Friday, August 11, 2006

The Airline Plot

I'll save my complaints for the TSA for another time. I'll just say here that the TSA, and its parent Department of Homeland Security, are about the most pathetic excuses for government agencies that I can hardly imagine. For those of you who want nationalized health care, how will you keep people like TSA and DHS employees from running a national health care system?

See? No complaints. Just a well-earned slap.

But onto the plot. Actually, onto what it took to stop the plot. Let's quote from the Wall Street Journal's OpinionJournal.com. I'll use Instapundit's snip, keeping in mind that there are lots of goodies left out after the ellipses:

Let's emphasize that again: The plot was foiled because a large number of people were under surveillance concerning their spending, travel and communications. Which leads us to wonder if Scotland Yard would have succeeded if the ACLU or the New York Times had first learned the details of such surveillance programs....


In short, Democrats who claim to want "focus" on the war on terror have wanted it fought without the intelligence, interrogation and detention tools necessary to win it. And if they cite "cooperation" with our allies as some kind of magical answer, they should be reminded that the British and other European legal systems generally permit far more intrusive surveillance and detention policies than the Bush Administration has ever contemplated.


Keep that in mind, lefties.

1 comment:

Ellen K said...

There's a good editorial from Leonard Pitts regarding the reluctance of TSA and other airline security organizations to inconvenience the flying public. I think if you look at El Al-Israel's airline, with their in your face scrutiny of everyone rather than this PC feelgood randomness that we take for security, you can see the difference and the danger. I am a great believer in using the knowledge you are given an applying it to any problem. There are factors in this country that are reluctant to point out the simmering activism that bubbles just out of sight in many mosques. My school has a large Muslim population, we have three mosques in our little suburb, and I have had kids bring me letters and photos from relative overseas or show me websites that while not outright terrorism, certainly lean that way and towards and Islamic state. You want a real chill? Google Iran and August 22. In light of the recent events, it's terrifying. And I wanted to go to Italy next summer. Damn.