The Terror Weapons We Won't Use--We're at war with one hand tied behind our back

LA Times/Frontpagemagazine ^ | 8-22-06 | John Yoo

[SJackson]

With the arrests last week of 24 alleged terrorists in Britain, the government's legal tools for fighting Al Qaeda are up for debate once again. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff suggests that Congress emulate Britain's law allowing extended pretrial detention of suspects. Others have observed that British law enforcement can more easily initiate investigations and obtain search warrants than their American counterparts.

But increasing detention time or making warrants easier to come by merely extends an old-fashioned approach to catching terrorists. These tools require individualized suspicion and "probable cause"; police must have evidence of criminal activity in hand. Such methods did not prevent 9/11, and stopping terrorists, who may have no criminal record, requires something more.

Instead of enlarging the scope of standard law enforcement methods, we should be doing what Americans do best--innovating and applying new technology to the problem. Despite what civil libertarians might have you think, that means data mining.

[Robe]

The way to stop these nut cases is to eliminate them !!!
Forget the court system..
They are using our court system against us... Back in the day, when we had some nuts, the CIA did the "WET Work" They should be finding bodies in dark apartment hallways, in public parks etc,,
Take a note from the Mussad handbook..
We need to get a pair

[robertpaulsen]

"In response to drug cartels and organized crime, federal authorities are allowed to search banking records for signs of money laundering. Such analysis has already paid off in the war against terror by identifying groups that funnel funds to extremist organizations."

So the author is saying that the laws we passed to help us go after the drug cartels and organized crime are being perverted and expanded to help us against terrorists.

But the laws we pass to help us go after the terrorists -- well, he assures us that "Data mining could be controlled and developed so that it protects us from terror and maintains our privacy."

I'm not comforted by his assurances.

[Firefox1]

Face it guys. The Europeans and the Democrats won't let us fight this war until Iran Nukes Israel or some other calamity happens (Similar to Germany invading Poland).

They either aren't bright enough to see the danger, would simply rather ignore the problem, or hate Bush so much they'd rather violate all their principles to defeat his policies.

In any case, they'd rather act later than earlier. I feel like it's 1936 all over again.