"The wiretapping scam"

"Karl Rove or his White House troglodytes shape discussion around themes that distract the public from the issues and place the incompetent and corrupt Bush Administration in a patriotic light. The current subterfuge deals with the Administration’s “security need” to monitor telephone calls – vital intelligence. “If Al-Qaeda phones the U.S., we want to know about it,” said Bush, defending the constitutionally dubious and very massive eavesdropping program.

In fact, little “vital intelligence” derives from phone monitoring. Nor do eavesdropping agencies seem to care about getting good intelligence. On September 10, 2001, for example, NSA experts encountered a seemingly juicy Arabic phone call. But they didn’t translate the message, “tomorrow is zero hour,” until September 12.

“Real intelligence,” Special Agent of the FBI Robert Scherrer told me in 1980, “comes from framing the right question and finding the person with the right answer; not the paid informant who tells you what he thinks you want to hear so he can keep getting paid. Phone intercepts masquerading as “vital raw intelligence,” became a political ruse. Congress now debates whether “war on terrorism” justifies warrant-less intercepts, which presumes that eavesdropping will provide terrorism “experts” with material to protect the nation. As if!

No Member of Congress has asked: “Why doesn’t the intelligence community [a term that debases both words] use its intelligence and ask people who know something?”

Billions of dollars get spent on spy satellite photography and signal intercepts, but little effort goes into sharing with decision makers the views of scholars who actually know about Muslim terrorists. Instead of reading insightful articles and books on the subject, NSA and CIA mavens rely on technology and biased sources to pierce the nether world of terrorism.

Look how Karl Rove framed the issue: tap phones of those who reported on kidnapping, illegal spying and torture to find the leakers, rather than discuss the illegal policies. As Rove faces indictment for his role in obstructing justice in leaking former covert CIA op Valerie Plame’s name, his mastery of mis-framing issues continues to confound Congress – to Bush’s advantage and the detriment of Democrats and Truth. "-Saul Landau on Progreso Weekly.