[privacy] Frank Rich: Will the Real Traitors Please Stand Up?

["Fergie" <fergdawg () netzero net>]

FYI,

Frank Rich writes a powerful editorial in Sunday's New York Times,
a copy of which you can read here:

 http://www.dohiyimir.org/2006/05/will_the_real_t.html

Although Rich's piece is equally powerful thorughout, I have to say
that these are my favorite paragrpahs:

[snip]

The N.S.A. eavesdropping exposed in December by James Risen and Eric Lichtblau of The Times is another American 
debacle. Hoping to suggest otherwise and cast the paper as treasonous, Dick Cheney immediately claimed that the program 
had saved "thousands of lives." The White House's journalistic mouthpiece, the Wall Street Journal editorial page, 
wrote that the Times exposé "may have ruined one of our most effective anti-Al Qaeda surveillance programs."

Surely they jest. If this is one of our "most effective" programs, we're in worse trouble than we thought. Our enemy is 
smart enough to figure out on its own that its phone calls are monitored 24/7, since even under existing law the 
government can eavesdrop for 72 hours before seeking a warrant (which is almost always granted). As The Times 
subsequently reported, the N.S.A. program was worse than ineffective; it was counterproductive. Its gusher of data 
wasted F.B.I. time and manpower on wild-goose chases and minor leads while uncovering no new active Qaeda plots in the 
United States.

Like the N.S.A. database on 200 million American phone customers that was described last week by USA Today, this 
program may have more to do with monitoring "traitors" like reporters and leakers than with tracking terrorists.

[snip]

Much, much more here:
http://www.dohiyimir.org/2006/05/will_the_real_t.html

Much, much less here:
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/05/14/opinion/14rich.html

- ferg


--
"Fergie", a.k.a. Paul Ferguson
 Engineering Architecture for the Internet
 fergdawg () netzero net or fergdawg () sbcglobal net
 ferg's tech blog: http://fergdawg.blogspot.com/

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