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Instead, what we have is a kind of antiterror version of France's pre-World War II Maginot Line; an expensive, highly visible static defense against a nimble adversary. Congress loves it because it offers the chance to throw money at domestic constituencies, and liberals love it because it allows them to sound hawkish on terror without having to fire a shot. The rest of us, however, need to be realistic about its abilities. This is especially the case as Congress becomes increasingly unserious about the domestic threat. It says something about the current state of play that Mr. Bush must now...

Scooop.net (www.scooop.net), a next-generation media site based on democratic voting principles and active participation of its members, released the results of its weekly “Hot Topics” survey held last week which asked whether the U.S. government has “gone too far” regarding the domestic war on terror. When asked whether the U.S. should authorize the National Security Agency or Central Intelligence Agency to provide surveillance of U.S. citizens concerning the war on terror, almost 50% of women said yes. Men who were surveyed were not so willing to allow the government the right to monitor U.S. citizens. Of those men surveyed, 56.2%...

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) is a chronic problem. The controversy over President Bush's decision to bypass FISA warrants in the electronic surveillance of al Qaeda operatives has highlighted the act's limitations. But FISA has been a problem ever since it became law in 1978. Congress passed and President Carter signed the bill regulating electronic surveillance for foreign intelligence collection in the wake of an extended, post--Watergate debate about the so--called "imperial presidency." The debate was given added urgency by reports and official investigations of indiscriminate snooping in this country by elements of the U.S. intelligence community. However, like...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 26 (UPI) -- U.S. President George Bush decided to skip seeking warrants for international wiretaps because the court was challenging him at an unprecedented rate. A review of Justice Department reports to Congress by Hearst newspapers shows the 26-year-old Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court modified more wiretap requests from the Bush administration than the four previous presidential administrations combined. The 11-judge court that authorizes FISA wiretaps modified only two search warrant orders out of the 13,102 applications approved over the first 22 years of the court's operation. But since 2001, the judges have modified 179 of the 5,645 requests...

Just over a week ago, the New York Times revealed the shocking news that the Bush administration has been spying on the international communications of suspected terrorists, thus setting off a rippling artificial scandal in the Times private reflecting pool, the increasingly stagnant mainstream media. Not to be outdone, U.S. News and World Report put on its water wings Friday and tried to create a splash of it own, by reporting that the same renegade Bush administration has been monitoring radiation levels in the public air -- without a warrant! Gasp! The power-mad Bushies have done this in a diabolical...

WASHINGTON, July 16, 2002 -- Military and civilian personnel who leak classified data are putting national security at risk and the practice must stop, said Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in a memo to all members of the department. "I have spoken publicly and privately countless times about the dangers of leaking classified information," the secretary wrote. "It is wrong. It is against the law. It costs the lives of Americans. It diminishes our country's chances for success." Rumsfeld amplified his remarks during an interview on CNBC July 15. "Every once in a while, there are people in the United States...

FINALLY, some good may come from the Valerie Plame kerfuffle - if Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has the stones to do what's right. A grave crime was exposed Dec. 16 when New York Times reporters James Risen and Eric Lichtblau published a story revealing President Bush authorized the National Security Agency to listen in on conversations between al-Qaeda suspects abroad and people in the United States without first obtaining a warrant. "We're seeing clearly now that [President] Bush thought 9/11 gave him license to act like a dictator," wrote Newsweek's Jonathan Alter. But the scandal was not the program Mr....

WASHINGTON - A classified radiation monitoring program, conducted without warrants, has targeted private U.S. property in an effort to prevent an al-Qaida attack, federal law enforcement officials confirmed Friday. While declining to provide details including the number of cities and sites monitored, the officials said the air monitoring took place since the Sept. 11 attacks and from publicly accessible areas — which they said made warrants and court orders unnecessary. U.S. News and World Report first reported the program on Friday. The magazine said the monitoring was conducted at more than 100 Muslim sites in the Washington, D.C., area —...

According to National Planning Scenarios complied by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, an improvised nuclear bomb going off in an American city is not a farfetched idea. In fact, it's the number one risk to the nation. Nuclear physicists using a Defense Department computer program to calculate the consequences of a nuclear attack on downtown Portland found that casualties would be surprisingly high. While few people think Portland could be a terrorist target, experts say think again, including the head of Oregon Emergency Management. Director Ken Murphy says, "We don't ever want to think we're not a target because...

The United States has warned of possible terrorist attacks against its interests in the Middle East and North Africa, and has cautioned American citizens to be vigilant about their security in those areas. In a statement posted Saturday on the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait's website, the State Department says potential attacks could include bombings, hijackings, hostage taking, kidnappings and assassinations. It also warned that chemical and biological agents must be considered a possible threat. The State Department singled out Westerners, oil workers and U.S. contractors working with the military as potential targets. The statement pointed to last month's bombings of...

A Delhi bus driver who saved the lives of around 70 passengers when he took a bomb from his vehicle during last month's terror attacks has been speaking of his experience. More than 60 people were killed and hundreds were injured when three bombs exploded in busy shopping districts in the Indian capital on 29 October. Among the wounded was Kuldeep Singh, who carried a bomb off his bus after it was found by one of the passengers. Mindful of the fact that the bus was fuelled by highly-explosive compressed gas, he urged the 70 passengers to flee while he...

Rome, 24 Nov. (AKI) - A message menacing Western leaders including Italy's prime minister Silvio Berlsuconi appeared on an Islamist website on Thursday. The message - whose authenticity has yet to be verified - threatens to "decapitate" US president George W. Bush, Britain's prime minister Tony Blair, Berlusconi, Japan's prime minister Junichiro Koizumi, and Australian premier John Howard. A section of the message - which reveals a good knowledge of Italian affairs on the part of its author- attacks Berlusconi, announcing: "the plan for his abduction has been laid - it only needs the go-ahead to be given." "Our appointment...

Amman, Jordan — Jordanian police said Friday they had rounded up 120 people, mainly Iraqis and Jordanians, in a nationwide hunt for those behind the triple Amman hotel bombings. The toll rose to at least 60 on Friday with the death of Syrian-American filmmaker Mustapha Akkad, whose 34-year-old daughter was also killed in the bombings. Mr. Akkad, who was 75 and lived in Los Angeles, had suffered serious injuries and a heart attack in the attack. He was the producer of the Halloween horror movies. The death toll included the three suicide bombers. Al-Qaeda in Iraq, led by Jordanian-born Abu...

Australia foils major attack Mon Nov 7, 2005 03:52 PM ET SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australian authorities foiled what they believed to be a large-scale terrorist attack, arresting 15 people during raids in the country's two biggest cities of Sydney and Melbourne, the Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported on Tuesday. "I am satisfied that we have disrupted what I would regard as the final stages of a large-scale terrorist attack, or the launch of a large-scale terrorist attack here in Australia," New South Wales Police Commissioner Ken Moroney told ABC radio. The arrests come less than a week after Prime Minster John...

Government counterterrorism officials gave new details on Friday of what the White House said was a foiled 2002 plot to fly hijacked airplanes into targets on the West Coast, but their account suggested that the Bush administration might not have understood the dimensions of the plot until two major terror suspects were caught in 2003. Both suspects, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and Riduan Isamuddin, better known as Hambali, had been involved in plans for such an attack, they said. President Bush referred obliquely to the planning in a speech on Thursday, when he said the United States and its partners had...

Palestinians fired another Kassam rocket at the western Negev town of Sderot on Tuesday night. The rocket landed in one of the town's neighborhoods, fortunately causing no injuries or damage. For in-depth focus on the post-pullout situation in and around Gaza, check out SPECIAL REPORT: GAZA UPHEAVALEarlier, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz warned terror groups against further shooting. "We'll hit them and hit them and hit them until they understand that Israel will not accept shooting into its borders," Mofaz said during a visit to IDF units on the border with Gaza. "This artillery battery behind me is not just for...

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Avian flu will mutate and become transmissible by humans and the world has no time to lose to stop it becoming a pandemic, the head of the U.N. World Health Organization said on Thursday. Lee Jong-wook, a South Korean doctor, delivered his stark warning as the United States worked to rally states behind a new U.S. plan to fight the disease, which has already killed more than 60 people in Asia and spread to Russia and Europe. "Human influenza is coming, we know that, and no government, no leaders can afford to be caught off-guard," Lee...

British intelligence officials in Iraq are questioning an Al-Qaeda operative after information relating to the July 7 London bombings was allegedly found on his computer drive. According to media reports on Sunday, the man, who has not been named, was captured by US forces last month. He is understood to have had a portable computer drive on him that showed "knowledge" of the attacks that killed 52 people. Colonel Robert Brown, Commander of 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division in Mosul, told a reporter in Iraq about the arrest, but refused to discuss the specific nature of the information, The Observer...

Remember that day. Remember our fellow Americans who suffered. Remember our resolve as a nation. Remember who did this to us. Remember to cherish your freedom and those who fought to keep us free.

LONDON (Reuters) - Al Qaeda could be planning an attack on Asian financial centers to try to undermine investor confidence in the region, a senior French anti-terrorism judge said in an interview on Thursday. Speaking to Britain's Financial Times newspaper, Jean-Louis Bruguiere said an attack on Tokyo, Singapore or Sydney would be symbolically important for al Qaeda. "We have several elements of information that make us think that countries in this region, especially Japan, could have been targeted," Bruguiere said without elaborating on the intelligence or nature of the threat. He said several Asian countries were less prepared for an...

The federal government is doing something right now that is exactly the opposite of what it should be doing. It is forgetting to think dark. It is forgetting to imagine the unimaginable. Governments deal in data. People in government see a collection of data as something to be used, manipulated or ignored, but whatever they do with it, it's real. It's numbers on a page. You can point to them. To think dark, on the other hand, takes imagination--and something more. As adults living in the world, we know some things. As Murphy taught us, if it can go wrong,...

One of the commonest reactions to the revelation of the London bombers' identities has been that they were so ordinary, and in at least some instances so well educated. How could such people have callously bombed dozens of their fellow citizens into oblivion? The surprise, really, is that we can be so easily surprised. In truth, throughout history ordinary people have believed and done extraordinary things. The key to understanding why is to recall that they do so when driven by two things - intense commitment to a powerful ideology and when they join a high control group environment whose...

Sergeant Steve Betts of the British Transport police was one of the first rescuers to reach the Piccadilly line train between King's Cross and Russell Square on Thursday. This is his harrowing account: It was pitch black and we had torches. The tunnel where the train was was about 150 metres down the track round a corner and there were still a few wounded coming towards us as we approached. As I walked down the track, I heard someone cry out for help but I could not see them. I called out back and looked around but it was very...

BEIRUT, Lebanon -- Hezbollah guerrillas attacked Israeli troops in a disputed part of the south Lebanon border Wednesday, according to Lebanese security officials and Hezbollah's Al Manar TV channel. The guerrillas attacked three Israeli positions in Chebaa Farms, an area where the borders of Lebanon, Syria and Israel meet, the TV and Lebanese officials said.

Dec. 20, 2004 19:07 Police suspect terror motive in Jerusalem stabbing By ETGAR LEFKOVITS Jerusalem police said Monday that a 67-year-old Jewish man who was stabbed in the back outside his home in the city's central Abu Tor neighborhood late Sunday night (by suspected Arab assailants) was apparently targeted only because he was Jewish in what they consider is likely a terror-related attack. The elderly American-born victim of the attack, who was moderately wounded in the incident, was discharged from Hadassah University Hospital at Ein Kerem Monday morning after spending the night at the hospital. The man and his 65...

The Arab bombardment of Gush Katif continues, and the Jewish residents now blame not only the government, but also the army, for the lack of response. A female worker from Thailand was killed last night in a mortar shell attack in Gadid, in southern Gush Katif. Three other Thai workers were wounded in the attack. The woman was airlifted to the Soroka Medical Center in Be’er Sheva, but died of her wounds en-route. In addition to the 13 mortar shells fired at Gaza’s Jewish communities yesterday (Tuesday), several more were fired this morning. Two Kassam rockets hit the community of...

(IsraelNN.com) According to the preliminary information available, four Israelis were wounded by terrorist gunfire in the Kissufim area of Gush Katif a short time ago. One of the victims is in grave condition with a head injury and a second victim was hit in a leg. They were transported to the trauma unit of Soroka Medical Center in Be’er Sheva. Two others were treated on the scene, as was a female who is hysterical. Her small child was apparently very lightly bruised. Soldiers killed one terrorist and a second, possibly a third, fled the area and remains at large.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Thirteen people died and 15 were injured in a suicide attack at an entrance to the Green Zone in Baghdad that houses Iraq's interim government and foreign embassies, a hospital official said. The official, who asked not to be identified, said all the casualties from the bombing had been brought to the Yarmouk Hospital in western Baghdad. The U.S. military confirmed that a car bomb exploded near one of the Green Zone gates, but provided no further details. There was no immediate word on U.S. casualties. The blast occurred when a vehicle that had been waiting in...

Two people, one of them a 6-year-old boy, were wounded by mortars fired at the southern Gaza Strip settlement block Gush Katif late on Friday afternoon. Both were wounded lightly by shrapnel. Three others, including the wounded boy's mother, were described as suffering from shock. Also on Friday afternoon, two Palestinians were wounded critically when a car exploded north of the West Bank city of Ramallah, on the Bir Zeit bridge. A report from Reuters indicated that both were killed. No Israeli civilians or soldiers were present in the area of the explosion. The Israel Defense Forces described the explosion...

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Car bombs at two Baghdad churches and outside a hospital treating the victims of those attacks have killed at least eight people and wounded dozens as a wave of blasts struck the Iraqi capital. A car bomb exploded outside St. George's Catholic church in southern Baghdad just before 6.30 p.m. (3.30 p.m. British time), followed just minutes later by a second outside St. Matthew's church. Victims from both blasts, some carried by injured friends or relatives in torn and bloodstained clothes, were rushed to Yarmouk hospital. A doctor said at least three people had been killed and...

Is all this Democratic puff over the "missing" munitions a way for Kerry to reverse what popular consensus assumes: that an attack would help Bush? Does Kerry hope for an attack now so he can say "See, this President's incompetence has caused this butchery -- possibly with the very munitions he failed to guard in Iraq"?

(IsraelNN.com) A farm worker was shot dead by terrorist sniper fire in the greenhouse area of the Gaza community of Rafiah Yam a short time ago. The victim is the second farm worker to be murdered in a terrorist shooting attack in that area in the past days.

(IsraelNN.com) A senior Israel Police officer operating at the scene of the Taba Hilton Hotel stated the experts estimate the vehicular bomb used in the attack appears to have contained at least a 200kg explosive. Police are also reporting a suicide bomber blew himself up as well, in another section of the lobby.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - A car bomb exploded Wednesday at an Iraqi military camp northwest of Baghdad, killing 10 Iraqis and wounding more than 20, officials said, in the latest attack on security forces that are key to U.S. plans for fighting the insurgency. South of Baghdad, U.S. and Iraqi forces sealed off roads to an insurgent stronghold in a new offensive aimed at taking control of the region before national elections in January. Meanwhile, the Iraqi government and followers of Muqtada al-Sadr were nearing agreement on a formula to end weeks of clashes between U.S. forces and the radical...

Exactly four years ago, a few days before Yom Kippur, then deputy chief of general staff Maj.-Gen. Moshe Ya'alon appeared before the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. He was asked about the violent outbreak of Palestinian violence. "Is the peak behind us?" they wanted to know. He told them it was clearly not going to be a simple or short affair. In fact, it took almost two and a half years for the violence to peak just prior to Operation Defensive Shield in April 2002. Since then, the latest round of violence has been on the decline. Thanks solely...

An 18-year-old female Palestinian suicide bomber blew herself up near a crowded bus station in Jerusalem Wednesday afternoon killing two border policemen and wounding 16 other civilians, including four seriously, police and rescue officials said. The explosion occurred at 3:40 p.m. at the city's northern French Hill intersection when 19-year-old Zeina Issa Abu Salem, from the Askar refugee camp in Nablus, blew up the 5kg explosive device in her possession. The French Hill intersection has been the scene of repeated bombings over four years of violence. The border policemen were identified as Corporal Mamoya Tahio, 20 from Rehovot and Corporal...

GERTZ: Al Qaeda seen planning for 'spectacular' attack; Intelligence agencies think danger is high to Inauguration Day... Developing...

Channel 2 Israel News reports on the terror attack in a Russian school and described the feelings of the citizens there and notes the many mistakes of Russian authorities in the situation: Click here to download (around 20MB, Windows Media Player) Here is a brief translation of some of the points they make, in their order of appearance. 1. There was no coordination, no planning and chaos. 2. Even Putin on TV said they were not planning on taking the place by force. 3. How the authorities acted, specifically the elite counter-terror force, was full of holes. 4. They didn't...

Four people were killed in shelling at a checkpoint of the Fallujah Brigade, which had been patrolling the city since April, security and hospital officials said. Captain Majid Ahmad Salim, the Fallujah Brigade’s commander in the southern part of the city, said the fire came from U.S. tanks outside the city. The U.S. military said they had no immediate information on the attack. Salim and other Iraqi officers said it was the first such incident between U.S. troops and members of the Fallujah Brigade, made up in part of loyalists to former president Saddam Hussein and insurgents who fought U.S....

BESLAN, Russia - Soldiers shepherded children, many of them wounded and only in their underwear, away from a school where militants had taken hundreds of people hostage in southern Russia, as explosions and gunfire were heard from the area. The scene was chaotic and it wasn't clear what led to the latest gunfire or if a major assault underway to free the hundreds of hostages from the building. Armed soldiers were seen rushing toward the school, which was cordoned off and out of sight. The ITAR-Tass news agency said Russian troops had entered the school and were firing on militants...

Bloody end to Russia school siege Live BBC coverage Russian troops have stormed the school in North Ossetia where hundreds of children and adults have been held hostage since Wednesday. Witnesses report seeing dozens of bodies in the school gym, after hearing heavy gunfire and loud explosions throughout the morning. Ambulances rushed scores of casualties to nearby hospitals. Unconfirmed reports say that at least 10 people have been killed and up to 200 wounded. Several of the hostage takers are also reported to have died in exchanges of fire with troops as they tried to escape, Reuters reports. Some are...

BESLAN, Russia, Sept 3 (Reuters) - Up to 100 bodies were seen lying in the Russian school gymnasium after troops stormed the building to end a two-day siege, a British ITV News reporter said on Friday. Julian Manyon of ITV news said his cameraman got into the gym briefly and saw up to a hundred bodies. Manyon said, "There were a large number of corpses lying on the smouldering floor". He said it appeared explosive charges laid by the attackers had been detonated.

Miriam Mushkan came to Beersheba from her kibbutz along the border of the Gaza Strip to shop and get away from the Kassam rocket threats. She pulled up to a red light on the corner of Shazar and the main Rigar Boulevard in front of city hall. Suddenly the No. 7 bus behind her exploded. She gunned her Subaru ahead and bus No. 12 blew up, splattering her windshield with blood, flesh, and body parts. "I tried to get away, driving in circles, until a policeman stopped me and told me to pull over," said Mushkan, 40. "They wanted to...

Double bus bombings have rocked the southern town of Be'er Sheva, killing 16 - and wounding over 100, including close to 15 seriously. Police are on high alert nationwide. The twin bus bombs were detonated at around 2:55 P.M. on Rager Boulevard, near Be'er Sheva's City Hall. The buses were approximately 100 meters apart when suicide terrorists detonated their explosives. Over 100 people were evacuated to Soroka Hospital, including 23 with moderate wounds. Arutz-7 correspondent Moshe Priel spoke with Yaakov, the driver of the number 12 bus, which was targeted in the second blast. He described the horror he and...

MOSCOW -- An explosion went off Friday night near a police building in the restive Dagestan region adjacent to Chechnya, and initial reports indicated two people were killed, the Interfax news agency said. The blast occurred outside the main police station in Khasavyurt, a town that has been tense amid a conflict between its mayor and the top official in Dagestan, Interfax reported, citing Interior Ministry officials in the southern Russian region. According to preliminary information, a woman and child were killed in the blast in the town near the border with Chechnya, Interfax said.

MOSCOW (AP) -- One of two Russian airliners that crashed nearly simultaneously was brought down by a terrorist act, officials said Friday, after finding traces of explosives in the plane's wreckage. An Islamic militant group claimed responsibility for the attack in a Web statement. The planes, with 90 people aboard, went down within 20 minutes of each other Tuesday night. In Washington, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said there was "mounting evidence" that both crashes "were acts of terrorism." Traces of the explosive hexogen were found in the remains of one of the planes, a Tu-154, security service spokesman Nikolai...

MOSUL, Iraq (AP) - A car bomb exploded in this northern city on Friday, wounding 10 Iraqi civilians and a U.S. soldier, the U.S. military said. U.S. army Capt. Angela Bowman said the blast detonated at 11 a.m. local time as a U.S. military convoy passed through a traffic circle on the western edge of the city. The explosion injured one U.S. soldier from the Army's Washington State-based Stryker Brigade, part of the 2nd Infantry Division. The soldier was taken to a military hospital. The 10 Iraqis were evacuated to a local hospital, Bowman said. The car bombing was the...

Report: Militants activate roadside bomb at Israeli bus on Gush Etzion highway; bus damaged but no injuries (Itim)

Translation from Hebrew to English by me: Two mortars were fired by terrorists towards Neve-Dekalim in Gush Katif. One of the mortars landed near a residential area, injuring 2 Israelis, one moderatly, the other lightly. The second mortar landed about 50 meters from the gate of the community. IDF sources say the mortars were fired from the Palestinian Authority terrorist controlled Khan-Yunis area.

Friday, 15:30 - One Israeli is dead after having been shot outside the Shomron town of Itamar by an Arab terrorist. The attacker was a member of the Palestinian Authority's Preventative Security Force. The lone terrorist fired at a rear sentry post of Itamar shortly before 11:00am today. The community’s first response team was activated and the security officer, Shlomo Miller, 50, responded. The lone terrorist targeted Miller’s vehicle, hitting him in the head, chest and abdomen. The terrorist then grabbed Miller’s M-16 and fled. He was eventually shot dead by the members of the first response team, but not...