On NSA Surveillance: Something Old, Something New

First, the new. In today’s WSJ (“Can We Talk? If al Qaeda phones, tell them we can't take the call”) Daniel Henninger writes:

Let's start with the one thing we know for sure about the Bush administration's program to listen to al Qaeda's phone calls into and out of the United States: It's dead.

After all the publicity of the past two weeks, does anyone think that the boys working on plans for Boston Harbor, the Golden Gate Bridge or Chicago's Loop are still chatting by phone? If the purpose of the public exposure was to pull the plug on the pre-emptive surveillance program, mission accomplished. Be safe, Times Square.

…

Then later in the week GOP Rep. Heather Wilson suddenly became famous for presumably dissenting from the White House line and demanding a "complete review" of the surveillance program. Rep. Wilson, who chairs a House intelligence oversight subcommittee, is rightly regarded as one of the House's savvier and more serious members on national security issues. But . . .

Rep. Wilson is in a neck-and-neck re-election fight back in her New Mexico district with state Attorney General Patricia Madrid. Rep. Wilson is under pressure because her district is heavily Democratic; the opposition's primary line of attack has been that Rep. Wilson isn't sufficiently "independent" of the Bush White House. Right after her highly publicized NSA declaration this week, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee got out a statement that "Rep. Wilson is now and has always been a rubber stamp for the policies of the Bush-Cheney administration."

What this means is that the local politics of Albuquerque is now setting national security policy. Why them? Why not accord the same overweighted political status to the Third District in North Carolina, which happens to house Camp Lejeune?

Local interest (well, New Mexico, anyway), ya know. Henninger writes good stuff; this is worth a read.

And for the "old," there’s Scott Ott, from a few days ago, on very important changes to be made to the NSA surveillance program:

In addition to the monitoring alert, Mr. Slipps said U.S. residents on NSA-intercepted calls will soon be offered a menu of options, including the following:

– To continue in Arabic press ‘one’ or say wâhid

– To hear a complete listing of the steps required to obtain a wiretap warrant under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, press, or say, two

– If you’re a law-abiding American, press, or say, three

– If you’re a Quaker, a baby or a nun and feel you have reached this recording in error, please hang up the phone and dial a number that’s not associated with al Qaeda.

– To speak with an NSA representative, remain on the line until we complete the trace. You may hear a brief series of clicks, followed by a knock at your door.

– To call in a CIA predator-drone attack on the party to whom you are speaking, press the ‘pound’ key

I’ve said it before: Scott is one funny guy!