If all of these spying programs had any effect on counter-terrorism, we should have heard something by now.

Instead, the NJ arrests came after detective work based on a tip.

The FL arrests came after investigative work based on a tip.

Informants, investigation, and legal means work.

Would one of the pro-police state apologists provide one example of a terrorist cell IN THE UNITED STATES which was found and stopped by the illegal domestic spying programs?

Shooter042,545,178,935? Jakewannabe007?

This is an administration that makes wildly expansive claims of effectiveness to promote their new programs, but all of the successes come from tried and true methods.

And Jake, most historians now say that the nuclear bombs on Japan were unneccessary; the net effect was that it prevented Soviet Russia from claiming some of the norther islands in the Japanese chain. The Japanese government was about to reorganize and sue for peace before the bombs dropped. No million man invasion force would have been needed.

Point taken. I wasn't prescribing what Congress ought to have done, rather I was simply challenging the assertion that Congress is uninformed about the program; we clearly went through a period where they confronted the program, got some information and sanctioned its continued operation.

Next time don't group me together in the same response as the dishonest brainwashed Shooter, though, or it will be hard for you and I to remain on good terms!

Luckily, our heroes at the NSA aren't quite as stupid as their defenders here.

It does, however, come down to a question of trust. If Bush represents all that is good and pure in America, then of course everything he does to protect us is hunky dory. If, on the other hand, he is an amoral sociopath, with no regard for human life and a distrssing tendency to ignore the consequences of his own actions and decisions, well.....

Don't get snookered by YKW's pals into buying a crooked sewer water hole from a "commonwealth" of Pa.'s favorite W.C.C. I>'s who are all legal-pal creepies.

Instead, gather up each Salon's reader's crusty funky polyester bikini panties, then, get a big wicker basket, grab a yellow bandanna, and somersault to a clean water creek. Splash crusty undies, if anyone still wears underpants in such desperate times as these (no ask, no tell is a best 'store' policy)...and rinse 3X's in the water.

...Bang on the rocks. Banging cloth upon a rock is fun, and then lay naked on the shore. Wait for the sun to clean and dry all bacteria. The sun will tan the buttocks too. A sunshine day will shrink a grape, a blueberry, and many other fruits can dry out to taste like good shriveled prunes.

Ah! I feel like a can of V-8 for a picker-upper...And don't you wish every politico washed the dirty white ring 'round the collar with Dial soap?! 1-800-nsa-soup.

Buy snow/sugar shelling peas. Shell them by yourself in those government cubicle heel-holes. Damn ya, shuffle those feet and, yea, p*ss like a piss ant. A antsy pants bureaucrat is worst-weird!

Garnish teeth with green parsley! Pac Choi. Get the nutty flavored arugula, and put arugula in the mix of green's at a salon omega vitamin packed dietary midday treat? Put your head front-first upon the government desk, and nap. Gads. Waste.

I am looking forward to it. Thank God for Frontline. I'm sorry your schedule didn't allow you to get in front of the camera on this one. It will be interesting--and I hope not too depressing--to view the impact the show may have.

I know it's a standard part of the Salon LTE interface, and, I suppose, has some value for lurkers. But I really prefer the more democratic assumption that we all contribute to the discussion here. Unlike other Salon columns, Glenn's community has been about discussion and elaboration, rather than a contest that seeks editorial approval.

Maybe I'm alone in this, but I'd prefer those red stars go away.

I take it you’ve never heard it referred to as the Rehnquist Supreme Court, or Burger Supreme Court -- sorry to confuse you like that -- I was simply referring to it as historians do. If you’d rather not answer my question, though, that’s fine.

P.S. prunes –- I do NOT agree –- first, I don’t KNOW you are not going to discuss terrorism just because you type a denial here on-line. In addition, if we have every phone call recorded, we are going to be able to go back after the next 9/11 attack and track down co-conspirators much easier, right? As I understand the details released so far (already compromising national security), certain words like “BOMB” or “ANTHRAX” are flagged for review. Who knows if a human being EVER even listens to your conversation in particular? I wouldn’t worry if I had nothing to hide.

P.P.S. Fraud Guy -- hindsight is perfect 20/20, right? Based on what Truman knew, he did the right thing. The Japs would never have agreed to UNCONDITIONAL surrender. I lived through it, and have read everything on it since. Knowing everything we know now, however, I may have dropped the first A-Bomb on the Russians. As I said, above, Bush has at least not done that, or set up camps for every Arab-American. Just wait until the next 9/11 attack.

though I'm not so surprised. I was hoping that the illegal activities were limited in their effectiveness because of the stunning degree of incompetence the Bush Administration musters for anything it tries to do.

As has been pointed out several times, the most logical use of broad wiretapping and data mining is domestic political chicanery, not antiterrorism by any stretch. So many of these wingnut posters don't seem to get it that there really is no interest in defeating terrorism in any of the actions of this administration. It's the pure exercise of power, and self-aggrandizement, that motivates everything they do.

...in communications, and decision making, we got all the intelligence we were going to get before September 11th. We had the messages, including the one that said that it was going down. People had found out about the people taking flying lessons. We had intelligence saying bin Laden was going to fly planes into buildings. We knew the German cell was gone (we didn't know what the German cell was). We knew bin Laden had taken out Massoud.

We had a president who was uninterested, and a vice president and defense department focussed on Iraq.

We had a National Security Adviser who thought that all big threats had to come from countries.

We had an FBI bureaucracy in Washington that was risk averse on surveilling people taking flying lessons.

We had way too few translators for arabic (still do).

We had a dysfunctional belief that we could negotiate with "moderate Taliban" rather than backing their opposition.

Those were the things that "kept us" from stopping September 11th, to the extent that we could have stopped it. Its quite possible if all those had been corrected, we still wouldn't have stopped it, because everything looks easier facing the past.

But nowhere, in any of the justifications for all this surveillance, have I seen anyone that can show me that what was missing from the picture on September 10th was more intelligence -- except possibly the I.Q. variety.