Thank You for Wiretapping

The WSJ Review & Outlook opinion piece today called "Thank You for Wiretapping" nails it. Once again senators (even some Republicans) are playing fast and loose because of political ideology with the result being to impede presidential powers and to undermine our military and our security agencies during a time of perpetual war to thwart terrorism against us and our allies. Tell me how I'm wrong? Tell me how this isn't a case of it's Bush so it must be wrong, abusive or illegal? You can't have it both ways "Stop them, catch them, but don't watch them or listen to them".

Update 1, Hugh Hewitt has a post on Jay Rockefeller's letters to the Vice President on his concerns over the NSA program he was briefed on. Like Hugh, and some liberal Bloggers, I agree that it appears Rockefeller wanted to distance himself without any outright disapproval of the program. As Hugh put it "Rockefeller's "feeble" note, as one lefty put it, is a great symbol of the entire Democratic Party's approach to the war. These are not the people you want running it, or even close to the controls."

Update 2, we now see that Carter and Clinton approved searches and surveillance without court orders. Michelle Malkin also has a nice post on the "spying on Americans" uproar with links to other sources. It turns out it was just made public that as part of the ongoing law enforcement work just after the Oklahoma City bombing the U.S. government used a spy satellite to gather intelligence on a white separatist compound in Oklahoma. Where is the outrage on this? From Michelle's post "The Left believes the government should do whatever it takes to fight terrorists--­but only when the terrorists look like Timothy McVeigh. If you're on the MCI Friends and Family plan of Osama bin Laden and Abu Zubaydah, you're home free."

Update 3, the ACLU demands (whatever) records regarding the NSA's surveillance...ya right! They don't however demand any records for the spying that was done on the skin heads in Oklahoma! The ACLU looks out for your civil liberties as long as you think like them or are a Muslim!

Update 4, John at Powerline posts his email exchange with one of the reporters at the NYTimes who "scooped" the NSA story. John's exchange is typical of a well thought out fact and referenced based conservative position on an issue, and the reporters responses (which have stopped coming) reflect the typical liberal terse hollow response that ignores the last retort! As I have said previously, numerous bloggers spent several days (versus the NYTimes having a year+) researching the NSA story and the legality of what has happened. It's pretty easy to build the case that this was legal based on the constitution and on recent precedent set by the actions of other presidents as well as rulings by SCOTUS. In fact, it's so easy to build the case for this being legal one could only conclude to put out a story suggesting the contrary was done knowingly to mislead.

Update 5, Democrats thankfully cave in (6 month Patriot Act extension) probably only because they checked polling numbers and found that most American's think their idiotic sky-is-falling civil liberties stance on intelligence measures that help keep us safe is just plain wrong.