President Bush told it like it is this morning. It was a speech that harshly criticized Democrat opposition to the renewal of the Patriot Act and, with brutal honesty, defended the NSA eavesdropping policy revealed by the NY Times and excoriated those who leaked this information to the media.
I'll let his own words (with my highlights) speak for themselves:
In the weeks following the terrorist attacks on our nation, I authorized the National Security Agency, consistent with U.S. law and the Constitution, to intercept the international communications of people with known links to al Qaeda and related terrorist organizations. Before we intercept these communications, the government must have information that establishes a clear link to these terrorist networks.
This is a highly classified program that is crucial to our national security. Its purpose is to detect and prevent terrorist attacks against the United States, our friends and allies. Yesterday the existence of this secret program was revealed in media reports, after being improperly provided to news organizations. As a result, our enemies have learned information they should not have, and the unauthorized disclosure of this effort damages our national security and puts our citizens at risk. Revealing classified information is illegal, alerts our enemies, and endangers our country.
As the 9/11 Commission pointed out, it was clear that terrorists inside the United States were communicating with terrorists abroad before the September the 11th attacks, and the commission criticized our nation's inability to uncover links between terrorists here at home and terrorists abroad. Two of the terrorist hijackers who flew a jet into the Pentagon, Nawaf al Hamzi and Khalid al Mihdhar, communicated while they were in the United States to other members of al Qaeda who were overseas. But we didn't know they were here, until it was too late.
The authorization I gave the National Security Agency after September the 11th helped address that problem in a way that is fully consistent with my constitutional responsibilities and authorities. The activities I have authorized make it more likely that killers like these 9/11 hijackers will be identified and located in time. And the activities conducted under this authorization have helped detect and prevent possible terrorist attacks in the United States and abroad.
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Article comments
1 - S Sutton
Even if the government found out about a clandestine attack, I wouldn't trust them to take the appropriate and intelligent actions to prevent death and destruction. Hell, Katrina damage was being broadcast on national TV and it took them days to react to that.
2 - Mark Schannon
Well put, Bird. (We meet again.) Thank the Lord for protecting us against weapons of mass destruction, hurricanes, illegal wire taps, torture, the destruction of America's image as a model of a democratic institution that respect basic human rights.
Who needs all that human rights nonsense anyway. Fry the bastards, I say. Fry them. I'm a God-fearing American who wants every new born child to receive an Uzi at birth.
It's simple. If you've nothing to hide, you've no rights you're interested in protecting, right?
Thank all that's holy we finally have a government that understands how useless are the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Rights?! Hah.
In Jamesons Veritas
3 - Aaman
The Evening Land is in eclipse, as Harold Bloom alluded recently
4 - Michael J. West
It was a speech that harshly criticized Democrat opposition to the renewal of the Patriot Act
But it didn't say anything about Republican opposition to the renewal of the Patriot Act?
Interesting that Republicans cast the deciding votes that prevented the Senate's debate from ending, but they somehow escaped criticism.