> Once it learns to ignore Pat Leahy and company, Congress should realize
> the function of the NSA's surveillance. As Attorney General Alberto
> Gonzales put it yesterday: "It is the modern equivalent to a scout team
> sent ahead to do reconnaissance or a series of radar outposts designed to
> detect enemy movements," he explained. "As with all wartime operations,
> speed, agility, and secrecy are essential to its success."
[In reading this, I was reminded of this, featured in a post yesterday: from http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/06/politics/05cnd-nsa.html]
"When Mr. Feingold pushed to have Mr. Gonzales sworn in, Mr. Specter called for a vote. The committee voted, 10 to 8, along party lines not to have Mr. Gonzales sworn in.
Mr. Feingold was clearly angry when his turn came to question Mr. Gonzales. "You wanted this committee and the American people to think that this kind of program wasn't going on," he said. "But it was."
Not so, Mr. Gonzales insisted. Last year, he said, Mr. Feingold asked him whether he thought the president could authorize eavesdropping "in violation of the law," and that the question was therefore hypothetical.
"I was telling the truth then," the attorney general said. "I'm telling the truth now."