Nancy Pelosi Has No Credibility on National Security

Career politician Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) recently stated that in the U.S. we have to have the balance between security and privacy. This happened after being booed at an event when she said Edward Snowden, who revealed secret U.S. government surveillance programs on its own citizens, “did violate the law in terms of releasing those documents.”

In response to the pushback from the audience, she said, “I understand, but he did violate the law … and we don’t know what sources and methods may have been revealed.”

Pelosi, though, doesn’t have high credibility talking about national security, nor enforcing the law. During the 25 years Pelosi has been in Congress, the country has experienced mass illegal immigration (violation of our laws and a threat to national security) at a nearly incomprehensible level.

Representing California in the House since 1987, Pelosi, one of the wealthiest members of Congress, also was the most powerful person in the House for two sessions as Speaker. Yet on the issue of national security, she has been absent for any meaningful movement to secure our borders and ensure that our overall immigration system has integrity.

Besides breaking our immigration laws, some of the millions of illegal aliens here have committed a variety of crimes, including identification theft, human and drug trafficking, murder and rape. And the terrorists who committed a coordinated attack that killed nearly 3,000 people in the U.S. had gamed our immigration system. Even post 9-11, the current Administration has created a system that ties the hands of the Border Patrol in doing its job.

It’s hypocritical for Pelosi to say she supports national security when we have millions of people in the country illegally, and we don’t know who they are, nor will the proposed amnesty satisfactorily address this. Pelosi’s state is home to an estimated 2.6 million illegal aliens, or almost 25 percent of the entire illegal community in the U.S., according to the Public Policy Institute of California. And Pelosi represents an area that flaunts immigration law – San Francisco is widely recognized as a sanctuary city to those in the country illegally.

Pelosi seems comfortable with selective enforcement. When it comes to vast, nontransparent government spy programs that likely cost unknown billions of dollars for corporate contractors, consultants and computing wizardry, she takes a letter-of-the-law stance. But as to something so basic – maintaining border security and enforcing our existing immigration laws – positions she has taken are not even within the spirit of the law.

Snowden’s story is still in the making. Whether it turns into a Daniel Ellsberg-like one (“Pentagon Papers”), or something else, time will tell. But for now, Snowden – called a hero by Ellsberg, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and filmmaker Oliver Stone – seems to be winning popular opinion.

But Pelosi’s story is out, and her record shows she has not been credible on national security for more than two decades.