knowing they might be put in serious jeopardy for a political grudge?
There are many places where I can see a right-wing view on things. I make it a point to read both sides before weighing in myself but this isn't one of them. How on earth can conservatives POSSIBLY be for anything but swift and decisive judgement for anyone and everyone involved in this issue?
I think the Plame leak does -- or, at the very least should -- transcend politics. The fact that it doesn't underscores a flaw in the GOPers that will be definitively underlined in the '06 elections; that blind faith will bite you in the end.
Regards,
bodhi
Posted by: Bodhi at December 16, 2005 08:18 PM
I guess, to a degree, it depends on who one believes. Since Ms. Plame was not a covert agent, I continue to question that great damage was done in any category. There is also a great deal of anecdotal information which suggests that her husband, Joe Wilson, habitually introduced her at social gatherings as his "CIA wife." In any case, the leakage of actual intelligence seems to me to be a serious matter which is NOT being investigated, not even questioned, by reps on either side of the aisle. That is disturbing, in my humble opinion.
Posted by: conservatismo at December 17, 2005 10:08 AM
Can we puleez put this "Plame wasn't a covert agent nonsense to rest.?" This is as pathetic as Kay Bailey Hutchinson's Clintonesque wining on national television about how a little perjury and obstruction of justice (in the Libby case) isn't really such a big deal!
The only assessment on this and true evaluation of the fallout can be done by the CIA. They say she was a covert agent and they are the ones who were upset in the first place that she was "outed" and started the investigation. Case closed.
It goes without saying that if this had happened on anyone else's watch, no one to the right of Lincoln Chafee would be complaining.
Of course, I totally agree with you about the leaking of the spying program, although I still do not understand why the FISA process wasn't used, or at least tried. Or maybe they did try and used their program when they were turned down.
Posted by: Ginni at December 21, 2005 08:37 PM
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