Well, here we go again. Forgive the ABC/AP headline (the “wiretapping” Gore is “assailing” is foreign intel gathering, and not, as The AP/ABC would have you believe, “domestic wiretapping”—except in the most incidental and /or theoretically non-specific sense of the description (and as legally prescribed under FISA’s electronic surveillance definition).  And not only that, but it is foreign intel gathering performed under the Constitutional auspices of the NSA (as a

Andrew McCarthy, from the Jan 30 2006 issue of National Review: Washington’s scandal du jour involves a wartime surveillance program President Bush directed the National Security Agency to carry out after al-Qaeda killed nearly 3,000 Americans on September 11, 2001. The idea that there is anything truly scandalous about this program is absurd. But the outcry against it is valuable, highlighting as it does the mistaken assumption that criminal-justice solutions

To answer AL and MF, who continue to raise NSA “domestic spying” questions in the comments here—including the charge that no one who supports the program has addressed Lawrence Tribes’ (evidently, to their way of thinking) dispositive proof that the administration, by way of AG Gonzales press conference “slip ups,” has admitted to breaking the law (a position shared by Jonathan Turley, among others). But this is a false and

Some interesting discussion spun off from my recent post on “The Wisdom of Wiretaps”—a few responses (in the form of an exchange) I’d like to highlight here.  First, here’s Tom Ault, who takes the tack of dividing the NSA “domestic spying” question into competing impulses / questions—one having to do with the program’s legality, the other having to do with the pragmatic nature of the program, from the standpoint of

From the WSJ editorial page: The Bush Administration’s use of warrantless wiretaps in the war on terrorism continues to generate controversy, and Congress is planning hearings. Some of the loopier elements of the Democratic Party have even suggested the wiretaps are grounds for impeachment. But the more we learn about the practice, the clearer it is that the White House has been right to employ and defend it. The issue

Mark Steyn on Islam and the West. From “It’s the demography, stupid,” The New Criterion [reprinted in OJ]: […] The challenge for those who reckon western civilization is on balance better than the alternatives is to figure out a way to save at least some parts of the west. One obstacle to doing that is the fact that, in the typical election campaign in your advanced industrial democracy, the political

I’m going to take it easy today—play with the kid, watch a few Bowl games—but in the meantime, allow me to point you to Glenn Greenwald (and co.’s) latest, which charges me with being a mindless Bushbot (“the wingnut’s wingnut” who “hates the first amendment,” according to his commenters) because I simply will not see the light and just admit, as Chuck Hagel, William Safire, et al, have already admitted—that

Amazingly, civil rights attorney Glenn Greenwald rings in the new year by continuing his dogged begging of the NSA “domestic spying” question, yet again imputing to “Bush supporters” the kind of bad faith he seems determined to practice in his own lengthy posts—irrespective of the number of times those of us who support the program attempt to set the record straight. For instance, here’s how he characterizes my latest post

[update: from Allah: “Rumsfeld heckled … by wacko conspiracy theorist Ray McGovern”; meanwhile, Rick Moran notes that Rumsfeld lied while on the spot yesterday, something Rick finds ironic, insofar as he believes Rumsfeld was lying about telling the truth (as he believed it back in 2003).  Rick goes on to suggest that the troop levels in Iraq are another mistake Rumsfeld should admit to—but on that account we disagree:  the

Much has been made of the Rasmussen poll on NSA surveillance I cited yesterday — from the timing of the poll (which, because polling was done over the holidays, would tend to hurt Republicans) to the absence of the word “warrantless,” which formulation would’ve advanced the New York Times and attendant media’s framing of issue moreso than the NSA / Bush framing (on which more to follow). Reaction on many