Telecom patriots deserve Medal of Freedom

Opinion Journal:

The latest Presidential Medals of Freedom will be presented Monday, and the eight on this year's list are all deserving. They include Brian Lamb, the founder of C-Span, and Oscar Elias Biscet, the Cuban human rights activist who won't be able to accept in person because he's in one of Fidel Castro's prisons.

But here are two suggestions for the next list: CEOs Randall L. Stephenson and Ivan Seidenberg, of AT&T and Verizon, respectively. They deserve recognition not so much in their own right but as representatives of the telecom companies that cooperated with the federal government's terrorist surveillance program in the weeks immediately after 9/11.

Changing technology means that the U.S. National Security Agency can no longer monitor terrorist communications merely by pulling microwaves from the air. Our world of packet switching and fiber cable means that the NSA needs access to the telephone company switching networks to track terrorist plans. When President Bush and the Attorney General requested such cooperation in late 2001, the companies responded despite what they must have known was some legal risk if the public's terrorism fears subsided.

...

This is a good idea. It rewards true patriotism and risk taking for American security. It is also a poke in the eye to the terrorist rights crowd that thinks patriotism is making it harder to stop the next terrorist attack. They don't even want the government to be able to collect the dots much less connect them without jumping through hoops that make no sense in a time of war. The award would also shame those in congressional terrorist rights lobby who are working so hard to undermine our efforts to stop the next attack.

Lee Hamilton makes the case for the telecoms also. "If the local fire company asked for your help putting out a neighbor's blaze, you would not force the firefighters to justify their request. You would just help, right? That's what the phone companies did when the Bush administration asked them in secret for help with wiretaps to target al-Qaida communications into and out of the country." Well said.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

Washington Post: Some Democrats eye adding more justices to the Supreme Court to change its ideological bent The once-remote idea has gained the attention of liberals angered by the GOP push to remake the federal courts. Probably the easy way to defeat this court-packing scheme is for Trump to propose doing the same thing now.  It would lead to Democrat denunciations and claims that it would be wrong, thereby blowing up any attempt by them in the unfortunate event of Democrats winning a presidential election.
Read more

Is the F-35 obsolete?

Headline USA: Pentagon Fires Back after Musk Calls Its Most Expensive Project ‘Obsolete’ 'Yeah, as I'm sure you can appreciate, Mr. Musk is, currently, a private citizen, I'm not going to make any comments about what a private citizen may have to say about the F-35....'   ... ... Drones appear to be replacing jets for many operations.  The Russia-Ukraine war is an example of that.  Drones are often hard to detect and can be used for intelligence operations as well as for attacking enemy targets.  It would not surprise me to see drones engaging other drones in combat.  They also cost much less than manned fighters.  
Read more

Apple's huge investment in US including Texas facility

Blaze: Apple announced a $500 billion commitment to infrastructure in the United States over four years, its largest commitment to domestic spending to date. Apple said it will expand teams and facilities in Arizona, California, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Oregon, Texas, and Washington as part of its new spending. With a new facility in Houston, Texas, Apple will reportedly double its investment in advanced manufacturing along with increasing investments in AI and silicon engineering. The company said in a press release that the Houston facility will produce servers to support Apple Intelligence, the "personal intelligence system that helps users write, express themselves, and get things done." ... The Texas facility will be for advanced technologies.   Texas has become a place that is very supportive of the tech industries.  Austin and Houston have seen much of the tech growth in the state.  Texas universities have been active in the AI field.
Read more