Posted: 03/15/08 12:49, Edited: 03/15/08 16:48
by Dave Mindeman
Critics of Michele Bachmann are often accused of over the top rhetoric...excessive hyperbole....gross distortions. And in a few cases, maybe that's justified.
But Michele Bachmann invites this reaction with the sort of rhetoric she offers in today's Strib opinion piece.
Her opening line starts it off:
For nearly one month, American intelligence has been crippled.
Attention getting but completely wrong. American intelligence is doing just fine under the regular FISA rules. The only real difference is oversight...court oversight. President Bush doesn't like that "restriction", whether it is from the courts or the Congress. It hampers his "style".
But Michele insists on linking everything to this one tool of US intelligence.
We are fighting terrorism with one eye shut and one hand tied behind our backs.
I have to wonder if Michele has actually read or looked at the unmodified regulations. FISA oversight of intelligence gathering hardly blinds or binds the methods. FISA, itself, is a secret court which normally gives the intelligence community broad authorization to do what it needs to do. Often, warrants for surveillance can be obtained several days AFTER the surveillance has begun. And even if the court would deny the warrant (which rarely happens), the information has still been obtained -- it just wouldn't be admissible in a judicial proceeding.
But Ms. Bachmann would rather scare us than deal in facts.
American families are needlessly imperiled. This is not an exaggeration. This is not hyperbole. This is fact...
The simple truth is: This IS an exaggeration. This IS hyperbole. It is NOT fact. In an apparent attempt to prove whatever point she is trying to make, she says this:
Since 2001, attack after attack has been averted -- including a plot to destroy American-bound airliners with liquid explosives. Indeed, last year, the Heritage Foundation compiled a list of 19 confirmed terror plots against American targets that had been thwarted.
Those 19 thwarted attacks represent untold thousands of American lives saved; of families, communities and cities kept intact, and of a nation kept whole.
Now, there is absolutely no indication that these "attacks" would have succeeded if these FISA "enhancements" had not been in place. In fact many of the 19 "foiled" plots listed in the Heritage Foundation list were uncovered by simple regular surveillance of on-line "chat rooms" or group infiltration.... not special wiretapping. And the one specific instance she cites regarding the liquid explosives on American bound airliners was uncovered by British intelligence. American intelligence knew nothing about it until the British were ready to make the arrests.
But again, Ms. Bachmann would rather scare us than deal in facts.
Michele does get one thing right:
The No. 1 job of the American government is to protect her citizens.
Absolutely. And that includes protecting its citizens from an overzealous, overreaching American government that is willing to dump civil liberties for the sake of fearmongering.
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UPDATE: As noted in the comment section, Ms. Bachmann is not even factually accurate in her defense of the PPA. To quote the Joe Bodell article in Minnesota Monitor, regarding her use of the Heritage foundation list of thwarted terrorist acts:
This sounds nice, except that the Protect America Act was the temporary legislation, put into effect last August, that expired this month. That's nearly seven months of life for that legislation, which Bachmann characterizes as the sole barrier standing in the way of terrorist attacks against American citizens for the past seven years. Every one of those 19 attacks was thwarted before the passage of the Protect America Act.
