The President's NSA Illusions

[Commentary] President Obama’s speech was delivered not at the National Security Agency but at the Justice Department. The choice was revealing: The Justice Department's engagement with the intelligence community in this administration has been at arm's length and sometimes at sword's point -- notably in the refusal to recognize militant Islamism as the proper focus of intelligence-gathering, and in the reopening of previously closed investigations of Central Intelligence Agency operators for alleged transgressions in the treatment of terrorists. Many people whose job it is to decide how aggressively we will fight our enemies watched President Obama's speech from the Justice Department and got the message that when it comes to intelligence-gathering, the president would rather protect us from hypothetical abuses than from present dangers. That could be the most lasting effect of all.

[Mukasey served as US attorney general (2007-09)]