A New Year, a New "Scandal"

Now that the real leak investigation has begun, it's funny to watch Democrats and the media scrambling for cover. Whistleblower, is the word of the day now. And this is Democratic code to the actual leakers - get with the program, otherwise we can't save your butt.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., appearing on "Fox News Sunday," said the Justice Department investigation should explore the motivation of the person who leaked the information.

"Was this somebody who had an ill purpose, trying to hurt the United States?" Schumer asked. "Or might it have been someone in the department who felt that this was wrong, legally wrong, that the law was being violated?"

I don't know, Chuck. Maybe it could have been somebody with a political grudge against the President. That's another possibility. I mean, don't you and your staff know all about people doing illegal things to attack other elected officials?

...two Schumer staffers at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee had hacked into the credit report of Maryland Republican Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, according to committee officials.

"It's an ironic and uncomfortable position for Chuck," said Baruch College politics professor Doug Muzzio.

In July, DSCC research director Katie Barge, 26, and researcher Lauren Weiner, 25, allegedly accessed Steele's report using his Social Security number in preparation for a possible Senate bid by Steele.

Schumer, chairman of the campaign committee, reported their actions to the U.S. attorney in Washington within hours of the alleged violation, say officials familiar with the case.

And the senator's allies have repeatedly said Schumer isn't a target of the investigation.

Yes, but as Michelle Malkin notes, there is an ongoing federal investigation into this.

(I checked with the US Attorney's Office in DC, by the way, and the investigation into Barge and Weiner's involvement in illegally obtaining a credit report on Maryland’s lieutenant governor Michael S. Steele is still ongoing.)

Care to give us an update, Chuck? Have they questioned you yet about how your staffers got the idea to steal credit report information?

Ah well, old news I suppose, not that this ever made the news much anyway. But getting back to the point, why the sudden sputtering now on the part of Democrats?

Because any serious legal mind who has looked at this issue knows the President was within his bounds of authority. And the poll numbers are racing in Bush's direction on this issue.

And the revelation yesterday, about the NSA sharing intelligence information with other intelligence agencies - the next new "scandal" - is really more of a testiment to the seriousness with which the administration took the lessons of 9-11. Anybody remember "the wall" of separation between the domestic and international spy agencies that led to the intelligence breakdown before 9-11? Remember how the press and Democrats clamored for the Department of Homeland Security? - how it was all about how Bush didn't connect the dots before 9-11? - that it was his administration's fault for not divining the intent of terrorists using all those faulty intelligence practices?

Yeah, convenient how such things die in the press. Now it's a new attack, exactly the opposite of what it was before.

Information captured by the National Security Agency's secret eavesdropping on communications between the United States and overseas has been passed on to other government agencies, which cross-check the information with tips and information collected in other databases, current and former administration officials said.

The NSA has turned such information over to the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and to other government entities, said three current and former senior administration officials, although it could not be determined which agencies received what types of information. Information from intercepts -- which typically includes records of telephone or e-mail communications -- would be made available by request to agencies that are allowed to have it, including the FBI, DIA, CIA and Department of Homeland Security, one former official said.

At least one of those organizations, the DIA, has used NSA information as the basis for carrying out surveillance of people in the country suspected of posing a threat, according to two sources. A DIA spokesman said the agency does not conduct such domestic surveillance but would not comment further. Spokesmen for the FBI, the CIA and the director of national intelligence, John D. Negroponte, declined to comment on the use of NSA data.

And why is this dangerous? According to the Post, because back in the 60s the NSA gathered information about the connections between "peace activists" and foreign governments.

Today's controversy over the domestic NSA intercepts echoes events of more than three decades ago. Beginning in the late 1960s, the NSA was asked initially by the Johnson White House and later by the Army, the Secret Service, and the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs to intercept messages to or from the United States. Members of Congress were not informed of the program, code-named Minaret in one phase.

The initial purpose was to "help determine the existence of foreign influence" on "civil disturbances occurring throughout the nation," threats to the president and other issues, Gen. Lew Allen Jr., then director of NSA, told a Select Senate Committee headed by then-Sen. Frank Church (D-Idaho) in 1975.

Allen, in comments similar to recent Bush administration statements, said collecting communications involving American citizens was approved legally, by two attorneys general. He also said that the Minaret intercepts discovered "a major foreign terrorist act planned in a large city" and prevented "an assassination attempt on a prominent U.S. figure abroad."

Overall, Allen said that 1,200 Americans citizens' calls were intercepted over six years, and that about 1,900 reports were issued in three areas of terrorism. As the Church hearings later showed, the Army expanded the NSA collection and had units around the country gather names and license plates of those attending antiwar rallies and demonstrations. That, in turn, led to creation of files on these individuals within Army intelligence units. At one point a Senate Judiciary subcommittee showed the Army had amassed about 18,000 names. In response, Congress in 1978 passed the Foreign Intelligence Security Act, which limited NSA interception of calls from overseas to U.S. citizens or those involving American citizens traveling abroad.

So you see the connection? Obviously we should be taking our cues from the 60s, because that's what journalists do. It's all some big bad conspiracy by the government to go after peace activists and the president's polical enemies. Be afraid!

And the media wonders why they have zero credibility...

Now let's get serious. First of all, the Post is glorifying the Church committee, which effectively gutted our intelligence agencies. Second, the Post is not even citing numbers or statistics about the current NSA program, they are leaping into the past with both feet and hoping you jump along with them.

And why? Because there is not one iota of proof that the new system is breaking the law or is beyond the president's constitutional authority. And the forcefullness of President Bush's defense has the Democrats and media on edge. This is why you're hearing calls about whistleblowing - they're trying to gin up sympathy for leakers who "had a heavy conscience". The same leakers, by the way, who did not resign or call attention to these concerns using the protective system already in place for whistleblowers.

Let's take a closer look at the righteousness and concerns of the detractors.

Senator Jay Rockefeller - writes a CYA letter and hides a copy.

"In his letter ... Senator Rockefeller asserts that he had lingering concerns about the program designed to protect the American people from another attack, but was prohibited from doing anything about it," Mr. Roberts said in a statement yesterday. "A United States Senator has significant tools with which to wield power and influence over the executive branch. Feigning helplessness is not one of those tools."

In his 2003 letter to Mr. Cheney, Mr. Rockefeller said the program raised "profound oversight issues" and he regretted that high security of the program prevented him from seeking advice on the matter. Mr. Rockefeller also told Mr. Cheney that he had made a handwritten copy of the letter, which he distributed to the press Monday.

If Mr. Rockefeller had these concerns, Mr. Roberts said, he could have raised them with him or other members of Congress who had been briefed on the program.

"I have no recollection of Senator Rockefeller objecting to the program at the many briefings he and I attended together," Mr. Roberts said. "In fact, it is my recollection that on many occasions Senator Rockefeller expressed to the vice president his vocal support for the program," most recently, "two weeks ago."

A man truly concerned with your civil liberties would have sought closed committee hearings, or at least certainly raised concerns with the other Senate members privy to the program.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi - she wrote a letter too. But apparently it was classifed, so she hasn't shown it to anyone. No, really, I'm not making this up.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, announced that she wrote a letter, too, but couldn't provide it because, she said, it was classified.

The FISA court - aware of the program, but decide to feign indignation about the program anyway - one judge resigns, the rest consider disbanding.

As it launched the dramatic change in domestic surveillance policy, the administration chose to secretly brief only the presiding FISA court judges about it. Officials first advised U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth, the head of FISA in the fall of 2001, and then Kollar-Kotelly, who replaced him in that position in May 2002.

So they were briefed...but are mad anyway...

One judge, speaking on the condition of anonymity, also said members could suggest disbanding the court in light of the president's suggestion that he has the power to bypass the court.

The New York Times - sits on the story for a year, and all their reasons why are suspect. Even their own public editor is getting the silent treatment.

THE New York Times's explanation of its decision to report, after what it said was a one-year delay, that the National Security Agency is eavesdropping domestically without court-approved warrants was woefully inadequate. And I have had unusual difficulty getting a better explanation for readers, despite the paper's repeated pledges of greater transparency.

For the first time since I became public editor, the executive editor and the publisher have declined to respond to my requests for information about news-related decision-making. My queries concerned the timing of the exclusive Dec. 16 article about President Bush's secret decision in the months after 9/11 to authorize the warrantless eavesdropping on Americans in the United States.

I e-mailed a list of 28 questions to Bill Keller, the executive editor, on Dec. 19, three days after the article appeared. He promptly declined to respond to them. I then sent the same questions to Arthur Sulzberger Jr., the publisher, who also declined to respond. They held out no hope for a fuller explanation in the future.

At least not until their reporters start going to jail. Hence the whistleblower angle.

Times reporter James Risen - writes a book about the NSA program and other Bush administration intelligence programs. Yes, that's right, he was so concerned with your civil liberties that he decided to write a book and make money off of it - and delaying the story, so that he could write the book. And yes, the book goes on sale January 3rd.

Of course the media frenzy and the Democrat huffing and puffing could not blow the Bush White House down. As everyone has seen, the public support for the NSA program is around 64%. And as I see it any further articles that come out showing that Bush was doing his job and protecting this country will raise those numbers even further.

Bush needs to keep giving speeches on this, and keep pushing his point home to the press. The more forceful and open the president is on this issue the better. You can't attack statements like this:

Asked what he would say to those who claim the eavesdropping violates privacy, Bush said: "I can say that if somebody from al-Qaida is calling you, we'd like to know why. ... This program is conscious of people's civil liberties, as am I."

The press will try to gin up controversies, as they have with Bush's April statement about the government seeking warrants for wiretaps (he was referring to the roving wiretapping authority of the Patriot Act, not the intelligence gathering practices of the NSA), but the media is beating a dead horse. There is no scandal when it comes to the president protecting Americans - and learning from the intelligence failures that led to 9-11. If the administration can drive that point home, this entire "scandal" will evaporate, and leave Bush with a higher public standing than before.