**YOUTUBE VIDEO REVIEWS ON THE HOTTEST ELECTRONICS OUT**…

**YOUTUBE VIDEO REVIEWS ON THE HOTTEST ELECTRONICS OUT**…

Here’s the LINK to Congresswoman Harman’s full statement.

In it, she explicitly states: “I believe the program is essential to US national security and that its disclosure has damaged critical intelligence capabilities.”

I can find nothing in the rest of her statement, nor in anything she’s said since, that contradicts this bald assertion. Can you?

Ordering wiretaps without warrants is a different issue than data mining. If I tap your phone without getting a court order, that is different than having computers monitor traffic on trunk lines to detect patterns. If you found out that your phone lines were among the millions which were monitored, it probably wouldn’t bother you that much. If I told you that the government wiretapped your phones and didn’t seek approval to do so, my guess is that you would be hopping mad.

As for the hearings: as far as I know, the Democrats are all for them — however I believe that they have to be scheduled by the committee chairmen, who are all Republicans –

Parsing of her statements prior to that appearance just amounts to more Monday morning quarterbacking. If she still feels strongly about holding hearings, then by all means, let’s have them, and have them ASAP.

Now, do we hear anyone from the Democratic party responding to this urgent request?

(crickets chirping)

In other words, his actions give credence to the now certainty that it is a data-mining/packet-sniffing operation of some kind…

1) Re Jane Harmon: the quote is out of context — it omits the part of her statement where she says “Like many Americans, I am deeply concerned by reports that this program in fact goes far beyond the measures to target Al Qaeda about which I was briefed.” She was also one of a group of Democrats who wrote Hastert on 12/19 requesting him to “take steps immediately to conduct hearings on the scope of Presidential power in the area of electronic surveillance.” In its full context, what Harmon says is that surveilliance is essential, but the way the administration has conducted it is open to serious question (as well as her doubt that she was fully briefed on the program).

2) I’m not sure what the point is about Rockefeller. He hand-wrote the letter because, being sworn to secrecy, he couldn’t have his assistant type it. In the letter, he expressed serious concerns about the constitutionality of the administration’s actions. What’s the point?

3) I’m not sure why the timing of the story’s release is relevant to whether there was a breach of national security. The fact that we wiretap suspected terrorists is certainly not a secret — the only thing which the Times revealed was that it was done in violation of the law. I have yet to hear Bush or anyone else explain how the disclosure that the administration ignored FISA helps terrorists in any way.