Granting the President power

I was actually doing a search on the Mainstream Media’s coverage, or lack thereof, regarding the arrests of two Middle Eastern men in South Carolina with bomb making materials and chemicals when I came across this article from the Washington Post’s resident “military expert” William Arkin.

“President Bush signed into law yesterday a bill making legal some of the government’s surveillance powers undertaken since 9/11. Critics say the law goes too far in giving the National Security Agency the ability to target whomever it wants, even inside the United States. Others say it doesn’t go far enough, and that the NSA needs to do even more to keep up with ever-changing digital communication technologies.

They both have a point. Long after this administration’s warrantless surveillance program and counter-terrorism policies fade into history, these issues of rights and technology will linger for the next president to resolve.”

Reading commentary from respected “clowns” such as William Arkin, David Corn, and E.J. Dionne reminds me of why I started a blog in the first place. It’s “journalists” like these epitomize the blatant left-wing agenda of the Mainstream Media. Granted, these people are opinion columnists, but we see far too much of this out of touch behavior from these people. They, like their Democrat and Far-Left fringe group masters, have hedged their bets on the sides of the terrorists, all in sadistic to prove that George Bush was wrong.

Let’s break down Arkin’s column:

“After 9/11, the Bush administration extended the NSA’s reach to collect communications between the United States and foreign targets without that order, believing that suspected terrorists and supporters in the U.S. would merely changing their calling patterns and thus slipping away while U.S. officials sought legal approval from the courts.

“This program was called the Terrorist Surveillance Program. We now know that NSA also instituted other new counter-terrorism collections inside the United States that did not comply with existing law.”

Essentially, the Left has had a major beef with the Bush’s administration perceived side-stepping of FISA regulations. They state that Bush and his “minions” violated the United States Constituion by circumventing FISA law through warrantless wire-tapping.

Yet I wonder if our Founding Fathers had envisioned the threat we face today in terrorism.

“Now Congress has recessed with what even the law’s supporters say isn’t perfect legislation. Civil liberties advocates and skeptics say that the new law, and the government’s new capacities, allow broad searches of the communications of ordinary Americans without judicial review.”

And here’s where the Left jumps off the deep end. Their primary complaint with Bush is that he abused his powers and violated civil liberties of every American man, woman, and child. The last time I checked, I’m still saying and writing what I want, listening to want I want, READING what I want, going to bed when I want, eating what I want, etc.

You get the point.

But according to the Left, the Bush administration has turned our great country into a totalitarian regime, where random citizens are extracted from their homes and tortured, or where poor terrorists’ “rights” are violated everyday in clandestine torture prisons.

Give me a break…

“The NSA needs to improve its ability to process these gazillions of signals, both abroad and inside the United States. The volume of that digital traffic — trilllions of phone calls, text messages and emails — has become so great, and the modes of communication so varied, that the challenge is deciding which communications to intercept, and then which to turn into intelligence.”

Again, I don’t think our Founding Fathers envisioned this sort of dilemma. Whether or not you belief the Constitution to be a living, breathing article, the President, AKA, Commander in Chief should be allowed to act first, not react, in the face of terrorism.

“Congress of course needs to ensure that the rights of innocent Americans are protected. But it has spent more time since the leak of the Terrorist Surveillance Program in 2005 complaining about the technicalities of the law and its lost powers than it has on crafting a solution that provides both intelligence and protections. Let’s have strong laws that protect American while also giving the intelligence community what it needs. Then let’s focus on pushing the administration and the intelligence community to do a better job, removing the excuse that they fail because somehow the law stands in the way of victory.”

I say “fair enough.” As long as the rights of the law-abiding citizenry are not being violated, then we should excuse the government for waging a covert and often murky war against radical terrorists.

crossposted at http://rightisright.squarespace.com