Dana Priest's war on the American War on Terror continues in the Washington Post today, in a piece entitled "Covert CIA program withstands new furor":

The effort President Bush authorized shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, to fight al Qaeda has grown into the largest CIA covert action program since the height of the Cold War, expanding in size and ambition despite a growing outcry at home and abroad over its clandestine tactics, according to former and current intelligence officials and congressional and administration sources.

The broad-based effort, known within the agency by the initials GST, is compartmentalized into dozens of highly classified individual programs, details of which are known mainly to those directly involved.

GST includes programs allowing the CIA to capture al Qaeda suspects with help from foreign intelligence services, to maintain secret prisons abroad, to use interrogation techniques that some lawyers say violate international treaties, and to maintain a fleet of aircraft to move detainees around the globe. Other compartments within GST give the CIA enhanced ability to mine international financial records and eavesdrop on suspects anywhere in the world.

Over the past two years, as aspects of this umbrella effort have burst into public view, the revelations have prompted protests and official investigations in countries that work with the United States, as well as condemnation by international human rights activists and criticism by members of Congress.

Still, virtually all the programs continue to operate largely as they were set up, according to current and former officials. These sources say Bush's personal commitment to maintaining the GST program and his belief in its legality have been key to resisting any pressure to change course.

Incredible! Outrageous! Unbelievable!

President George W. Bush is actually trying to fight an effective, competent war against those who would kill as many Americans as they could, if they could. But in reading the Washington Post, you would think that Mr. Bush, and those carrying forth his policies to protect America and neutralize its enemies, are committing crimes against humanity in an unprecedented manner.

Bill Bennett (via Powerline) put it best on his radio show this morning:

"Here we go again...but at least we have no real new disclosures here--just basically an editorial and roundup of what we already know--thanks to her and the NYTIMES. It really is an editorial masquerading as a news story: she is describing a vast CIA program (what we might call "war footing") known as GST (initials not explained) that is "compartmentalized into dozens of highly classified individual programs, details of which are known mainly to those directly involved."

So no details. Good. But here is how she describes GST: "GST includes programs allowing the CIA to capture al Qaeda suspects with help from foreign intelligence services, to maintain secret prisons abroad, to use interrogation techniques that some lawyers say violate international treaties, and to maintain a fleet of aircraft to move detainees around the globe. Other compartments within GST give the CIA enhanced ability to mine international financial records and eavesdrop on suspects anywhere in the world."

There you have it: this is the dark and dirty world we live in. Hardly a police state, hardly a truant officer or dog catcher state: we use foreign intelligence to capture and kill al-Qaeda and move detainees around the world; we look at international finanical records, and eavesdrop on suspected terrorists. If anyone told you we did that at a water cooler would you even blink an eye?

Of course not; you'd go nuts, wouldn't you, if we weren't doing that?

Here's my favorite sentence from this long op-ed cum article: "The top-secret presidential finding Bush signed six days after the Sept. 11 attacks empowered the intelligence agencies in a way not seen since World War II." Good--this means the administration sees the GWOT as important as FDR saw WWII.

Let me say this in conclusion: Priest preens in the piece that because of her revelations, the CIA has had to shut down its so called "black sites" in Europe--this is not something to celebrate: this means the WAPO openly and notoriously changed covert policy and operations, operations that no country before the publicity cared about. I can't say it enough: shame on the WAPO, shame on Dana Priest. It boils down to this: So the WAPO creates a sound and fury and reports that there's a sound and fury; they cause a sturm und drung, and report a sturm und drung; they report a hue and cry has been raised--they raised it.

When this war is over, there will be a lot of accounting to be had, and I hope a 9/11 commissioner who tells us we are not yet safe puts the blame not on this administration which is obviously working hard as you read this article, but on an alien media nation which sees itself not as a reporting agency but as an unelected fourth branch of government doing its level best to change effective policy for the sake of a headline."

Indeed, for a headline the Washington Post is effectively and materially harming America's war effort, and it should be ashamed of its disgraceful conduct. However, I rather doubt that shame is a word that the editors of the Post, and Dana Priest, possess in their vocabulary.

Meanwhile, and appropriately, the Justice Department is opening a probe into the NSA screening program leak, and the Washington Post cannot help itself from taking a shot at the Bush Administration in its article on the matter:

The Justice Department has opened an investigation into the disclosure of classified information about a domestic surveillance program authorized by President Bush after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, officials said today.

Justice prosecutors will examine whether classified information was unlawfully disclosed to the New York Times, which reported two weeks ago that the National Security Agency had been conducting electronic surveillance on U.S. citizens and residents without court-approved warrants.

The probe is the latest in a series of controversial investigations into leaks of classified information during the Bush administration, including the disclosure of a CIA agent's identity that has resulted in criminal charges against former vice presidential adviser I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

The Justice Department has also opened a probe into whether classified information was illegally disclosed to The Washington Post, which reported on a network of secret CIA prisons in Eastern Europe and elsewhere.

The Post just couldn't help itself from mentioning the Plame matter right after the main focus of its story, even before mentioning the investigation into the European secret prisons. Heh. You think the editors at the Post are just a little annoyed that the investigations may cut off the pipeline of classified information landing on their laps, to be published for all of America's enemies to read?

Scott over at Powerline gives the Post its due:

"Are the Post and the Times pursuing these stories for the sake of headlines, or for political purposes? It seems to me that the most notable political development of 2005 has been the emergence of the Copperhead Democrats as the core of the Democratic Party, abetted by their supporters such as the Times and the Post in the mainstream media. I would add only that I hope there is a reckoning with them well before the war is over."

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Update: Indeed!

Given the impaired credibility of the United Nations on any number of matters, it is with a grain of salt that I take the following declaration (even though it's a helpful one):

The United Nations stepped into the controversy over the Iraqi parliamentary election on Wednesday, declaring publicly that the results of the voting on Dec. 15 appeared valid, even as the vote tally continued here.

Craig Jenness, a Canadian who led the United Nations' election coordination effort in Iraq, said his agency believed that the elections "were transparent and credible." He added that although all complaints must be weighed thoroughly, "we at the U.N. see no justification in calls for a rerun of the elections."

The assertion, made at a news conference in Baghdad, brought bitter denunciations from some Sunni Arab political leaders, who swore to continue pressing their claims that ballot box stuffing and other fraud had distorted the election results.

Incidents like this make me wonder if it's a good idea for airlines to be contracting out so much of their work, rather than have their own employees conduct many of the ground operations that take place around an aircraft at the airport gate. Presumably, employees of the airline would theoretically have more of an investment in their airline, and be less likely to cover up a "hit and run" on an aircraft, which led to the incident.

Does MoveOn really think that it is going to bring the Democrats back to power with an ad like this?

"A shopkeeper in Baghdad. A family in Mosul. Kurds. Shiites. Sunnis. Some are glad we came. Some aren't. Iraqis rarely agree on anything. But, a recent poll shows that most Iraqis think our troops should leave their country.

Their election is over, yet George Bush doesn't have an exit timeline. So it's up to Congress to bring our troops home. Call your representative today."

The nitwits who run that organization rarely learn anything from Democratic defeat at the polls, and one would hope that the fever swamp Left keeps the same clowns at the head of MoveOn for a very long time to come...that is, if you are interested in a serious effort at winning the war on terror, and understand that the Democrats have not a scintilla of a clue as to how to fight that war, and that keeping them from power is in the best interests of America's national security.

From a psychiatrist. Go read it here. An excerpt:

This patient from many years ago comes to mind now in the context of the recent flood of "leaks" of intelligence which have been appearing in the New York Times and other MSM outlets. The idea of elevating one's ideological and/or intellectual ideas above the needs of self-preservation were clearly traceable in my patient to her unconscious needs for self-punishment. She risked her life and well-being for reasons having nothing to do with her conscious motivations (which didn't make sense on their face).

(Via Hugh Hewitt)

A Quinnipiac University poll found that overall (53%-33%), Americans believed that 2000 had been a better year for them than 2004. But the breakdown of the poll found Democrats to be highly depressed:

Q.: Do you think 2005 was better or worse than 2004 for you personally?

Republicans:
Better: 65%
Worse: 22%

Democrats:
Better: 41%
Worse: 45%

John over at Powerline notes that the question did not concern current events or political matters, but simply how respondents felt personally about their lives.

Time to cheer up Democrats. Politics isn't everything, and Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid won't be your leaders forever, let alone Howard Dean.

More evidence that consumers have high confidence in the state of the economy, with holiday spending up. Americans' holiday retail spending was up 8.7 percent this year, and Amazon has had a "best ever" holiday season with 108 million orders.

I want to extend my best wishes to all of you for a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

A Christmas column by Austin Bay, and the Pope's Christmas message here.

The series of articles by the New York Times involving the NSA screening program could not have been published without clearly illegal leaks coming from current and former government officials. These officials, whether they intended to or not, have done harm to America's national security by deliberately telegraphing certain wartime operational procedures authorized by the president, which were intended solely to defeat the enemy's terrorist plotting against American citizens. The New York Times deserves nothing but contempt from every American who takes this war effort seriously, and who understands the significant harm to the war effort being committed by this once great, and now disgraced, newspaper.

Those officials leaking the information have not only committed a moral wrong against their country, but they have also committed a legal wrong.

Scott over at Powerline puts forth the case:

Permit me to repeat one key point. The Times story is based on leaks of classified information by "nearly a dozen" current and former government officials. Whatever ambiguity may exist regarding the legality of the NSA program -- I don't think there's much, and whatever there is derives from our lack of knowledge of all relevant facts -- does not exist regarding the leaks. Federal law (18 U.S.C. § 798) prohibits the disclosure of several narrowly defined categories of information, specifically including classified information regarding communications intelligence:

a) Whoever knowingly and willfully communicates, furnishes, transmits, or otherwise makes available to an unauthorized person, or publishes, or uses in any manner prejudicial to the safety or interest of the United States or for the benefit of any foreign government to the detriment of the United States any classified information—

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(3) concerning the communication intelligence activities of the United States or any foreign government...

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Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.

The following subsection (b) makes clear the applicability of the act to the informants and information related to the Times story:

The term "communication intelligence" means all procedures and methods used in the interception of communications and the obtaining of information from such communications by other than the intended recipients;

The term "unauthorized person" means any person who, or agency which, is not authorized to receive information of the categories set forth in subsection (a) of this section, by the President, or by the head of a department or agency of the United States Government which is expressly designated by the President to engage in communication intelligence activities for the United States.

It is clear that the Times story itself involved an epidemic of lawbreaking among current and former government officials. The sources for the Times story should be entering the zone known as The Big House.

Indeed.

...Gleefully telegraphs more sensitive information to America's enemies, who I am sure are most appreciative.

Heck, Al Qaeda might even want to put the Old Gray Lady on its payroll.

According to Rasmussen.

From U.S. News (H/T Hugh Hewitt):

In search of a terrorist nuclear bomb, the federal government since 9/11 has run a far-reaching, top secret program to monitor radiation levels at over a hundred Muslim sites in the Washington, D.C., area, including mosques, homes, businesses, and warehouses, plus similar sites in at least five other cities, U.S. News has learned. In numerous cases, the monitoring required investigators to go on to the property under surveillance, although no search warrants or court orders were ever obtained, according to those with knowledge of the program. Some participants were threatened with loss of their jobs when they questioned the legality of the operation, according to these accounts.

More:

Federal officials familiar with the program maintain that warrants are unneeded for the kind of radiation sampling the operation entails, but some legal scholars disagree. News of the program comes in the wake of revelations last week that, after 9/11, the Bush White House approved electronic surveillance of U.S. targets by the National Security Agency without court orders. These and other developments suggest that the federal government's domestic spying programs since 9/11 have been far broader than previously thought.

On the question of whether warrants were needed:

To ensure accurate readings, in up to 15 percent of the cases the monitoring needed to take place on private property, sources say, such as on mosque parking lots and private driveways. Government officials familiar with the program insist it is legal; warrants are unneeded for monitoring from public property, they say, as well as from publicly accessible driveways and parking lots. "If a delivery man can access it, so can we," says one.

Georgetown University Professor David Cole, a constitutional law expert, disagrees. Surveillance of public spaces such as mosques or public businesses might well be allowable without a court order, he argues, but not private offices or homes: "They don't need a warrant to drive onto the property -- the issue isn't where they are, but whether they're using a tactic to intrude on privacy. It seems to me that they are, and that they would need a warrant or probable cause."

Cole points to a 2001 Supreme Court decision, U.S. vs. Kyllo, which looked at police use -- without a search warrant -- of thermal imaging technology to search for marijuana-growing lamps in a home. The court, in a ruling written by Justice Antonin Scalia, ruled that authorities did in fact need a warrant -- that the heat sensors violated the Fourth Amendment's clause against unreasonable search and seizure. But officials familiar with the FBI/NEST program say the radiation sensors are different and are only sampling the surrounding air. "This kind of program only detects particles in the air, it's non directional," says one knowledgeable official. "It's not a whole lot different from smelling marijuana."

It's really no surprise that the government is monitoring for radiation, as the possibility of a nuclear "dirty bomb," or even a fully operational suitcase nuclear device with catastrophic destructive power, was a major concert in the days and months after 9/11.

However, this question of whether authorities encroached upon private property without warrants, when warrants may indeed have been required, needs to be examined further.

What also needs to be examined is who is leaking this stuff? The information is going right into the hands of our enemies, and whoever or whomever is leaking it needs to be discovered and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

Ann Coulter with the line of the day:

"After 9/11, any president who was not spying on people calling phone numbers associated with terrorists should be impeached for being an inept commander in chief."

John Hinderaker over at Powerline posts a very lengthy legal analysis of the program.

A liberal legal scholar - Cass Sunstein - believes not only that the authorization for the use of force against Iraq enhanced the president's authority, during time of war, to conduct NSA eavesdropping against Al Qaeda, but also the following, as discussed on Hugh Hewitt's radio show yesterday:

"...Cass Sunstein also wrote today on his weblog, surveillance, including wiretapping, is reasonably believed to be an incident to the use of force. It standardly occurs during war. If the president's wiretapping has been limited to those reasonably believed to be associated with al Qaeda and its affiliates, as indeed he has said."

That's the key that Democrats/The Left fail to appreciate: That the president historically, in time of war, indeed has the power to conduct this type of surveillance if it is limited to ferreting out the enemy. I know it's a stretch to expect the Democrats to attempt to comprehend this fundamental principle, but one can always hope.