Spy Agency Data After Sept. 11 Led F.B.I. to Dead Ends - New York Times

Spy Agency Data After Sept. 11 Led F.B.I. to Dead Ends - New York Times

The New York Times continues it's assault on the intelligence gathering apparatus and the administration today.

The basic gist of the article is that the entire program is worthless because FBI agents didn't recognize immediate results. Of course this is the same group of people that seized all Richard Jewell's mothers Tupperware after the Atlanta Olympic bombings and wouldn't return it until they were sued.

Anyway I wonder if anyone on the editorial staff actually picked up on this:

The N.S.A., criticized by the national Sept. 11 commission for its "avoidance of anything domestic" before the attacks, moved aggressively into the domestic realm after them. But the legal debate over its warrantless eavesdropping has embroiled the agency in just the kind of controversy its secretive managers abhor. The F.B.I., meanwhile, has struggled over the last four years to expand its traditional mission of criminal investigation to meet the larger menace of terrorism.

So to put this in perspective when the 9/11 commission report was issued and President Bush didn't implement it's recommendations the very second it was printed he was playing games with national security, but when he moved proactively he is jeopardizing the very fabric of our society (and possibly the universe itself). I'm sorry people it doesn't work both ways.

Something else I picked up is this:

"We'd chase a number, find it's a schoolteacher with no indication they've ever been involved in international terrorism - case closed," said one former F.B.I. official, who was aware of the program and the data it generated for the bureau. "After you get a thousand numbers and not one is turning up anything, you get some frustration."

I guess maybe the terrorists didn't get the memo requiring all sleeper cells to identify themselves with "Hello My Name Is" tags.

If this is an example of the protection we are getting it is time to start learning Arabic.

Technorati tags: NSA, CIA, Politics, War on Terror, Politics, New York Times