Why the Democrats are wrong on FISA

The Strata-Sphere:

The legislation just passed by the Congress to establish into law the post 9-11 changes to our intelligence gathering and law enforcement efforts against terrorism show how the Democrats see protecting America as totally irrelevant. I have written extensively on this subject since the NY Times exposed the fact we will monitor known terrorists overseas and ALL their communications - especially those coming into the US. We do this because it is legal to monitor the communications of terrorists overseas, and because we do not need a repeat of 9-11, where it seems we had intercepts involving Atta and the other four key leaders of the 9-11 attacks as they communicated from America.

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Since its inception the FIS Court has enforced an antiquated and, until 9-11, quaint policy that required deleting any leads related to terrorism or attack here in the US that terminate in America or with Americans. This was a bullet proof way to make sure intel alone was never used in a case against Americans. It also ensured that we would one day be attacked, as we literally pretended information of pending attack from within did not exist or matter. I learned of this policy while reviewing the Church Committee proceedings in the late 1970’s and their commentary about the NSA. Here is what the Church Committee said back then:

The interception and subsequent processing of communications are conducted in a manner that minimizes the number of unwanted messages. Only after an analyst determines that the content of a message meets a legitimate requirement will it be disseminated to the interested intelligence agencies. In practically all cases, the name of an American citizen, group, or organization is deleted by NSA before a message is disseminated.

Internal NSA guidelines ensure that the decision to disseminate an intercepted communication is now made on the basis of the importance of the foreign intelligence it contains, not because a United States citizen, group, or organization is involved. This procedure is, of course, subject to change by internal NSA directives.

Emphasis mine. Even if we had Bin Laden talking to Atta (because, as he was legally in the country, he is treated as if he is an American citizen - just in case you know), the information leading to Atta would be deleted. So it seems prior to 9-11 someone knew of some kind of pending attack, but could not tell the FBI where to find these people involved in the attack.

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There is much more. The wall structured by the Democrats appears to be much higher than most of us suspected and more layered than the one Jamie Gorlicke put in place in the Justice Department. That the Democrats want to go back to this is beyond comprehension. It does give yet another reason why they should never be trusted on matters of national security.

The RNC needs to look at this Strata-Sphere post to get ads ready for the 2oo8 campaign.