Pirate's Cove

As has been said time and time again, after September 11th, 2001, people, particularly the Leftards, claimed that Bush should have “done something.” Of course, to them, they meant that he should have personally been out there conducting intelligence, law enforcement, and military operations. And, more importantly, they were just taking cheap political shots with our national security. And brought nothing to the table in the way of ideas of what or how.

With the 7/7 attacks in London, these same Lefties who hate Tony Blair said he should have “done something.” Like with 9/11, they offered nothing in the way of ideas.

Yet, here we have President Bush using what is certainly an upgraded version of Echelon to “do something.” In case the Defeatocrats have forgotten, the 9/11 attackers spent much time in the United States prior to the attacks, and used electronic means, wireless and wireline phones, email, the internet, to talk both domestically and internationally.

In the UK, the 7/7 bombers were pretty much communicating soley within the domestic borders.

Echelon is a 50 year old program designed to intercept electronic communications, originally against the Soviet Union and other enemies of the United States and its allies. It has been upgraded many times. Now it is being used against a different set of enemies. Ones who are more then willing to actually attack us on our soil.

Now, these same panty waists are having issues with the program, along with a few namby pamby Republicans. I really do not think that the NSA computers give a damn about people discussing their latest fake conquest at the local watering hole, or about picking up more diapers because the baby is really filling them up as of late.

What the computers do care about is potential Islamofacist terrorists, and the is what they are tasked to look for.

The AP reported:

While it was too early to get a scientific read on the nation’s thoughts on the program, interviews and a scan of closely watched Web logs appeared to indicate a split that mirrored opinions on the NSA wiretapping program disclosed late last year.

I’m sure they are. The Left is once again in full blame mode, without a care in the world whether this compromises our ability to not get hit with another 9/11 or worse. The Right sees that Bush is “doing something,” and decries someone breaking national security regulations by leaking this program.

Ask Marie Martin what she thinks of revelations that a federal agency is collecting the phone records of tens of millions of Americans, and her thoughts turn immediately to Baghdad.

That is where her son, Army Staff Sgt. William Connor, fractured his back and injured a leg when he was knocked out of a truck by Iraqi insurgent fire. To Martin, the argument over domestic surveillance begins and ends there.

“I think anything they can do to get rid of the terrorists needs to be done,” Martin, a 76-year-old retired customer service worker living in Colorado Springs, Colo., said in a telephone interview Thursday. “I have nothing to hide.”

Yes, we must be caucious about protecting our privacy, but, has anyone been harmed? I seriously doubt whether there are NSA analysists sitting around listening to our phone calls for a hoot.

Did the NY Times, USA Today, Washington Post, et all pitch a fit over Clinton using the program to spy on Americans? None of them complained, yet, now they say that “no, it wasn’t OK for Bill to do it, and not OK for Bush to do it” in their typical doublespeak.

Of course, one of the big uses of Echelon by the Clinton Admin was to target foreign business’. Perhaps he might have tasked it to spend more time on dealing with Echelon’s purpose: electronic communications by America’s enemies. It wasn’t like there was no evidence that Islamofacists wanted to harm America or anything. World Trade Center, Kobal Towers, USS Cole, etc.

Michelle Malkin has more.

Powerline discusses an ABC report that Americans approve of the NSA program by a 2-1 margin.

RightWing NutHouse has an article entitled “The Hysterical Drama Queens of the Left”

The news that billions of phone records are stored in a faceless, lifeless, dumb brute of a computer data base has set off a tantrum on the left the likes of which have not been seen in this country since the Civil War. Whipped into a frenzy of outrage not by any actual “spying” or “eavesdropping” by the NSA’s data mining of call records but rather by the idea that the government now has the exact same information available to it that your phone company has had all along, Members of Congress as well as the left side of the blogosphere have given in to hysteria and have allowed their imaginations to take flight about the program, positing all sorts of sinister scenarios where we are a hair’s breadth away from some kind of third world dictatorship. (empasis mine)

Jay at Stop The ACLU points out that the Asshat Communist Libation Union has done the same thing. Food for thought.