Posted on 08/22/2006 6:40:04 AM PDT by Graybeard58
Item: British authorities shatter a conspiracy by Islamists in London to kill thousands of innocent people by blowing up nine passenger airliners over the Atlantic Ocean. Officials cite human intelligence and electronic surveillance by British, U.S. and Pakistani services.
Item: Less than a week later, a federal judge in Michigan rules some of the methods that brought the London terrorists to justice before they could hurt anyone are illegal. Judge Anna Diggs Taylor, a Carter appointee, finds warrantless wiretaps by the National Security Agency of calls originating overseas are illegal and sides with the plaintiff, the American Civil Liberties Union.
The Bush administration promptly appealed the decision and continues to conduct the surveillance program in the interim. What is most interesting about this decision, however, is the diversity of reaction by two liberal editorial boards.
The New York Times on Friday characterized Judge Taylor's decision as "a careful, thoroughly grounded opinion." The Washington Post, also reliably liberal, was less satisfied. "Unfortunately, the decision ... is neither careful nor scholarly, and it is hard-hitting only in the sense that a bludgeon is hard-hitting," the Post said.
A number of recent polls have indicated Americans don't believe the NSA program imperils their constitutional freedoms or rights. They also recognize the need for such measures, and the arrests in London vindicate that view.
The Times, the ACLU and others have allowed their hatred for President Bush to put them out of touch with the rational public, which is capable of balancing the desire for safety from terrorist attacks with the need to preserve the people's rights and freedoms under the Constitution. And these enemies within will continue to make mischief by means of propaganda, nuisance litigation and venue-shopping until the people rise up and repudiate them.
Ping to an Republican-American editorial.
If you want on this ping list, let me know. If you want off this ping list, that's tough, you have to pay me.
American Civil Liberties Union....For whom she has been found to be some kind of FUND RAISER in her state....and should have recused herself?
They are seditious traitors!
They do exactly that on a regular basis, the author must have forgotten this time.
Let's remember that the courts become so "stringent" in what constitutes probable cause, that law-enforcement agencies cease trying.
The famous Jamie Gorelick "wall" allegedly had provisions where agencies could share data, but the thresholds were so high, it discouraged agencies from even trying.
Remember that the FBI wanted to get a warrant to look at Moussaui's laptop, after he was picked up on a violation of his visa. The courts ruled against the warrant. Here was a foreigner, overstaying his visa, taking a class in flying, where he didn't want to learn how to take off and land - just fly. There were concerns, but "probable cause" wasn't there, and the courts said NO. (And the laptop had sufficient information that, had the laptop been looked at, the 9/11 attack might have been deterred.)
Ultimately, you end up with a court that acts as gatekeeper, and eventually the law enforcement agencies recognize the futility of trying to get permission, while the public is lulled into a false sense of security that there are ways to do what we are presently doing.
Mike
Supplemental:
see: http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=082106F
exerpted from the article:
"If anything, the establishment of the FISA court marks an infringement on the executive's prerogative. Although it has been described by liberals as a "rubber-stamp court," its warrant requirements are nonetheless onerous -- and especially ill-suited to both the exigencies and the breadth of the electronic surveillance apparently being carried out by the NSA."
Mike
And yet... the Waterbury Republican-American fails to define the left for what they really are... a soulless, 5th column collection of perennial misfits.
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You're too kind to the left.
I would have labeled them as sub-human traitors. For a human has the ability for rational thought... and the left, by definition, has no rational thought, thus the label sub-human.
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