UNDER OBAMA, THE NSA IS COLLECTING LESS INFO AND AS A RESULT WE ARE LESS SAFE

WASH POST:

The data under discussion are records associated with various kinds of communication, but not their content. Examples of this "metadata" include the origin, destination and path of an e-mail; the phone numbers called from a particular telephone; and the Internet address of someone making an Internet phone call. It was not clear what kind of data had provoked the court's concern.

Some House Republicans have argued that the suspension of collection creates an intelligence gap that undermines the government's ability to track and identify terrorist networks, according to officials familiar with the matter. Frustrated about waiting for a remedy, these Republicans say the gap can be closed with a technical fix to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the officials said.

"This is a basic tool we used to have, and it's now gone," said one intelligence official familiar with the impasse. "Every day, every week that goes by, there's just one more week of information that we're not collecting. You sit there and say, 'This is unbelievable that we have this gap.' "

The data could be used to help analysts learn whom a suspect was working and communicating with, and to "detect and anticipate" a plot, the official said. "It's not a concern over what was being collected," he said. "It's just a question about whether the law was written in a way that allowed the information to be collected in a way that they were collecting it."

... The NSA voluntarily stopped gathering the data in December or January rather than wait to be told to do so, the officials said. The agency had been collecting it with court permission for several years, officials said.

WE ARE LESS SAFE NOW THAN UNDER BUSH.

• BECAUSE UNDER OBAMA WE ARE COLLECTING LESS DATA.

• BECAUSE UNDER OBAMA WE ARE GIVING THE CAPTURED ENEMY MORE RIGHTS AND GETTING LESS INTEL' FROM THEM AS A RESULT.

• BECAUSE UNDER OBAMA WE ARE CAPTURING LESS OF THE ENEMY.

• BECAUSE UNDER OBAMA WE WON'T EVEN CALL THE ENEMY WHAT THEY ARE ANYMORE.

I CAN'T HELP BUT CONCLUDE THAT AS A RESULT THE ENEMY - WHO IS ALWAYS PLANNING AND PROBING - WILL BE ABLE TO SUCCEED IN A MAJOR ATTACK HERE ON THE HOMELAND SOONER THAN ANYONE THINKS... I'D SAY BEFORE THE YEAR IS OUT.

SIGH.

IT'S AVOIDABLE - AND IF WE HAD A PRESIDENT WHO FELT HIS MOST IMPORTANT JOB WAS DEFENDING US AND NOT APOLOGIZING FOR US WE WOULD AVOID IT.

STAY TUNED...