Posted on 06/02/2002 9:05:51 AM PDT by Dog Gone
The media and the public love a reformer. This may explain the reaction this week to a 13-page letter from FBI agent Coleen Rowley criticizing the investigation of Zacarias Moussaoui.
Rowley has been portrayed by national publications such as Time magazine in almost breathless terms as a cross between Martin Luther and Annie Oakley.
What is astonishing is how little of her memo actually has been read or quoted beyond its most sensational suggestions, such as the notion that Rowley and her colleagues might have been able to prevent one or more of the Sept. 11 attacks.
Rowley's criticism of the FBI largely turns on disagreement over the meaning of probable cause. Rowley insists that there was probable cause to secure a search warrant for Moussaoui's computer and personal effects. FBI headquarters disagreed, and it was right.
On Aug. 15, 2001, Moussaoui was arrested by the Immigration and Nationalization Service on a charge of overstaying his visa. At that time, the Minnesota office only had an "overstay" prisoner and a suspicion from an agent that he might be a terrorist because of his religious beliefs and flight training. If this hunch amounted to probable cause, it is hard to imagine what would not satisfy such a standard.
Rowley believes that the FBI was wrong because a warrant was ultimately signed on Sept. 11 after the attacks. That warrant contained the same information that was deemed insufficient before the attacks.
Rowley rejects the notion that the attacks in any way "improved or changed" the basis for probable cause. In her view, if probable cause existed on Sept. 11, it must have existed before Sept. 11. This is simply wrong as a matter of law. The attacks were obviously material to establishing probable cause against Moussaoui.
Rowley also places importance on a French report that "confirmed (Moussaoui's) radical fundamentalist Islamic" affiliations. This report was extremely vague and discounted by the FBI and other intelligence and foreign agencies.
Finally, Rowley says suspicions in her Minnesota field office were magnified by Moussaoui's refusal to permit a search. But Moussaoui's assertion of a constitutional right cannot be used as a "signal (that) he had something to hide."
What emerges from the memo is a disturbing view of constitutional standards.
Rowley states that she believed agents should not have been deterred in their interrogations by Moussaoui's invocation of his right to remain silent and to have counsel. Instead, she suggests that a limited "public safety exception" should be expanded to virtually negate those protections of the Sixth Amendment.
The Rowley memo does contain some new and important information. One such fact relates to the use of a controversial secret court that is little known to most Americans.
It has long been suspected that agents have used the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court in cases where they lack evidence to secure a constitutional warrant. Viewed by many as unconstitutional,FISA court allows the government to search citizens without a showing of probable cause. The citizens never know that their homes and computers were the subject of a search.
Under federal law, this court cannot be used as an alternative to a conventional warrant simply because there is insufficient evidence to meet the constitutional standard. Rowley, however, confirms this unlawful practice. When it was determined that the Minnesota office lacked probable cause, she suggested that it simply file for a FISA secret search as a tactical option.
We are gradually shifting searches from the Fourth Amendment process to a secret court that is neither mentioned nor consistent with the Constitution. This is the one aspect of the memo that has received no attention.
The Rowley memo is now being used to support reforms announced Wednesday by the FBI. Ironically, these "reforms" cut back on "reforms" implemented after such scandals as the Richard Jewell and Wen Ho Lee investigations. Those abusive investigations involved hunches that were allowed to mutate into full investigations with disastrous consequences.
Not only do such investigations produce abuses, but they diminish the agency's effectiveness and resources in pursuing more substantial leads.
Some of Rowley's criticisms of the FBI incompetence are well-established. There is need for structural reform, but we should not allow the FBI to "reform" itself into a prior image.
Turley teaches constitutional law at George Washington University and has served as counsel in a variety of national-security and espionage cases.
What I am missing here?
You don't really believe the above, do you? That's where you and I part company. That "kid" is a traitor! If he was just a "peace loving muslim", he would not have been in the cave dreaming of his share of 72 virgins.
Fine. Then charge him with treason and produce the two witnesses required by the Constitution. The "trumped up" charges are nonsense which have been invented to circumvent the clear requirements of the Constitution. Lindh is a prisoner of war who was capured after we declared war on the Al Qaeda and later the Taliban.
There appears to be no mechanism for establishing a legal duty for Lindh to refrain from fighting with the Taliban against the Northern Alliance prior to our declaration of war against the Taliban and there may be a lack of evidence that he fought against the US after that time.
The Rowley memo is being distorted way out of any realistic proportion by those seeking any kind of chink in the Bush political armor. Any similar "warning" or "clue" that comes to light will be similarly distorted, for the sake the Democrat Party's dream of any kind of political gain, by dividing the American public during time of war. The problems with the FBI and the our ability to forsee and prevent atrocities like the WTC attacks have been long present and institutionally ingrained to the point of absurdity, in the clarity of hindsight. The FBI was by charter created and limted to be a domestic law enforcement agency, not an anti-terrorist intelligence bureau. In fact, it has been deliberatly prevented from "spying" on Americans domestically, all in the name of Leftist Political Correctness. The CIA has been proscribed by Congress from offering just the kind of cooperation to the FBI and other governmental bureaus that cynical Democrat partisans call for now. But, don't you dare point out WHO put those shackles on the FBI, CIA, etc., that is needless "dredging up" of old controversy. More "Clinton bashing."
I was amazed today to see Diane Feinstein actually admit that the PC straightjacket that our intelligence services have had to wear up until the shock of 9/11 may have contributed to the now decried intelligence failure to forsee the WTC attack. The problem is even more than the calcified attitudes of career bureaucrats in the FBI and CIA, it is the fundamental way we think about the reality of the terrorist threat. I also witnessed former Assistant Attorney General Holder say ".. the world changed on September 11th." This was an attempt to dissemble and excuse the 8 years of blindness, cover-up, and inaction that were the feeble Clinton response to deadly terrorist attacks on Americans. Think about the previous statement. Of course the world did NOT change on September 11th, except in the sense a sleeper and a dreamer would experience upon waking to reality. This attitude is emblematic of the blindness of the diplomatic/intelligence culture of the US State Dept, DOJ, and Government as a whole. This was a self imposed blindness; using PC and geopolitcally inspired blinders left over from past years, and seemingly glued to our eyes, until they were literally blasted off.
Don't sit still for more of the coming political travesty. Don't get talked into Hillary's and Daschle's version of a media circus "blue ribbon" investigation, that is only focused on blaming Bush for 9/11, and somehow vindicating idiots like Cynthia McKinney and other lunatics. Don't even let conservative or normally moderate pundits talk you into such a joke of an investigation. It would be nothing more than a nostalgic trip down Watergate Lane for the Democrats, desperate for any kind of political issue to save their butts in November. It would be a media spectacle of wild accusations, innuendos and obfuscation, with leaks galore. Instead of getting to the heart of the problem, it would cover it up; and that is the failed foreign intelligence policies of many of the past administrations.
Actually he was fighting a war out of uniform. When he attempted to surrender they should have blown his head off. If they thought he had any information, they should have tortured it out of him, THEN blown his head off. End of story.
Under the constitution, there are things that, thank God, the FBI simply can not do to a citizen. The rules are looser with non-resident, non-citizens, but there are limits even there.
But there is a term for emergency situations which civil law and criminal law are not adequate to deal with; the term for that is "war". In the situation of a direct threat to our survival, government and citizens cut to the chase, and deal with the threat by extra-legal means. That is what war is. No one reads anyone their rights, no one gets a jury of their peers, the 82nd Airborne simply deals with them directly.
But, under our system, to dispense with the legal protections of evil-doers requires a legal declaration of a state of war. To do what we are trying to do without that "finding" on the part of the executive and legislative branches is to tie ourselves in legal and constitutional knots that are unnecessary.
No rights, priviledges, or protections whatsoever afforded by this Consititution shall apply to persons who are citizens of any nation other than these United States of America.
His "uniform" was the same as the rest of his Taliban as far as I know and probably not any different from the "uniform" of the Nothern Alliance. How would it be justified to have "blown his head off" if that treatment was not deemed justified for the hundreds who surrendered with him?
Actually, I believe that our foreign policy has suffered over the years because we fail to insist that unalienable rights apply to every one. Supporting the Shah of Iran rather than distancing ourselves from his regime resulted in justified resentment of the US by Iranian citizens. We are free to point out that they are not better off under their present regime but that in no way justifies showing favoritism to the Shah.
I see a similar problem with our treatment of China. We run a significant risk if we become too willing to ignore tyranny, no matter how economically attractive it may be. Our long time favoritism toward Saudi Arabia, though understandable given their control of such a large portion of the world's oil, may cost us dearly in future years. I would prefer to see us develop Alaskan oil and reduce our need to tolerate the Saudi government.
It wasn't. The same thing should have happenned to all of them, unless it was not in our interests to do so.
Maybe you should pose your question to the government which failed miserably in protecting those persons who died right's. Maybe you should ask just why that same government (despite a $2trillion/year budget) why it was unable to perform it's most basic function, which is to defend the liberties of it's citizens.
Government can not protect you. It's already proven that it can't, yet you welcome more draconian laws so that it can fail some more and make more excuses. How many times did you burn your hand before you figured out the stove was hot?.
---max
Look at it this way. How many agents are involved in prosecution of JJ? How many gov't lawyers? How much federal court resources? Now, take those same resources and apply them to finding and deporting Arabs who have overstayed their welcome.Which makes more sense?
Think of it another way. Suppose that the prosecution of JJ is successful. How many other Americans do you scare away from joining the Taliban? There ain't no huge number of Americans flying to Pakistan to join up. So all you accomplish by winning is ---nothing. Just some revenge against a goofy-a** twerp from California.
And what if the G'ovt loses? The case against JJ is very weak. The only way they could even charge him was to allege he was involved in a conspiracy to kill the CIA operative over there. Wow, that's an uphill battle. You got about a thousand or so bitter enemies of America in a closed facility with weapons and some of them decide to kill the American. The odds of that happening were about 99.9% whether JJ was there or not. The only lawsuit here would be a negligence action against whatever idiots let the prisoners in without taking their weapons and maybe a suit against the CIA guy's bosses for sending him into a death-trap.
And what about the negative propaganda aspects of JJ walking free? No, it is sheer idiocy to prosecute this guy. The US has a lot to lose and nothing to gain. IMHO. parsy.
Yes. As Kafka's "The Trial" adumbrates.
He was (technically) an illegal, not a citizen. I was under the impression that the Constitution was for US Citizens.
Exactly my point.. these 'bad guys' are non citizens. They shouldn't have the same rights as citizens.
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