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.