During the recent right-wing howling over the British terror plot once again the fringe right has proved itself incapable of having a intelligent discussion about national security and the Constitution. This is from a wing-nut site called Newsbusters, dated 9-11-2006, Thank NSA Wiretapping for Foiled Terror Plot?

Will the New York Times write stories on how eavesdropping is what alerted U.S. authorities to the terrorist airplane attack? Time magazine reported in an exclusive that the “U.S. picked up the suspects’ chatter and shared it with British authorities.” The operation involved cooperation between British and American authorities. Britain’s MI-5 intelligence service and Scotland Yard had been tracking the plot for several months, but only in the past two weeks had the plotters’ planning begun to crystallize, senior U.S. officials tell TIME. In the two or three days before the arrests, the cell was going operational, and authorities were pressed into action. MI5 and Scotland Yard agents tracked the plotters from the ground, while a knowledgeable American official says U.S. intelligence provided London authorities with intercepts of the group’s communications. The Wall Street Journal says media and Democratic opposition to the programs now looks foolish after the foiled terror plot. The plot was foiled because a large number of people were under surveillance concerning their spending, travel and communications. Which leads us to wonder if Scotland Yard would have succeeded if the ACLU or the New York Times had first learned the details of such surveillance programs .

It looks like Newsbusters is run by someone only capable of winning arguments with small frail straw-man. No Democrat, let me repeat that, NO Democrat of any prominence has said that we shouldn’t spy on suspected terrorists. Our laws allow for spying on the British and any communications going into and out of Britain. That is not even an issue. None of the plotters as far as we know were in the US or US citizens. Newsbusters and the editorialists at the WSJ are simply lying sacks and not speaking to the real issue. President Bush and conservatives want to spy on any American citizen in America anytime they want without a warrant. Newsbusters and the WSJ are liars when they state the issue in any others terms. The NSA can by law spy on the British and the Pakistanis all day without restriction and no Democratic member of Congress or the Senate has voiced any objection to that. No one has any objection to spying on suspects in the US if they are non-US citizens. We have no objection to the spy first arrangement in FISA whereby the NSA may spy on someone for 72 hours before getting a warrant. Either Newsbusters and WSJ are simply the most immoral of liars or they cannot grasp the constitutional issues involved. If the first case is true this will not be the first or the last time that our nation will pay the price for conservative’s slim grasp of morality and the truth. If the second is true, one could say that whatever they have to offer by way of opinion on constitutional issues are just the irrelevant rantings of mentally deficient nationalists that could care less about the rule of law and the common good.

The Suit Challenging the NSA’s Warrantless Wiretapping Can Proceed, Despite the State Secrets Privilege: Why The Judge Made the Right Call