To connect the dots, you have to see the dots

Here are two news stories from the end of last week. The first one you may have heard about. As "The Today Show's" Matt Lauer put it:

"Does the government have your number? This morning a shocking new report that the National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone records of tens of millions of Americans."

The second story comes from the United Kingdom and what with Lauer's hyperventilating you may have missed it. It was the official report into the July 7 bus and Tube bombings. As The Times of London summarized the conclusions:

"Mohammad Sidique Khan, the leader of the bomb cell, had come to the attention of MI5 [Britain's domestic intelligence agency] on five occasions but had never been pursued as a serious suspect . . .

"A lack of communication between police Special Branch units, MI5 and other agencies had hampered the intelligence-gathering operation;

"There was a lack of co-operation with foreign intelligence services and inadequate intelligence coverage in . . ."

Etc., etc., ad nauseam.

Mark Steyn

I'm not sure where Steyn is going with this. If his aim was to illustrate the hypocrisy and Demagoguery of Leahy and the other Democrat chickenhawks, then he did his usual masterful job. However, I don't buy the whole rationale that the NSA has to resort to spying on everyone in order to spy on targets of interest. It has a disturbingly Nixonian sound to it.