Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell has managed to develop a fairly good reputation in DC, which is why it’s all the more curious he made comments like these to the El Paso Times.

Q: Even if it’s perception, how do you deal with that? You have to do public relations, I assume.

A: Well, one of the things you do is you talk to reporters. And you give them the facts the best you can. Now part of this is a classified world. The fact we’re doing it this way means that some Americans are going to die, because we do this mission unknown to the bad guys because they’re using a process that we can exploit and the more we talk about it, the more they will go with an alternative means and when they go to an alternative means, remember what I said, a significant portion of what we do, this is not just threats against the United States, this is war in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Q. So you’re saying that the reporting and the debate in Congress means that some Americans are going to die?

A. That’s what I mean. Because we have made it so public. We used to do these things very differently, but for whatever reason, you know, it’s a democratic process and sunshine’s a good thing. We need to have the debate.

It’s hard to even know where to start with comments like these. To hear McConnell tell it, the very discussion of the administration’s surveillance powers will kill an untold number of Americans — but “sunshine’s a good thing.”

And why, pray tell, are Americans going to die as a result of a public debate about presidential power? Apparently, because the bad guys will get a vague sense of the kind of tactics we’ll use to intercept their communications. That might sound vaguely persuasive, but it doesn’t stand up well to scrutiny. Terrorists might figure out that the U.S. will tap phone lines? I think they knew that. Terrorists might figure out that we can monitor email and bank transactions? I think they knew that, too.

Labels: Bush administration, cia, FISA