[Arthur Wildfire! March]

How does "sealing the borders" deal with visa over-stayers and sleeper cells that have been here for years?

Like I wrote earlier, the data base on foreigners can remain. Rather than track citizens forever, we track foreign students/etc. forever.

And why would you get so foamy about something you read in a newspaper column, without reading the bill for yourself or looking for the otherside of the argument?

If you got the facts, please lay them out. Safire would not write an editorial like this, IMHO, if there was a chance it would backfire on him. I don't think he's eager to get drummed out of the political scene.

GW Bush, on the other hand, wants to keep us safe. I believe that. And like all good, effective presidents who see potential dangers, he wants to increase his power. It is only natural. But the long term consequences could be severe.

Oh and BTW, they already have Orwellian survelliance, such as Echelon. Half of what Safire wrote is already going on even before GW. Did they ever shut down Carnivore?

[ChadGore]

Re: If you got the facts, please lay them out

The onus isn't upon her to educate you on the topic at hand, that falls on YOUR shoulders.

[Deb]

I hope they didn't shut down Echelon or Carnivore, but since the feds know when the terrorists are talking to each other, we can assume they're still up. Thank God (and no thanks to you) .

Why don't you draw up and submit to the WH, a list of acceptable policies and devices that will stop the thousands of maniacal terrorists, currently in or country, who would like to turn you and your family into crunchy landfill. The phones are waiting.

I don't think you addressed the sleeper cell problem.

[JusticeLives]

You said:

"Oh and BTW, they already have Orwellian survelliance, such as Echelon. Half of what Safire wrote is already going on even before GW. Did they ever shut down Carnivore?"

Arthur, I'm glad you brought this up. I believe both were up and running prior to 9/11 but don't know if this is true at present, but I think it's not likely to be pulled any time soon. I have a problem about the initial reaction to 9/11 by our armed services and airforce. It gives me the chills to think Did all those in command just sit there shocked for several hours paralyzed by fear? THAT'S not very comforting, because they're supposed to be our top dogs, and they failed us. No one made a move. Early on, no commentators mused about what our airforce was doing. Do you know if there's a no-fly zone over the Pentagon?

That said, I wonder why the BigEars tag-team didn't pick anything up on the pending 9/11 attack when, in fact, the BigEars got some face-time in print about its sp-eyeing on foreign corporations to get a jump on competitition. How come it works for some projects and not others viz good for foreign eavesdropping but not worth a crap domestically. I'd like to see some statistics on how many criminals the alphabet agencies have netted as a result of domestic sp-eyeing. I'll bet the percentage would be very very small. So, why do they need to sp-eye on law-abiding people? JL