The dispute over whether Attorney General Alberto Gonzales committed perjury
when he parsed words about George W. Bush's warrantless surveillance program
misses a larger point: the extraordinary secrecy surrounding these spying
operations is not aimed at al-Qaeda, but at the American people. There has
never been a reasonable explanation for why a fuller discussion of these
operations would help al-Qaeda, although that claim often is used by the Bush
administration to challenge the patriotism of its critics or to avoid tough
questions.
On July 27, for instance, White House press secretary Tony Snow fended off
reporters who asked about apparent contradictions in Gonzales's testimony by
saying:
"This gets us back into the situation that I understand is unsatisfactory
because there are lots of questions raised and the vast majority of those we're
not going to be in a position to answer, simply because they do involve matters
of classification that we cannot and will not discuss publicly."
Discussion closed.
But al-Qaeda terrorists always have assumed that their electronic
communications were vulnerable to interception, which is why 9/11 attackers
like Mohamed Atta traveled overseas for face-to-face meetings with their
handlers. They limited their phone calls to mostly routine conversations.
The rest of the story is at http://www.alternet.org/story/58806/
IF YOU THINK THIS IS A GOOD ARTICLE, THEN --PLEASE! -- FORWARD IT! Thanks.
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