WSJ: A terror plot is exposed by the policies many American liberals oppose. WSJ: A terror plot is exposed by the policies many American liberals oppose.

WSJ article: 'Mass Murder' Foiled: A terror plot is exposed by the policies many American liberals oppose points out that the cracking of the British terrorist plot to take down upwards of ten jets flying from Britain to the U.S. was, to some extent, thwarted by precisely those programs that many on the left have been screaming about for the last nine months because they ostensibly potentially may impair our liberties. It appears that the SWIFT financial monitoring program detected that a couple of individuals targetted by the Britts had received wire transfers from Pakistan, and there is some indication that the NSA electronic surveilance program also was utilized to advantage here.

Let's emphasize that again: The plot was foiled because a large number of people were under surveillance concerning their spending, travel and communications. Which leads us to wonder if Scotland Yard would have succeeded if the ACLU or the New York Times had first learned the details of such surveillance programs...

Surveillance? Hmmm. Democrats and their media allies screamed bloody murder last year when it was leaked that the government was monitoring some communications outside the context of a law known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. FISA wasn't designed for, nor does it forbid, the timely exploitation of what are often anonymous phone numbers, and the calls monitored had at least one overseas connection. But Mr. Reid labeled such surveillance "illegal" and an "NSA domestic spying program." Other Democrats are still saying they will censure, or even impeach, Mr. Bush over the FISA program if they win control of Congress.

Not surprisingly, those screaming loudest about these programs were desperately trying to change the subject:

And almost on political cue yesterday, Members of the Congressional Democratic leadership were using the occasion to suggest that the U.S. is actually more vulnerable today despite this antiterror success. Harry Reid, who's bidding to run the Senate as Majority Leader, saw it as one more opportunity to insist that "the Iraq war has diverted our focus and more than $300 billion in resources from the war on terrorism and has created a rallying cry for international terrorists."

Ted Kennedy chimed in that "it is clear that our misguided policies are making America more hated in the world and making the war on terrorism harder to win." Mr. Kennedy somehow overlooked that the foiled plan was nearly identical to the "Bojinka" plot led by Ramzi Yousef and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to blow up airliners over the Pacific Ocean in 1995. Did the Clinton Administration's "misguided policies" invite that plot? And if the Iraq war is a diversion and provocation, just what policies would Senators Reid and Kennedy have us "focus" on?