The American Spectator

br> — Jim L br> East Sandwich, Massachusetts /p> p> I think President Bush is well equipped with courage; as Jed Babbin points out, Abe Lincoln had the guts to suspend the write of habeas corpus for anyone in military custody. The senators, bureaucrats, whomever, who are leaking vital information must be rooted out and prosecuted. In an earlier life, I wrote on military affairs for a major publication. Occasionally in order to produce an intelligent report, one had to receive “background information,” i.e., military secrets. One did not give away the country’s military secrets, first and foremost because one was an American, on America’s side, anxious for America’s success; secondly, if one gave something away even inadvertently there would be all sorts of gnashing of teeth and admonishments, and sources would dry up. And anyone who gave away a nuclear secret was ipso facto guilty of treason. We are now at war. The President is trying to lead us in a battle to preserve our way of life and, indeed, our lives. There is no question that the criminals to whom Babbin refers have been giving away the equivalent of nuclear secrets; they should be identified and tried for their crimes. br> — John G. Hubbell br> Minnetonka, Minnesota /p>

As time goes on the real damage done by the hyper-reaction to domestic surveillance back in the 1960s and the resulting laws and executive orders continues to hamstring U.S. intelligence.

As one who had to suffer through the misery caused by first Executive Order 11905, then the amplifying FISA, then Executive Order 12333, the paranoia and confusion it causes is tremendous to those on the “Front End.” In normal SIGINT operations it got so bad at one point if someone began to speak English the target would be dropped for fear it was a “U.S. person.”

The definition of “U.S. person” is the crux of the problem here, and something the Democrats will not admit to having crafted in such a way when they wrote the FISA law that it can prevent any useful intelligence being gained. Suffice it to say any dirt bag inside the U.S., or with a green card, or having a U.S. passport, or even an illegal immigrant living in the U.S. can be construed as a “U.S. person” and therefore must be handed off to the FBI. But as noted by the 9/11 Commission, since they don’t usually get the audit trail as to why these people were being tagged to start with, they can’t devote proper resources to them.

p>Suffice it to say as well that with all of the brouhaha over “torture” that in a few years the name of John McCain will be right down there with Frank Church and Otis Pike in the intel community for the damage caused to U.S. foreign intelligence collection, processing, analysis and reporting. br> — Cookie Sewell