{"id":6548,"date":"2006-02-07T09:12:28","date_gmt":"2006-02-07T14:12:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=6548"},"modified":"2006-02-07T09:12:28","modified_gmt":"2006-02-07T14:12:28","slug":"counting-on-forgetful-terrorists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/counting-on-forgetful-terrorists\/","title":{"rendered":"Counting on forgetful terrorists"},"content":{"rendered":"

To hear Alberto Gonzales tell it yesterday, the fact that we’re even talking about warrantless domestic searches is literally dangerous<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“Our enemy is listening. And I cannot help but wonder if they aren’t shaking their heads in amazement at the thought that anyone would imperil such a sensitive program by leaking its existence in the first place, and smiling at the prospect that we might now disclose even more or perhaps even unilaterally disarm ourselves of a key tool in the war on terror.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It was an odd sentiment on a number of levels. No one’s talking about “unilateral disarmament”; we’re talking about legal surveillance with checks and balances. But more importantly, Gonzales said the program is so important that “leaking its existence in the first place” is, apparently, a huge victory for terrorists. Fortunately, Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) thought to follow up on this point<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Biden: General, how has this revelation damaged the program? I’m almost confused by it but, I mean, it seems to presuppose that these very sophisticated Al Qaida folks didn’t think we were intercepting their phone calls. I mean, I’m a little confused. How did it damage this?<\/p>\n

Gonzales: Well, Senator, I would first refer to the experts in the Intel Committee who are making that statement, first of all. I’m just the lawyer. And so, when the director of the CIA says this should really damage our intel capabilities, I would defer to that statement. I think, based on my experience, it is true — you would assume that the enemy is presuming that we are engaged in some kind of surveillance.<\/p>\n

But if they’re not reminded about it all the time in the newspapers and in stories, they sometimes forget.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The comment generated laughter in the Judiciary Committee hearing room, and has been joked about throughout the ‘sphere, but it’s nevertheless a startling admission.
\n
\nSince this story broke in December, the administration and its allies have insisted repeatedly that the revelations are so dramatic, it’s literally undermined the war on terror. Indeed, we should, they say, prosecute whisteblowers who dared to expose Bush’s circumvention of the law.<\/p>\n

Gonzales may not have intended to be so helpful, but he nevertheless ripped the mask of this charade in his comments yesterday — to believe the news about warrantless-searches is dangerous is to believe that terrorists might “forget” that we’re watching them. And with that, another talking point bites the dust.<\/p>\n

Or, as Biden told Gonzales yesterday, “Well, I hope you and my distinguished friend from Alabama are right, that they’re that stupid and naive because we’re much better off if that’s the case. I get the impression from the work I’ve done in this area that they’re pretty darn sophisticated; they pretty well know.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To hear Alberto Gonzales tell it yesterday, the fact that we’re even talking about warrantless domestic searches is literally dangerous. “Our enemy is listening. And I cannot help but wonder if they aren’t shaking their heads in amazement at the thought that anyone would imperil such a sensitive program by leaking its existence in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6548\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}