Great speech by the Attorney General Alberto Gonzales at Georgetown University yesterday:
Just after dawn on September 11th, 2001, I flew out of Dulles Airport less than an hour before the departure from the same airport of American Airlines Flight 77, the plane that was hijacked and crashed into the Pentagon later that morning.
[…]Everyone has a story from that morning. Up and down the East Coast, men and women were settling into their desks, coming home from a graveyard shift, or taking their children to school. And across the rest of the country, Americans were waking up to smoldering ruins and the images of ash covered faces. We remember where we were, what we were doing ? and how we felt on that terrible morning, as 3,000 innocent men, women, and children died, without warning, without being able to look into the faces of their loved ones and say goodbye . . . all killed just for being Americans.
The open wounds so many of us carry from that day are the backdrop to the current debate about the National Security Agency?s terrorist surveillance program. This program, described by the President, is focused on international communications where experienced intelligence experts have reason to believe that at least one party to the communication is a member or agent of al Qaeda or a terrorist organization affiliated with al Qaeda. This program is reviewed and reauthorized by the President approximately every 45 days. The leadership of Congress, including the leaders of the Intelligence Committees of both Houses of Congress, have been briefed about this program more than a dozen times since 2001.
[…]I?ve noticed that through all of the noise on this topic, very few have asked that the terrorist surveillance program be stopped. The American people are, however, asking two important questions: Is this program necessary? And is it lawful? The answer to each is yes.
[…]The conflict against al Qaeda is, in fundamental respects, a war of information. We cannot build walls thick enough, fences high enough, or systems strong enough to keep our enemies out of our open and welcoming country. Instead, as the bipartisan 9/11 and WMD Commissions have urged, we must understand better who they are and what they?re doing ? we have to collect more dots, if you will, before we can ?connect the dots.? This program to surveil al Qaeda is a necessary weapon as we fight to detect and prevent another attack before it happens. I feel confident that is what the American people expect ? and it?s what the terrorist surveillance program provides.
[…]The terrorist surveillance program is firmly grounded in the President?s constitutional authorities. No other public official ? no mayor, no governor, no member of Congress — is charged by the Constitution with the primary responsibility for protecting the safety of all Americans ? and the Constitution gives the President all authority necessary to fulfill this solemn duty.
It has long been recognized that the President?s constitutional powers include the authority to conduct warrantless surveillance aimed at detecting and preventing armed attacks on the United States. Presidents have uniformly relied on their inherent power to gather foreign intelligence for reasons both diplomatic and military, and the federal courts have consistently upheld this longstanding practice.
If this is the case in ordinary times, it is even more so in the present circumstances of our armed conflict with al Qaeda and its allies. The terrorist surveillance program was authorized in response to the deadliest foreign attack on American soil, and it is designed solely to prevent the next attack. After all, the goal of our enemy is to blend in with our civilian population in order to plan and carry out future attacks within America. We cannot forget that the 9/11 hijackers were in our country, living in our communities.
The President?s authority to take military action?including the use of communications intelligence targeted at the enemy?does not come merely from his inherent constitutional powers. It comes directly from Congress as well.
[…]This fact is borne out by history. This Nation has a long tradition of wartime enemy surveillance?a tradition that can be traced to George Washington, who made frequent and effective use of secret intelligence, including the interception of mail between the British and Americans.
And for as long as electronic communications have existed, the United States has conducted surveillance of those communications during wartime?all without judicial warrant. In the Civil War, for example, telegraph wiretapping was common, and provided important intelligence for both sides. In World War I, President Wilson ordered the interception of all cable communications between the United States and Europe; he inferred the authority to do so from the Constitution and from a general congressional authorization to use military force that did not mention anything about such surveillance. So too in World War II; the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt authorized the interception of all communications traffic into and out of the United States. The terrorist surveillance program, of course, is far more focused, since it involves only the interception of international communications that are linked to al Qaeda or its allies.
That’s just a sample, it was a important speech that lay’s out the reasons why this program is necessary and lawful.
Our Commander in Chief must be able to safeguard our country. Our founding fathers believed this and that is why it is in our constitution.
Apparently during the speech some dummies thought they could create a political stunt by turning their back on the AG with a sign that said:
Michelle Malkin does a good job of outing these fools for MISQUOTING Benjamin:
The Ben Franklin quote that has been so misused and abused by the civil liberties absolutists since Sept. 11 originally appeared in 1755:
Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
The version that appears on the Statue of Liberty’s pedestal reads:
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
The omission of those key qualifiers–“essential” and “little”– makes all the difference in the world. Ben Franklin has been hijacked to endorse an untenable and deadly view that no sacrifice of any liberty for any amount of safety at any time should ever be made.
And then a commentor on her blog had this excellent comment:
The misquotation of Franklin in the argument about “domestic wiretapping” strikes me as particularly amusing in light of Franklin’s role as one of the premier intelligence agents during the Revolutionary War. The CIA has a nice summary of the intelligence activities undertaken in that war, and no one is so prominent as Franklin, including in covert activities. More to the point here, Franklin was a member of the original committee, appointed by the Continental Congress, to review and publish intercepted communications from England. Hmm, Benjamin Franklin: Domestic Spy! If he meant what the liberals think he meant, we’re going to have to change his statues to read “Printer, Inventor, Statesman, Hypocrite”!
Do they even teach anything to these kids at our college’s except liberal hogwash?
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