Letters to the Editor
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CNN.com reminds us tonight of Bush's State of the Union speech in 2006
"We now know that two of the hijackers in the United States placed telephone calls to al Qaeda operatives overseas. But we did not know about their plans until it was too late," Bush said.
"So to prevent another attack --- based on authority given to me by the Constitution and by statute -- I have authorized a terrorist surveillance program to aggressively pursue the international communications of suspected al Qaeda operatives and affiliates to and from America."
Receiving applause, Bush said, "If there are people inside our country who are talking with al Qaeda, we want to know about it, because we will not sit back and wait to be hit again."
If the illegal program set up in spring 2001 did not catch those phone calls, what was the purpose of the program?
Actually, the rest of the article on CNN.com has additional useful information. It is reporting on a newly released study.
The study, conducted by New York University's Center on Law and Security, tracked 510 cases billed as terrorism-related when arrests were made.
But it found only 158 of those people arrested since al Qaeda's September 11, 2001, attacks were prosecuted for terrorism.
In a statement issued Monday afternoon, the Justice Department said the report "reflects a serious misunderstanding" of anti-terrorism efforts and includes "wildly inaccurate" statistics.
The study found only four people -- including confessed al Qaeda operative Zacarias Moussaoui and "shoe bomber" Richard Reid -- were convicted of planning attacks within the United States.
"The vast majority of cases turn out to include no link to terrorism once they go to court," the report found. The analysis "suggests the presence of few, if any, prevalent terrorist threats currently within the U.S."
The report questioned the usefulness of the anti-terrorist USA Patriot Act, passed after the September 11, 2001, attacks, finding prosecutors relied primarily on previous laws.
Of course, the Justice Department has to hurl some chaff at this report. It goes to the very heart of what our government has been doing over the last six years. Many of our basic constitutional rights have been cancelled for an effort that found a grand total of four people and is best carried out using other, entirely constitutional, methods.
Link: http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/10/15/terror.study/index.html
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@ Mona
FWIW, I agree wholeheartedly -- no libertarian me notwithstanding -- with Chris's fine post on the abomination of (U.S. participation in) WWI.
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Kiss it, Mona
Elwood P. is no more a "libertarian" than you are. You are both reactionary conservatives. Dimwits stuck in a previous century, and not even the 20th. He fancies himself a Burkean though I doubt he has any idea what that really is. Perhaps the two of you can explore your opposing views on that shallow, unoriginal and trite conservative thinker Russell Kirk. Then the two of you can bore us all to tears with pointless discussions about Austrian economics, like was Hayek an Austrian or was he even an economist.
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Nominations
Every blog has its sheriff/town historian. The sheriff knows everyone in town, where most of the skeletons are buried, and who gets a tad tetchy about what. I hope Mona continues to get reelected.
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@ bystander
I second the nomination. I also nominate bebop for poet laureate and roshi, sysprog for head of the school board, arnie for night watchman, kovie for foreign minister, and RMP for minister of defense.
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Seconded!
Every person, in every position, all the way down the line.
WT, you are Tres Écouter!
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kovie. thanks. I recommend Burt's Bees Wax? It is good for chapped lips
Also: The extract theobromine, I'm told fights cavities better than toothpaste. This is the latest news from toothpaste researches from Tulane University. The last great study about this great of good news was 1914. If KarenM ever returns, tell her chocolate fights oral cavities.
So- pigging out on chocolate is okay. Chocolate gives cocoabean. It is better than butter and better than fluoride than President.
Colgate is #10.
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kovie- You reminded me of this: When I roamed the Earth looking for a Exit door in the early 70's, this used to piss me much. I'd go to the V.A. Hopkins Plaza, Federal Bldg. and say, "WOW" the war 'screwed' us up! I can't get hired to pick apples in neighborhood Hancock, Maryland's orchards with the Mexican migrants." The 'shring' would 'stuff' govt.-job applications in my lap.
I'd walk outside and spend the rest of the day wiping pigeon poop off the shoulders and heads of Vietnam's returning nations brethren. The nations were literally crapping upon those I'd fought to return home--- And to tell the American people about Vietnam's suffering peasants. "Shad Up!" O, is that right? Ya, Ya, Ya, Ya's will hear from me LATER!
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kovie- If you'd have only seen the piles of pigeon dodo-Odo clumped upon the vet's shoulders. The burden we carried was heavy enough.
Tonight: the crickets sound like Thanksgiving White Turkey Gobblers. I'm glad it was NOT turkey dung all piled high on the returning TROOPS! And GWB- it's said- so softly- troops, and not "out brave and heroic American TROOOPS! Ya's a damn pigeon pretzel dingbat c-in-c!
You, GWB & Company, are CRAPPING on many heads of returning Middle Eastern vets.
GOP's ya's would think,
Would help wipe poop up.
Look and hear the hurt!
It is global. A travesty.
'um dang crickets are hypothalamus's
Now that can't be? That sound is preposterous.
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Let's just call this what it is
Yes, the Bush Administration has been seeking to vest increasing unilateral power within its own mitts since taking office, but a major reason why it ignores filing for retroactive warrants is that it simply does not want to do the hard work involved.
This is the same reason why there were no major counterterrorism briefings of the President before 9/11, even after the Aug. 6, 2001, PDB warned of Al Qaeda's desire to attack. It's the same reason no comprehensive plan for post-invasion Iraq was developed, or why there's no cost-control on spending, or that the military was ill-supplied from the beginning and throughout the operation. It's the same reason why no emergency planning was done in the days leading up to Katrina, or respond effectively to the disaster in the short- and long-term of its aftermath.
It's a whole lot easier to do what one wants when there are no rules to follow, or when one is given absolute, unrestricted power to do so. To have to garner support and comply with the rule of law -- especially with Constitutional protections -- takes considerably more effort.
It all boils down to one thing: laziness. This Administration -- besides being corrupt, incompetent and mendacious -- is led by the laziest bunch of slackers it's ever been in the public disservice to hold office. And its been nurtured, aided and abetted by so-called "journalists" who are just as lazy and don't want to dig deeper than a phone call to their favorite "insider" to determine what's really going on inside the government it is there ethical imperative to watchdog.