The New York Times, Saturday, May 5, 2007

Protecting Americans And Their Rights

To the Editor:

Re ''Spying on Americans'' (editorial, May 2), about the proposed update to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act:

This legislation, submitted in response to Congressional request, seeks to find a bipartisan way forward to protect American lives from the plots of terrorists, while at the same time protecting the rights and privacies afforded to Americans.

We are seeking to update FISA to make it technology-neutral -- to update it to reflect communications upgrades since the law first passed in 1978, and to allow the United States intelligence community to protect the nation even as technology continues to advance.

Because technology has changed but the law has not, this statute -- meant to protect against domestic abuses -- instead protects potential foreign terrorists. We are significantly burdened in capturing overseas communications of foreign terrorists planning to conduct attacks inside the United States.

FISA frequently requires judicial authorization to collect the communications of foreign individuals outside the United States. This clogs the FISA process with matters that have nothing to do with protecting privacy rights of United States citizens and legal immigrants inside the United States, which was the original impetus behind FISA.

Our job in the intelligence community is to make the country as safe as possible by providing the highest quality intelligence available. The proposed legislation achieves this while protecting the rights and privacies of our citizens.

Mike McConnell
Director of National Intelligence
Washington, May 3, 2007

- - published in the N. Y. Times on Saturday, May 5, 2007

Source: Congressional Research Service

http://fas.org/sgp/crs/intel/m071906.pdf

Amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)

1. P.L. 103-359 (enacted 10/14/1994)

2. P.L. 105-272 (enacted 10/20/1998)

3. P.L. 106-120 (enacted 12/03/1999)

4. P.L. 107-56 (enacted 10/26/2001)

5. P.L. 107-108 (enacted 12/28/2001)

6. P.L. 107-296 (enacted 11/25/2002)

7. P.L. 108-458 (enacted 12/17/2004)

8. P.L. 109-160 (enacted 12/30/2005)

9. P.L. 109-170 (enacted 02/03/2006)

10. P.L.109-177 (enacted 03/09/2006)

11. P.L.109-178 (enacted 03/09/2006)

I might have miscounted. Congresswoman Jane Harman says the correct count is more than eleven.

http://www.house.gov/list/press/ca36_harman/09_29_06.shtml
September 28, 2006

HARMAN OPPOSES WHITE HOUSE/WILSON BILL TO GUT FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE SURVEILLANCE ACT

Says House is "voting to fix something that's not broken" . . . tonight this House is voting to fix something that's not broken - the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). And we're doing this although we know that the other body will not take up this legislation before we recess.

I worked in the White House when FISA was passed. I understand its bipartisan history and the abuses it corrected.

FISA has been modernized 51 times since then. It is now a modern, flexible statute which includes 12 amendments since 9/11 made at the Administration's request . . .

- - Congresswoman Jane Harman

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2007/03/08/bernard-lewis-applauds-the-crusades

The Wall Street Journal
WASHINGTON WIRE
March 8, 2007

Bernard Lewis Applauds the Crusades

Famed Princeton Islamic scholar Bernard Lewis drew a standing ovation from a packed house of conservative luminaries Wednesday night in a lecture that described Muslim migration to Europe as an Islamic attack on the West and defended the Crusades as “a late, limited and unsuccessful imitation of the jihad” that spread Islam across much of the globe.

Lewis gave the nearly hour-long speech at the annual black-tie dinner of the American Enterprise Institute after receiving the group’s Irving Kristol Award. Among the attendees were Vice President Dick Cheney, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, former United Nations Ambassador John Bolton and ex-Pentagon official Richard Perle . . .

http://opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110010080

from The Wall Street Journal editorial page
Was Osama Right?
BY BERNARD LEWIS

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

. . . We in the Western world see the defeat and collapse of the Soviet Union as a Western, more specifically an American, victory in the Cold War. For Osama bin Laden and his followers, it was a Muslim victory in a jihad, and, given the circumstances, this perception does not lack plausibility . . .

These neocons may not agree with Osama's goals, but they worship his violence (and the Soviet Union's, as is apparent if you look at the rest of the May 16 op-ed.) They may not agree with the goals of the medieval Crusaders (well, actually they mostly do) but they love the image of going into the middle east with swords, and their only criticism of the Crusaders is that they didn't exterminate the Moslems.

Bring back medieval times, say the violent extremists like Dick Cheney, Clarence Thomas, John Bolton, Richard Perle.

I'm not saying that violence is never justifiable, but it's obvious that neocons worship violent jihadism not because of any particular policy goal, but simply because they worship violence, for its own sake, for any cause, or without cause.

That's sicker and scarier than violence for a cause.

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/59/204490457_edc4497c67.jpg

and who's that guy steering her?

U.S. Senator Ted "The Man" Bilbo, dead 60 years ago from the most poetically justified case of mouth cancer in history, was a supporter (for white protestants, anyway) of FDR's New Deal and was also an outspoken admirer of Nazi racial policies.

I've known enough good old boys to know that Senator Bilbo still isn't completely dead. Whether or not those bigots are Democrats, and whether or not they call themselves "progressives" -- it doesn't matter. It doesn't change what they are.

Maybe I'd be more scared of Islamofascism, myself, if I hadn't grown up on tentatively friendly terms with some good old dixiecrat fascist boys who, in the right circumstances, would lynch my family just for our surname.

America survived Bilbo and his supporters. America will survive the Islamic bigots. America will survive the Golden Boy bigots.

http://peteseeger.net/listenbilbo.htm

http://letters.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/05/11/quotes/permalink/b8cf46b102c81cae4dfa6508e6032e2d.html Tsk, tsk, tsk.
Indeed, and considering the reports of gangs running amuck, gunfire, dead bodies littering the Dome, etc. it was the right thing to do.
- - shooter242 - - Sunday, May 13, 2007 07:42 PM