Investor’s Business Daily
January 7, 2010
Climate Change: We can’t stop terrorists from boarding planes with explosive undies, but the CIA has assets sufficient to monitor Arctic ice and look for signs of global warming? Is al-Qaida recruiting polar bears?
One wouldn’t think that the increasing polar bear population and the increasing rate of recidivism of former Guantanamo detainees released into the wild were related, but they are.
At the urging of Al Gore, the administration is signing on to a plan to task vital intelligence assets to protect not the people of the United States, but the environment.
The program, shot down by President Bush, who thought we had better things to do after 9/11, involves using government intelligence assets, including spy satellites and other classified sources, to monitor such things as clouds, glaciers, deserts and tropical forests.
Climate change alarmist and former Vice President Gore began lobbying for the program’s resumption in 2008 and has received the enthusiastic endorsement of CIA Director Leon Panetta, who met with scientists backing the program in November.
“Director Panetta believes it is crucial to examine the potential national security implications of phenomena such as desertification, rising sea levels and population shifts,” said Paula Weiss, an agency spokeswoman. The only thing we should be scanning the world’s deserts for are terrorist targets for our Predator drones.
Sen. John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming, is appalled at this misuse of federal surveillance equipment, including the highly classified satellites of the National Reconnaissance Office. He believes the agency should be fighting terrorism, “not spying on sea lions.”
The editorial continues at IBD.
