Why it was important to keep the cat in the bag

… or to put it another way, why the NSA eavesdropping leak will harm our national security. Orin Kerr at The Volokh Conspiracy explains:

3. Finally, and relatedly, the details of the program from Risen’s book arguably explains the national security interest in keeping the domestic surveillance program a secret. It’s not that terrorists may suddenly realize that they may be monitored; that argument never made much sense, as every member of Al-Qaeda must know that they may be monitored. Rather, I suspect the security issue is twofold. In the short term, terrorist groups now know that they can stand a significantly better chance of hiding their communications from the NSA by chosing communications systems that don’t happen to route through the U.S. And in the long term, some countries may react to the disclosures of the program by redesigning their telecommunications networks so less traffic goes through the United States. The more people abroad know that the NSA can easily watch their communications routed through the U.S., the less people will be willing to route their communications through the U.S. Cf. Bruce Hayden’s comment. No doubt it was a long-term priority of the NSA to ensure that lots of international communications traffic was routed through the U.S., where the NSA could have much better access to it. Indeed, Risen’s book more or less says this. The disclosure of the program presumably helps frustrate that objective.

In what was no doubt a quest to damage the President, our national security has no doubt been compromised by this leak (unlike the Lamegate non-story) in the process- which thankfully is being investigated.

Read more via Decision ’08, Pete the Elder

Oh, and no doubt thanks to a concerted push by the media and the DC Dems, a majority of Americans now believe the President should be required to get court approval before wiretapping suspected terrorists and/or those who may be associated with them. In other words, it sounds as though a majority have been convinced that the powers that presidents past have had to protect us on the homefront should be stripped from the current President.

Happy now, Democrats? If there’s another terrorist strike, who should be blamed for it? The President – or everyone of you who have done your level best to undermine him? Why do I ask such a question? Because I know of so many Dems who believe the President was to blame for 9-11, so who would we blame for the next one? The people trying to bring down the man who is doing what he can via the powers at his disposal to fight terror? Or the man himself? Rhetorical, I know, but I’m getting disgusted at the road this appears to be headed down, and even more disgusted with the people who have pushed for it to be taken there.

Related Toldjah So posts: Related Toldjah So posts:

• The Rep. Jane Harman flip flop
• NSA initially acted on its own after 9-11
• Investigations begin into the NSA eavesdropping leak
• “… the only thing outrageous about this policy is the outrage itself”
• Michael Barone on the MSM’s ‘eavesdropping’ coverage
• Brief history of warrantless searches
• Past presidents and the NSA
• Bill Clinton and the NSA
• WSJ: “Thank you for wiretapping”
• The Prez fires back
• Prez essentially says ‘let me do my job’
• The undermining of this war