QUESTION: WOULD YOU ALLOW YOUR PHONE CALLS AND EMAIL AND MAIL TO BE INTERCEPTED BY THE NSA?

I asked a really and truly "hard Left" Leftie friend of mine - (a major benefactor of the ACLU, THE NATION, "Businessmen for Sensible Priorities" and other Left-wing organizations, and a man who is most proud of having been on Nixon's enemies list. An honor which garnered him NEITHER an IRS audit, let alone an FBI phone call! IOW: being an enemy of Nixon netted him not a single negative occurrence, certainly not anything near what would have happened to an enemy of Stalin's or Castro's, or Arafat's, or Mugabe's - or any number of other LEFTIST tyrants! - BUT I DIGRESS!!) - ANYHOW.... I asked him the following questions:

Question #1: Would you allow your phones, email and and mail to be iontercepted by the NSA if it MIGHT save 3000 lives?

He answered: "YES."

Question #2: Would you allow the NSA to intercept ONLY your international communications (phone, email, and mail) if it MIGHT save 3000 lives? That would be a lot less communciations, wouldn't it!?

He answered, "Yes, of course - that would be fewer calls, and I wouldn't mind - if it could save lives."

Question #3: Would you allow all the communications you have with al Qaeda and their affiliates to be intercepted?

He answered, "OF COURSE! BUT I HAVE NO SUCH COMMUNICATIONS! MOST AMERICANS DON'T!"

And THAT'S the main point, albeit a POLITICAL point and NOT a legal/constitutional one: the NSA intercepts prograsm effected an extremely small number of US persons - IF ANY. According to the NYTIMES, perhaps as many as two thousand persons had their communications intercepted at one time or another since the program was instituted in 2001 - FOUR YEARS AGO. That's about 30 per month. In a country with nearly 300 MILLION people. That's TEN MILLION TIMES as many people overall as the number of people whose calls were intercepted. YET THIS DOESN'T STOP THE LEFT - AND THE MSM THEY DOMINATE - FROM CALLING THIS A "DOMESTIC SURVEILLANCE SCANDAL."

FURTHERMORE: If the NSA intercepts program which the POTUS authorized was solely intended, designed and executed to ONLY intercept communications between suspected al Qaeda (or affiliated) agents, (and for the primary purpose of national security and not criminal prosecution) then virtually EVERY American would agree that it is a fitting and proper program while we are at war with al Qaeda (and their affiliates).

THEREFORE: The sole controversy is really whether such a program REQUIRES a FISA court-order, or whether FISA, the 2001 AUMF, and the constitution permit (and even expect) the POTUS to directly authorize these kinds of intercepts (ones whose PROGRAMMATIC EFFORT IS DIRECTED AT A FOREIGN ENEMY) during wartime. After all, the POTUS is not merely or solely the chief law enforcement officer of the US government; he is also the CinC.

BOTTOM-LINE: The SCOTUS, the FISA Review Court, the Fisa Court, and several federal courts are on record as acknowledging that the POTUS has this right when it comes to gathering intelligence about foreign powers - and other presidents have used it in similar ways - though not in identical ways.

Therefore, this NSA intercepts program, is a GRAND SLAM: politically, legally, constitutionally and militarily, it was the right thing to do. I'D GO FURTHER. I'D SAY, (after Coulter) THAT IF BUSH DIDN'T AUTHORIZE SUCH A PROGRAM AFTER 9/11, THAT THIS NEGLIGENCE would be grounds for impeachment. After all, the primary responsibility of the POTUS is to protect and defend the USA.

BTW: since many of the cellphone and email communications are between one KNOWN suspected al Qaeda agent and an unkown cellphone number or email address - either of which can be accessed by any number of people, US persons or not - and can be accessed in any number of locations (in the USA or not), then it is VERY difficult for anyone (the POTUS, the USA AG, the CIA, or the NSA) to KNOW who the unkown communicator is and whether the UNKNOWN communicator is a US person or not. YOU'D HAVE TO LISTEN IN TO FIND OUT, WOULDN'T YOU?! (Ditto any data mining program designed to intercept emails which contain known code-words.)

Bottom-line: some people will do whatever it takes to win the war; other people won't - and perhaps don;t even think we need to be at war.

The Dem/Left seems to think that we'd be in a better position if: we weren't rough on any detainees; we closed GITMO; we immediately exited from Iraq; we stopped the decades old practice of rendition; we closed all secret prisons; and stopped giving Israel "unquestioned support" and be "more even-handed" in approach to the Arab-Israeli crisis. IOW: fight a "kinder and gentler" war on terror! HAH!

SURE: If Bush did what the Dem/Left wants then he'd be more seen as more "bi-partisan" and he'd be more "loved" by the euroweenies of Old Europe. But we'd be less effective in the war against our enemies, and be less feared by our enemies, too. I'd gladly sacrifice the love of Lefties here and in Europe for the upper hand in the GWOT.

I am grateful Bush has done just that. Waging war effectively is not a popularity contest. It never has been. Nixon - who ended the draft and the Vietnam War and opened up China and invented detente and signed the FIRST nuclear arms treaty with the USSR, and and saved the Soviet Dissidents --- and all in JUST 5 YEARS! - was HATED AND REVILED by the Left here and in Europe. Nixon was right, and the Left was wrong. (I KNOW: I was a a Lefty then!)

In the 1980's, Reagan deployed Pershing missiles to Europe and was greeted in Europe - who we were DEFENDING FROM THE USSR! - with the largest most angry demonstrations OF ALL TIME! Reagan was right, though, and the Left was wrong. (I KNOW; I WAS THERE IN NY'S CENTRAL PARK ALONG WITH MORE THAN A MILLION OTHER LEFTIES!

Bush's aggressive war against jihadoterrorism and islamofascism is being greeted with the same response by the SAME Lefties. They are as wrong now as they were then.

Thank God this time I am on the RIGHT SIDE THIS TIME! (Actually, I became a hawk in 1989, after the Wall fell. I was honest: I admitted that Reagan was right - about the USSR and tax cuts!)

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

KEY SYRIAN ISLAMOFASCIST JUMPS-SHIP AND POINTS FINGER

BBC: A senior Syrian official has said President Bashar al-Assad threatened former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri only months before his death. Syria's former Vice-President, Abdul Halim Khaddam, said "Hariri received many threats". ... The BBC's Kim Ghattas in Beirut says ... Khaddam may be positioning himself as an alternative to the Syrian president.

ABC: Khaddam became a Syrian vice president in 1984 and resigned in June. He was the nominal leader in Syria for a short period after Assad's father, Hafez Assad, died in June 2000. In the interview, Khaddam was bitterly critical of the current Assad government, saying the ruling Baath Party and other popular organizations had been reduced to vindicating "decisions made by the president." ... He quoted the Syrian president as telling Hariri, months before he was killed: "You want to bring a (new) president in Lebanon. … I will not allow that. I will crush whoever attempts to overturn our decision."

FT: Abdel-Halim Khaddam, Syria's former vice-president, said yesterday he had "full confidence" in the United Nations investigation into the assassination. The UN-team, recently led by the German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis, has implicated senior Lebanese and Syrian officials. Speaking in Paris Mr Khaddam announced a break with his country's leadership. He blamed President Bashar al-Assad for a deterioration in Syria's international position and said if Syria had killed Mr Hariri, it could not have happened without Mr Assad's knowledge.

KHADDAM MADE THESE STATEMENTS IN AN INTEVIEW SHOWN ON AL ARABIYA TV! So, it seems obvious to me this man is positioning himself to be the next president of Syria (after Assad is squeezed out/overthrown/arrested for murder. It sounds like he'd cooperate with the UN and the USA and serve as president of Syria - on an interim basis, that is: Until the "Rose Revolution" and a democratic election!

UPDATE (via PRAIRIE PUNDIT) - "Reuters": Syrian lawmakers demanded on Saturday that former Vice President Abdel-Halim Khaddam be tried for treason and corruption after he publicly broke with President Bashar al-Assad. Speaking from Paris, where he moved after resigning as vice-president in June, Khaddam launched an unprecedented attack on Assad, saying he had threatened Rafik al-Hariri, the former Lebanese prime minister who was assassinated in February. He also accused the government of making political blunders in Lebanon and of failing to deliver economic and political reforms at home, leaving millions of Syrians to go hungry.

Khaddam must be a real threat or the Assad regime would just ignore him. STAY TUNED...

JIHADOTERRORIST BOMBER MURDERS CHRISTIANS IN INDONESIA

BBC:

Six people have been killed and more than 40 hurt by a bomb blast in a market in Indonesia's Central Sulawesi province, police say. Witnesses in the town of Palu reported seeing bodies lying on the ground after hearing a deafening blast. The province's Christians have been repeatedly targeted in recent attacks blamed on Muslim militants. ... The explosion took place in the busy early morning hours at a stall selling pork meat in a Christian part of the town. Indonesia is the world's most populous Muslim nation but the population in many parts of Central Sulawesi province is split equally between Muslims and Christians. ...

Security was tightened in the province recently amid fears of fresh violence between the two communities. Three Christian schoolgirls were beheaded by masked assailants in Poso district in October. Twenty people were killed in May this year when two bombs exploded in the largely Christian town of Tentena. Almost 1,000 people died when inter-religious clashes flared in Central Sulawesi province in 2000 and 2001.

Fighting between Muslims and Christians in Central Sulawesi from 1998-2001 killed 2,000 people, mainly around the town of Poso.

Why are islamothugs murdering Christians in Indonesia? I BLAME: King George W. BusHitlerburton; the Iraq War (not the Afghan War, that was a good war!); Israel/Jews/Sharon/Wolfowitz/Perle/Libby/the Likud/the neocons; Rove; Tom DeLay, and the NSA. And global warming and the tax cuts for the rich. Heh.

PUTIN USING STATE-OWNED ENERGY AS FOREIGN POLICY WEAPON TO THREATEN OR REWARD NEIGHBORS

BBC: Russian energy giant Gazprom has renewed a threat to cut off gas supplies to Ukraine - but says it will not hit deliveries to western Europe. Moscow and Kiev are holding talks over Gazprom's decision to quadruple prices. ... State-owned Gazprom wants to quadruple the gas price to between $220 and $230 per 1,000 cubic metres, insisting that Ukraine must pay market rates. ... Ukraine says it cannot afford to pay the extra cost immediately and accuses Moscow of trying to score political points with the price rise.

UK GUARDIAN-BLOG: Moscow makes the not unreasonable point that the move is purely economic and that its neighbour no longer has a right to cheap energy supplies for steelmaking and other industries that compete with Russia's own. But recent deals with other former Soviet countries such as Belarus have kept prices low, raising suspicions that the price increase is not just about economics. ... Mr Putin is already under fire for his increasing intolerance of dissent at home. His economic adviser, Andrei Illarionov, one of the few remaining liberals in the inner circle, resigned this week saying that Russia was no longer free or democratic.

FT: Russia has provided its former Soviet neighbours with heavily subsidised gas since the USSR collapsed in 1991 – partly to keep them within its sphere of influence. But now it wants to move to market prices, for what it says are economic reasons. Gazprom, Russia’s massive state-controlled gas company, has already agreed increased prices with several former Soviet states.

Ukraine says it is being asked to pay far more than any of those, suggesting the motive is political: to punish it for the Orange Revolution a year ago that brought the pro-western Viktor Yushchenko to power.

Ukraine is being asked to pay $230 per 1,000 cubic metres of gas – up from $50 this year. Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, all now European Union members, are paying only $110, as is Georgia, which also had a pro-democracy revolution two years ago. Belarus, loyal to Russia, pays little over $46.

WASHPOST: The chief of Russia's natural gas monopoly, OAO Gazprom, reiterated that it will halt supplies to Ukraine on Sunday morning unless a new contract is signed with its Ukrainian counterpart. ... Meanwhile, analysts said a Russian bid Thursday to buy up natural gas from another major supplier to Ukraine, Turkmenistan, would leave the Central Asian nation with little gas to sell to Ukraine.It is OBVIOUS that Putin is NOT merely trying to get Ukraine up to market price. This should make it clear that PUTIN is no better than OPEC was in the 1970's and NOT a trustworthy ally - or a safe energy resource for Europe.

AND REMEMBER THIS: socialist, vile anti-American and former Chancellor of Germany Gerhard Schroeder is now chairman of Russia's German-Russia pipeline company which is MAJORITY OWNED BY GAZPROM. This makes him a co-conspirator in this matter with his fellow socialist Putin. THESE ARE TWO VERY BAD MEN.

AND LET THIS BE ANOTHER REMINDER OF WHY STATE-OWNED BUSINESSES ARE ALWAYS A FUNDAMENTAL THREAT TO LIBERTY EVERYWHERE.

BTW: WHAT DOES "GST" STAND FOR?

Traitorous WASHPOST reporter Dana Priest wrote another page 1 story in today's paper about the NSA intercept program. In it she revealed its secret title: GST.

What do you think it stands for? Cliff May of THE FOUNDATION FOR DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACY and NRO wrote that he thought it was GLOBAL STRATEGIC TARGETING, perhaps. PLEASE PUT YOUR GUESS(ES) IN THE COMMENTS SECTION. NO HOLDS BARRED.

I'll pick the best suggestions and then run a poll to determine the most popular one tomorrow.

EVEN MORE PROOF, ONCE AGAIN, THAT SOCIALIZED MEDICINE SUCKS

BETSY'S PAGE:

Authorities in Grampian in Scotland are reporting their progress in reducing wait times for medical tests.

The latest statistics show waits for ultrasound have fallen from 18 weeks to 11, MRI from 42 to 19, barium studies from 18 to six and CT scans from seven to four.

PROGRESS?! FOUR WEEKS TO GET A CT SCAN!? YIPES! (BTW: If you think you have an infectious STD in the UK you have to wait 3 WEEKS for a test! DOUBLE YIPES!!)

SURE: We can and should try to improve the "medical insurance crisis" in the USA, but no American would want to trade our system for this kind of system (and systems JUST like it EVERYWHERE healthcare is nationalized/socialized).

"HILLARYCARE" - (whether done in one fell swoop, or done gradually as the Dems would now attempt) - would lead to the same BAD CARE.

THE NSA LEAKERS: CATCH'EM, TRY'EM, CONVICT'EM AND EXECUTE'EM

YAHOO/AP:

The Justice Department has opened an investigation into the leak of classified information about President Bush's secret domestic spying program, Justice officials said Friday. The officials, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the probe, said the inquiry will focus on disclosures to The New York Times about warrantless surveillance conducted by the National Security Agency since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

I hope they catch the bastards and that the charges include TREASON.

NORTH KOREAN NEGOTIATIONS MIGHT DERAIL: THE FOOD-AID WEDGE IS GONE

BBC:

The US says it will not continue to provide food aid to North Korea unless Pyongyang allows international relief workers to monitor its distribution. The US needs to be sure the aid is reaching those who need it most, state department spokesman Adam Ereli said. Mr Ereli accused North Korea's leaders of ignoring the needs of their people and letting them starve.

The UN World Food Programme says it is halting food aid to North Korea after Pyongyang said it was no longer needed.

North Korea has relied on foreign aid to feed millions of people since acknowledging a famine in the mid-1990s. But it now says better harvests at home and aid supplies from China and South Korea have rendered the aid distributed by the UN redundant. Instead, Pyongyang has said, it wants more foreign help with long-term development projects.

If the NOKO harvest has improved - and they don't need our food aid, or that of the UN - then we have lost an important negotiating tool. OTOH: maybe this will strengthen China's hand, and maybe they will be more effective as twisting Kim Jong Il's arm?!?

Nothing in China's behavior over the last four years gives me ANY encouragement on this front.

MAYBE IT'S TIME THEY USED MY STRATEGY: build a nuclear power plant in Seoul and just give North Korea FREE ELECTRICITY if they close their nuclear power plants. (I first blogged this idea HERE, on 10/10/05)

YOU CAN'T BEAT TOMORROW WITH THE WRONG LESSONS LEARNED FROM YESTERDAY

Paul Mirengoff of POWERLINE in rare form:

The electoral tide turned against the Democrats during the Vietnam era, and hasn't turned back. One can argue that the Vietnam/Watergate syndrome -- fear of the exercise of American power based on profound distrust of our military, our government, and our motives -- is the main cause of the decline of the Democrats.

... It's not surprising that the failure of many liberals to have learned anything truly new since 1974 constitutes a huge political disadvantage. But I'm fascinated by the ways in which this failure continues to confound them.

RTWT. (And then read the post he wrote before that!)

And a Commenter at Polipundit (hat tip ACE), commenting on WHY the Democrats are now sinking in the polls and the GOP rising again, sarcastically lists a few of the many fascinating ways the Democrats - (who are either addicted to a vestigial ideology or trapped in some weird 1970's "time loop")- have dug themselves deeper into the past - heck, they've dug clear past anachronism and are heading toward oblivion! KATHY WROTE:

What could have made those polls turnout that way??? I wonder if we should ask Howard the Coward We Will Never Win This War Dean, or maybe Nancy My Nosy is Rosy Pelosi if we could get her away from that trough of corruption she can only see in the mirror. Or Dick Turban Screamin and Cryin Durbin - how’s that Nazi gulag analogy workin for ya?

And also tonight, DR SANITY contributed a great observation along these lines saying about these loony RAVINGS from Durbin and Dean and Murtha:

... don't waste your time looking for any sense in the contradictory demands and rhetoric of the political postmodernists--better known as the Leftwing Democrats.

... They have a plan to win by giving up. ... And, when it comes to domestic energy policy--they demand that the oil and energy industry produce results; but demonize everything these industries do; and then make it impossible (or at least illegal) for them to be successful! [Like keep a tiny section of ANWR - which was set aside for oil exploration by Jimmy Carter when he created ANWR - closed from oil development!]

And she's got a few brilliant cartoons which illustrate the bizarre, inflammatory and and contradictory discourse of the Loony Left who are currently running/ruinning the Democrat Party. CHECK IT OUT!

The Democrats were virtually extinct in 1991; Perot was the real contender for Bush Senior's job until a Bible-toting, church-going DLC centrist southern governor from Arkansas won the nomination BY PROMISING TO CHANGE THE PARTY, AND TO CHANGE WELFARE AS WE KNOW IT.

I think the party - whether they know it or not - is right back there once again - in 1991; on the verge of extinction. To stay relevant and viable as a national party, they need to jettison Dean, Pelosi, Reid and Murtha from leadership and let the Lieberman/Warner/Richardson/Hoyer types take charge. PREDICTION: I think this will happen in the summer of next year.

UPDATE: More analysis of Left-wing insanity HERE (hat tip LGF)- specifically Left-wing lunacy based on COGNITIVE DISSONANCE. EXCERPT:

"Cognitive Dissonance" is the obvious* answer to Mirengoff's fascination over the "Forever Young" attributes of the 60's Dem generation. Cognitive dissonance is a psychological phenomenon which refers to the discomfort felt at a discrepancy between what one already believes, and incoming information. If the new information doesn't match up with existing beliefs, then something has to give way. Until it does, mental discomfort manifests. ...

Cognitive dissonance is a psychological discomfort, and the human reaction to eliminate the discomfort, experienced by 60's Dems who find themselves as part of the Establishment. A discomfort develops between their core political beliefs - which are largely based upon their coming of age during Vietnam, Watergate and the Civil Rights movement - and the facts and circumstances of the political world existing almost 40 years - 2 generations!- after Vietnam, Watergate and MLK.

Again: Modern facts don't match up with their 40-year old worldview. Alas, their brains are bombarded by daily doses of facts** that conflict with their core paradigms:

RTWT!

BBC ON MILBLOGGERS

A DECENT INTRO FROM THE MSM FOR THE UNINITITATED. Coming as it does on the heals of Kathleen Parker's semi-tirade against bloggers, this indicates that blogs have only become a more important part of the newsmedia this year - and that the MSM knows it, and fears it. Justifiably: On any given issue the blogsphere is a "VIRTUAL LEGION" of EXPERT fact-checkers - in aggregate more expert on that given issue (or any given issue) and more able to be more honest and incisive in their expert analysis and/or commentary and more immediate than ANY journalism major in any part of the MSM.

SCOTUS AND FISA COURT OF REVIEW: WARRANTLESS SEARCHES FOR SPECIAL PURPOSES ARE OKAY

FISA Court of Review (In re: Sealed Case No. 02-001; Argued 9/9, 2002; Decided 11/18, 2002):

The Truong court, as did all the other courts to have decided the issue, held that the President did have inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence information.26 It was incumbent upon the court, therefore, to determine the boundaries of that constitutional authority in the case before it. We take for granted that the President does have that authority and, assuming that is so, FISA could not encroach on the President’s constitutional power. [...]

The question before us is the reverse, does FISA amplify the President’s power by providing a mechanism that at least approaches a classic warrant and which therefore supports the government’s contention that FISA searches are constitutionally reasonable. [...]

Even without taking into account the President’s inherent constitutional authority to conduct warrantless foreign intelligence surveillance, we think the procedures and government showings required under FISA, if they do not meet the minimum Fourth Amendment warrant standards, certainly come close.

Here's more:

Supreme Court’s Special Needs Cases

The distinction between ordinary criminal prosecutions and extraordinary situations underlies the Supreme Court’s approval of entirely warrantless and even suspicionless searches that are designed to serve the government’s “special needs, beyond the normal need for law enforcement.” Vernonia School Dist. 47J v. Acton, 515 U.S. 646, 653 (1995) (quoting Griffin v. Wisconsin, 483 U.S. 868, 873 (1987) (internal quotation marks omitted)) (random drug-testing of student athletes).32 Apprehending drunk drivers and securing the border constitute such unique interests beyond ordinary, general law enforcement. Id. at 654 (citing Michigan Dep’t of State Police v. Sitz, 496 U.S. 444 (1990), and United States v. Martinez- Fuerte, 428 U.S. 543 (1976)).

A recent case, City of Indianapolis v. Edmond, 531 U.S. 32 (2000), is relied on by both the government and amici. In that case, the Court held that a highway check point designed to catch drug dealers did not fit within its special needs exception because the government’s “primary purpose” was merely “to uncover evidence of ordinary criminal wrongdoing.” Id. at 41-42. The Court rejected the government’s argument that the “severe and intractable nature of the drug problem” was sufficient justification for such a dragnet seizure lacking any individualized suspicion. Id. at 42. Amici particularly rely on the Court’s statement that “the gravity of the threat alone cannot be dispositive of questions concerning what means law enforcement officers may employ to pursue a given purpose.” Id.

But by “purpose” the Court makes clear it was referring not to a subjective intent, which is not relevant in ordinary Fourth Amendment probable cause analysis, but rather to a programmatic purpose. The Court distinguished the prior check point cases Martinez-Fuerte (involving checkpoints less than 100 miles from the Mexican border) and Sitz (checkpoints to detect intoxicated motorists) on the ground that the former involved the government’s “longstanding concern for the protection of the integrity of the border,” id. at 38 (quoting United States v. Montoya de Hernandez, 473 U.S. 531, 538 (1985)), and the latter was “aimed at reducing the immediate hazard posed by the presence of drunk drivers on the highways.” Id. at 39. The Court emphasized that it was decidedly not drawing a distinction between suspicionless seizures with a “non-law-enforcement primary purpose” and those designed for law enforcement. Id. at 44 n.1. Rather, the Court distinguished general crime control programs and those that have another particular purpose, such as protection of citizens against special hazards or protection of our borders. The Court specifically acknowledged that an appropriately tailored road block could be used “to thwart an imminent terrorist attack.” Id. at 44. The nature of the “emergency,” which is simply another word for threat, takes the matter out of the realm of ordinary crime control.33

Conclusion

FISA’s general programmatic purpose, to protect the nation against terrorists and espionage threats directed by foreign powers, has from its outset been distinguishable from “ordinary crime control.” After the events of September 11, 2001, though, it is hard to imagine greater emergencies facing Americans than those experienced on that date.

We acknowledge, however, that the constitutional question presented by this case–whether Congress’s disapproval of the primary purpose test is consistent with the Fourth Amendment–has no definitive jurisprudential answer. The Supreme Court’s special needs cases involve random stops (seizures) not electronic searches. In one sense, they can be thought of as a greater encroachment into personal privacy because they are not based on any particular suspicion. On the other hand, wiretapping is a good deal more intrusive than an automobile stop accompanied by questioning.

Although the Court in City of Indianapolis cautioned that the threat to society is not dispositive in determining whether a search or seizure is reasonable, it certainly remains a crucial factor. Our case may well involve the most serious threat our country faces. Even without taking into account the President’s inherent constitutional authority to conduct warrantless foreign intelligence surveillance, we think the procedures and government showings required under FISA, if they do not meet the minimum Fourth Amendment warrant standards, certainly come close. We, therefore, believe firmly, applying the balancing test drawn from Keith, that FISA as amended is constitutional because the surveillances it authorizes are reasonable.

Relevant Footnotes:

29 An FBI agent recently testified that efforts to conduct a criminal investigation of two of the alleged hijackers were blocked by senior FBI officials–understandably concerned about prior FISA court criticism–who interpreted that court’s decisions as precluding a criminal investigator’s role. One agent, frustrated at encountering the “wall,” wrote to headquarters: “[S]omeday someone will die–and wall or not–the public will not understand why we were not more effective and throwing every resource we had at certain ‘problems.’ Let’s hope the National Security Law Unit will stand behind their decisions then, especially since the biggest threat to us now, [Usama Bin Laden], is getting the most ‘protection.’” The agent was told in response that headquarters was frustrated with the issue, but that those were the rules, and the National Security Law Unit does not make them up. The Malaysia Hijacking and September 11th: Joint Hearing Before the Senate and House Select Intelligence Committees (Sept. 20, 2002) (written statement of New York special agent of the FBI).

30 The Court in a footnote though, cited authority for the view that warrantless surveillance may be constitutional where foreign powers are involved. Keith, 407 U.S. at 322 n.20.

31 To be sure, punishment of a U.S. person’s espionage for a foreign power does have a deterrent effect on others similarly situated.

32 The Court has also allowed searches for certain administrative purposes to be undertaken without particularized suspicion of misconduct. See, e.g., New York v. Burger, 482 U.S. 691, 702-04 (1987) (warrantless administrative inspection of premises of closely regulated business); Camara v. Municipal Court, 387 U.S. 523, 534-39 (1967) (administrative inspection to ensure compliance with city housing code).

CLEARLY, THIS DECISION BY THE FISA COURT OF REVIEW PROVES THAT THE SCOTUS HAS APPROVED WARRANTLESS SEARCHES OF US CITIZENS; "(Vernonia School Dist. 47J v. Acton, 515 U.S. 646, 653 (1995) (quoting Griffin v. Wisconsin, 483 U.S. 868, 873 (1987) (internal quotation marks omitted))."

CLEARLY, THE FISA COURT OF REVIEW HAS DECIDED THAT WARRANTLESS SEARCHES OF US PERSONS FOR SPECIAL NEEDS IS OKAY.

THE 2001 AUMF CLEARLY DEFINES THE SPECIAL NEED - AND THE TARGETS: AL QAEDA AND ITS AFFILIATES.

SINCE THE "PROGRAMMATIC PURPOSES" OF THE NSA INTERCEPTS PROGRAM AUTHORIZED BY THE POTUS WAS NOT CRIMINAL LAW ENFORCEMENT, BUT NATIONAL DEFENSE (TO INTERCEPT COMMUNICATIONS BETWEEN AL QAEDA, OR ITS AFFILIATES, AND THEIR AGENTS INSIDE THE USA), THE PROGRAM IS BOTH LEGAL AND CONSTITUTIONAL.

END OF STORY.

ROADMAP "QUARTET" WARNS PALESTINIAN ARABS THAT JIHADOTERRORISTS CAN'T BE IN GOVERNMENT

AP/Haaretz:

The four international supporters of the Middle East peace process said Wednesday that the next Palestinian Cabinet should not include members of Hamas or other militant groups committed to violence.

The statement by the so-called quartet did not name Hamas, but said a future Palestinian Cabinet "should include no member who has not committed to the principles of Israel's right to exist in peace and security and an unequivocal end to violence and terrorism." The quartet, which has drafted a Middle East peace plan known as the road map, includes the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia.

I AM PLEASANTLY SURPRISED BY THIS STATEMENT - ESPECIALLY TAKEN WITH THE NEWS BELOW ABOUT LEBANON'S CONDEMNATION OF THE HIZB'ALLAH ATTACKS ON ISRAEL.

The ball is in the Palestinian Arabs' court. Will Abbas make like his mentor Arafat and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, or will he rise to the occassion and challenge Hamas and the other jihadoterrorist groups to disarm? He has done nothing to date which makes me optimistic. But maybe this statement from the Quartet will encourage him?

LEBANON'S PM CONDEMNS ROCKET ATTACKS AGAINST ISRAEL

AP/Ynet:

Lebanon's prime minister condemned on Wednesday a rocket barrage fired a day earlier into northern Israel, while a U.N. envoy urged the Lebanese government to assert its control over the tense border region to prevent future attacks on the Jewish state. The comments by Prime Minister Fuad Saniora were a rare strong criticism of such rocket fire from Lebanese territory into Israel.

MORE FROM AP:

Israel accused a militant pro-Syrian Palestinian group of firing the rockets and retaliated with airstrikes early Wednesday against the group's base outside Beirut, Israel's deepest strike into Lebanon in 18 months. Two guerrillas were wounded. Maj. Gen. Udi Adam, head of the Israeli army's northern command, warned Israel would retaliate if there were any more rocket fire from Lebanon.

"The main message that we passed, and we are trying to give, is that the Lebanese government must take responsibility for what happens in its territory," Adam told The Associated Press. "If Kiryat Shmona residents don't sleep quietly, then the residents of Beirut won't sleep quietly."

I WONDER: Are these new and welcome official Lebanese condemnations of the attacks by Hizb'Allah against Israel SINCERE, or are they phony - like the ones repeatedly issued by Arafat and Abbas? Time will tell. A SHORT TIME. Stay tuned...

MORE PROOF THAT APPEASEMENT IS ALWAYS AN INEFFECTIVE POLICY

Last week, Germany released a jihadoterrorist who had been convicted of murdering a US citizen - and member of the US armed forces - during an airliner hijacking, kidnapping and tense 17 day stand-off in 1985. (More HERE.)

SO WHAT HAPPENS NEXT? DO THE GERMANS GET ANY GOODWILL FROM THE JIHADOTERRORISTS FOR THIS ACT OF APPEASEMENT? No. Of course not. THEY GET MORE TERROR:

BERLIN, Germany (CNN) -- A former German deputy foreign minister and his family are missing in Yemen, German officials said Wednesday, and there are reports that they were kidnapped.

WHY DO YOU ALWAYS GET MORE TERROR BY APPEASING TERRORISTS? Because you let the terrorist know IT WORKS ON YOU! IOW: The Germans are getting what all appeasers get.

I hope this guy and his family are rescued, AND I HOPE THE GERMANS - AND ALL OTHER APPEASERS - LEARN A LESSON: we are fighting a ruthless enemy who must be utterly defeated.

UPTON SINCLAIR'S DEFENSE OF SACCO AND VANZETTI: "FAKE BUT ACCURATE"

LATimes (hat tip Jonah at NRO, and GANDALIN):

The last paragraph [of the newly discovered letter written by socialist and novelist Upton Sinclair] got the Newport Beach attorney's attention.

"This letter is for yourself alone," it read. "Stick it away in your safe, and some time in the far distant future the world may know the real truth about the matter. I am here trying to make plain my own part in the story."

The story was "Boston," Sinclair's 1920s novelized condemnation of the trial and execution of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, Italian immigrants accused of killing two men in the robbery of a Massachusetts shoe factory. Prosecutors characterized the anarchists as ruthless killers who had used the money to bankroll antigovernment bombings and deserved to die. Sinclair thought the pair were innocent and being railroaded because of their political views.

Upton Beall Sinclair was a giant of the nation's Progressive Era, a crusading writer and socialist who championed the downtrodden and persecuted. President Theodore Roosevelt, who pushed through the nation's first food-purity laws in response to "The Jungle," coined the name for Sinclair's craft: muckraker. Sinclair wasn't alone in believing Sacco and Vanzetti were innocent when he began researching the book that fictionalized their case. On Aug. 23, 1927, the day they were executed, 25,000 protested in Boston.

But the fearless Sinclair was left a conflicted man by what Sacco and Vanzetti's lawyer — and later others in the anarchist movement — told him. Soon Sinclair would learn something that filled him with doubt. During his research for "Boston," Sinclair met with Fred Moore, the men's attorney, in a Denver motel room. Moore "sent me into a panic," Sinclair wrote in the typed letter that Hegness found at the auction a decade ago.

"Alone in a hotel room with Fred, I begged him to tell me the full truth," Sinclair wrote. " … He then told me that the men were guilty, and he told me in every detail how he had framed a set of alibis for them."

"I faced the most difficult ethical problem of my life at that point," he wrote to his attorney. "I had come to Boston with the announcement that I was going to write the truth about the case."

Other letters tucked away in the Indiana archive illuminate why one of America's most strident truth tellers kept his reservations to himself.

"My wife is absolutely certain that if I tell what I believe, I will be called a traitor to the movement and may not live to finish the book," Sinclair wrote Robert Minor, a confidant at the Socialist Daily Worker in New York, in 1927.

"Of course," he added, "the next big case may be a frame-up, and my telling the truth about the Sacco-Vanzetti case will make things harder for the victims."

[Reliapundit: DESPITE THE TRUTH - AND SINCLAIR'S LIES]... The men have been viewed as martyrs by the American left ever since. ... On the 50th anniversary of their execution, Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis all but pardoned the pair, urging that "any disgrace should be forever removed from their names."

This sounds exactly like Dan Rather on the fake Bush TANG documents, and Teddy Jo Kennedy on The Little Red Book Hoax; KENNEDY SPOKEMAN:

Laura Capps, a Kennedy spokeswoman, said last night that the senator cited ''public reports" in his opinion piece. Even if the assertion was a hoax, she said, it did not detract from Kennedy's broader point that the Bush administration has gone too far in engaging in surveillance.

The Left - or the er um, so-called "progressives" if you prefer, THEN AND NOW - blithely say: "So what if my charges are FALSE and the facts are not on my side; my larger point speaks to a higher truth and a greater good." YEAH RIGHT! THE LEFT: their amoral tactics never change. That's why they're scum.

BOTTOM-LINE: BUSH AUTHORIZATION OF NSA INTERCEPTS IS LEGAL AND CONSTITUTIONAL

(1) JOHN SCHMIDT (John Schmidt served under President Clinton from 1994 to 1997 as the associate attorney general of the United States):

President Bush's post- Sept. 11, 2001, authorization to the National Security Agency to carry out electronic surveillance into private phone calls and e-mails is consistent with court decisions and with the positions of the Justice Department under prior presidents.

The president authorized the NSA program in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks on America. An identifiable group, Al Qaeda, was responsible and believed to be planning future attacks in the United States. Electronic surveillance of communications to or from those who might plausibly be members of or in contact with Al Qaeda was probably the only means of obtaining information about what its members were planning next. [...]

In the Supreme Court's 1972 Keith decision holding that the president does not have inherent authority to order wiretapping without warrants to combat domestic threats, the court said explicitly that it was not questioning the president's authority to take such action in response to threats from abroad.

Four federal courts of appeal subsequently faced the issue squarely and held that the president has inherent authority to authorize wiretapping for foreign intelligence purposes without judicial warrant.

In the most recent judicial statement on the issue, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, composed of three federal appellate court judges, said in 2002 that "All the ... courts to have decided the issue held that the president did have inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence ... We take for granted that the president does have that authority."

The passage of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in 1978 did not alter the constitutional situation. [...] But as the 2002 Court of Review noted, if the president has inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches, "FISA could not encroach on the president's constitutional power."

Every president since FISA's passage has asserted that he retained inherent power to go beyond the act's terms. Under President Clinton, deputy Atty. Gen. Jamie Gorelick testified that "the Department of Justice believes, and the case law supports, that the president has inherent authority to conduct warrantless physical searches for foreign intelligence purposes."

FISA contains a provision making it illegal to "engage in electronic surveillance under color of law except as authorized by statute." The term "electronic surveillance" is defined to exclude interception outside the U.S., as done by the NSA, unless there is interception of a communication "sent by or intended to be received by a particular, known United States person" (a U.S. citizen or permanent resident) and the communication is intercepted by "intentionally targeting that United States person." [...]

The administration has offered the further defense that FISA's reference to surveillance "authorized by statute" is satisfied by congressional passage of the post-Sept. 11 resolution giving the president authority to "use all necessary and appropriate force" to prevent those responsible for Sept. 11 from carrying out further attacks.

The administration argues that obtaining intelligence is a necessary and expected component of any military or other use of force to prevent enemy action. But even if the NSA activity is "electronic surveillance" and the Sept. 11 resolution is not "statutory authorization" within the meaning of FISA, the act still cannot, in the words of the 2002 Court of Review decision, "encroach upon the president's constitutional power."

(2) THE FISA COURT ITSELF HAS PREVIOUSLY RULED THAT THE PRESIDENT HAS THE RIGHT TO DO WHAT BUSH DID: November 2002 decision of the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, in Sealed Case No. 02-001:

"The Truong court [United States v. Truong Dinh Hung, 4th Cir. 1980], as did all the other courts to have decided the issue, held that the President did have inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence information. *** We take for granted that the President does have that authority and, assuming that is so, FISA could not encroach on the President's constitutional power."

(3) AL QAEDA AND ITS AFFILIATES HAVE BEEN DEEMED AN ENEMY FOREIGN POWER WHICH WE ARE AT WAR WITH, BOTH BY CONGRESS (IN THE AUMF) AND BY THE FEDERAL COURTS:

(3a) Cass Sunstein, liberal law professor at University of Chicago Law School:

The discussion of wiretapping by the President, without court approval, raises a number of important and interesting legal issues. According to CNN, Attorney General Gonzales recently said, "There were many people, many lawyers within the administration who advised the president that he had an inherent authority as commander in chief under the Constitution to engage in" this kind of "signal intelligence of our enemy." The Attorney General added, "We also believe that the authorization to use force, which was passed by the Congress in the days following the attacks of September 11, constituted additional authorization for the president to engage in this kind of signal intelligence."

I want to suggest here that this last statement is more plausible than it might seem at first glance. If the statement is indeed correct, some legal questions certainly remain, but at least we will have made progress.

The authorization for the use of military force (AUMF) says, "the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons." This authorization clearly supported the war in Afghanistan.

It also clearly justifies the use of force against Al Qaeda.

In the Hamdi case, the Supreme Court added that the AUMF authorizes the detention of enemy combatants -- notwithstanding 18 USC 4001(a), which requires an Act of Congress to support executive detention. In the Court's view, the AUMF stands as the relevant Act of Congress, authorizing detention.

It is therefore reasonable to say that the AUMF, by authorizing the use of "all necessary and appropriate force," also authorizes surveillance of those associated with Al Qaeda or any other organizations that "planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks" of September 11. The reason is that surveillance, including wiretapping, is reasonably believed to be an incident of the use of force. It standardly occurs during war.

If the President's wiretapping has been limited to those reasonably believed to be associated with Al Qaeda and its affiliates -- as indeed he has said -- then the Attorney General's argument is entirely plausible. (The AUMF would not permit wiretapping of those without any connection to nations, organizations, and persons associated with the September 11 attacks.)

(3b) According to this US Federal District Court decision (in a 1997 case, which was never appealed or ruled on by the SCOTUS, and is essentially operative today). Here's a direct quote from the court's decision:

"AL QAEDA IS PROPERLY A FOREIGN POWER AS DEFINED BY US CODE 1801 (a)-(b)". [See page 6, paragraph 4 - (or section C#1).]"

(4) Both Carter and Clinton exercised the same authority against US CITIZENS:

(4a) Bill Clinton issued Executive Order 12949 in early 1995 authorizing “the Attorney General … to approve applications … to obtain orders for physical searches for the purpose of collecting foreign intelligence information.”

(4b) In 1979, Jimmy Carter issued Executive Order 12139 which gave the Attorney General authorization “to approve electronic surveillance to acquire foreign intelligence information without a court order.”

Clinton authorized the PHYSICAL search and seizure of the property of a US CITIZEN (who was an agent of a foreign power). This was certainly MORE invasive than NSA intercepts which Bush ordered.

(5) SCOTUS held - in the 1972 KEITH decision (or see another link HERE) - that the president does not have inherent authority to order wiretapping without warrants to combat domestic threats, but the court said explicitly that it was not questioning the president’s authority to take such action in response to threats from abroad. (This point reiterates a point from Schmidt, above - offered again here - as #5 - with direct hyperlinks to the decision. HINT: SEE section IV of the decision.)

CONCLUSION: US PERSONS, AND EVEN USA CITIZENS, WHO ARE FOREIGN AGENTS OF A FOREIGN POWER WE ARE AT WAR WITH CAN BE LEGALLY AND CONSTITUTIONALLY SEARCHED AND SURVEILLED WITHOUT A COURT ORDER IF THE SEARCH AND SURVEILLANCE IS ORDERED BY THE POTUS.

I repeat: This is a simple, SLAM DUNK case (I have cited: the SCOTUS; the FISA Court; the federal district court; a Clinton USA associate AG; a liberal law school professor from a major law school; and two Democrat presidents). The executive order Bush signed authorizing the NSA intercepts - even if they involved US persons - was legal and constitutional because it was intended to gather intelligence about the enemy, a foreign power and its agents, during war-time. All presidents have that authority.

AS I PREDICTED: BECAUSE OF NYTIMES LEAK, LAWYERS FOR TERRORISTS SUE FEDERAL GOV'T

NYTIMES:

Defense lawyers in some of the country's biggest terrorism cases say they plan to bring legal challenges to determine whether the National Security Agency used illegal wiretaps against several dozen Muslim men tied to Al Qaeda. The lawyers said in interviews that they wanted to learn whether the men were monitored by the agency and, if so, whether the government withheld critical information or misled judges and defense lawyers about how and why the men were singled out.

The expected legal challenges, in cases from Florida, Ohio, Oregon and Virginia, add another dimension to the growing controversy over the agency's domestic surveillance program and could jeopardize some of the Bush administration's most important courtroom victories in terror cases, legal analysts say. The question of whether the N.S.A. program was used in criminal prosecutions and whether it improperly influenced them raises "fascinating and difficult questions," said Carl W. Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond who has studied terrorism prosecutions.

I predicted this on December 19th - three days after the original TRAITOROUS article appeared. This leak is part of a CONCERTED effort by the enemy and their comrades on the Left to diminish our effectiveness to combat the jihadoterrorists.

[WHY ARE THE JIHADOTERRORIST AND THE LEFT ALLIED? The jihadoterrorists and the post-modern Left BOTH want to see the USA "humbled." They want this in order to "humble" the entire West. They blame all the world's problems on the West (and on Judeo-Christian values), and see the USA as the protector of the West - as the "Great Satan" - which has wrought world-wide poverty and inequity through imperialism, colonialism, capitalism and globalism. And they also blame the USA for global warming.]

I also argued in my December 19th post, that the leakers should be arrested, charged, tried and shot for treason. I believe this now more than ever.

More HERE and HERE and HERE.

GAZANS KIDNAP THREE BRITS

BBC:

Three British citizens were kidnapped by gunmen as they entered Gaza from Egypt at the southern Rafah crossing, Palestinian police say. Witnesses said the hostages were a man, woman and a child.

These Gazan Arabs - and the ones who are SUPPOSED to provide security and the rule of law, but who ARE NOT, and those who remain silent in the face of these CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY - show the true nature of MOST of the Arabs there: islamothugs who deserve jail and not their own country.

MORE LEFT-WING PERFIDY AND TREASON: GREEK PAPER GETS "NYTIMES-ITIS"

BBC:

A Greek newspaper has published what it says is the name of a British spy chief who was involved in the abduction and mistreatment of 28 Pakistani migrants. Proto Thema said the name was that of a diplomat who was the Athens chief of Britain's intelligence service MI6. It also named 15 Greek agents who it says were involved in the operation, which allegedly took place after the 7 July bombings in London.

UK TELEGRAPH:

Seven of the 28 Pakistanis have testified before an investigating magistrate that unidentified Greek and British men forced their way into their homes in four Athens suburbs after the bombings. They were allegedly blindfolded and driven to unknown destinations. They claimed to have been questioned about friends and relatives in Britain, and about the persons they had phoned.

THE AUSTRALIAN:

... the detainees, all migrant workers, said they were questioned by British investigators about mobile telephone calls linked to the four suicide bombers. They said they were also asked about calls to a suspect in Pakistan, who British officials reportedly wanted to question about the London attacks.

AND HERE'S A REAL SHOCKER (sarcasm off): GREECE'S LEFT-WING OPPOSTION PARTY IS DEMANDING AN INVESTIGATION OF THE COUNTER-TERRORISM OPERATION, AND NOT OF THE NEWSPAPER:

The Greek Government faces a parliamentary hearing into the allegations on January 11 and a Greek prosecutor has ordered a preliminary inquiry, which is limited in its scope. Opposition MPs are pressing for an expanded judicial investigation. "It is clear there has been a cover up of this issue at a high level," said Nikos Voutsis of the Left Coalition party. "The question is whether this happened or not ... if this indeed did happen, this creates problems for our national sovereignty," added Christos Papoutsis, a spokesman on security issues for the Socialist party, the main opposition grouping.

This is just MORE PROOF that the Left here in the USA (the Democrats) and on the continent of Europe (in Greece and Germany and Denmark, to name a few) are EFFECTIVELY PRO-JIHADOTERROR. The worldwide Left and their cohorts in the MSM are taking direct and ILLEGAL action which ONLY BENEFITS THE ENEMY. Those who expose these top secret security operations should be charged, tried, and executed for treason.

QUESTION: When do you think the Lefties who condemned Libby for leaking Plame's name will condemn this Greek Newspaper? Heh. (After all, THIS IS A MORE GLARING CRIME: These are undoubtedly all currently COVERT agents, whereas Plame's status in this regard is still rather dubious.) I WON'T HOLD MY BREATH!

REMINDER TO LEFTISTS: (1) These agents were investigating the 7/7 LONDON BOMBINGS which killed 52 and injured 700; (2) The agents did NOT pick up suspects at random; these suspects had each phoned a London bomber and a suspect in Pakistan; (3) This is WAR and not a crime; these perps and their comrades must be treated as the enemy and not criminals.

FISA COURT DENIED "King George BusHitlerburton" MANY MANY MANY WARRANTS

UPI:

"... the 26-year-old Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court modified more wiretap requests from the Bush administration than the four previous presidential administrations combined. The 11-judge court that authorizes FISA wiretaps modified only two search warrant orders out of the 13,102 applications approved over the first 22 years of the court's operation.

But since 2001, the judges have modified 179 of the 5,645 requests for surveillance by the Bush administration, the report said. A total of 173 of those court-ordered "substantive modifications" took place in 2003 and 2004. And, the judges also rejected or deferred at least six requests for warrants during those two years -- the first outright rejection of a wiretap request in the court's history."

PRE-BUSH/FISA Court modified warrants = 1/6551 - or .0002%
BUSH/FISA Court modifications = 179/5645 - or .03%.
IOW: FISA was 100 times more likely to hamper Bush's efforts AFTER 9/11, then any other president BEFORE 9/11.

SO: I guess that whole entire meme which states that Bush could get a court order for anything (and therefore shouldn't have circumvented the FISA court for the NSA intercepts) is TOTAL BS! This PROVES that Bush - as CinC - was TOTALLY right to use his constitutional powers to order intercepts of the enemy - EVERYWHERE AND ANYWHERE. This RESPONSIBLE effort stopped MANY attacks:

According to the FBI and statistics provided by the Justice Department, there have been more than 100 instances of planned terrorist activities within the United States that have been thwarted by domestic surveillance. These include an attempt to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge, the Mall of America and the Holland Tunnel.

God Bless Bush. MORE HERE and HERE.

PROTESTING THE END OF DEMOCRACY, PUTIN AIDE QUITS

BBC:

Economic adviser Andrei Illarionov said Russia was no longer politically free but run by state corporations acting in their own interests."I did not sign a contract with such a state," Mr Illarionov told reporters. "It is one thing to work in a country that is partly free. It is another thing when the political system has changed, and the country has stopped being free and democratic," Mr Illarionov told reporters in Moscow. He said that "therefore it is absolutely impossible to remain" in his post.

Putin is NOT an ally; he is our major competitor, and he is ruthless and will do anything to achivee greater power for himself and Russia - INCLUDING aiding our enemies (Syria and Iran and North Korea). Bush MUST get tougher on Putin and Russia.

BUSH ADMINSTRATION WORKING OVERTIME ON TURKEY

CIA CHIEF GOSS WAS JUST THERE. SO WAS FBI CHIEF MUELLER. THE CHIEF OF STAFF OF THE IDF WAS THERE RECENTLY, TOO. RICE US SCHEDULED TO GO SOON.

RUMORS ARE FLYING. WHY ALL THE DIPLOMACY, NOW!?

Turkey let us down BIGTIME in the Iraq War, by refusing to let us transit troops through their territory. (SOME FRIGGIN' NATO ALLY THEY TURNED OUT TO BE! SHEESH!) This lapse on their part is one reason we couldn't CRUSH the Sunnis.

We're letting the Turks know NOW that we may need them again (SOON!), and we're letting them know NOW that there will be "serious consequences" if they let us down again.

The fact is, taking down Assad and the nuke program of the tryano-mullahs of Iran will be a lot easier with Turkey's help - or at least their airspace. However, I think they will disappoint us again. WHY? Well, Turkey might be looking toward RUSSIA now. They just opened a gas pipepline. Putin was there on December 5th last year - he was the first Russian leader to ever visit. MORE INFO HERE.

EU FAILS TO MEET KYOTO TARGETS

BBC:

Ten of 15 European Union signatories will miss the targets without urgent action, the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) found. The countries include Ireland, Italy and Spain. France, Greece and Germany are given an "amber warning" and will not reach targets unless they put planned policies into action, the IPPR said. ... Under Kyoto commitments, the European signatories are supposed to cut their emissions to 8% below 1990 levels by 2008-2012.

KYOTO is a "full of it" treaty and the signatories are "full of it" hypocrites - for signing, then doing bupkus to meet the targets, and also for berating the USA for NOT signing.

BTW: The AGING AMAZON FOREST - and not SUV's - is the chief cause of the recent increase in CO2 in the atmosphere.

HAMAS, HIZB'ALLAH AND THE SUNNI TRIANGLE

What do HAMAS - in Gaza and the West Bank, HIZB'ALLAH - in Lebanon, and the SUNNIS of the SUNNI TRIANGLE in Iraq have in common?

They are all armed terrorist groups which use the threat of terror to try to gain political power.

Though they may CLAIM to be political groups, and though they may POSE as political entities, as long as they remain armed - and support armed insurrection and terror - they can ONLY be at best destabilizing.

This would be true of any political group ANYHWERE: in Israel, the Labor Party doesn't have its own militia; in Canada the Liberals don't have their own militia; in France the Gaulists don't have their own militia - and so on. As long as a political party keeps a private militia a virtual civil war exists (or at least the THREAT of civil war exists - a threat which amounts to nothing more than thuggish blackmail, a threat which shouldn't be tolerated AT ALL).

If Hamas and Hizb'Allah and the Sunni groups sometimes act like political parties, this is only until they don't get their way, and then they use the threat of violence and terror to try to get their way. THIS AIN'T DEMOCRATIC! The Sunnis in Iraq appear to be doing this, right now: Unhappy with the election results they are stepping up their campaign of terror. (See HERE and HERE and HERE.)

This is why the Sunnis refuse to disarm and this is fundamentally ANTI-DEMOCRATIC and undermines all attempts at nation -building.

NONE of these nations - neither the "Palestinian Territories" or Lebanon or Iraq - will EVER become stable democracies unless and until these "militant groups" disarm. If they refuse to disarm VOLUNTARILY, then they should be forcibly disarmed. Or, the forces of democracy and liberty can do one other thing: they can appease these terrorist groups and essentially surrender their liberty and democracy to the terrorist's blackmail.

I'm waiting to see what the Palestinian Arabs and the Lebanese and the Iraqis will decide to do. In this decision lies the fate of their nations.

[ADDENDUM: I wish George Bush would more forcefully demand that these groups disarm, and offer any and all means to help the sovereign governments achieve that end! And I do mean any and all means!]

WHICH IS MORE REPRESSIVE: FRANCE, THE UK, AND CANADA; OR THE USA?

THOMAS BRAY (via RealClearPolitics):

Spying on e-mail and cell phone traffic without a warrant. Searching offices and residences without a court order. Locking citizens away for weeks or months without filing charges.

Sound like your worst nightmare about the supposedly lawless Bush administration? Perhaps. But I refer to restrictions on civil liberties that are taking place not in the United States but, in the order in which I cited them, Canada, France and Great Britain.

All three countries are cited as moral superiors to the rogue regime in Washington, where the fascist leaders George Bush and Dick Cheney are said to be intent on fastening a reign of terror on the United States. But a brief scan of newspaper websites in those countries – something that the American mainstream media could easily have done before unleashing its own reign of terror on unsuspecting readers -- reveals that their governments have in many cases gone far beyond where the Bush-Cheney could ever dream of going.

WHERE'S THE OUTRAGE FROM THE LEFT!? WHERE ARE THE ACLU LAW SUITS AND THE THREATS TO DRAG THESE GOVERNMENTS INTO THE ICC!? Could there be a DOUBLE STANDARD, and a little HYPOCRISY, too, from the Left and the MSM they still dominate!?

Bray concludes:

The hysteria over Bush’s use of the National Security Agency to monitor international communications is thus likely to fade as an issue, much as the he-lied-us-into-war hysteria of prior months faded in significance as it became apparent that most of his congressional critics had interpreted the intelligence about weapons of mass destruction in exactly the same fashion as the administration.

How to balance civil liberties and national security is a subject of legitimate dispute. But Americans deserve more perspective on the matter than they are getting from Bush’s critics and their megaphones in the liberal press.

Well said! RTWT.

ON CHRISTMAS DAY AND THE START OF HANNUKAH, THE NYTIMES WAGES WAR ON CHRISTMAS AND HANNUKAH

The frontpage of the NYTIMES "SUNDAY STYLES" section features a HUGE 3/4-page photo of an UPSIDE DOWN CHRISTMAS TREE, and three (3) featured articles, each "lampooning" the traditional celebrations of Christmas, Hannukah and New Year's Eve (under the main title: "HOLIDAYS ON THEIR HEADS").

These 3 "lampoons" are blatantly anti-traditional, blatantly anti-West and explicitly NIHILIST, though they pose as elitist cynicism - (a POSE so typical of the atheistic chic degenerati). Here are links to and excerpts from the articles:

(1) DISCOVERING AULD ANGST SYNE - trashes New year's Eve):

My big existential realization happened in a swift, barn-crushing fashion. Suddenly, when I looked at the people in Times Square on TV, they seemed to be laughing in slow motion, their voices now deepened, as if in some kind of nightmare sequence. "Haaaa haaaa haaaa!" they cried, basso profundo. What were they laughing about? Life was no laughing matter; it was serious, terrible, dark as an endless night. There was no hope for any of us.

(2)WHAT'S SO GREAT ABOUT MERRY - trashes Christmas:

For years, like many other deluded and self-styled elves of the season, I labored to whip up jollity. ... A person less like my mother than John Waters is hard to imagine. Yet I like to think that her kooky 1960's blue mood had the same counter-cultural brio that has made Mr. Waters such a valued gift from Baltimore to the world. I don't know whether Mr. Waters even bothers with a Christmas tree. But he is religious about sending out cards each season, and this year's is a mug shot of him in a Santa hat, looking a lot less like Kris Kringle than like a pervert posted on Neighborhood Alert.

I will treasure that card, the way I hold dear the image of my tipsy mother waltzing around her melancholy tree. I like to imagine that, were she still alive, she would have evolved her approach to the point where, in place of the woozy holiday compilations by crooner ghosts of the 1940's, she would be hanging her oddball ornaments to the corrosive sounds of Denis Leary singing "Have Yourself a Merry Bleeping Christmas" (although bleeping is not the actual word he employs).

(3) THE FESTIVAL OF LOOT - trashes Hannukah (and Yom Kippur):

True, we Borowitzes may not have been terribly observant in a religious sense, but we embraced all of the most important aspects of Jewish life: love, family and food. Especially on Yom Kippur.

The editorial gist of the three pieces, and the accompanying graphic: "The NYTIMES editors and writers and readers are sophisticated, atheistic, jaded, cynical and very intelligent. If you are an unabashed believer in traditonal religious celebrations, then you're an unsophistcated rube."

By running this HUGE anti-Christmas graphic and these 3 anti-traditional attack pieces ON CHRISTMAS DAY - which is also the first day of HANNUKAH - the editors of the NYTIMES PROVE that they are, more than anything else, repulsed by tradition, and fanatical in their desire to radically alter America and make it secular to the point of being an atheistic nation HOSTILE to true believers.

The NYTIMES is BLATANTLY "COUNTER-CULTURALIST" and the culture they're "countering" is our traditional Judeo-Christian culture. The editors of the NYTIMES have no respect for us believers, and they have no shame. WHICH IS WHY THEY ARE TRUE POST MODERN LEFTISTS. And total scum.

(Do you think I'm too sensitive?! Do you think I should just excuse their attempt at "humor?" I say no. And I say, I'll take it all back only when the NYTIMES starts to ridicule homosexuals, communists, jihadoterrorists and multi-culturalist liberals.)

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY HANNUKAH!

HAPPY HANNUKAH AND MERRY CHRISTMAS!

LEFTISTS IN DENMARK EAGER TO APPEASE ISLAMOFASCISM

Some time back, a Danish newspaper ran a cartoon which depicted Mohammed. Depicting Mohammed is against Islamic code. Many Muslims complained and demanded an apology. The newspaper wouldn't give in - and neither would the conservative Danish PM Anders Rasmussen, when ambassadors from several islamic nations demanded a meeting on the matter. The Danish PM said that Denmark - and the West - allows freedom of speech. PERIOD; END OF DISCUSSION. [Article HERE.]

NOW THERE'S THIS, FROM NEWSWATCH INDIA:

The Danish opposition announced it is ready to meet the ambassadors of 11 Muslim countries. Socialist People's Party leader Villy Sövndahl speaking on behalf of the opposition parties said they will take the ambassadors' wishes and suggestions into consideration. [...] Rasmussen, despite criticisms and calls, repeated he will not meet with the ambassadors of 11 Muslim countries, including Turkey, in Copenhagen. The ambassadors asked for an appointment to open discussions about the cartoons. The Danish prime minister responded to the criticism of the 22 retired Danish ambassadors expressing their attitude towards the cartoons by giving a statement to a newspaper calling it "freedom of expression". Rasmussen defended his support in the issue of the cartoons and said he would not intervene in the freedom of press.

This is just more PROOF that the Left - EVERYWHERE - has LESS desire to defend the freedoms of the Free World from islamofascists than they do to APPEASE the enemy. The Left would rather attack their own DOMESTIC TRADITIONALISTS AND CONSERVATIVES, THAN ATTACK FOREIGNERS WHO ASSAULT OUR CIVILIZATION, OUR LIBERTY AND OUR WAY OF LIFE. WHY!? The Left HATES our civilization, our liberty and our way of life.

SERIOUS, SUDDEN LUNG ILLNESS HITS SIX ISRAELI SOLDIERS IN SOUTH ISRAEL

High fever and lung infections. All rushed to hospital. JPOST and HAARETZ on the story. (NO ONE ELSE IS ON THE STORY... YET.)

EXCERPT HAARETZ:

"Six soldiers serving at a base in southern Israel have come down with a serious lung disease, and the Israel Defense Forces Medical Corps has opened an investigation into the matter, Israel Radio reported on Sunday."

Is it merely flu? Ot is it Bird Flu? Or anthrax or some other bio weapon? Stay tuned.

THE LEFT IS WRONG AGAIN: RADIATION DETECTION WITHOUT A COURT ORDER IS LEGAL AND CONSTITUTIONAL

USNEWS ran a traitorous story - based on an illegal and traitorous leak - about how the FBI and the DoE's "N.E.S.T." service have been monitoring hundreds of sites in the USA (which would have no legal use of radioactive material) in an effort to detect radiation which might indicate the presence of radioactive material for a nuclear device or a dirty bomb. Many of the sites monitored have been mosques. (GEE: I WONDER WHY?! Sheesh.)

Many other outlets in the MSM (350 so far, according to a GOOGLE NEWS search I just ran) have portrayed this monitoring by the FBI as illegal and unconstitutional because these efforts at radiation detection were done without a court-order, and just based on intelligence. THIS IS WRONG. Here are two great analyses of the issues involved:

(1) From a commenter ("The Original TS") at VOLOKH who asked if measuring ambient gamma rays different from measuring infrared radiation emanating from a specific surface (which the SCOTUS has previously held does require a court order? [SEE: Kyllo v. United States.]

Yes, extremely different. First, gamma ray radiation can't be used for imaging. Infrared radiation can. One of the big Constitutional problems in Kyllo was that allowing the police to do infrared imaging would effectively mean that everyone was living in glass houses without curtains.

Measuring radioactivity does not present the same issues. It's more aking to "smell" than it is to "sight." While it is improper for the police to use infrared detectors to "see" a drug lab from the street, there is no problem with "smelling" a drug lab from the street.

Another point is that, unlike infrared imaging, measuring radiation is extremely unlikely to reveal legal activity. Everything emits infrared radiation, especially, people. Hardly anything emits high levels of radiation, especially people. In fact, I'd be willing to bet (though I don't actually know for sure) that possessing something that is highly radioactive is a per se violation of some federal statute. In other words, at some level, radiating your neighborhood is a crime in and of itself.

The point here is that measuring radiation levels is not violating anyone's privacy since it won't provide information regarding legal activities.

(2) Even arch-liberal Justice JP Stevens recognizes that this type of detection is perfectly constitutional (via Jim Robbins at NRO):

Generally speaking, can law enforcement authorities use nuclear detection devices against someone's house without a warrant? This question is at root of the latest "no warrant" controversy.

Readers would do well to examine the Supreme Court case Illinois v. Caballes, decided earlier this year. The Court ruled that when a dog sniffed out drugs during a routine traffic stop, without a warrant, it did not constitute an illegal search because, in the words of Justice Stevens,

"Official conduct that does not 'compromise any legitimate interest in privacy' is not a search subject to the Fourth Amendment. Jacobsen, 466 U.S., at 123." The Court noted that "any interest in possessing contraband cannot be deemed 'legitimate,' and thus, governmental conduct that only reveals the possession of contraband 'compromises no legitimate privacy interest.' Ibid."

Note that in an earlier case, Kyllo v. US, the Court ruled that thermal detection devices could not be used to surveil houses without a warrant because this would compromise privacy -- the difference being that such devices pick up licit as well as illicit activity. In his dissent in that case, Justice Stevens pondered whether "public officials should not have to avert their senses or their equipment from detecting emissions in the public domain such as ...radioactive emissions .. which could identify hazards to the community.

In my judgment, monitoring such emissions with 'sense-enhancing technology,' ... and drawing useful conclusions from such monitoring, is an entirely reasonable public service."

Clearly Caballes rather than Kyllo controls in the case of using detection equipment to pick up emissions from nuclear materials banned under 18 USC 831 since, to quote Stevens' majority opinion, such activity "reveals no information other than the location of a substance that no individual has any right to possess." And even if you want to subject this to a balancing test, I think the government would not have to argue very strongly that there is a compelling state interest in keeping nuclear weapons out of the hands of private citizens.

The fact that the MSM would run this story about a TOP SECRET RADIATION DETECTION PROGRAM - (EVEN THOUGH EXPOSING IT MAKES US MORE VULBNERABLE TO A NUKE ATTACK OR A DIRTY BOMB ATTACK BECAUSE IT TIPS OFF THE ENEMY AND ENABLES HIM TO CHANGE TACTICS) - reveals just how insanely angry and afraid of "King George BusHitlerburton" the Left is.

There's only one thing that will stop this spate of traitorous leaks: throw the leakers and those that published the leaks in jail - or execute them for treason. YEAH: I AM SERIOUS! These leakers are endangering millions of lives and trillions of dollars and our economy and our effort in the GWOT. They are traitors and should be tried and executed.

FISA EXPLICITLY ALLOWS "WARRANTLESS" ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE OF INTERNATIONAL CALLS

FISA 1801 (f) (3) [DEFINITION OF ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE]:

(3) the intentional acquisition by an electronic, mechanical, or other surveillance device of the contents of any radio communication, under circumstances in which a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy and a warrant would be required for law enforcement purposes, and if both the sender and all intended recipients are located within the United States; or ..."

This appears to mean that if ONE party is NOT INSIDE THE USE, that then the call CAN BE LEGALLY INTERCEPTED .

Since Bush ordered INTERNATIONAL calls between al Qaeda and their affiliates to be intercepted, FISA does NOT apply. YES: NSA and the US Armed Forces are ABSOLUTELY FREE to collect all the intel they need OVERSEAS by any means they deem necessary - WITHOUT a court order. And FISA seems to also allow similar freedom as it relates to intercepts of INTERNATIONAL calls, too.

NOTE: this definition says "RADIO COMMUNICATION" - and I am assuming that the NSA intercepts were done of the cellphones' signals as they were transmitted as RADIO SIGNALS; (cellphones send radiowaves/microwaves).

But perhaps this is why the MSM and the Dem/Left keeps referring to the intercepts as "wiretaps" - they don't want this section of FISA to apply.

UPDATE (file this under "blowin' yer own horn!"): I first blogged on this clause on WEDNESDAY AT 5:21PM, HERE. (This is a few hours after John at POWERLINE mentioned it in passing in his long and brilliant essay, "ON THE LEAGLITY OF..."; though I hadn't read POWERLINE at that time I posted). I thought this clause was so important I posted on it again today (above). NOW... POWERLINE has published an email from a lawyer who has worked these issues for the feds, and he makes the SAME EXACT POINT I DID: 1801 (f) (3) means that FISA does NOT apply. Which means that I got it right - and FIRST. (An' I ain't a lawyer, even!)