While the Wall Street Journal quotes St. Paul on standing fast in liberty, the New York Times is publishing ersatz further revelations from the Pouting Spook Community attempting to build a case that the Bush Administation has been guilty of illegally defending the United States from legitimate forms of dissent, such as detonating nuclear devices in major cities like New York.

The National Security Agency has traced and analyzed large volumes of telephone and Internet communications flowing into and out of the United States as part of the eavesdropping program that President Bush approved after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to hunt for evidence of terrorist activity, according to current and former government officials.

The volume of information harvested from telecommunication data and voice networks, without court-approved warrants, is much larger than the White House has acknowledged, the officials said. It was collected by tapping directly into some of the American telecommunication system’s main arteries, they said.

As part of the program approved by President Bush for domestic surveillance without warrants, the N.S.A. has gained the cooperation of American telecommunications companies to obtain backdoor access to streams of domestic and international communications, the officials said.

I find it very simple to refute the left’s nonsensical theories of sinister Executive Branch plots to violate the Constitution and stifle dissent. If the government were actually doing what it could, and should, be doing lawfully in time of war, none of these kinds of stories would be being published at all, since all domestic subversives (including the leaking doves and their jounalistic collaborators) would have long since been interned for the duration of the war to some inclement locality, an hour or so south of Barstow, California, where from behind barbed wire, they could devote their attention to herpetological studies and counting Joshua trees, instead of providing aid and comfort to the enemies of the United States.