The Big Lie

The Bush Administration must be so used to the ignorance of their constituents that they tried to slide this one under the door. In 2002 this might have worked, and would have been yet another excuse to go forward with whatever nonsense police state tactic the NSA or CIA or JCTC wanted to try. In 2006 some of us know better.

Hear this: the foiled terror plot which originated in Britain involved British law enforcement getting warrants for every piece of surveillance they did for over a year. To the extent that US intelligence was involved (which was not to a great degree), they used the FISA court to obtain warrants for surveillance within this country, the very mechanism Democrats and civil libertarians have asked that the President use instead of the warrantless wiretapping he is undertaking without judicial review. Nothing was done without a warrant, and to the best of everyone's knowledge nobody was tortured, despite the ticking time bomb scenario.

In other words, this plot was foiled due to precisely the methods of legal surveillance that Democrats have argued for since December of last year. Additionally, the terrorist plotters in this case did use regular cell phones and international bank transfers to conduct their business, exactly the programs that the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and others have disclosed in news reports. Glenn Greenwald explains:

And yet, here was a major plot foiled because the terrorist plotters were using telephones to communicate about their plans -- and using banking systems to wire money -- all of which law enforcement could track within the law. This whole episode potently illustrates just how inane are the claims that the Times' NSA story (and its SWIFT disclosures) would endanger national security. Terrorists already knew full well that we monitor their telephone conversations and banking transactions, and they knew that before the New York Times "told" them so. But in order to plan terrorist attacks, terrorists must communicate with one another and send money to each other. Somehow, the Times' story did not prevent us from eavesdropping on all of these conversations. That's because the Times stories -- as has been evident from the beginning -- told terrorists nothing which they could use to avoid detection.

The knee-jerk reaction of those in the GOP who don't expect the public to pay attention is that a foiled terror plot=support for illegal activities going on in the White House that supposedly keep people safe. In fact, the exact opposite is true. The British have shown that law enforcement and solid intelligence under the law are the prime ways to stop a terrorist plot. Not military incursions, not torturing suspects, not illegal wiretapping that casts a wide net but focused law enforcement that uses all the tools at its disposal after judicial review.

Meanwhile the US apparently cocked up the whole thing by pushing for immediate arrests rather than waiting the terrorists out to obtain more evidence. The Brits had these guys so closely surveilled they could turn this plot on and off like a switch. They were waiting to draw more people into the net, but the US appears to have had another agenda. A political one.