[Infowarrior] - Fun and games with terrorist threats

[Richard Forno]

Fun and games with terrorist threats

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/?last_story=/opinion/greenwald/2008/0
2/05/terrorism/

Back in August, when the Bush administration wanted to pressure Congress
into passing "The Protect America Act" -- which vested in the President
vast, new warrantless eavesdropping powers to spy on Americans -- they sent
out Mike McConnell days before the August recess to tell everyone in
Congress that they better pass the bill before they leave or The Terrorists
would kill us all and the blood would be on the hands of Congress for
failing to give the President what he wanted:

    Congressional, administration and intelligence officials last week
described the events leading up to the approval of this surveillance,
including a remarkable series of confrontations that ended with McConnell
and the White House outmaneuvering the Democratic-controlled Congress,
partly by capitalizing on fresh reports of a growing terrorism threat. . . .

    A critical moment for the Democrats came on July 24, when McConnell met
in a closed session with senators from both parties to ask for urgent
approval of a slimmed-down version of his bill. Armed with new details about
terrorist activity and an alarming decline in U.S. eavesdropping
capabilities, he argued that Congress had days, not weeks, to act.

    "At that time, the discussion changed to 'What can we do to close the
gap during the August recess?'" said a senior Democratic aide who declined
to be identified because the meetings were classified. As delivered by
McConnell, the warnings were seen as fully credible. "He's pushing this
because he thinks we're in a high-threat environment," the senior aide said.

Now that Congress has a few days left in which essentially to make The
Protect America Act permanent and grant amnesty to lawbreaking telecoms,
this is what Mike McConnell is doing:

    The top American intelligence official said on Tuesday that Al Qaeda is
improving its ability to attack within the United States by recruiting and
training new operatives. At the same time, he said, the group's affiliate in
Iraq is beginning to send militants to other countries.

    That caution came from Michael McConnell, director of national
intelligence, as he presented to the Senate intelligence committee an annual
report on threats to the United States. The report was released as his
testimony began.

    "Al-Qa'ida is improving the last key aspect of its ability to attack the
U.S.: the identification, training, and positioning of operatives for an
attack in the homeland," he wrote in the 47-page document.

This is really, really scary. We better forget about checks and balances and
oversight and restraints of any kind and everything else and just make sure
that the President can spy on our emails and telephone calls with no
oversight, otherwise Al Qaeda is going to slaughter us in our Homeland. And
we also better make sure that telecommunications corporations don't have
consequences when they break the law, otherwise we're doomed, because Al
Qaeda is coming.

Or, as leading fear-mongerer and proponent of limitless surveillance powers,
Jay Rockefeller, put it today:

    "Al Qaeda has used this border safe haven to reconstitute itself and
launch offensive operations that threaten to undo the stability brought to
Afghanistan and undermine, if not overthrow, the Pakistan government," said
Mr. Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat.

    This, Mr. Rockefeller added, gave Al Qaeda "a base of operations from
which to plot and direct attacks against the United States."

After scaring everyone with the latest Al-Qaeda-is-Coming warnings, the CIA
also admitted for the first time that it waterboarded detainees in its
custody, but what's a little water up the nose -- or a little presidential
omnipotence -- when Al Qaeda is coming to get us in our Homeland?

-- Glenn Greenwald