Dan

Calabrese

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February 21, 2008

Clinton, Obama Help Terrorists; Will John McCain Make Them Pay?

Democrats become apoplectic if you accuse them of rooting for the terrorists. Maybe they should stop helping them, as they – including Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama – did last week.

Remember when 9/11 “changed everything” by awakening Americans to the real threat of terrorism? Americans long ago returned to their slumbers, largely as the result of the Bush administration’s successful vigilance in preventing further terrorist attacks.

Maybe we’re about to awaken. If congressional Democrats have their way, it is probably inevitable. They have just taken away one of the National Security Agency’s most potent counterterrorism weapons – all because they can’t stand the thought that somewhere in America, a gigantic corporation might not get sued.

If John McCain doesn’t rip each of his prospective Democratic opponents a new one over this, he doesn’t deserve to win the election.

Ever since 9/11, the administration has effectively used electronic surveillance to intercept terrorist communications and thwart attacks. It hasn’t been easy. The left has seen to that. First, the New York Times published the details of heretofore secret program – alerting members of Al Qaeda to find another way of plotting attacks. Then the court created under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act began forcing the administration to obtain warrants in advance of a growing number of wiretaps – often bringing surveillance efforts to standstill while NSA officials went to court and terrorists got the jump on them.

Finally, the telecommunications companies who voluntarily assisted the NSA in facilitating the surveillance found themselves faced with a mounting collection of lawsuits. Without legislation granting them immunity from such suits, it would not be feasible for them to continue participating in the effort.

Last weekend Congress allowed the FISA statute authorizing the wiretaps to expire. Even though the Senate voted to reauthorize the law and grant immunity to the telecoms, and a headcount in the House indicated a majority there would support the bill as well, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi recessed the House without a vote.

As of today, the NSA cannot legally conduct the very electronic surveillance that has proven effective for the past six-plus years at preventing further terrorist attacks. The sticking point? Democrats don’t want to protect telecom companies from lawsuits – even though they have assisted NSA voluntarily and without compensation.

It’s the House leadership that allowed this to occur, but that doesn’t mean Clinton or Obama should be let off the hook. Both have publicly stated that they opposed the bill. It therefore stands to reason that neither objects to Pelosi’s actions to kill it.

One of these two senators will soon be clearly established as the Democrats’ nominee for president, and as such will ascend to the role of the Democratic Party’s leader on a national scale. Either of them could have applied serious pressure to Nancy Pelosi to get out of the way and let the FISA statute pass. Neither did. It’s not hard to figure out why.

The two leading Democratic candidates for president of the United States are not serious about preventing terrorism. It is not a priority for either of them. If it were, they would have certainly stood up for a bill that had support from the likes of Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-WV, chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence – as well as a significant contingent of House Democrats.

Clinton and Obama don’t care if this bill is passed because they are pandering to current left-wing orthodoxy that the whole terrorism thing has been overblown by the Bush administration, which is just using it to keep everyone scared. Whether either of them actually believes this is anyone’s guess, but they’re convinced that Democratic primary voters believe it, and that’s good enough for them.

If Al Qaeda is smart, it is using electronic communication technology to plan an attack right now. No one can legally intercept their communications to find out they’re doing it. Nancy Pelosi has seen to that. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are behind her 100 percent.

Somewhere along the line, it became more important to Democrats to inflict political defeats upon the Bush administration than to do any damage to Al Qaeda’s ability to hurt this country. So by their lights, they’ve just won a huge victory.

If McCain is really the strong national security candidate everyone says he is, he should be nailing Clinton and Obama to the wall on this issue. It shouldn’t be hard to make Americans understand that they’ve just been put at risk - so the trial lawyers who fund Democratic campaigns can file frivolous lawsuits against companies who voluntarily assist in protecting national security.

This is Column # DC153.  Request permission to publish here.