John R. Carroll wrote:

Where we seem to differ is in the "what to try" department.
I'd like to try the things that will remove the threat more permanently.
Treat the disease, if you will, at gunpoint or not. Whatever works.

Maybe you're right. I'll give it some thought..

In article .com, G.W. says...

You've just given up your rights under the fourth amendment, and you
didn't even know it.

Well, of course nobody wants the government "spying" on them

This is exactly what's going on. The NSA has unbelieveable power
to intercept and inspect phone traffic like that.

but I'd
dare say that if we had another major Al Qaida attack and it was found
that the government was purposely Not monitoring communication of
overseas calls with Al Qaida suspects, there would be another round of
calls for impeachment.

That's what I don't *get*. There is a secret court that has been
set up for many years, their only purpose in life is to provide
WARRANTS for these taps inside of 72 hours whenever the administration
wants them. Yet they were not using that court to obtain warrants,
when they could have.

Your objection is covered by the already existing system to provide
warrants as needed.

Jim


--
==================================================
please reply to:
JRR(zero) at pkmfgvm4 (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com
==================================================

"John R. Carroll" wrote in message
. com...
Ed Huntress wrote:
"John R. Carroll" wrote in message
. com...

G.W.,
You can't legistlate morality.

Feeling contrary today, I'm going to agree with Robert Bork on this
one and say that ALL legislation is legislation of morality. We make
laws to distinguish what we think is right from wrong; morality is
the distinction between right and wrong; all legislation is about
morality.

Borking me are you! That's novel. How many people can say they've been
Borked by Ed Huntress?
LOL
There is truth in that but the law flows from the constitution not the
other
way around.
We are, after all, discussing the Federal interest here and not the
State's.


I think what you're referring to here is primarily sexual behavior,
maybe with some social behavior added in. We effectively legislate
against many aspects of those things on which there is a large
consensus. On others, the consensus breaks down, and the laws are
largely or partially ignored.

Yes Ed, they are ignored. There is no fundamental principal involved.

I think you're wrong about that. There is principle, but the principle goes
against the ideas many of us hold about individual liberty. But, then, so
does much of legislation. That's the dilemma of democracy.

This is results in a lack of respect for the law and has lead to the
enormous influence of small but influential groups of advocates of
particular points of view beyond the broader consensus.

Hmm. Non sequitur. The lack of respect for law and the influence of those
small groups doesn't connect in any way I can see. IMO, those small groups
are influential because of their intensity of belief.

For example, for most of us, letting girls in high school show their
midriffs with short tops is a ho-hum issue. But I've been to some board of
education meetings where the small, intense group that feels otherwise has
shown up. g They're adamant. We're bored. So they have leverage on the
issue and often get their way.

I'm adamant against the use of artificial materials on dry flies in
fly-fishing-only waters, but I haven't been able to get enough like-minded
souls together to correct this foul legislation that allows Mylar wings.
I'll have to see what I can learn from the Intelligent Design folks. They're
similar moral issues. g

--
Ed Huntress

G.W. wrote:

I agree, for the most part, but I just hope that when we are "expanding
the definition" of the Constitution that we don't take it too far. For
example, the idea that "free speech" equals pornography. Maybe that
idea was expanded a tiny bit too far.

And the idea that "free speech" included the right to shout FIRE in a
crowed theatre has already been put in proper perspective. So just
how far can the judiciary go? ??? :-)
...lew...

Ed Huntress wrote:
G.W. wrote:
4th Amendment:
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers,
and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be
violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause,
supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place
to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

Yep, I see it. It says right there that international phone calls to
Al Qaida-connected people shall not be monitored in time of war (unless
a court has taken the time to approve it, of course).

Sorry, G.W., but "to be secure in your person" means the government can't
invade your privacy without cause -- including your phone calls.
snip

After reading:

http://www.law.cornell.edu/anncon/ht...tml#amdt4_hd37

I'm thinking that the issue isn't quite as cut and dried as some on
either side of the issue are trying to make it. I'm no lawyer and I
imagine that the comments on the web site only scratch the surface of
the issue, but I'm left with, "The question of the scope of the
President’s constitutional powers, if any, remains judicially
unsettled."


R,
Tom Q.
--
Remove bogusinfo to reply.

Ed Huntress wrote:
"John R. Carroll" wrote in message
. com...
Ed Huntress wrote:
"John R. Carroll" wrote in message
. com...

G.W.,
You can't legistlate morality.


This is results in a lack of respect for the law and has lead to the
enormous influence of small but influential groups of advocates of
particular points of view beyond the broader consensus.

Hmm. Non sequitur. The lack of respect for law and the influence of
those small groups doesn't connect in any way I can see. IMO, those
small groups are influential because of their intensity of belief.

There is an awful lot of legislation passed that fly's pretty much under the
radar Ed.
You're in the drug business, you should know that. I doubt that most people
have the slightest knowledge of how that industry is "regulated" . There is
a rather large constituency believing that you only need enough money/juice
to do what you want regardless of the law. The net effect seems to be to
concentrate power among the few that do care whether they represent the main
stream or not.
Were that not the case the pharmaceutical industry would look a lot
different in the US than what we see today.


For example, for most of us, letting girls in high school show their
midriffs with short tops is a ho-hum issue. But I've been to some
board of education meetings where the small, intense group that feels
otherwise has shown up. g They're adamant. We're bored. So they
have leverage on the issue and often get their way.

I'm adamant against the use of artificial materials on dry flies in
fly-fishing-only waters, but I haven't been able to get enough
like-minded souls together to correct this foul legislation that
allows Mylar wings. I'll have to see what I can learn from the
Intelligent Design folks. They're similar moral issues. g

Either that or get the au naturals to hire a lobbiest and kick in a little
money to have mylar regulated out of the industry.
It worked for ID.

Merry Christmas Ed.

--
John R. Carroll
Machining Solution Software, Inc.
Los Angeles San Francisco
www.machiningsolution.com

"Tom Quackenbush" wrote in message
...

After reading:

http://www.law.cornell.edu/anncon/ht...tml#amdt4_hd37

I'm thinking that the issue isn't quite as cut and dried as some on
either side of the issue are trying to make it. I'm no lawyer and I
imagine that the comments on the web site only scratch the surface of
the issue, but I'm left with, "The question of the scope of the
President's constitutional powers, if any, remains judicially
unsettled."

I haven't read your link yet, Tom (I hope I will have time to do so) but
it's a common subject among Constitutional scholars that the powers of the
president, in wartime or under circumstances that have some of the
characteristics of war (like conditions right now), are ambiguous and
subject to wide interpretations. It's the result of vagueness inherent in
the idea of "actions necessary to accomplish..." We're seeing the debate
become public right now.

One legal scholar named Yoo, formerly of the Bush administration lawyer and
now a law professor, shaped a lot of the theory under which Bush is
operating. I started to search for his articles last night but I'm out of
time for it. He is known as an advocate of wide-ranging presidential power,
and he's no lightweight.

OTOH, legal scholars tend to get out of their research and logic what they
want to get out of them. Some of them, like Bork, seem to delight in doing
high-wire acts with speculative legal philosophy. Yoo's collegues, while
they respect him greatly, seem to imply that he also gets a charge out of
the high wire.

And let's be frank: Bush is unlikely to have a genuine opinion of his own on
the matter. He's no Constitutional scholar, and he wasn't a "C" student for
nothing. He's listening to his advisors and acting on what he wants to hear
from them. Yoo was one of his advisors.

--
Ed Huntress

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...
"John R. Carroll" wrote in message
. com...

G.W.,
You can't legistlate morality.

Feeling contrary today, I'm going to agree with Robert Bork on this one
and
say that ALL legislation is legislation of morality. We make laws to
distinguish what we think is right from wrong; morality is the distinction
between right and wrong; all legislation is about morality.

I think what you're referring to here is primarily sexual behavior, maybe
with some social behavior added in. We effectively legislate against many
aspects of those things on which there is a large consensus. On others,
the
consensus breaks down, and the laws are largely or partially ignored.

--
Ed Huntress

You are 100% correct. Morality is legislated every day. People that claim
otherwise are simply mistaken. Everything from the age of sexual consent, to
the use of alcohol, to the language we use, you name it the government
regulates it. So for anyone that doesn't know it the answer is yes, morality
is regulated all the time. Hope that clears things up.

Hawke

"G.W." wrote in message
oups.com...
4th Amendment:
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers,
and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be
violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause,
supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place
to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

Yep, I see it. It says right there that international phone calls to
Al Qaida-connected people shall not be monitored in time of war (unless
a court has taken the time to approve it, of course).


One of the groups that the government likes to listen in on overseas happens
to be American journalists. They make calls from overseas to the US all the
time. Lots of times they may have information the government might want,
like who they have been in contact with, terrorists maybe? Those journalists
have a right to privacy, which is in the constitution. Sure, they're not
terrorists but so what if the government goes a little too far and taps them
anyway. It might stop a terrorist act, right?

Once you let the government get rolling they never know when to stop. Give
up a few rights and the next thing you know they want to take some
more...and more. It's like taxes, once they put them on something how often
do they take them off? Like, haven't they taken in enough taxes yet to have
paid for that bridge in San Francisco? If we don't keep a tight leash on the
government we're going to wind up with a tight one on us.

Hawke

"Hawke" wrote in message
...

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...
"John R. Carroll" wrote in message
. com...

G.W.,
You can't legistlate morality.

Feeling contrary today, I'm going to agree with Robert Bork on this one
and
say that ALL legislation is legislation of morality. We make laws to
distinguish what we think is right from wrong; morality is the
distinction
between right and wrong; all legislation is about morality.

I think what you're referring to here is primarily sexual behavior, maybe
with some social behavior added in. We effectively legislate against many
aspects of those things on which there is a large consensus. On others,
the
consensus breaks down, and the laws are largely or partially ignored.

--
Ed Huntress

You are 100% correct. Morality is legislated every day. People that claim
otherwise are simply mistaken. Everything from the age of sexual consent,
to
the use of alcohol, to the language we use, you name it the government
regulates it. So for anyone that doesn't know it the answer is yes,
morality
is regulated all the time. Hope that clears things up.

Hawke



Yes, and aren't we all a more advanced, more moral society because of all
these helpful laws?

YOU BET.

Steve

4th Amendment:
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers,
and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be
violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause,
supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place
to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

Yep, I see it. It says right there that international phone calls to
Al Qaida-connected people shall not be monitored in time of war (unless
a court has taken the time to approve it, of course).

Sorry, G.W., but "to be secure in your person" means the government can't
invade your privacy without cause -- including your phone calls.
snip

After reading:

http://www.law.cornell.edu/anncon/ht...tml#amdt4_hd37

I'm thinking that the issue isn't quite as cut and dried as some on
either side of the issue are trying to make it. I'm no lawyer and I
imagine that the comments on the web site only scratch the surface of
the issue, but I'm left with, "The question of the scope of the
President's constitutional powers, if any, remains judicially
unsettled."


R,
Tom Q.

Keep one thing in mind. No matter what a president does he always says that
it was legal, whether it turns out to be or not. Presidents always overstep
their authority at some point and no matter how improper their actions they
will always argue that what they did was right and legal. And they always
say that their lawyers have researched the issue and agree with the
president's actions. It doesn't mean a thing. Any time a president does
something that is questionable in a legal sense it has to go to the courts
to determine whether is really is legal or not despite what the president
and his supporters say. In Bush's case the odds are that his failure to stay
within the bounds of the FISA act means he's guilty of a crime. With a
Republican majority in Congress it's moot. He could commit murder and they
would not find he did anything wrong. Which is why letting Republicans
control all the branches of the government mustn't be allowed to happen
again.

Hawke

"Hawke" wrote in message
...

"G.W." wrote in message
oups.com...
4th Amendment:
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers,
and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be
violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause,
supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place
to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

Yep, I see it. It says right there that international phone calls to
Al Qaida-connected people shall not be monitored in time of war (unless
a court has taken the time to approve it, of course).


One of the groups that the government likes to listen in on overseas
happens
to be American journalists. They make calls from overseas to the US all
the
time. Lots of times they may have information the government might want,
like who they have been in contact with, terrorists maybe? Those
journalists
have a right to privacy, which is in the constitution. Sure, they're not
terrorists but so what if the government goes a little too far and taps
them
anyway. It might stop a terrorist act, right?

Once you let the government get rolling they never know when to stop. Give
up a few rights and the next thing you know they want to take some
more...and more. It's like taxes, once they put them on something how
often
do they take them off? Like, haven't they taken in enough taxes yet to
have
paid for that bridge in San Francisco? If we don't keep a tight leash on
the
government we're going to wind up with a tight one on us.

Hawke



I kind of like that leash that Paris Hilton has on her dog. I think it
would look really good on Harry Reid, but only if he would eat dog biscuits,
and I could pull his ear if he made any unpleasant or inappropriate sounds.

What do YOU think? And what size choker do you like? Or do you like the
soft collars?

There are so many choices when reining in a government.

I have a dominatrix that's a diesel mechanic who's temporarily out of work.
Well, just until her case comes up, and they can't find one of the
witnesses, so it looks good for her. Do you have any positions open for
her? Lordy knows, she's good in a lot of positions. I'm sure she'd be a
very strict person for the other end of your leash. Of course, she would
need adequate compensation, a limo, a driver, and she's really not into
compromises.

I'll mention to it to her next time we have a session.

In the meantime, watch out for those invisible silent black helicopters, and
the inaudible wiretaps. And cell phone interception. And radar monitoring
with laser enhanced barcoding. The ones on Campbell's soup are actually
self transferring. If you pick up a can of Campbell's, then check your hand
with a black light, you will see what I mean. It works the same way with
drinking water additives from your local city supplier. And doubly worse
with bottled water. Just drink some of it, and hold a black light up to
your pee stream. It's enough to make you want to drink only rainwater, but
that can be influenced by electromagnetic wave pulses from satellites. Did
you know that? Of course you would, being knowledgeable about clandestine
government activities.

We need to get together, but need a code. We have to be very careful,
though. They broke Letterman's code, and he has some of the best code
monkeys known to the free world. We need to let that one die down for a
couple of months before we start anything. We could pass coded information
through the newsgroup, just like Al Kayda is doing. He's posting under
various aliases, but those of us who know, know who he is. Right, Hawke?
Or is that High Flyer? I didn't get the last code book. And now that this
Letterman thing has broken, I'm not sure my last book hasn't been
compromised.

And don't worry too much about what the government does. They're mainly
lackeys working for The Outfit, and are in the process of working their way
up. The journalists too.

Go to your nearest Starbucks and sit by the window. Watch the outside for a
man smoking Marlboros. When he tosses his crumpled cigarette package on the
ground, pick it up, take it home, and hold it to a black light. There will
be a message for you.

I hope that I am knowing that I can trust you to do these things. You know
the other alternative.

Steve (not my real name)

"Hawke" wrote in message
...


snip

In Bush's case the odds are that his failure to stay
within the bounds of the FISA act means he's guilty of a crime. With a
Republican majority in Congress it's moot. He could commit murder and they
would not find he did anything wrong. Which is why letting Republicans
control all the branches of the government mustn't be allowed to happen
again.

Hawke

Or Democrats. When one party controls the executive and the legislative
branches, all pretense of checks and balances goes to hell -- like the
earlier part of Bush's presidency, for example, and some previous terms of
Democrats in our lifetimes (if my memory is correct about Dems controlling
both the House and Senate at the same time, while a Dem president is in
office. I'd have to check about the Senate).

It's interesting to see how Congress is behaving since Bush became a weak
lame duck, however. Now it takes just a few Republicans to switch sides on
an issue and it's stalled. This probably is a good thing, because we were
winding up with some ideological federal legislation that didn't reflect
majority interests.

--
Ed Huntress

jim rozen wrote:

The current adminstration *tried* to ask congress for the ability
to do warrentless wiretapping on citizens in the US. They were
not allowed to this. The answer was "NO."

It also doesn't say "GW's house cannot be searched without a warrant."

So your house can now be entered and searched by the police, at any
time, without them having to obtain a warrant from a judge. Right?

You've just given up your rights under the fourth amendment, and you
didn't even know it.

Jim

Well, of course nobody wants the government "spying" on them but I'd
dare say that if we had another major Al Qaida attack and it was found
that the government was purposely Not monitoring communication of
overseas calls with Al Qaida suspects, there would be another round of
calls for impeachment.
Nobody is talking about breaking into anyone's house without a search
warrant. I could be wrong but I thought it was all about communications
to other countries with people suspected of having something to do with
terrorists. I also thought that the information found could not be used
in court, so if your French bookie called you there would be no worry.
GW


In the first place, we have a record that shows us to be pretty lousy in our
intelligence capabilities overseas, with our not knowing Al Aqeda was
planning to hit us, or that we were totally mistaken about WMDs in Iraq, for
example. So our ability to know what's going on in other countries is weak,
to say the least. When we say we just want to monitor Al Qaeda suspects how
much confidence do you have that is what is actually happening. Personally,
I don't think we can tell an Al Qaeda suspect from an Israeli most of the
time. It's just not believeable that the government is any good at
determining who is "bad" over there and who isn't.

The second thing is that why do you believe that the government isn't just
tapping every conversation and sorting out later who's a suspect and who
isn't? That's my guess. They tap everyone and of course they couldn't get
legal authority to do that. But they think they can do whatever they want
and worry about it later. It's Nixonian thinking. I've seen it before and
Bush looks like he's cut from the same jib as Nixon. Both of them thought
they had unlimited power. Bush sure acts like he thinks so.

Hawke

Hawke wrote:
"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...
"John R. Carroll" wrote in message
. com...

G.W.,
You can't legistlate morality.

Feeling contrary today, I'm going to agree with Robert Bork on this
one and say that ALL legislation is legislation of morality. We make
laws to distinguish what we think is right from wrong; morality is
the distinction between right and wrong; all legislation is about
morality.

I think what you're referring to here is primarily sexual behavior,
maybe with some social behavior added in. We effectively legislate
against many aspects of those things on which there is a large
consensus. On others, the consensus breaks down, and the laws are
largely or partially ignored.

--
Ed Huntress

You are 100% correct. Morality is legislated every day. People that
claim otherwise are simply mistaken. Everything from the age of
sexual consent, to the use of alcohol, to the language we use, you
name it the government regulates it. So for anyone that doesn't know
it the answer is yes, morality is regulated all the time. Hope that
clears things up.


My point was that it doesn't work.

--
John R. Carroll
Machining Solution Software, Inc.
Los Angeles San Francisco
www.machiningsolution.com

What has happened to Gunner?
He couldn't have let this thread go by without
comment.
Is he o.K.?

"John R. Carroll"
wrote in message
. com...
Ed Huntress wrote:
"John R. Carroll"
wrote in
message
. com...

G.W.,
You can't legistlate morality.

Feeling contrary today, I'm going to agree with
Robert Bork on this
one and say that ALL legislation is legislation
of morality. We make
laws to distinguish what we think is right from
wrong; morality is
the distinction between right and wrong; all
legislation is about
morality.

Borking me are you! That's novel. How many
people can say they've been
Borked by Ed Huntress?
LOL
There is truth in that but the law flows from
the constitution not the other
way around.
We are, after all, discussing the Federal
interest here and not the State's.


I think what you're referring to here is
primarily sexual behavior,
maybe with some social behavior added in. We
effectively legislate
against many aspects of those things on which
there is a large
consensus. On others, the consensus breaks
down, and the laws are
largely or partially ignored.

Yes Ed, they are ignored. There is no
fundamental principal involved.
This is results in a lack of respect for the law
and has lead to the
enormous influence of small but influential
groups of advocates of
particular points of view beyond the broader
consensus.


--
John R. Carroll
Machining Solution Software, Inc.
Los Angeles San Francisco
www.machiningsolution.com

Tom Miller wrote:
What has happened to Gunner?
He couldn't have let this thread go by without
comment.
Is he o.K.?


Tom,
I've been thinking the same thing. I'll see if I can scare him up.

--
John R. Carroll
Machining Solution Software, Inc.
Los Angeles San Francisco
www.machiningsolution.com

Ed Huntress wrote:



And let's be frank: Bush is unlikely to have a genuine opinion of his own on
the matter. He's no Constitutional scholar, and he wasn't a "C" student for
nothing. He's listening to his advisors and acting on what he wants to hear
from them. Yoo was one of his advisors.

Americans choose the best "C" student they can get, even if by a small
margin.
Kerry finished Yale with a cumulative score of 76.
Bush finished Yale with a cumulative score of 77.


--
Accidental creation should not be taught as a fact.
Intelligent creation should not be banned from teachings as
unconstitutional.

On 23 Dec 2005 10:45:52 -0800, "G.W." wrote:

John R. Carroll wrote:

G.W.,
You can't legistlate morality.
Be a better parent. What better opportunity is there to teach proper moral
behavior is there?
I do realize that many parents are simply to lazy or irresponsible to be of
much use as parents but that's the only real answer and it's also the whole
problem.
The same is true for abortion and other like issues. Making this illegal
won't appreciably reduce demand. If you want to reduce demand bring kids up
not to "demand" the things in the first place. As long as that demand exists
a supply will be at hand. That may outrage some but the facts remain outrage
or no...


Ok, I can go along with that up to a point. Raising moral children is a
good solution. On the other hand, you still don't want to live in a
society that has absolutely no limits. I don't think we need a whore
house on every corner under some bogus idea of "free speech". Sensible
limits should be set by our elected representatives not by some judge
who misinterprets the Constitution.
That's only my opinion.

http://www.manhattan-institute.org/h...handcuffed.htm

FBI Handcuffed
October 27, 2002

By Heather Mac Donald

CIA director George Tenet warned recently that the threat from al
Qaeda is as high as it was before 9/11. Unfortunately, there is
another parallel to the pre-9/11 environment: Clinton-era guidelines
that had paralyzed the county's intelligence agencies by 2001 - and
still govern our anti-terrorism efforts.

The Bush administration is fighting to revoke those guidelines in the
most important anti-terror litigation since 9/11. The outcome of that
case will determine whether the United States will have the
intelligence capacity to defeat al Qaeda.

Osama bin Laden couldn't have drafted better rules for ensuring that
his operatives could plan in peace than intelligence guidelines
drafted in 1995 by then-Attorney General Janet Reno and immediately
dubbed "the Wall." It is by now a truism that terrorism will be foiled
only by unfettered information-sharing and collaboration. The Wall
guaranteed the opposite.

Let's say FBI agents Dell and Simpson both work in New York City's FBI
office. Agent Dell has a wiretap on Mahmoud, a Yemeni in Brooklyn,
suspected of connections to an al Qaeda cell. Agent Simpson is working
the criminal case against the al Qaeda bombing of USS Cole in Yemen.

In a rational world, Dell and Simpson would talk to each other about
their investigations, for each agent possesses knowledge that may help
the other. In a recent tapped phone conversation, for example, Mahmoud
had mentioned a dying swan and several names that Dell doesn't
recognize. Unbeknownst to Dell, Simpson is familiar with Mahmoud's
code and had come across one of the named people several years ago. If
the two agents collaborated, both their cases would advance
immeasurably.

THAT is not the world of the Wall, however. Per the Wall, Dell and
Simpson can't talk to each other. Only if Dell obtains permission from
layer upon layer of FBI and Justice Department bureaucracy may he show
Mahmoud's phone conversation to Simpson. Even if permission is
granted, Dell and Simpson may discuss the wiretap only in the presence
of a bureaucrat "chaperone," to insure that Simpson does not advise
Dell how to improve the Brooklyn cell investigation.

The Reno guidelines erect another wall between counterterrorism agents
and prosecutors. Even though some U.S. attorneys had developed
valuable knowledge about al Qaeda, they are not allowed to talk to
intelligence investigators except under tightly-controlled
supervision, following lengthy bureaucratic vetting.

Even then, they are prohibited from suggesting strategies to improve
the government's chances of locking away terrorists for life. Mary Jo
White, former New York U.S. Attorney and the most seasoned al Qaeda
prosecutor before 9/11, observes: "The walls are the single greatest
danger we have blocking our ability to obtain and act on [terrorist]
information."

This deadly system for squelching knowledge grew out of a 1978 law
passed in the high season of post-Watergate grandstanding. The Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) put national security under the
aegis of judges for the first time in history. Under FISA, the
president and FBI can wiretap foreign spies or terrorists and their
American collaborators only if granted permission from a specially
created court - the FISA court.

NO sooner had FISA passed than civil libertarian zealots started
braying for more restrictions on our intelligence capacity. They
argued that power-mad prosecutors would hijack FISA to wiretap
garden-variety domestic criminals.

This argument was ludicrous: FISA's probable-cause standards defining
who could be surveilled make such a scenario impossible.

No matter. To avert a wholly non-existent threat, an artificial
distinction developed between intelligence and criminal anti-terror
investigations. FISA could be used to gather "pure" foreign
intelligence information, the thinking went, but not to learn about an
al Qaeda plot to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge, if the government's
potential goal was to prosecute the plotters.

This distinction is nonsense. Terrorism is a crime, so any
intelligence investigation of terrorism is also a criminal
investigation. Prosecution disables terrorists and should be regarded
as a legitimate purpose of a FISA tap. Criminal agents and prosecutors
should be involved in terrorist investigations from Day One, since
their knowledge may provide the crucial missing link in a case.

The Wall took these absurd distinctions to their insane conclusion.
The ink had barely dried on the Reno guidelines before America's
anti-terror operations suffered a nervous breakdown. Not only did
information-sharing stop almost completely, but Justice Department
bureaucrats, in full risk-averse mode, started imposing ever higher
probable-cause standards on wiretap requests before they would even
ap- proach the FISA court for approval.

The practical result? "We absolutely were unable to check people out,"
angrily recalls James Kallstrom, former head of the FBI's New York
office.

But the worst was still to come. In November 2000, the chief judge of
the FISA court, Royce Lamberth, blasted the FBI for 75 trivial
breaches of the Wall. The Reno Justice Department, it turned out, was
unable to abide by the Reno Wall. The "violations" consisted of minor
disseminations of FISA information to criminal anti-terror agents, and
failures to disclose that FISA suspects were also being investigated
for crimes.

After the court's temper tantrum, the Justice Department went into
shock and hunkered down completely. The Wall went even higher.
Surveillance requests were strangled under miles of red tape.

Fast forward to August 2001. Coleen Rowley and her FBI agents in
Minneapolis were furiously banging their fists against the Wall. They
desperately sought permission from FBI headquarters to request a
search warrant for one Zacarias Moussaoui, an incompetent and highly
suspicious flight student associated with Islamic fundamentalists. FBI
bureaucrats, however, still petrified by the Lamberth outburst,
quashed the warrant inquiry on grounds far more stringent than FISA
itself requires.

HAD the Minneapolis agents searched Moussaoui's effects, they would
have found leads to two of the 9/11 hijackers and the Hamburg cell
that planned the 9/11 attacks.

A day after shutting down the Moussaoui investigation, the same
bureaucrats rejected a New York FBI agent's frantic plea to join an
11th-hour search for Khalid Almihdar, an al Qaeda operative at loose
in the country.

The agent and his men were on the wrong side of the Wall: They were
anti-terror criminal investigators, and Almihdar was not yet under
investigation for a crime. Almihdar was never found. Thirteen days
later, he commandeered American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon.

RATHER than expose this sorry history, the elite press has shamelessly
distorted it. In May 2002, Coleen Rowley complained to FBI Director
Robert Mueller about the Wall's crippling effect on the Moussaoui
investigation. The media instantly turned her into a feminist heroine,
who had courageously blown the whistle against a male bastion of
Republican incompetence (a k a. the FBI).

But when Attorney General John Ashcroft tried to tear down the Wall
later this year - just what Rowley was demanding - the intelligentsia
saw only impending tyranny.

Ashcroft had submitted to the FISA court proposed new FISA guidelines
that would allow full information-sharing among the nation's
anti-terror forces. Judge Lamberth starchily rejected the revised
guidelines - hardly surprising, since the architect of the Wall
guidelines in the Clinton administration now advises the FISA court on
legal matters.

When Lamberth's opinion leaked this August, the anti-Ashcroft media
machine let out a whoop and ramped into high gear.

ACCORDING to opinion-makers, the United States had just avoided
becoming a police state. Coleen Rowley was out of sight and out of
mind. The media howled over the 75 Wall violations, disclosed for the
first time in the Lamberth opinion, while only sporadically pointing
out, and then only sotto voce, that those violations had all occurred
on President Clinton's watch.

The opinion elites pulled off an impressive sleight-of-hand: They
argued that the Wall was the only thing standing between liberty and
Mr. Ashcroft's jackboots, without ever letting on what it was.

The Justice Department has appealed the FISA court's rejection of the
proposed anti-Wall guidelines. If the department loses on appeal,
Congress must act immediately to tear down the Wall. America cannot
afford to let hothouse legalisms drag down its counterterrorism
capacity any longer.

Many of the "intelligence failures" for which the press has so
gleefully criticized the Bush administration were in fact mandated by
the Wall and other crippling restrictions. Nearly 40 years of liberal
intellectual hegemony over national security issues have left the
country terrifyingly vulnerable to real enemies, not imagined ones
like President Bush and John Ashcroft.

Heather Mac Donald is the author of "The Burden of Bad Ideas." Adapted
from the Autumn issue of City Journal, where Mac Donald is a
contributing editor.

©2002 New York Post
"Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire.
Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us)
off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give
them self determination under "play nice" rules.

Think of it as having your older brother knock the **** out of you
for torturing the cat." Gunner

On 23 Dec 2005 10:45:52 -0800, "G.W." wrote:

John R. Carroll wrote:

G.W.,
You can't legistlate morality.
Be a better parent. What better opportunity is there to teach proper moral
behavior is there?
I do realize that many parents are simply to lazy or irresponsible to be of
much use as parents but that's the only real answer and it's also the whole
problem.
The same is true for abortion and other like issues. Making this illegal
won't appreciably reduce demand. If you want to reduce demand bring kids up
not to "demand" the things in the first place. As long as that demand exists
a supply will be at hand. That may outrage some but the facts remain outrage
or no...


Ok, I can go along with that up to a point. Raising moral children is a
good solution. On the other hand, you still don't want to live in a
society that has absolutely no limits. I don't think we need a whore
house on every corner under some bogus idea of "free speech". Sensible
limits should be set by our elected representatives not by some judge
who misinterprets the Constitution.
That's only my opinion.

Why the FBI Didn't Stop 9/11
Heather Mac Donald
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The greatest obstacle to domestic security in the war on terror is the
worldview of the liberal elites. No sooner had the Twin Towers fallen
than the press and an army of advocacy groups were on the hunt for
victims—not of Muslim fanaticism but of American bigotry. The liberal
commentariat has denounced every commonsensical measure to protect the
country the Bush administration has proposed as an eruption of racism
or tyranny.

But the elite ideology began its corrosive work long before 9/11. For
three decades, the liberal establishment, fixated on preventing a
highly unlikely repeat of Watergate-era abuses, has encumbered
America’s intelligence and national security capacities with
increasingly crippling procedural inhibitions, culminating in domestic
intelligence restrictions promulgated by the Clinton administration in
1995. As long as the elites continue to act as if America’s biggest
enemy is not al-Qaida but the country’s own allegedly repressive and
bigoted instincts, the nation’s defense against terror at home will
proceed at half throttle.

In August 2001, mere weeks before the greatest mass murder of
civilians in U.S. history, the Justice Department squelched two
prescient efforts to avert the attacks. In Minneapolis, FBI agents
frantically sought permission to search the possessions of one
Zacarias Moussaoui, a bumbling, suspicious flight student and a
colleague of Islamic fundamentalists. In New York, another FBI agent
no less frantically sought clearance to throw his squad into an
11th-hour search for Khalid Almihdar, an al-Qaida operative at large
in the country.

Justice Department bureaucrats refused both requests on absurd
grounds. In the case of the New York agent, for example, they argued
that because he was a criminal investigator, not an intelligence
investigator, his participation in the manhunt for Almihdar could
violate Almihdar’s rights: the al-Qaida agent was wanted not as an
ordinary felon but as a terrorist.

The refusals may have had enormous consequences. Had the Minneapolis
agents searched Moussaoui’s effects, they would have found leads to
two of the 9/11 terrorists and to the Hamburg al-Qaida cell that
planned the attack. Had the FBI been able to find Almihdar, it would
have apprehended the pilot who crashed American Airlines Flight 77
into the Pentagon. Instead, the plot hurtled on undisturbed to its
gruesome climax.

The media have portrayed both episodes as “intelligence failures,”
“communication failures,” or the failings of individual managers to
“connect the dots.” They were not. Each of these lost opportunities
was the foreseeable outcome of senseless terror-fighting restrictions
put into place by Attorney General Janet Reno in 1995. Good luck
finding any hint of the decisive role of the Clinton Justice
Department in press accounts of the Moussaoui and Almihdar affairs,
however.

The 1995 Reno guidelines, though the craziest development in
intelligence law to date, are not unprecedented. They are the
culmination of three decades of liberal grandstanding around
intelligence-gathering and use.

For most of the twentieth century, Congress, courts, and legal
scholars agreed that the president had plenary authority to
investigate and disarm threats to the national security. If the FBI
suspected a Russian attach&#eacute; in Washington of passing nuclear
secrets to the Soviet Union, for example, the Bureau could tap his
phone without needing permission from a judge. Judges were not
competent to make national security decisions, as an unusually
self-effacing court explained in 1980, because they lacked “mastery of
diplomacy and military affairs.” The Fourth Amendment’s warrant
requirement, legal opinion held, was intended to protect citizens
against unreasonable government intrusion in domestic crime
investigations, not where the survival of the nation itself was at
stake.

In the 1970s, however, the courts and Congress changed their minds,
signaling a new adversarial attitude toward executive power, born of
1960s anti-war protests and the Watergate revelations. Congressional
hearings on a rash of excessively zealous FBI and CIA domestic
investigations sent a clear message: the American government, not its
enemies, was the real threat to the American people.

In response, Congress saddled the investigation of foreign threats
with complex procedural and judicial restraints for the first time in
history. Under the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA),
the president (acting through the FBI) would need a judicial warrant
to surveil foreign spies and terrorists and their American
collaborators on American soil. The new law defined who could be
surveilled and under what circumstances, and it created two new
Justice Department bodies to monitor that surveillance: the FISA
court, composed of sitting federal judges, which issues surveillance
warrants (needing renewal every 90 days); and the gatekeeper Office of
Intelligence Policy and Review (OIPR), which screens surveillance
requests from FBI field offices and then argues them before the court.

Problems surfaced immediately. FBI agents complained that FISA created
a Catch-22 situation: in order to meet the statutory requirements for
obtaining a surveillance order, you needed to show that your target
was a probable spy with anti-American designs—part of the information
that the wiretap was intended to obtain. In 1982, a Senate Select
Committee reported that FISA had “enmeshed intelligence in procedures
wholly inappropriate to it.”

They hadn’t seen nuthin’ yet. Per the infallible rule of bureaucratic
accumulation, FISA would trigger an explosion of obtuse procedural
distinctions that would harm America’s ability to obtain, and act
swiftly upon, intelligence information.

One of the most vexing consequences of FISA was the requirement,
imposed over time by federal courts and Justice Department officials
themselves, that FBI agents continuously evaluate what their “purpose”
was in conducting foreign intelligence surveillance. As long as their
purpose remained gathering information on suspected spies and
terrorists for its own sake—to learn about the extent of a terror
cell, say, or to use in covert operations like infiltration—the FISA
wiretap could continue. But if the agents concluded that the suspects
had committed a crime that the government should prosecute, they had
to shut down the FISA wiretap, often prematurely.

In the late 1980s, for example, agents working for Oliver Revell, the
FBI’s Associate Deputy Director of Investigations, were monitoring
followers of Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal. A microphone installed
in the home of a cell member in St. Louis recorded the parents’ murder
of their daughter for becoming too Americanized. In order to prosecute
the murder case, the Bureau had to close down the FISA surveillance,
before agents had figured out the extent of the Abu Nidal cell.

Civil libertarian zealots sparked this nonsensical practice. They
argued that because the probable-cause standards for a FISA wiretap
were in some cases lower than the requirements for an ordinary
criminal wiretap, power-mad prosecutors would gin up specious FISA
requests in order to obtain criminal evidence in violation of
constitutional standards. Therefore, they said, the Justice Department
must draw a bright line between the gathering of foreign intelligence
information for intelligence purposes, on the one hand, and for
criminal investigation and prosecutorial purposes, on the other.

These arguments don’t withstand scrutiny. A FISA wiretap order is
essentially a judicial warrant within the meaning of the Fourth
Amendment. As Kenneth Bass III, the first director of the OIPR, argued
recently before the Senate Judiciary Committee, if the FISA court has
issued the surveillance order properly—to obtain information about the
agents of a foreign power—the fruits of that order should be available
for any national security use, including prosecution. Since acts of
terrorism and conspiracy to commit terrorism are themselves crimes,
the distinction between a “pure” foreign intelligence wiretap and a
“criminal” wiretap, where terrorism is concerned, is nonsensical.

Moreover, contrary to civil libertarian hyperventilating, FISA’s
probable-cause standards for surveilling U.S. citizens and permanent
resident aliens are almost indistinguishable from traditional criminal
wiretap standards. To get a FISA order for a citizen or resident alien
suspected of terrorism, the government must establish that he is an
agent of a foreign power and is knowingly engaged in international
terrorism or spying—in other words, committing a felony, just as for
an ordinary criminal wiretap.

But absurdity is no bar to realization in the airless world of civil
libertarian absolutism. To prevent the wholly fantastical abuse of
FISA power by criminal investigators and prosecutors, a set of
inhibitions gradually developed to regulate contacts among FBI agents
who were gathering intelligence under a FISA order, FBI agents who may
be investigating an already committed terrorist crime, and federal
prosecutors.

Those inhibitions reached their peak destructiveness with Attorney
General Reno’s “Procedures for Contacts Between the FBI and the
Criminal Division Concerning Foreign Intelligence and Foreign
Counterintelligence Investigations,” issued in July 1995. Immediately
dubbed “the Wall,” the 1995 guidelines erected a mind-boggling and
ultimately lethal set of impediments to cooperation among all relevant
anti-terrorist personnel.

Let’s say—and this is a purely hypothetical example—that David Dell,
an agent in the New York FBI office, has a FISA wiretap on Abdul
Muhammad, an Islamic fundamentalist Yemeni affiliated with a suspected
al-Qaida support cell in Brooklyn. Muhammad is not yet tied to any
crime or criminal conspiracy; Dell is surveilling him to determine the
extent of al-Qaida strength in New York. In a phone conversation with
a fellow Yemeni in Pakistan, Muhammad mentions a dying swan and
several Muslim names that Dell does not recognize. Several desks away
in the FBI’s downtown office, Sam Simpson is investigating the
al-Qaida bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000. Simpson also worked
on the al-Qaida bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa in 1998,
for which he traveled to Yemen and Kenya to execute warrants.

In a sane system, Dell and Simpson would be able to talk to each other
about their cases, for although Dell doesn’t recognize the names and
swan references in Abdul’s recent conversation, Simpson came across
some of the named men while he was in Kenya and recognizes the code
that Abdul is using. The content of the Abdul intercept would help
Simpson’s criminal case, and Simpson’s knowledge of the code and
identities of the men would help Dell map out the extent and possible
goals of the Brooklyn cell. And if Dell interviews Muhammad, in a sane
world Simpson would be in on the interview, since he might recognize
the significance of some of Muhammad’s replies in a way that Dell
could not, and he would then be able to press Muhammad immediately for
further information. Simpson might even suggest to Dell that he expand
his surveillance to a grocer in Brooklyn, suspected of running an
informal credit scheme, or hawallah, that may have sent money to the
USS Cole conspirators.

That reasonable (and, to repeat, entirely hypothetical) scenario is
not the world of the Wall. Under the Wall, Dell and Simpson may not
talk to each other, because Dell is receiving FISA information, and
Simpson is working on a criminal case against terrorists. If Dell
wants to pass any information to Simpson “over the Wall,” he first has
to get permission from FBI headquarters in Washington, which then
notifies the OIPR. If permission is granted, which is by no means
certain, someone from the OIPR has either to come from Washington to
New York or monitor all further communications between Dell and
Simpson over the phone. This bureaucratic Rube Goldberg machine
radically chills communication, of course; but the deeper problem is
that without Simpson’s expertise, Dell may not even recognize the
significance of the information he is receiving, and so it may not
even occur to him to request a Wall bypass. And as far as Simpson’s
offering suggestions to Dell about other targets that would strengthen
both their investigations, forget about it.

The insanities of the Wall don’t end here. Even if Dell and Simpson
are working on the same case, they cannot review raw intelligence
intercepts—recorded phone conversations among terrorists, for
example—in their entirety, lest Simpson start suggesting better
avenues of investigation. Instead, a high-ranking FBI official reviews
the intercept and segregates the bits that are appropriate for each to
see. But no third-party bureaucrat can possibly have the ground-level
knowledge necessary to understand the potential significance to each
investigator of the various bits. Nevertheless, in a climax of
perverse logic, the more important the terror case, the more
stringently policed is the segregation of intelligence intercepts.

Analogous to the Wall between FBI agents working in intelligence and
those working on criminal cases was another wall, between the FBI and
prosecutors, who also are barred from bringing their accumulated
knowledge to bear on all intelligence information. According to
Kenneth Bass, who helped draft FISA for the Carter administration,
none of these Reno-mandated restrictions reflects the law’s original
intent. “The Wall is absolutely ludicrous,” he says. “It is not in the
national interest.”

No sooner had the ink dried on the Wall guidelines than America’s
anti-terror operations suffered a nervous breakdown. Collaboration
broke down almost completely. Says Mary Jo White, former New York U.S.
attorney and the most seasoned al-Qaida prosecutor before 9/11: “The
walls are the single greatest danger we have blocking our ability to
obtain and act on [terrorist] information.”

Although the Wall only governs information-sharing, every other
FISA-regulated procedure became entangled in red tape after the Reno
edict. In 2000, the National Commission on Terrorism reported that the
OIPR was imposing impossibly high and statutorily unjustified
probable-cause standards. For example, to surveil someone who is
neither a citizen nor a permanent resident alien, FISA requires
showing that he is a member of a foreign terrorist organization. This
is tough enough. But the OIPR started requiring evidence of a crime or
specific knowledge of a group’s homicidal intentions before taking the
request to the FISA court, and ignored the target’s past activities in
determining probable cause. A worried Senate Select Committee on
Intelligence reported in 2000 that the OIPR was taking months
scrutinizing FISA applications from the field, even though the
nation’s safety depended on swift action against terrorist threats.

The practical effect? “We absolutely were unable to check people out,”
reports James Kallstrom, former head of the FBI’s New York office, in
anger. “How can you have a proactive agency that protects citizens,
if, in order to even start an investigation, you have to show that
someone is a member of a known terrorist organization, with the
wherewithal to carry out an attack and the intention to do so?”

Intelligence agents thought that things could not get much worse. They
were wrong. In November 2000, the chief judge of the FISA court, Royce
Lamberth, blasted the Bureau and one of its most respected agents for
trivial violations of the Wall. The Reno Justice Department, it had
turned out, was unable to abide by the Reno Wall. In September 2000,
the Clinton administration had notified the FISA court that there had
been over 75 breaches of the Wall since its inception. These included
such violations as: disseminations of FISA intelligence to terrorist
criminal squads in the FBI’s New York field office and to the U.S.
attorney’s office in the Southern District of New York without court
permission; a claim in a wiretap application that the target was not
under criminal investigation for terrorism when in fact he was; and
misstatements about the existence of a Wall in one particular FBI
office between intelligence and criminal squads, when actually all the
agents were on the same squad, and a supervisor overseeing both
investigations screened the raw intelligence intercepts.

The reasonable response to such revelations is: Big deal. None of
these Wall breaches violated anyone’s rights; they represent the most
technical of infractions. But the FISA court went berserk at these
supposed insults to its authority. It excoriated the FBI’s lead Hamas
investigator, Michael Resnick, for innocuous omissions in his FISA
requests and forbade him from ever appearing before it again. It ruled
that from then on, every last communication between intelligence
agents and law-enforcement officials required its approval.

In recoil, the FBI and Justice Department hunkered down completely.
FBI headquarters and the OIPR, already a crippling drag on terrorist
investigations, became paralyzing weights. Recalls Mary Jo White: “The
walls went higher. Nothing could have been worse.” It was as if the
Wall had become covered with concertina wire and broken glass, says
Kallstrom. Morale plummeted. Agents in the New York bureau put signs
on their desks saying: “You may not talk to me.”

Fast-forward to August 2001. Coleen Rowley and other FBI agents in her
Minneapolis office were furiously banging their fists against the
Wall. A Minneapolis agent had flagged Zacarias Moussaoui as a possible
terrorist threat, after a local flight school disclosed that Moussaoui
had been acting strangely and had paid cash (nearly $7,000) for
simulator training. The Minneapolis office learned from the French
Intelligence Service that Moussaoui, now in custody on an INS
violation, had connections to radical Islamic groups. Desperate to
search Moussaoui’s computer and possessions, the agents sought
permission from FBI central headquarters to ask the OIPR to seek a
warrant, as per Wall procedures.

They met only resistance. Finally, on August 28, 2001, the FBI’s
National Security Law Unit (NSLU)—incredibly, yet another bureaucratic
gatekeeper that stymies counterintelligence operations—pronounced that
there was insufficient evidence of Moussaoui’s connection specifically
to al-Qaida to justify a FISA search. FISA required no such showing:
the French Intelligence Services’ linking of Moussaoui to Islamic
radical groups in general was sufficient. The NSLU had imported a new,
non-mandated roadblock into the act in the mania of risk-aversion that
had gripped the agency after the Lamberth outburst. The investigation
was over—until September 11, when FBI headquarters decided that maybe
it ought to look into that computer after all.

Astoundingly, on August 29, 2001, the day after the National Security
Law Unit killed the Moussaoui investigation that would have led to two
9/11 hijackers and to the Hamburg cell that planned the attack, it
cited the Wall to rebuff as well a New York agent’s urgent pleas to
let him and his subordinates help track down al-Qaida member Khalid
Almihdar. According to the Bureau’s paranoid Wall interpretation,
because the New York agent was working criminal cases against
terrorists, and Almihdar had not been indicted for a crime, the agent
and his men could not cooperate with the intell agents searching for
Almihdar.

Immediately after the NSLU’s prohibition, the agent sent an angry
e-mail to FBI headquarters: “Someday someone will die—and wall or
not—the public will not understand why we were not . . . throwing
every resource” at terrorists.

On September 11, when his office received the passenger manifests of
the four hijacked flights, the agent shouted: “This is the same
Almihdar we’ve been talking about for three months.” In a parody of
bureaucratic buck-passing, his supervisor responded: “We did
everything by the book.”

One cannot understand America’s failure to prevent 9/11 without
understanding the history of the Wall. But rather than exposing the
truth, America’s opinion elites have failed even to grasp it. In place
of relentless investigation and tough-minded analysis, they have
adopted a series of mutually contradictory attitudes about
intelligence law determined by one goal only: discrediting the current
Republican administration.

In May 2002, Minneapolis agent Coleen Rowley released a memo she had
written to FBI director Robert Mueller, complaining of the Wall and
its role in blocking her office’s attempts to search Zacarias
Moussaoui’s computer and possessions. Had a search request been
granted, Rowley speculated, some part of the 9/11 plot might have been
foiled.

The media and anti-law-enforcement lobby could not have leaped quicker
to turn Rowley into a feminist heroine who had the guts to expose the
Bush administration’s failures. “Courageous whistleblower” was
the—quite accurate—epithet of choice. But against whom did Rowley blow
her whistle? Columnist Maureen Dowd, the New York Times’s most
knee-jerk feminist and reliable Republican baiter, didn’t need to do
any hard reporting to know. Calling Rowley a “woman of ingenuity and
integrity in [a] macho organization,” Dowd contrasts her to the lazy
and dull-witted FBI men, who were too “inept, obstructionist,
arrogant, antiquated, bloated and turf-conscious—and timid about
racial profiling” (no, that last phrase is not a typo) to prevent the
9/11 attacks.

None of these newly minted aggressive law-enforcement types bothered
to explicate the all-controlling role of the Clinton Wall in producing
the Bureau’s ingrained risk-aversion. Too onerous, no doubt, to read
through the mountains of reports necessary to uncover its existence
and trace its tragic legacy. Instead, the suddenly gung ho press
portrayed the Moussaoui struggle in an ahistorical vacuum, as the
product of incomprehensible Republican foot-dragging on national
security.

But look what happens next. In August 2002, the news breaks that
Attorney General John Ashcroft has submitted a request to the FISA
court to rescind the 1995 Wall guidelines. Having just lionized Rowley
for her assault on the Wall, the media turn around and demonize
Ashcroft for his assault on the Wall. This latest gyration—impelled by
a mixture of ignorance and hypocrisy—proceeded as follows:

Last March, the Justice Department asked the FISA court to approve new
FISA guidelines that would tear down the Wall, allowing full
cooperation between criminal investigators, prosecutors, and
intelligence agents in international terrorism cases. The department
forcefully argued that such cooperation was mandated by the USA
Patriot Act, which Congress passed in the wake of 9/11 to improve the
nation’s intelligence capacity. That meant, if the department was
right, that both the executive and the legislative branches demanded
the rescinding of guidelines promulgated by Janet Reno’s edict.

In May, the FISA court starchily rejected the Justice Department’s
proposed new guidelines. This result is not surprising: a leading
Clinton administration architect of the Wall, Allen Kornblum, now
advises the court on legal matters, and the new guidelines would strip
the court of its fearsome power.

Ordinarily, all FISA proceedings are secret. The court broke with
tradition, however, and grandiosely released its May 2002 opinion in
August. The anti-Ashcroft media machine ramped into high gear.
According to opinion makers, the country had just narrowly avoided
becoming a police state, deterring at the last minute the
megalomaniacal efforts of Attorney General Ashcroft to crush American
freedom under his jackboots. Coleen Rowley was out of sight and out of
mind. The media howled over the 75 Wall violations, criticized in the
Court’s opinion, while only sporadically pointing out, and then only
sotto voce, that those violations had all occurred on Clinton’s watch.

In a typical display of liberal self-righteousness, Jeffrey Rosen,
legal-affairs editor of The New Republic and professor at George
Washington Law School, warned in the Washington Post that the proposed
new FISA guidelines would “resurrect the specter of domestic
surveillance by the FBI that Congress specifically ruled out in the
1970s.” This is nonsense. FISA’s strict probable-cause standards for
U.S. citizens and the act’s exacting procedural requirements for
obtaining a surveillance order are, for better or worse, light years
from the pre-FISA era, when the executive could conduct warrantless
national security surveillance.

As in the Rowley affair, none of the reinvigorated defenders of
American liberty bothered actually to explain the Wall and its fatal
consequences. This silence guaranteed that the public could have
absolutely no understanding of what was at stake in Ashcroft’s
proposal, leaving the commentariat free to mischaracterize it at will.
But criticizing the Wall revisions without disclosing the specific
problems that those revisions aimed to correct is like criticizing
America’s recent war on the Taliban without mentioning 9/11.

If 1960s-vintage paranoia about the imminent American police state
created the intelligence paralysis leading up to 9/11, another key
component of the elite worldview has dragged down every commonsensical
effort to improve national security since the attacks. That is the
belief that America stands ever ready to oppress people of color.
Scarcely a homeland security proposal has emerged from the Bush
administration that the opinion elites have not portrayed as an
eruption of bigotry or tyranny.

After 9/11, the FBI investigated hundreds of thousands of terrorist
tips and ultimately picked up a mere 1,200 men, mostly illegal
immigrants, for questioning. The government detained some for weeks or
sometimes months, checking out their backgrounds, before deporting or
releasing them.

The vast majority of the men were Muslim. And any investigation of
Islamic terror cells worth its salt will turn up . . . Muslims! But so
charged and distorted has the debate about policing and race become
over the last decade that it is now professional suicide to say that,
in hunting Islamic terrorists, one is going to look for and find
Muslims.

It is a misnomer to call such an inevitable practice “racial
profiling,” as the term is commonly used. “Racial profiling,” as the
elites imagine it, takes place when police play the odds about crimes
that all groups commit, but at different rates. Looking for Muslims
for participation in Muslim jihad is not playing the odds; it is
following an ironclad tautology—Usama bin Ladin’s very definition of
what it means to be a warrior for jihad. Nevertheless, anti-police and
Arab advocates have co-opted the poisonous discourse about racial
profiling to tar all rational law-enforcement efforts against Islamic
terrorism as an outgrowth of blind prejudice.

Thus, the New York Times reported ominously that the post-9/11
detentions showed signs of “profiling.” According to this stupendous
illogic, a non-biased investigation of Islamic terrorism would detain
proportionate samples of Catholics, Protestants, Jews, and Hindus.

If the FBI and police have to defend themselves against charges of
bigotry whenever they investigate or arrest Muslims on suspicion of
Islamic terrorism, it’s going to be quite difficult, to say the least,
to fight Islamic terrorism. But that is precisely what investigators
are up against. When three of the 1,200 detainees were indicted in
Detroit this August for operating a terrorist support cell that was
infiltrating the Detroit International Airport, local Muslim leaders
denounced the indictments as just another instance of racist
stereotyping. “There is a feeling in our community of being a victim,
which is a painful experience after September 11,” complained Mohamad
Elahi, imam of the Dearborn Heights mosque.

Complaints of bias also greeted the arrest of members of another
alleged terrorist cell in upstate New York, indicted this September.
“This is a crime of terror by the FBI on the people of Lackawanna,”
explained a protester outside the courthouse where the six men were
being charged.

Cracking down on the crimes that make terrorism possible, above all
identity fraud, also risks charges of discrimination. This August, the
government charged 14 Detroit-area men, including six physicians, with
providing phony documents to immigrants. “Is the government only
targeting Arab-American doctors?” asked Imad Hamad of the
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. “We truly wonder about
the timing of it.” In the strange logic of these advocates, the
defendants, arrested and indicted for serious crimes, were more sinned
against than sinning.

This inflamed sense of grievance now leads Muslim spokesmen to equate
minor inconveniences—such as being questioned at an airport—with major
rights abuses. Sayed Moustafa al-Qazwini, imam of the Irvine,
California, chapter of the Islamic Educational Center of Orange
County, exemplifies the disjuncture between the actual Muslim
experience in America after 9/11 and the rhetoric used to describe it.
A courteous, round-faced man, with a short dark beard and rimless
glasses, who casually drops the names of Condoleezza Rice and George
W. Bush, al-Qazwini has flown 20 times since September 2001, both
domestically and abroad, and he has been searched only once. Yet of
that one time, he asks heatedly: “Why did they turn me into an animal
and deal with me in a disgraceful manner, just because my passport was
Iraqi?” The “disgrace” consisted in being interrogated for half an
hour about his mosque and whether the congregation was Sunni or Shia.

Al-Qazwini is not willing to cut security personnel any slack. “They
should have common sense that not all Iraqis are terrorists,” he
asserts. But in 95 percent of his flights, they assumed just that. To
expect to fly search-free 100 percent of the time is ludicrous, given
the enemy status of Iraq. Nor were the questions asked of him
inappropriate, given the role of imams in breeding jihad.

If occasional interrogation before flying is now the equivalent of
being “turned into an animal,” it’s hard to see how America can go
forward with any rational security measures. But such hyperbole is now
standard. A cartoon in Islamic Discourse magazine, a publication of
the Islamic Educational Center of Orange County, shows two doors at an
airline gate. The word “White” has been crossed out and “American”
written in its stead on one; the word “Colored” has been replaced with
“Arab-American” on the other. By no stretch of the imagination are
post-9/11 security measures remotely close to Jim Crow laws, but Arab
advocacy groups have masterfully usurped the mantle of black
victimhood to put anti-terror efforts on the constant defensive.

It would be refreshing (if unprecedented in contemporary American
culture) if Arab-Americans and other Muslims stepped outside their
sense of grievance to grasp the larger interests of the country. But
al-Qazwini, for one, continues to see the security issue only in
personal terms: it’s okay if other people get searched for no reason
at all, but he or his family shouldn’t be. He was happy that a blond
woman was searched on his last flight. “I now know that the security
agents are open-minded,” he says. But he is incensed that his own
parents were searched before a flight to London. “This has nothing to
do with security,” he fumes, “but it’s because some Mexican guy has
been brainwashed by the media telling him: ‘When you find these
people, search them, regardless of age or stature.’ Let’s have some
standards!” Most Americans would agree.

One can’t blame al-Qazwini for his views. When our national leaders
are unwilling even to name the enemy correctly, it’s no wonder that
the advocates and the media have stepped into the breach with
victimology. In speech after speech, President Bush refuses to
identify our nemesis as “Islamic terrorism,” preferring instead the
vaguer “terrorism,” a generality that won’t offend any religious or
ethnic group.

Not giving offense now seems equal in importance to protecting the
nation. Following the president’s lead, Transportation Secretary
Norman Mineta, in his now-infamous 60 Minutes interview, said he would
“hope” that a 70-year-old white woman from Vero Beach, Florida, and a
young Muslim male from Jersey City would receive the same level of
scrutiny when boarding an airplane. And, alas, they do.

Such security procedures have a strong symbolic purpose: to show that
our hearts are pure and that we have never ever drawn any inferences
from the fact that every anti-American terrorist since 1987—with the
exception of Timothy McVeigh—has been Islamic.

President Bush could have put an end to such charades had he explained
to the nation that, because Usama bin Ladin has called on all Muslims,
not all Protestants or Jews, to kill Americans wherever they find
them, we would have to give a little more scrutiny to people from
certain parts of the world who seek to enter the country or assume
high-security positions. These are minor inconveniences compared with
the catastrophe that we are trying to avert, he could have said, and
we ask for the patience and understanding of people subjected to
greater inquiries about their purposes. Of course such measures do not
imply that we think that all Middle Easterners, North Africans, or
Muslims are terrorists, but until someone comes up with a method of
identifying to a man each individual terrorist, a method that is
neither over- nor under-inclusive, we will have to use cruder
screening mechanisms.

In the absence of such a public explanation, the elites and the
advocates continue to turn every reasonable security measure into
another cause for grievance. Last fall, the Justice Department sought
to interview about 5,000 young men from Middle Eastern and other
terror-breeding countries who had entered the U.S. on short-term visas
over the last two years, as had all the 9/11 hijackers. The interviews
were voluntary, innocuous, and could be refused without consequence.
Every civil liberties and Arab advocacy group rose up against the
plan, portraying it, in the words of Islamic Discourse magazine, as
“another wave of threats to our civil liberties.” The message: Every
Muslim in America should feel offended. Why not an alternative
message: This is not a problem. If you can help out the government in
any way to prevent further attacks, please do so.

The fear of giving offense also hampers needed changes in immigration
policy. American and foreign intelligence still cannot identify
Islamic terrorists very well, or understand fully how they communicate
with one another, activate sleeper cells, or channel funding for
operations. If we were serious about preventing more terrorists coming
to our soil, we would impose a moratorium on immigration and visitor
visas from the countries most likely to export terrorism, until our
intelligence services were capable of detecting our enemies. We would
suspend the student-visa program until we had a foolproof system in
place for tracking foreign students.

Instead, we have taken half-measures that do not provide any assurance
of safety. But those half-measures have generated just as much outcry
as real measures would have. Both the New York Times and the
Washington Post have bemoaned the fact that the State Department is
taking longer than usual to process student visas from Middle Eastern
and other terror-sponsoring countries. The resulting delays, warns the
Times, are “generating widespread hostility” among Muslim men. Perhaps
the Times has forgotten a far more lethal “hostility” among Muslim men
that killed 3,000 people on 9/11.

The Justice Department has proposed putting the names of visa
violators who have absconded following a deportation order into
national criminal databases, so that if a police officer comes across
an absconder in the course of a routine stop, he can arrest him. Yet
even this baby step toward border enforcement—in a reasonable world,
all visa violators, not just deportation evaders, would be listed—has
produced the usual denunciations. National Public Radio even broadcast
a comparison of the absconder program to the detention of
Japanese-Americans during World War II.

But what do you know—the opinion elites are just as hypocritically
opportunistic when it comes to charges of profiling as they are
regarding intelligence issues. Having worked themselves into a lather
after 9/11 over the possibility that the Justice Department might use
Middle Eastern or Muslim heritage as a factor in anti-terrorism
investigations, they turned on a dime when doing so offered them a
chance to beat up on the Bush Justice Department.

In May 2001, Phoenix FBI agent Kenneth Williams wrote his supervisors
that al-Qaida members might be training in U.S. flight schools. He had
been observing several Islamists enrolled in an Arizona aviation
academy, one of whom had told him that he considered the U.S.
government and military legitimate targets of Islam. Another man who
attracted Williams’s suspicion, it was later discovered, had
associated with 9/11 hijacker Hani Hanjour and may have screened other
al-Qaida pilots. In his memo, Agent Williams requested that the Bureau
check out other Middle Eastern flight students for al-Qaida ties.

It is not hard to guess why the FBI ignored Williams’s request. Had
word leaked out that the Bureau was investigating Muslim aviation
trainees, the nation’s newspapers, networks, and advocates would have
burst forth in one mighty roar of “Racism!” For the previous five
years, the only law-enforcement topic that had consistently interested
the press was the charge that the police were bigots.

So when the Williams memo surfaced in May 2002, the media, the
victims’ lobby, and the legal professoriat berated Williams for his
prejudices, right? Wrong: they lionized him for his prescience. Nadine
Strossen, president of the ACLU, the organization that has done more
than any other to make “racial profiling” the equivalent of
“genocide,” wins the prize for the most blatant hypocrisy. “It
surprises me that the FBI was worried about racial profiling
criticism,” she cooed on National Public Radio. “The Phoenix
flight-school memo was good policing.” The ACLU should have fired her
on the spot for betraying everything it has argued for the last five
years.

The New York Times nearly equals Strossen in shameless
self-contradiction. It editorialized that the FBI’s “fumbling” of the
Arizona terrorist warning constituted an “egregious failure.” Never
mind that before May 2001, and continuing to this day, the Times has
been the nation’s most powerful voice berating the police for what it
charged was their use of race and ethnicity in investigatory stops.

Such little moments of clarity, even if motivated by bad faith, have
been rare since 9/11. The time is past for preening fantasies aimed at
boosting the elites’ self-image as a bulwark against imagined American
injustice. Yet the guardians of politically correct opinion have held
on to their fondest fictions, despite their destructive effects on
national security.

The power of the elites’ nonsensical ideology should never be
underestimated. In the field of counterterrorism, the elites crippled
intelligence-gathering not only by the legal restrictions that they
sponsored. They accomplished something subtler but equally dangerous:
they broke the agencies’ zeal to protect the country. The fuel for
people who work in national security is not money but morale, observes
James Kallstrom, former head of the FBI’s New York office. “When you
destroy that, people give up,” he says. “The notion that people who
come to work every day to protect the country are raked over the coals
because they shared terrorist information with criminal investigators
is mind-boggling,” Kallstrom observes wearily. “We’ve been frozen in
our tracks for decades by extremely vocal people who represent less
than 0.01 percent of the country, but who have created totally
risk-averse bureaucracies in the FBI, CIA, and the military.”

Here’s a modest proposal that would improve our domestic security by
100 percent: if the elite war on the war on terror continues, we
should all just stop listening.
"Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire.
Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us)
off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give
them self determination under "play nice" rules.

Think of it as having your older brother knock the **** out of you
for torturing the cat." Gunner

On Sat, 24 Dec 2005 20:55:09 +1100, "Tom Miller"
wrote:



What has happened to Gunner?
He couldn't have let this thread go by without
comment.
Is he o.K.?

Im doing ok, generally.

However..until a number of my slow pay customers get off their asses,
I dont have internet access during the week while I work in LA, as I
had to let my phone line get disconnected at my RV in So. Cal. So you
will only see me post when Im at home.

Gunner


"John R. Carroll"
wrote in message
.com...
Ed Huntress wrote:
"John R. Carroll"
wrote in
message
. com...

G.W.,
You can't legistlate morality.

Feeling contrary today, I'm going to agree with
Robert Bork on this
one and say that ALL legislation is legislation
of morality. We make
laws to distinguish what we think is right from
wrong; morality is
the distinction between right and wrong; all
legislation is about
morality.

Borking me are you! That's novel. How many
people can say they've been
Borked by Ed Huntress?
LOL
There is truth in that but the law flows from
the constitution not the other
way around.
We are, after all, discussing the Federal
interest here and not the State's.


I think what you're referring to here is
primarily sexual behavior,
maybe with some social behavior added in. We
effectively legislate
against many aspects of those things on which
there is a large
consensus. On others, the consensus breaks
down, and the laws are
largely or partially ignored.

Yes Ed, they are ignored. There is no
fundamental principal involved.
This is results in a lack of respect for the law
and has lead to the
enormous influence of small but influential
groups of advocates of
particular points of view beyond the broader
consensus.


--
John R. Carroll
Machining Solution Software, Inc.
Los Angeles San Francisco
www.machiningsolution.com




"Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire.
Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us)
off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give
them self determination under "play nice" rules.

Think of it as having your older brother knock the **** out of you
for torturing the cat." Gunner

On Fri, 23 Dec 2005 21:22:39 -0500, "Ed Huntress"
wrote:

"Tom Quackenbush" wrote in message
...

After reading:

http://www.law.cornell.edu/anncon/ht...tml#amdt4_hd37

I'm thinking that the issue isn't quite as cut and dried as some on
either side of the issue are trying to make it. I'm no lawyer and I
imagine that the comments on the web site only scratch the surface of
the issue, but I'm left with, "The question of the scope of the
President's constitutional powers, if any, remains judicially
unsettled."

I haven't read your link yet, Tom (I hope I will have time to do so) but
it's a common subject among Constitutional scholars that the powers of the
president, in wartime or under circumstances that have some of the
characteristics of war (like conditions right now), are ambiguous and
subject to wide interpretations. It's the result of vagueness inherent in
the idea of "actions necessary to accomplish..." We're seeing the debate
become public right now.

One legal scholar named Yoo, formerly of the Bush administration lawyer and
now a law professor, shaped a lot of the theory under which Bush is
operating. I started to search for his articles last night but I'm out of
time for it. He is known as an advocate of wide-ranging presidential power,
and he's no lightweight.

OTOH, legal scholars tend to get out of their research and logic what they
want to get out of them. Some of them, like Bork, seem to delight in doing
high-wire acts with speculative legal philosophy. Yoo's collegues, while
they respect him greatly, seem to imply that he also gets a charge out of
the high wire.

And let's be frank: Bush is unlikely to have a genuine opinion of his own on
the matter. He's no Constitutional scholar, and he wasn't a "C" student for
nothing. He's listening to his advisors and acting on what he wants to hear
from them. Yoo was one of his advisors.

One should note..that the time of war snooping on electronic media,
was instituted by FDR at the beginning of WW2. It was further
implimented by Jimmy Carter (Hostage Crisis) and carried forwards
since then by every president.

Gunner

"Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire.
Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us)
off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give
them self determination under "play nice" rules.

Think of it as having your older brother knock the **** out of you
for torturing the cat." Gunner

On 23 Dec 2005 11:34:22 -0800, "G.W." wrote:


jim rozen wrote:

The current adminstration *tried* to ask congress for the ability
to do warrentless wiretapping on citizens in the US. They were
not allowed to this. The answer was "NO."

It also doesn't say "GW's house cannot be searched without a warrant."

So your house can now be entered and searched by the police, at any
time, without them having to obtain a warrant from a judge. Right?

You've just given up your rights under the fourth amendment, and you
didn't even know it.

Jim

Well, of course nobody wants the government "spying" on them but I'd
dare say that if we had another major Al Qaida attack and it was found
that the government was purposely Not monitoring communication of
overseas calls with Al Qaida suspects, there would be another round of
calls for impeachment.
Nobody is talking about breaking into anyone's house without a search
warrant. I could be wrong but I thought it was all about communications
to other countries with people suspected of having something to do with
terrorists. I also thought that the information found could not be used
in court, so if your French bookie called you there would be no worry.
GW

One should note, that a large majority of this spying is engineered in
offshore US bases, such as the commo facility in the US, and also uses
satillite communications snooping. If the signals are picked up from
outside the CONUS...and is used to investigate suspected combatants
and their minions, even if one side of the conversation is from
American soil...is this a violation of the Constitution?

Not according to FDR

Or Carter or Clinton.

Gunner

"Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire.
Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us)
off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give
them self determination under "play nice" rules.

Think of it as having your older brother knock the **** out of you
for torturing the cat." Gunner

In article ,
Gunner Asch wrote:
On 23 Dec 2005 10:45:52 -0800, "G.W." wrote:

John R. Carroll wrote:

G.W.,
You can't legistlate morality.
Be a better parent. What better opportunity is there to teach proper moral
behavior is there?
I do realize that many parents are simply to lazy or irresponsible to be of
much use as parents but that's the only real answer and it's also the whole
problem.
The same is true for abortion and other like issues. Making this illegal
won't appreciably reduce demand. If you want to reduce demand bring kids up
not to "demand" the things in the first place. As long as that demand exists
a supply will be at hand. That may outrage some but the facts remain outrage
or no...


Ok, I can go along with that up to a point. Raising moral children is a
good solution. On the other hand, you still don't want to live in a
society that has absolutely no limits. I don't think we need a whore
house on every corner under some bogus idea of "free speech". Sensible
limits should be set by our elected representatives not by some judge
who misinterprets the Constitution.
That's only my opinion.

http://www.manhattan-institute.org/h...handcuffed.htm

FBI Handcuffed
October 27, 2002

By Heather Mac Donald

CIA director George Tenet warned recently that the threat from al
Qaeda is as high as it was before 9/11. Unfortunately, there is
another parallel to the pre-9/11 environment: Clinton-era guidelines
that had paralyzed the county's intelligence agencies by 2001 - and
still govern our anti-terrorism efforts.


In 1999 The Hart Rudman commission [1] finished it's recommendations
to reorganize the US intel services and this was ready to go when Bush
took the oath. Many of the recommendations would have probably
prevented 9-11 from happening.

Bush stonewalled the H-R recommendations unil the families of the
victims of 9-11 shamed him into paying attention.



[1] U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century
aka Hart-Rudman Commission
aka Hart-Rudman Task Force on Homeland Security

Offical PDF
http://www.fas.org/irp/threat/nssg.pdf

Also

http://www.milnet.com/hart-rudman/

--
a d y k e s @ p a n i x . c o m

Don't blame me. I voted for Gore.

On 23 Dec 2005 15:49:22 -0800, jim rozen
wrote:


but I'd
dare say that if we had another major Al Qaida attack and it was found
that the government was purposely Not monitoring communication of
overseas calls with Al Qaida suspects, there would be another round of
calls for impeachment.

That's what I don't *get*. There is a secret court that has been
set up for many years, their only purpose in life is to provide
WARRANTS for these taps inside of 72 hours whenever the administration
wants them. Yet they were not using that court to obtain warrants,
when they could have.

They tried to get a FISA warrant to search a stumbling bumbling
students laptop, a fellow named Moussaoui.

They were unable to do so in a complicated wrangle.

By the time they got it sorted out..he and 18 of his bretheran had
flow airliners into populated buildings and 3000 people died.

His laptop contained detailed plans and information on the 9-11
attacks.

Gunner

"Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire.
Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us)
off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give
them self determination under "play nice" rules.

Think of it as having your older brother knock the **** out of you
for torturing the cat." Gunner

On Fri, 23 Dec 2005 23:16:28 -0800, "Steve B"
wrote:

We need to get together, but need a code. We have to be very careful,
though. They broke Letterman's code, and he has some of the best code
monkeys known to the free world.

SANTA FE, New Mexico (AP) -- Lawyers for David Letterman want a judge
to quash a restraining order granted to a Santa Fe woman who contends
the CBS late-night host used code words to show he wanted to marry her
and train her as his co-host.

A state judge granted a temporary restraining order to Colleen
Nestler, who alleged in a request filed last Thursday that Letterman
has forced her to go bankrupt and caused her "mental cruelty" and
"sleep deprivation" since May 1994.

Nestler requested that Letterman, who tapes his show in New York, stay
at least 3 yards away and not "think of me, and release me from his
mental harassment and hammering."

Lawyers for Letterman, in a motion filed Tuesday, contend the order is
without merit and asked state District Judge Daniel Sanchez to quash
it.

"Celebrities deserve protection of their reputation and legal rights
when the occasional fan becomes dangerous or deluded," Albuquerque
lawyer Pat Rogers wrote in the motion.

Nestler told The Associated Press by telephone Wednesday that she had
no comment pending her request for a permanent restraining order "and
I pray to God I get it."

Sanchez set a Jan. 12 hearing on the permanent order.

Letterman's longtime Los Angeles lawyer, Jim Jackoway, said Nestler's
claims were "obviously absurd and frivolous."

"This constitutes an unfortunate abuse of the judicial process," he
said.

Nestler's application for a restraining order was accompanied by a
six-page typed letter in which she said Letterman used code words,
gestures and "eye expressions" to convey his desires for her.

She wrote that she began sending Letterman "thoughts of love" after
his "Late Show" began in 1993, and that he responded in code words and
gestures, asking her to come East.

She said he asked her to be his wife during a televised "teaser" for
his show by saying, "Marry me, Oprah." Her letter said Oprah was the
first of many code names for her and that the coded vocabulary
increased and changed with time.

Her letter does not say why she recently sought a restraining order.

Rogers' motion to quash the order contends the court lacks
jurisdiction over Letterman, that Nestler never served him with
restraining order papers, and that she didn't meet other procedural
requirements.



You are aware..that under current law...Letterman is now prevented
from owning or even handling a firearm.

Gunner

"Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire.
Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us)
off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give
them self determination under "play nice" rules.

Think of it as having your older brother knock the **** out of you
for torturing the cat." Gunner

Gunner Asch wrote:
On 23 Dec 2005 15:49:22 -0800, jim rozen
wrote:


but I'd
dare say that if we had another major Al Qaida attack and it was
found that the government was purposely Not monitoring
communication of overseas calls with Al Qaida suspects, there would
be another round of calls for impeachment.

That's what I don't *get*. There is a secret court that has been
set up for many years, their only purpose in life is to provide
WARRANTS for these taps inside of 72 hours whenever the
administration wants them. Yet they were not using that court to
obtain warrants, when they could have.

They tried to get a FISA warrant to search a stumbling bumbling
students laptop, a fellow named Moussaoui.

No they didn't Gunner. This falsehood is widely reported but it isn't true.
They specifically did not ask for a warrant because the FO didn't want his
name associated with it.
IOW, the FBI chickens put their carreer ahead of the citizens of the US they
are sworn to protect. Nice....

In any event, the search could have gone forward immediately on the
authoriity of the President through the AG's office and a warrant
subsequently applied for within 72 hours.

--
John R. Carroll
Machining Solution Software, Inc.
Los Angeles San Francisco
www.machiningsolution.com

Gunner Asch wrote:
On 23 Dec 2005 15:49:22 -0800, jim rozen
wrote:


They tried to get a FISA warrant to search a stumbling bumbling
students laptop, a fellow named Moussaoui.

They were unable to do so in a complicated wrangle.


Here is what really happened Gunner....

In Moussaoui's case, the FBI did not seek an FISA warrant to search his
laptop computer and other belongings in the weeks prior to the Sept. 11
attacks because some officials believed that they could not adequately show
the court Moussaoui's connection to a foreign terrorist group.

The USA Patriot Act, a set of anti-terrorism measures passed last fall,
softened the standards for obtaining intelligence warrants, requiring that
foreign intelligence be a significant, rather than primary, purpose of the
investigation. The FISA court said in its ruling that the new law was not
relevant to its decision.

Despite its rebuke, the court left the door open for a possible solution,
noting that its decision was based on the existing FISA statute and that
lawmakers were free to update the law if they wished.

Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee have indicated their willingness
to enact such reforms but have complained about resistance from Ashcroft.
Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) said yesterday's release was a "ray of
sunshine" compared to a "lack of cooperation" from the Bush administration.

Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), another committee member, said the legal
opinion will "help us determine what's wrong with the FISA process,
including what went wrong in the Zacarias Moussaoui case. The stakes
couldn't be higher for our national security at home and abroad."

The ruling, signed by the court's previous chief, U.S. District Judge Royce
C. Lamberth, was released by the new presiding judge, U.S. District Judge
Colleen Kollar-Kotelly.

FBI and Justice Department officials have said that the fear of being
rejected by the FISA court, complicated by disputes such as those revealed
yesterday, has at times caused both FBI and Justice officials to take a
cautious approach to intelligence warrants.

Until the current dispute, the FISA court had approved all but one
application sought by the government since the court's inception. Civil
libertarians claim that record shows that the court is a rubber stamp for
the government; proponents of stronger law enforcement say the record
reveals a timid bureaucracy only willing to seek warrants on sure winners.

The opinion itself -- and the court's unprecedented decision to release
it -- suggest that relations between the court and officials at the Justice
Department and the FBI have frayed badly.

FISA applications are voluminous documents, containing boilerplate language
as well as details specific to each circumstance. The judges did not say the
misrepresentations were intended to mislead the court, but said that in
addition to erroneous statements, important facts have been omitted from
some FISA applications.

In one case, the FISA judges were so angered by inaccuracies in affidavits
submitted by FBI agent Michael Resnick that they barred him from ever
appearing before the court, according to the ruling and government sources.

Referring to "the troubling number of inaccurate FBI affidavits in so many
FISA applications," the court said in its opinion: "In virtually every
instance, the government's misstatements and omissions in FISA applications
and violations of the Court's orders involved information sharing and
unauthorized disseminations to criminal investigators and prosecutors."

The judges were also clearly perturbed at a lack of answers about the
problems from the Justice Department, which is still conducting an internal
investigation into the lapses.

"How these misrepresentations occurred remains unexplained to the court,"
the opinion said.

© 2002 The Washington Post Company

--
John R. Carroll
Machining Solution Software, Inc.
Los Angeles San Francisco
www.machiningsolution.com

"Gunner Asch" wrote in message
news
On Fri, 23 Dec 2005 21:22:39 -0500, "Ed Huntress"
wrote:

And let's be frank: Bush is unlikely to have a genuine opinion of his own
on
the matter. He's no Constitutional scholar, and he wasn't a "C" student
for
nothing. He's listening to his advisors and acting on what he wants to
hear
from them. Yoo was one of his advisors.

One should note..that the time of war snooping on electronic media,
was instituted by FDR at the beginning of WW2. It was further
implimented by Jimmy Carter (Hostage Crisis) and carried forwards
since then by every president.

One can note it, but one will be noting in a vacuum if he doesn't note
several other things. One is that FDR was operating under a declared war.
Two is that there is nothing in this noting to note precisely what FDR
authorized, nor how it relates to the Fourth Amendment. One should also note
the same thing about Carter.

If one has some specific, documented evidence about what they did and more
than empty speculation about how or why those things might have been
illegal, one will have something to talk about. As it is, it's a Rove-type
statement intended to imply something that may or may not have any
substance. Bush, OTOH, has flatly ignored the law and probably has
overreached the Fourth. We'll see as more legal opinions -- with
explanations -- come forth.

'Good to see you back. I hope all is well, and Merry Christmas if I don't
catch you again today.

--
Ed Huntress

"Gunner Asch" wrote in message
news
On 23 Dec 2005 15:49:22 -0800, jim rozen
wrote:


but I'd
dare say that if we had another major Al Qaida attack and it was found
that the government was purposely Not monitoring communication of
overseas calls with Al Qaida suspects, there would be another round of
calls for impeachment.

That's what I don't *get*. There is a secret court that has been
set up for many years, their only purpose in life is to provide
WARRANTS for these taps inside of 72 hours whenever the administration
wants them. Yet they were not using that court to obtain warrants,
when they could have.

They tried to get a FISA warrant to search a stumbling bumbling
students laptop, a fellow named Moussaoui.

They were unable to do so in a complicated wrangle.

They were unable to do so because the FBI field agents and even FBI
management apparently never read the Constitution (who needs a Constitution
when you have a neocon administration, anyway?), and did not know that
"probable cause" was the fundamental principle of searching and seizing
evidence. Duh....

Here's the key comment about it from the report issued by the Senate
Judiciary Committee:

=======================

First, key FBI personnel responsible for protecting our country against
terrorism did not understand the law. The SSA at FBI Headquarters
responsible for assembling the facts in support of the Moussaoui FISA
application testified before the Committee in a closed hearing that he did
not know that "probable cause" was the applicable legal standard for
obtaining a FISA warrant. In addition, he did not have a clear understanding
of what the probable cause standard meant. The SSA was not a lawyer, and he
was relying on FBI lawyers for their expertise on what constituted probable
cause. In addition to not understanding the probable cause standard, the SSA
's supervisor (the Unit Chief) responsible for reviewing FISA applications
did not have a proper understanding of the legal definition of the "agent of
a foreign power" requirement. Specifically, he was under the incorrect
impression that the statute required a link to an already identified or
"recognized" terrorist organization, an interpretation that the FBI and the
supervisor himself admitted was incorrect. Thus, key FBI officials did not
have a proper understanding of either the relevant burden of proof (probable
cause) or the substantive element of proof (agent of a foreign power).

==============================

So now, Monday-morning quarterbacking, we're able to say just how far along
the path toward a police state we should have gone in order to prevent this
particular attack. One wonders to what degree we should implement a police
state in order to prevent the next attack. Maybe monitoring *everyone's*
phone calls will do it. Or maybe they'll use semaphore next time. We can
monitor all flag-waving. Or, if everything else fails, we can just make
someone responsible for knowing what the FBI is supposed to do. Maybe the
Justice Department will wake up and realize it's them.

How much liberty are you willing to give up for a little "maybe" security,
Gunner?

--
Ed Huntress

In article , Gunner Asch says...

They tried to get a FISA warrant to search a stumbling bumbling
students laptop, a fellow named Moussaoui.

Ah, apparently not.

Jim


--
==================================================
please reply to:
JRR(zero) at pkmfgvm4 (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com
==================================================

In article , Ed Huntress says...

So now, Monday-morning quarterbacking, we're able to say just how far along
the path toward a police state we should have gone in order to prevent this
particular attack. One wonders to what degree we should implement a police
state in order to prevent the next attack. Maybe monitoring *everyone's*
phone calls will do it. Or maybe they'll use semaphore next time. We can
monitor all flag-waving. Or, if everything else fails, we can just make
someone responsible for knowing what the FBI is supposed to do. Maybe the
Justice Department will wake up and realize it's them.

I've a better idea, Ed. It'll probably be announced by the
adminstration shortly so I'll tip the hand and explain how it
works.

Basically the police arrest every single person inside the
borders of the US. That will be sure that ever single terrorist
gets caught. Then they just interview each person arrested,
and everyone they think is innocent gets let go.

Anyone who objects to this plan is either a) a terrorist or
b) an anti-bush malcontent. Either way the ones complaining
will be detained permanently.

How much liberty are you willing to give up for a little "maybe" security,
Gunner?

It's a done deal Ed, we've already trashed about three parts of the
bill of rights already.

sigh

Jim


--
==================================================
please reply to:
JRR(zero) at pkmfgvm4 (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com
==================================================

Ed Huntress wrote:
"Gunner Asch" wrote in message
news
On Fri, 23 Dec 2005 21:22:39 -0500, "Ed Huntress"
wrote:

And let's be frank: Bush is unlikely to have a genuine opinion of his own

on

the matter. He's no Constitutional scholar, and he wasn't a "C" student

for

nothing. He's listening to his advisors and acting on what he wants to

hear

from them. Yoo was one of his advisors.

One should note..that the time of war snooping on electronic media,
was instituted by FDR at the beginning of WW2. It was further
implimented by Jimmy Carter (Hostage Crisis) and carried forwards
since then by every president.


One can note it, but one will be noting in a vacuum if he doesn't note
several other things. One is that FDR was operating under a declared war.
Two is that there is nothing in this noting to note precisely what FDR
authorized, nor how it relates to the Fourth Amendment. One should also note
the same thing about Carter.

If one has some specific, documented evidence about what they did and more
than empty speculation about how or why those things might have been
illegal, one will have something to talk about. As it is, it's a Rove-type
statement intended to imply something that may or may not have any
substance.

You sound surprised. That was Gunner talking, I mean blabbering.

Abrasha
http://www.abrasha.com

G.W.,
You can't legistlate morality.

Feeling contrary today, I'm going to agree with Robert Bork on this
one and say that ALL legislation is legislation of morality. We make
laws to distinguish what we think is right from wrong; morality is
the distinction between right and wrong; all legislation is about
morality.

I think what you're referring to here is primarily sexual behavior,
maybe with some social behavior added in. We effectively legislate
against many aspects of those things on which there is a large
consensus. On others, the consensus breaks down, and the laws are
largely or partially ignored.

--
Ed Huntress

You are 100% correct. Morality is legislated every day. People that
claim otherwise are simply mistaken. Everything from the age of
sexual consent, to the use of alcohol, to the language we use, you
name it the government regulates it. So for anyone that doesn't know
it the answer is yes, morality is regulated all the time. Hope that
clears things up.


My point was that it doesn't work.


Actually it does work, and quite well. The problem of course is in how it's
applied. When done well it has salutary effects. When done incorrectly it's
effects are odious. The main problem is that government doesn't know when to
stop. In this area a little goes a long way. The problem is that once they
get started they want to go on and on until the cure is worse than the ill.

Hawke

but I'd
dare say that if we had another major Al Qaida attack and it was found
that the government was purposely Not monitoring communication of
overseas calls with Al Qaida suspects, there would be another round of
calls for impeachment.

That's what I don't *get*. There is a secret court that has been
set up for many years, their only purpose in life is to provide
WARRANTS for these taps inside of 72 hours whenever the administration
wants them. Yet they were not using that court to obtain warrants,
when they could have.

They tried to get a FISA warrant to search a stumbling bumbling
students laptop, a fellow named Moussaoui.

They were unable to do so in a complicated wrangle.

By the time they got it sorted out..he and 18 of his bretheran had
flow airliners into populated buildings and 3000 people died.

His laptop contained detailed plans and information on the 9-11
attacks.

Gunner

So your solution to is to let Bush turn the agencies responsible for
national security into a modern day version of the Gestapo? By your thinking
that's the best answer to terrorism. Just create our own secret police and
put no constitutional restrictions on what they can do. There's no doubt
they would be effective. Of course, this wouldn't be a free country anymore.
But hey, who cares, at least we would be safe, right? Oh, wait a minute,
even the Gestapo couldn't stop the French underground from sabotage and
killing Germans. So we'd give up our freedom and would still have the threat
of Al Qaeda.

Hawke

"John R. Carroll" wrote in message
. ..
Gunner Asch wrote:
On 23 Dec 2005 15:49:22 -0800, jim rozen
wrote:


They tried to get a FISA warrant to search a stumbling bumbling
students laptop, a fellow named Moussaoui.

They were unable to do so in a complicated wrangle.


Here is what really happened Gunner....

In Moussaoui's case, the FBI did not seek an FISA warrant to search his
laptop computer and other belongings in the weeks prior to the Sept. 11
attacks because some officials believed that they could not adequately
show
the court Moussaoui's connection to a foreign terrorist group.

The USA Patriot Act, a set of anti-terrorism measures passed last fall,
softened the standards for obtaining intelligence warrants, requiring that
foreign intelligence be a significant, rather than primary, purpose of the
investigation. The FISA court said in its ruling that the new law was not
relevant to its decision.

Despite its rebuke, the court left the door open for a possible solution,
noting that its decision was based on the existing FISA statute and that
lawmakers were free to update the law if they wished.

Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee have indicated their willingness
to enact such reforms but have complained about resistance from Ashcroft.
Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) said yesterday's release was a "ray of
sunshine" compared to a "lack of cooperation" from the Bush
administration.

Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), another committee member, said the
legal
opinion will "help us determine what's wrong with the FISA process,
including what went wrong in the Zacarias Moussaoui case. The stakes
couldn't be higher for our national security at home and abroad."

The ruling, signed by the court's previous chief, U.S. District Judge
Royce
C. Lamberth, was released by the new presiding judge, U.S. District Judge
Colleen Kollar-Kotelly.

FBI and Justice Department officials have said that the fear of being
rejected by the FISA court, complicated by disputes such as those revealed
yesterday, has at times caused both FBI and Justice officials to take a
cautious approach to intelligence warrants.

Until the current dispute, the FISA court had approved all but one
application sought by the government since the court's inception. Civil
libertarians claim that record shows that the court is a rubber stamp for
the government; proponents of stronger law enforcement say the record
reveals a timid bureaucracy only willing to seek warrants on sure winners.

The opinion itself -- and the court's unprecedented decision to release
it -- suggest that relations between the court and officials at the
Justice
Department and the FBI have frayed badly.

FISA applications are voluminous documents, containing boilerplate
language
as well as details specific to each circumstance. The judges did not say
the
misrepresentations were intended to mislead the court, but said that in
addition to erroneous statements, important facts have been omitted from
some FISA applications.

In one case, the FISA judges were so angered by inaccuracies in affidavits
submitted by FBI agent Michael Resnick that they barred him from ever
appearing before the court, according to the ruling and government
sources.

Referring to "the troubling number of inaccurate FBI affidavits in so many
FISA applications," the court said in its opinion: "In virtually every
instance, the government's misstatements and omissions in FISA
applications
and violations of the Court's orders involved information sharing and
unauthorized disseminations to criminal investigators and prosecutors."

The judges were also clearly perturbed at a lack of answers about the
problems from the Justice Department, which is still conducting an
internal
investigation into the lapses.

"How these misrepresentations occurred remains unexplained to the court,"
the opinion said.

© 2002 The Washington Post Company

Hey, all your going to do is confuse him.

Hawke

Hawke wrote:

So your solution to is to let Bush turn the agencies responsible for
national security into a modern day version of the Gestapo? By your thinking
that's the best answer to terrorism. Just create our own secret police and
put no constitutional restrictions on what they can do. There's no doubt
they would be effective. Of course, this wouldn't be a free country anymore.
But hey, who cares, at least we would be safe, right? Oh, wait a minute,
even the Gestapo couldn't stop the French underground from sabotage and
killing Germans. So we'd give up our freedom and would still have the threat
of Al Qaeda.

Hawke

How did we go from monitoring overseas phone calls to the Gestapo?

Hawke wrote:
"John R. Carroll" wrote in message
. ..
Gunner Asch wrote:
On 23 Dec 2005 15:49:22 -0800, jim rozen
wrote:


They tried to get a FISA warrant to search a stumbling bumbling
students laptop, a fellow named Moussaoui.

They were unable to do so in a complicated wrangle.


Here is what really happened Gunner....

In Moussaoui's case, the FBI did not seek an FISA warrant to search
his laptop computer and other belongings in the weeks prior to the
Sept. 11 attacks because some officials believed that they could not
adequately show the court Moussaoui's connection to a foreign
terrorist group.

© 2002 The Washington Post Company

Hey, all your going to do is confuse him.

Too late, he's well beyond reason as it is.


--
John R. Carroll
Machining Solution Software, Inc.
Los Angeles San Francisco
www.machiningsolution.com

G.W. wrote:
Hawke wrote:

So your solution to is to let Bush turn the agencies responsible for
national security into a modern day version of the Gestapo? By your
thinking that's the best answer to terrorism. Just create our own
secret police and put no constitutional restrictions on what they
can do. There's no doubt they would be effective. Of course, this
wouldn't be a free country anymore. But hey, who cares, at least we
would be safe, right? Oh, wait a minute, even the Gestapo couldn't
stop the French underground from sabotage and killing Germans. So
we'd give up our freedom and would still have the threat of Al Qaeda.

Hawke

How did we go from monitoring overseas phone calls to the Gestapo?

Isn't that what ordinaru Germans were saying not to long ago?



--
John R. Carroll
Machining Solution Software, Inc.
Los Angeles San Francisco
www.machiningsolution.com

"John R. Carroll" wrote in message
om...
Ed Huntress wrote:
"John R. Carroll" wrote in message
. com...
Ed Huntress wrote:
"John R. Carroll" wrote in message
. com...

G.W.,
You can't legistlate morality.


This is results in a lack of respect for the law and has lead to the
enormous influence of small but influential groups of advocates of
particular points of view beyond the broader consensus.

Hmm. Non sequitur. The lack of respect for law and the influence of
those small groups doesn't connect in any way I can see. IMO, those
small groups are influential because of their intensity of belief.

There is an awful lot of legislation passed that fly's pretty much under
the
radar Ed.
You're in the drug business, you should know that. I doubt that most
people
have the slightest knowledge of how that industry is "regulated" .

I was amused recently when my son wrote his essays for applications to
Georgetown and George Washington universities. He had never been to D.C. and
he wrote about the intoxicating feeling of driving so close to the three
great seats of US power -- the Capitol building, the White House, and K
Street. Actually, he mentioned K Street first, before I helped him edit his
writing.

There is
a rather large constituency believing that you only need enough
money/juice
to do what you want regardless of the law. The net effect seems to be to
concentrate power among the few that do care whether they represent the
main
stream or not.

Eh, we've always had that. It was far worse during the reign of the Robber
Barons. What's new is that now we get the news about it, 24 hours a day, 7
days a week. We currently have a wealth-friendly, Social Darwinist
administration that believes Herbert Spencer had it right when he scaled
people's quality according to the amount of money they had. As G.W. once
said, when opening his speech at a fund raiser, he was glad to be among "my
base: the haves, and the have-mores." He was brought up among wealth and
power and those are the things he values -- and the people who have them are
the people he values.

But you can't escape the power of money and still maintain liberty and a
vibrant democracy, I'm convinced. The trick is to keep it within bounds, as
we did fairly successfully for most of the past half-century. Now we've
taken off some of the limits and we see, right up there on TV, how a lust
for power usually goes hand-in-hand with a Machiavelian duplicity and
self-justification for breaking the law. The ambition for power and
disregard for the law are two characteristics that are joined at the hip.
People who have the first and who can avoid the second are remarkable
exceptions in history. The people in power now are not remarkable in any
such way.

Were that not the case the pharmaceutical industry would look a lot
different in the US than what we see today.

Well, we could play that one many different ways. One thing that would be
different is that we would have far fewer drugs and a lot more people living
in pain or dying at an earlier age.

But I don't think that's what you meant. g Looking at the industry with a
somewhat sharper view than I used to have, I can confirm that huge money
drives the industry, but the people who do the work are not driven much by
money. It's about prestige, for the people doing the science.

Without the money, however, they would have little opportunity to do what
they do, because the money drives the whole process. It is not a demand-pull
industry. It is a supply-push industry, and the whole world of
pharmaceuticals pretty much lives off of the free-for-all of the American
pharma industry's economic and political environments. Even the British,
French, and German companies would be in straightjackets, and far less
innovative and productive, if they couldn't play in the freewheeling
American market. This is where the big bucks are. This is where you can make
a killing, if that's the right word in this context...


Merry Christmas Ed.

And Merry Christmas to you, John. It's one hour old here on the East Coast
and I'm looking forward to the day.

--
Ed Huntress