Wiretapping II

Here's a different explanation for how the wiretapping worked.

After 9/11, authorities found a bunch of e-mail addresses and phone numbers in the phones and computers of confirmed terrorists. They tracked down those leads. Most of the people the NSA started eavesdropping on - about 7,000 - lived overseas, and their phone calls were to other foreigners living abroad. But, according to Risen's book, "about 500 people" living in the U.S. who were in contact with suspected terrorists had their communications tapped.

Again, it's hard to see how the NSA could ask for warrants. Are they needed when a foreign call is tapped and it happens to connect to the US? Is it practical to ask for warrants covering calls that might reach the US? Assuming that the US got proper permission to monitor calls in the origination, is any other permission needed?

As with the Carnivor explanation, this one does not allow time for warrants and little case for impeachment.

This is the latest in a long string of cases where Democrats act as though there is no war on. Granted it is a silent war but they want us to act as though no hostilities were going on at all. Even something as staightforward as propaganda is considered wrong. What happened to winning hearts and minds? We need to spread our side of the issues to do this.

We are fighting a hidden foe. When one is captured, we have very little time to interrogate him for links to others. As soon as one person's capture is known, everyone else in the chain hides again. That's why we have to have black facilities and use stress techniques.

There are even signs that this is coloring new reporting. According to Little Green Footballs, the Italians arrested a groups of Algerians who were planning major terror strikes in the US but the US media gave it very little coverage because it would have reminded people that there is a war going on.

The mainstream U.S. media outlets have failed to report a major terrorist plot against the U.S. - because it would tend to support President Bush's use of NSA domestic surveillance, according to media watchdog groups.

News of a planned attack masterminded by three Algerians operating out of Italy was widely reported outside the U.S., but went virtually unreported in the American media.

Italian authorities recently announced that they had used wiretaps to uncover the conspiracy to conduct a series of major attacks inside the U.S.

Italian Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu said the planned attacks would have targeted stadiums, ships and railway stations, and the terrorists' goal, he said, was to exceed the devastation caused by 9/11.

Notice how the plot was discovered - wiretaps. How about that?