Winning the fight against our enemies

Worldview Item of the Day

Joseph Abrams at FoxNews.com writes an outstanding piece on the success of American agencies at the local, state, and federal level to thwart active and ongoing plots to attack targets inside the United States. The list of potential attacks that have been stopped–the ones we know about–is impressive and startling in its scope.

This reporting also shows how critical it is for our law enforcement, intelligence, and defense agencies to have the tools that they need to stop our enemies because our enemies are actively working to do us harm. Whether our enemies are domestic or foreign, the threat is the same, and we must empower those who are protecting us to be able to do so with the greatest effectiveness and success.

This need focuses directly on the need for our intelligence agencies to have access to the warrantless wiretapping and FISA court tools that Congress has failed to provide them. Without the tools provided by the FISA, our intelligence agencies will not be able to continue to stop the very kinds of attacks we can now see that they are successfully stopping.

Civil libertarians and progressives can decry such tools as invasions of our privacy and liberty, but even they cannot argue that unintentional surveillance of innocent parties is a more egregious invasion than death caused by an enemy that could not be stopped because those tasked with stopping them did not have the right tools to do so.

I think such clear evidence as to the efforts of our enemies and the success of those we have asked to defend us should remind us once again how serious the threat against us. We need to face this serious threat with serious effort, including the tools necessary to defeat that threat.

-=DLH=-

This entry was posted in Defense, Government, Intelligence, Media, Military, Nations, News, Politics, Quid Facis, United States, War on Terror, World Watch. Bookmark the permalink.

9 Responses to Winning the fight against our enemies

  1. keba says:

    Why is it that this is just now news? I don’t expect to see every day that we stopped such-and-such an attack, but it would be a nice balance to the current negativity.

  2. dlhitzeman says:

    Because the majority of the MSM does not want us to know that there is success, because success means both that there is an enemy and that tools like warrantless wiretapping are stopping them.

  3. David says:

    It’s not “just now news.” I know the definition of the MSM is an ever-shifting one depending on what point someone wants to prove, but outlets such as CNN and CBS, to name a couple I found rather easily, did in fact report on these incidents.

    Just because the MSM, however you choose to define it, doesn’t pick up on and endlessly parrot what FOX News and Matt Drudge want them to, doesn’t mean they have an agenda to “hide the truth” from us. What is true is that the MSM’s news units are woefully understaffed and underfunded and it’s reporters typically don’t have the first idea what real reporting is all about. That is why real stories get missed.

    I’ll be more inclined to take your criticisms of the MSM seriously when you complain as vociferously about the lack of spine they show when they print or air the White House’s talking points without question as you are when they overlook positive results in Iraq or the broader “war on terror.”

  4. dlhitzeman says:

    David, your MSM comment bears some consideration except for one thing: In the case of many of these twarted attacks, the reports in the MSM were not front page news. Yes, searching a news site shows that they did report on them, but at the time they were news, very few people knew many ofthem had occured.

    As to your second point, I’ve yet to have someone actually point out a time when the MSM reported something the President said that was known to be factually untrue at the time it was reported. Discovering that something was not true after the fact or that there were doubts at the time does not count.

  5. David says:

    Denny, while I agree that “front page news” is a relevant indicator — stories expressing doubts about the Bush push for the Iraq war having often been buried in the nether regions of newspapers — I know that we would both also agree that not all stories can be front page stories, not all stories are front page worthy stories, and neither “side” can do much about an American public unwilling to “turn the page.” The fact is some of these stories were prominent and these stories aren’t “just now news.”

    As to the second point, I agree that “discovering that something was not true after the fact . . . does not count.” I strongly disagree that situations where information about doubts was supressed doesn’t count: it very much does count because it can (though doesn’t always) indicate that there was an attempt to falsely influence public opinion by hiding information from the public.

    Further, you’re inaccurately limiting your interpretation of my comment when you only mention the President. The White House is often very careful about the words it chooses (as it should be). However, the arguments and information they share often get transformed by members of the noise machine — the Michelle Malkins of the world — and come out wrong in official press reports. I will concede, however, that this is more often true of op-ed pieces in the MSM than in actual news reports, though there have been notable exceptions.

    For example, the President and his surrogates continue to bash Congress for lack of action on the PAA, but it was Bush himself who threatened to veto a 30-day extension to the bill. You have to want to defend Bush and the media pretty badly not to make the case that Bush is at least as responsible as Congress for the lapse in the PAA. Yet, the main narrative is only what the White House wants us to believe: that Congress — and specifically the Democrats — are holding up the PAA.

    Further, there have been numerous proposed bills that keep the intelligence gathering aspects of the bill, but not the telecom amnesty portion, yet Republicans did not support them and Bush was willing to let these key provisions lapse unless he got everything he wanted. Then he turns around and blames the Democrats in Congress. This is the storyline in the right-wing echo chamber, this is largely the storyline in the mainstream media, and it is false or at the very least, seriously flawed.

    This much I think we can agree on: the news media, in general, is in a state of disarray. It has largely lost its way and is failing to serve its purpose as a public check on official power. Is that a fair statement?

  6. dlhitzeman says:

    David, you continue to argue your position from the perspective that your conclusions are assumed to be correct. I do not make that assumption and, thereby, do not agree with your conclusions.

    As for the artificial limitation of the interpretation of your comments, let’s take a look at the spin at places like Slate, Salon, or MoveOn.org. I grant that conservative talking heads spin news without facts frequently (although not always maliciously), but to try to make this out to be a one-sided phenomenon is ridiculous.

    You are right that there have been opportunities for both sides to allow for the PAA to move forward, however you ignore the basic fact that the wiretapping capabilities of the intelligence agencies depend on the cooperation of the telecoms, and those telecoms will not cooperate if they can be sued for their cooperation. Not giving the telecoms immunity effectively kills the use of wiretapping in the manner authorized by the PAA and other provisions of the FISA (I looked it up this time…), leaving the intelligence agencies with precious few tools for gathering intelligence on enemies on our soil.

    I agree that the media in general is in a great state of disarray, both the mainstream and the not so mainstream. In fact, the proliferation of weblogs just like this one represent what I think is a societal attempt to redress something we know instinctively is wrong.

    The difference between the mainstream and here, or at A Host of Contributing Factors, is that the truth can be distilled from constant, ongoing conversation that the mainstream–whatever side it takes–does not allow for. For people who stick with sources like this weblog or others, the truth can become far more clear over time than it often does after days of reporting by the MSM.

  7. David says:

    I agree almost wholeheartedly with the last two paragraphs of your last comment.

    If your first paragraph means that I haven’t offered up any or enough links or evidence, I guess I have to agree with it. Otherwise, I’m not sure what you mean by it.

    I’m not trying to make this out to be a one-sided phenomenon. You criticized the MSM for not talking enough about our intelligence successes against terrorists, and I countered (as you basically just did to me) that your criticism would carry more weight if you were as sensitive to other failings in the media, like often quoting White House sources without doing anything to check the facts. We’re both right to say what we did because, as you say about blogs like this, having the “opposing” views aired openly is a better way of arriving at truth than the unquestioning repetition of one “side’s” story.

    To the immunity issue, you say that I “ignore the basic fact that the wiretapping capabilities of the intelligence agencies depend on the cooperation of the telecoms, and those telecoms will not cooperate if they can be sued for their cooperation.”

    I’m not ignoring it. FISA (and I think the PAA) provides that telecoms must cooperate BY LAW with the government when the government is able to demonstrate that they are asking the telecoms to take actions that are within the law. By definition, if the telecoms have met the standards of the law, they don’t need amnesty or immunity.

    There is no risk that the telecoms won’t do what the government legally requires them to do. The only “risk” is that they won’t comply with illegal requests in the future. This is the truth of the issue that is being willingly obscured, in my opinion, by Bush and his congressional and media surrogates.

    Your statement that “Not giving the telecoms immunity effectively kills the use of wiretapping in the manner authorized by the PAA and other provisions of the FISA (I looked it up this time…), leaving the intelligence agencies with precious few tools for gathering intelligence on enemies on our soil” is false in almost every way. Think about it. If the PAA allows telecoms to do certain things, they are in no danger from any lawsuit. In other words, they already have as much protection as they need UNDER THE LAW. It’s only in cases that they acted illegally that they have anything to fear. In this instance, the only way they could have acted illegally is if the government acted illegally. THAT is why both the White House and much of Congress is so eager to give telecoms immunity.

    Before this past week, there was a slim possibility that they really were concerned, as they said they were, that vital information about how we conduct our intel might be released. But the House wisely included in their latest draft bill a provision to allow the telecoms to submit exculpatory evidence to judges off the record. I think this ability existed previously anyway, but the House made it specific. This should have addressed every legitimate concern the Bush Administration had. Instead, they continue to press for the immunity and continue to frame the House’s actions as an obstruction of the President’s will. There are basically two conclusions to draw: 1) the President doesn’t understand what’s actually going on and so can’t see that he is being given what he says he wants or 2) he knows full well what is going on and he doesn’t want it to happen because something might be revealed, not that would help terrorists but, that would show that the government has been illegally and much more broadly gathering information about, say, the American public.

    There’s lots of good converation on this point going on over at AHOCF, so I’ll move the rest of the discussion over there.

  8. dlhitzeman says:

    A Host of Contributing Factors

    What I mean by my first statement is exactly the line of reasoning you proceed with in your response. Your argument about “legality” is not as cut-and-dried as you make it appear to be, nor to I agree with it, therefore I cannot concede your point.

    I think you confuse the ideas of legality and wrongness in this case, making something that may have been passed into law tantamount to morality. In some cases, this comparison may be correct, but in the case of surveillance of our enemies, I do not believe the connection can be made.

    Where I disagree with your analysis is very simple: just because we have passed a law saying that something has to be done a certain way does not mean that the law is good, valid, correct, or worthwhile. Just because we have constrained ourselves in a certain way does not mean that constraint is logical, practical, or even protecting the Constitution, as you suggest.

    Frankly, the business of intelligence is dirty work, especially when that intelligence must be conducted on our own soil. The tools needed for this dirty work are not always the kinds we want, but they are what we have. Take those tools away, and we can’t do the work. When we can’t do the work, then we must deal with the consequences.

  9. David says:

    Spell out for me how my line of reasoning about ‘legality’ is not as cut-and-dried as I think.

    Also, explain my confusion of legality and morality when it comes to telecom immunity. I think I’ve been pretty careful (at least in my own head) about that. I agree there is a distinction, but as regard telecom immunity, I don’t think there is any confusion on my part.

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