Questions for politicians

Paul Mirengoff at Powerline has some questions any candidates for Congress should be pressed to answer.

[The news media's] stated justification for publishing classified information on these matters is the need for debate over the administration's policy. If that, not animus towards the president, is the MSM's real reason, then it should promote such debate through a concerted effort to flush out the position of all those running for Congress in 2006 on the subject of intelligence gathering.

These are:

• Is the level of peril to the homeland is now significantly less than what it was shortly after 2001?
• Should the government adopt a less intrusive approach to intelligence gathering than the one it now employs?
• What is your position on each controversial provision of the Patriot Act. (Take them point by point.)
• Is there any investigative procedure or device that the federal government should be permitted to use to fight organized crime, but should not be permitted to use against suspected terrorists?
• What is your position on each interrogation technique used on terror suspects?
• Should sleep deprivation be allowed? Under what circumstances?
• Should slapping be allowed? Under what circumstances?
• Should waterboarding be allowed? Under what circumstances?
• (Repeat for all forms of putative "torture".)
• What length of delay is acceptable between the time the government learns about the telephone number of someone in the U.S. with whom a terrorists has been in communication and the time the government taps that phone?
• If it takes longer than that amount of time to obtain a court order, should the government wait for the court order or go ahead and tap the phone?

Paul's suspicion: the mainstream media don't want that debate to happen. And furthermore:

I suspect that, in fact, if Republicans promote such a debate, the MSM will accuse them of playing politics with national security.