Note: The material about domestic
surveillance is now on a page of its own.
No More Jihadists. The
Associated Press is reporting that the U.S. government is moving to kill off jihadists, Islamo-fascists,
and mujahedeen. Not the people: the words. Reports from the Department of Homeland
Security and the National Counter Terrorism Center recommend discontinuing the use of such terms, because, as
the AP report says, "Such words may actually boost support for radicals among Arab and Muslim audiences by
giving them a veneer of religious credibility or by causing offense to moderates." … If we eschew these
words, what how are we supposed to refer to our enemies?
Flying Blind in the
War on Terror: Imagine that following the bombing of Peal Harbor in December 1941, that FDR had
prohibiting the use of the terms "Nazi" or "Japanese Imperialism" due to pressure brought to bear by German
and Japanese-American lobbying groups. Or at the height of the Cold War that the US government had
determined to ban the use of "Soviet" or "communism" for fear of offending the sensibilities of
Russian-Americans or European socialists. Yet that is precisely what has happened following the
revelation last week by the Associated Press that the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security
has issued guidelines banning the use of "jihad", "mujahedeen" and other Islamic terminology with reference to
Islamic terrorism. This move lays bare the ideological prison house of political correctness in which
our top policymaker's reside.
Contrasting
Liberty and Tyranny. Can America bring liberty to lands that have never before known it? Free people will
always be the mortal enemy of dictators, each endangering the other's existence. Tyranny and terror are blood brothers,
born of the same womb and equally evil. We are fools to make nice with evil as some have suggested we do.
A Quick Way
Forward After Boumediene: The war on terror is not like other wars. No war has a
determinate end, but this one does not have a foreseeable ending scenario. With radical Islam, there will
be no treaty, no terms of surrender, no conquering enemy territory. Instead, there is only vigilance
until the enemy's capacity to project power is quelled. Because of that, strict application of the laws
of war — which permit indefinite detention until war's end — strikes our influential
legal elites as unduly onerous.
Can
Congress Give Military Orders To The Commander-in-Chief? For the third time since becoming the
majority in Congress in January 2007, the Democrats have attempted to order the Commander-in-Chief of the
U.S. Armed forces, George W. Bush, to bring the U.S. military forces home from Iraq. For months,
Congress has been debating whether or not that it a good idea or a bad idea. However, whether it is a
good idea or a bad idea is beside the point.
Freed
to kill again. Yes, you could argue, were you so inclined, that Benazir Bhutto might well
be alive today if only Washington had not leaned on her to return to Pakistan for the sake of a
U.S.-brokered political deal that was perhaps not in her personal best interest. More to the
point, you could argue that Benazir Bhutto might well be alive today if only Abdullah Mehsud
had not been let loose from Guantanamo, where he plainly belonged, regardless of what the
bleaters and hand-wringers thought about that.
Every War Is
a Choice. Claims that the Iraq War was a reckless "war of choice" — rather than a
prudent war of "necessity" — are a standard element of the anti-Bush narrative. The latest
critic to make this claim is former White House spokesman Scott McClellan. But a close look at American
history shows that this distinction makes little sense. All wars are wars of choice, because it is almost
always possible not to fight. The real question is whether the price of peace outweighs the costs of war.
None Dare Call It 'Appeasement'.
When Obama compared Hillary Clinton's threats against Iran to President Bush's threatening "bluster" and "cowboy
diplomacy," no one batted an eye. But when Mr. Bush, in addressing Israel's Knesset, compared those
who want to negotiate with today's terrorists and tyrants to an American senator in 1939 who lamented that
Hitler's march into Poland might have been avoided "if only I could have talked to Hitler," Obama, other
Democrats and the mainstream media went ballistic.
Questions for
the Pentagon: In the sorry tradition of shooting the messenger, the Pentagon is cashiering its
top expert on Islamist doctrine, Stephen Coughlin. Some members of Congress are now contemplating hearings
to ask why. Along with drawing attention to Coughlin's research, now circulating on the Internet, the
growing controversy has thrown a spotlight on Coughlin's alleged nemesis at the Pentagon, a top aide named
Hesham Islam — whose tale deserves closer attention.
Islamofascism. [Scroll
down] That's the tie-salesman approach to war-naming. ("You like this one? How about this
one? Or this?") This was not typical, ringing, forthright Bush oratory; rather, it was as if the
president had taken the contribution of the speechwriters Gerson and David Frum years ago and fused Saddam's
Iraq, the mullahs' Iran and nuclear-armed North Korea into an "axis of whatever."
Profiles in Cowardice. On
Tuesday [2/12/2008], we got a double-winner. First, the senate voted to approve an overhaul of
intelligence law which, though flawed, provides authority for American intelligence agencies to
continue monitoring the savages trying to kill us. Second, we got inescapable confirmation that
Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, the two contenders to be the Democrats' nominee, are not
fit to be president of the United States.
Fired for
the Truth. Bill Gertz, Washington Times national security columnist, reports (1/4/08) that the
Pentagon has fired Stephen Coughlin, its most knowledgeable specialist on Islamic Law, and jihad terrorism.
As Gertz observed aptly, the Pentagon thus ended the career of its most effective analyst attempting to prepare
the military to wage ideological war against jihadism.
Iraq Is a
Mess. But Germany Was, Too. Rebuilding a nation is possible. But even in the best of
circumstances, it takes effort, time, patience and pragmatism. As 1945 confirms, liberation from a
dictator in itself offers no easy path to peace or democracy. Battlefield victory is the easy bit.
Building peace is a constant struggle — and it's a matter of years, not weeks.
Administration Set to
Use New Spy Program in U.S.. The Bush administration said yesterday that it plans to start using the nation's
most advanced spy technology for domestic purposes soon, rebuffing challenges by House Democrats over the idea's legal
authority. … Democrats say [Michael] Chertoff has not spelled out what federal laws govern the [National Applications
Office], whose funding and size are classified. Congress barred Homeland Security from funding the office until its
investigators could review the office's operating procedures and safeguards.
Opposing viewpoint...
Suspicious
Eyes: It's impossible to know whether the [National Applications Office] will ever assist in
foiling a terrorist plot. But it would be a shame — and a needless danger — if
this ready resource weren't marshaled.
Close Enough to Shoot. [A game of
"chicken"] of international proportion occurred on January 6 involving three US Navy ships and Iranian
"hoodlums" aboard five fast inshore attack craft belonging to the Islamic Republican Guard Corps (IRGC).
Fortunately for the Iranians, there were no fatalities, but their aggressive and confrontational conduct could
well have triggered a swift and devastating attack by the US ships making a split-second decision whether a
perceived imminent threat exists to their safety.
Iran 1,
USA 0 — Naval Error in the Gulf. Early Sunday morning [1/6/2008], the US Navy lost
its nerve and guaranteed that American sailors will die at Iranian hands in the future.
Speedboat
Bluff in the Persian Gulf. Under the mullah-led thieves' regime, Iran has become an explosive
political mix of ethnic, economic and ideological fragments, a mosaic powder keg. … The Ayatollah
Khomeini's 1979 Islamic Revolution failed, then fossilized, leaving a corrupt junta of robed kleptocrats who
use the dictator's classic tools of murder, terror and economic favoritism to control an impoverished,
splintered and increasingly restless populace.
The Quixotic Quest of
President Bush. Where is the coherence in this "peace process? How does it advance our
strategy in what is properly called World War Four? Harming democratic Israel and an ostensibly
stable and relatively pro-western Jordan is not policy. It harms those nations irreparably, paving
the way for Arab massacres and weakens bulwarks of defense against growing militant Islam. It makes
all the tough talk about "the war on terror" more like tilting swords at windmills than real policy.
Broken Windows.
President Bush calls Iran a "threat to peace" and promises there "will be serious consequences if they attack
our ships." If they attack? Whatever happened to the military doctrine of pre-emption? ... After
9/11, President Bush solemnly vowed not to wait until we were attacked again. The doctrine of pre-emption
was launched and Operation Iraqi Freedom was the first fruit of that doctrine. It was the wise and prudent
thing to do. So why with Iran are we waiting to be attacked again? We should be well past the
warning and advice stage. Neither should we sit and wait for Iran to develop a nuke.
But Who Was Right -- Rudy or Ron?
Ron Paul says Osama bin Laden is delighted we invaded Iraq. Does the man not have a point? The
United States is now tied down in a bloody guerrilla war in the Middle East and increasingly hated in Arab
and Islamic countries where we were once hugely admired as the first and greatest of the anti-colonial
nations. Does anyone think that Osama is unhappy with what is happening to us in Iraq?
CYA Security: Since 9/11, we've
spent hundreds of billions of dollars defending ourselves from terrorist attacks. Stories about the
ineffectiveness of many of these security measures are common, but less so are discussions of why they
are so ineffective. In short: much of our country's counterterrorism security spending is not
designed to protect us from the terrorists, but instead to protect our public officials from criticism
when another attack occurs.
Lawyers Versus the Troops. We are
in but the early stages of the war against Islamist terror; it is not too late to get moving. If the
authority for such an operation is indeed lacking, Congress or the president could move to rectify the situation
by legislation or executive order — and they owe it to our GIs to do it, like, yesterday.
Fixing What's Wrong With Iraq:
According to the original authorization (Public Law 107-243) passed in late 2002, the president was authorized
to use military force against Iraq to achieve the following two specific objectives only:
"(1) defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq ; and
(2) enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq."
I was highly critical of the resolution at the time, because I don't think the United States should ever
go to war to enforce United Nations resolutions. … When we look at the original authorization for the
use of force it is clearly obvious that our military has met both objectives.
In the Name of Patriotism:
It is conveniently ignored that the only authentic way to best support the troops is to keep them out of
dangerous, undeclared, no-win wars that are politically inspired. Sending troops off to war for reasons
that are not truly related to national security — and for that matter may even damage our
security — is hardly a way to "patriotically" support the troops.
No more GWOT, House
committee decrees. The House Armed Services Committee is banishing the global war on terror from
the 2008 defense budget. This is not because the war has been won, lost or even called off, but because
the committee's Democratic leadership doesn't like the phrase.
Is the War on
Terror Over? An influential book making the rounds — "Overblown: How Politicians
and the Terrorism Industry Inflate National Security Threats, and Why We Believe Them" — argues that
the threat from al-Qaida is vastly exaggerated. Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter's national security
adviser, goes further, assuring us that we are terrorized mostly by the false idea of a war on
terror — not the jihadists themselves.
Why Iraq Is
Crumbling: In retrospect, I think we made several serious mistakes — not shooting
looters, not installing an Iraqi exile government right away, and not taking out Moqtada al-Sadr and his
Mahdi Army in its infancy in 2004 — that greatly compromised the occupation. Nonetheless,
the root problem lies with Iraqis and their political culture. … The problem is not, as we endlessly
argue about, the number of American troops. Or of Iraqi troops. The problem is the allegiance of
the Iraqi troops. Some serve the abstraction called Iraq. But many swear fealty to political
parties, religious sects or militia leaders.
To Win in
Baghdad, Strike at Tehran. As early as next week, President Bush is expected to give a major
speech announcing a new strategy in Iraq. This is an excellent opportunity for the administration to
announce a big strategic change that could dramatically improve America's prospects in Iraq. Unfortunately,
however, no one has been discussing the one option that would actually have this effect.
Why America Can't Win the War Against
Jihad: College-educated, pseudo-humanists of the media have eroded American resolve. A poll
just days after 9/11 showed that 76 percent of Americans said they would support military action against
Al-Qaeda even if it meant 5,000 troops would be killed. Today, a majority no longer identifies the war
in Iraq as part of the wider War on Terror. Moreover, less than 10 percent supports military action
to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power.
Using
Every Tool in the War Against Radical Islam. As those in our government who are obsessed with
troop reductions and redeployment continue to argue that Iraq was an illegitimate battlefield from the start
(hint: the enemy doesn't think so), radical Islamists headed by al Qaeda are expanding the conflict to
battlefields in Somalia, Sudan and Indonesia. Our enemy has not wavered in its dedication to total victory,
something we cannot say for ourselves.
How the West could
be lost: If you want to understand why many people feel the West has a death wish these days,
you had only to look at yesterday's international reaction to the execution of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
While paying various degrees of lip service to the fact Saddam was a mass murderer, what really bugged the
politicians and bureaucrats? They were incensed that Saddam had been executed instead of sentenced
to life in prison.
Bush adrift:
[President Bush] has left the question of troop levels in Iraq to the generals on the ground. Gen.
George W. Casey Jr. told Bush a few months ago that they would wait and see how Iraq looked after Ramadan,
which ended in late October. Well, Iraq looked worse. Now the administration seems to want to
wait to see the conclusions of the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group or one of its internal reviews of
Iraq policy before making any new departures. In the meantime, Iraq looks still worse. As the
administration waits, Iraq burns.
To the
President: Lead! Wasn't it plain enough going in? You don't need a blue-ribbon
commission stuffed and dressed with Beltway eminences to tell you how to win a war. That isn't what
blue-ribbon commissions are for. … Politics: That's what we are about with the study
group. Plain old politics.
Vietnam-Like
Defeat in Iraq Will Have Far Worse Consequences. I think history shows that the United States and
South Vietnam might have prevailed against the North but for the flagging will of the American people and
opposition from the media and Congress. For sure, as recent commentary has reminded us, the 1968 Tet
offensive was a colossal military defeat for the communists — 58,000 killed in two
months — even though it convinced Walter Cronkite and American elites that the
war was unwinnable.
Insanity.
Cash-strapped North Korea's only exports are counterfeit U.S. currency, illicit drugs and rocket/missile
technology. Pyongyang's No. 1 customer for these "products" is Tehran. … It requires the
willful suspension of disbelief to trust that Iran — awash in petro-dollars — won't try
to buy North Korean nukes. Put differently, if you think that the jihad being waged against us is a
tough fight now — just wait until Islamic radicals have North Korean nukes.
Warriors and The Myth of
Peace. The historic reality is that there has never been a long era of "peace," of the absence
of conflict, anywhere on earth, in any historic time, that lasted more than a few decades, before large masses
of humanity threw another tantrum, or succumbed to another grand mal seizure of violence on a national
or multi-national scale. We ignore and forget this immutable truth at our peril.
How to
win the winnable war? Oil. As creatures of political correctness, we have tied our own
hands. And almost literally. The PC rules of engagement imposed on American soldiers have as
much to do with the chaotic limbo our troops find themselves in as failed political policies. Closely
held, these rules — burdensome constraints, really — have become obvious to everyone,
including our foes.
Radical
Islam, not Bush, is the enemy. Before I mention the possible consequences of leaving Iraq, I'd
like to mention an often overlooked result of our pulling out of Vietnam in 1973. Within two years of our
leaving Southeast Asia, much of that region had fallen to brutal communist regimes, and several million innocent
civilians were slaughtered by the communist Khmer Rouge in the killing fields of Cambodia, as well as hundreds
of thousands of Vietnamese killed by their new communist government. The United States, the United Nations
and the rest of the world did nothing. However, as bad as this was, it will be small compared to what will
likely happen when we withdraw from Iraq with our tails tucked between our legs yet again.
It's
been five years, so who's our enemy? Five years after the attack on Pearl Harbor, World War II
was over, Japan and Germany vanquished. Five years after Sept. 11, we still speculate as to who,
or what, our enemy is. We have had a brief fling with "Islamic fascism," a phrase that, in its
20th-century-European political connotations, is misleading about jihad's 1,300-year-old religious
roots. But now, in the president's just-released "National Strategy for Combating Terrorism," we're back
to plain vanilla "extremist ideology." We seem to find a generic comfort in being vague.
Are Bush's
critics right? We are all aware of the dangerous Middle East conditions the United States
faces today after five and half years of President Bush's leadership. So let's consider what the
world might well look like if, in his remaining two and a half years, he were to follow the
recommendations of his critics.
Why Americans Oppose the Iraq
War. The American people strongly supported the original war on terror, when it was aimed at
destroying terrorists and punishing the regimes that harbored and supported them. The American people
do not support the current incarnation of the war, which is focused primarily on democratic nation-building
in Iraq.
These are the people we're fighting for?
Iraqis Loot Base After British
Leave. Looters ravaged a former British base Friday [8/25/2006], a day after the camp was turned
over to Iraqi troops, taking everything from doors and window frames to corrugated roofing and metal pipes,
authorities said.
The war we are
fighting needs a more accurate name. We are no more fighting a "War on Terror" than we fought
a "War on Kamikazes" in World War II. Of course we had to stop Kamikaze attacks, the suicide crashing
by Japanese pilots of airplanes into American war ships. But we were fighting Japanese fascism and
imperialism. The same holds true today. We are fighting Islamic fascism and imperialism (though
surely not all Muslims).
Head, arm, hand or
finger? [The death of Zarqawi] was a welcome victory in a war that is too often fought on one
side with bombs, guns and no rules, and on the other with too much diplomacy and too many constraints.
Evil understands only defeat and humiliation. The way to win this war is by defeating and humiliating
the enemy in such a way it will be a thousand years before they try something like this again.
It Didn't Work. Our
mission has failed because Iraqi animosities have proved uncontainable by an invading army of 130,000
Americans. The great human reserves that call for civil life haven't proved strong enough. No
doubt they are latently there, but they have not been able to contend against the ice men who move about
in the shadows with bombs and grenades and pistols. The Iraqis we hear about are first indignant, and
then infuriated, that Americans aren't on the scene to protect them and to punish the aggressors.
Should we remain
in Iraq? Let Iraqis decide. President Bush has said that if a democratically elected government
of Iraq asked us to leave, we would. I think Bush is sincere, but the truth is that no Iraqi government
is going to ask U.S. troops to withdraw anytime soon, because American troops are the only thing holding the
country together.
The Constitution Limits the President Even
as "Commander in Chief". Constitutionally speaking, "war" is a very specific set
of legal relations between two or more independent nations. For the most obvious example, in an
actual "war" soldiers of one nation may, within certain limits, intentionally kill soldiers of another
nation without thereby being guilty of murder. Thus, according to strict constitutional logic,
a "war on terror" is an existential impossibility — if only because "terror" is a tactic,
not a country; and "terrorists" do not constitute one or more independent nations, but at most are
mere bands of private criminals.
Henry Hyde is
right — again. House International Relations Chairman Henry Hyde, the 81-year-old Illinois
Republican, embodies the institutional memory of modern American foreign policy, which is why it mattered
a great deal last week when he politely made plain he is not marching in President Bush's global crusade
for democracy.
How
to create conflict: High up on my list of annoyances are references to the United
States as a democracy and the suggestion that Iraq should become a democracy. The word
"democracy" appears in neither of our founding documents — the Declaration of
Independence nor the U.S. Constitution.
Comparing the Threat of North Korea with the Threat
of Iraq. Is the Bush administration using a double standard by aggressively reacting to
Iraq but seeming to downplay the North Korean threat? The Left criticizes Bush, claiming that
his concentration on Saddam Hussein is causing him to ignore the real threat, Kim Jong-il, who is
rumored to already have missiles with the capability of striking the United States.
Five Fixes for DHS: There
are five steps that should have been taken within a year of 9/11 that are still not complete. These
steps are fundamental to building the security infrastructure that the nation needs for the long term.
The
Truth about Torture: Torture is not always impermissible. However rare the cases,
there are circumstances in which, by any rational moral calculus, torture not only would be permissible
but would be required (to acquire life-saving information).
Five
Minutes Well Spent. Less than five minutes. That's the total amount of time the
United States has waterboarded terrorist detainees. How many detainees? Three. Who
were these detainees? One was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, "the principle architect of the 9/11 attacks"
according to the 9/11 Report, and the head of al-Qaeda's "military committee."
Tortured
Democrats: So now we will have an inquiry into whether the CIA has violated the law by destroying
tapes it was under no obligation to make in the first place; concerning an interrogation technique that at the
very worst (say most reliable reports) involved making three notorious terrorists think, for a few seconds,
that they were drowning. I have severe doubts as to whether waterboarding constitutes torture. But
I am certain the unceasing attention it receives and the eagerness of many Democrats to indict the Bush
administration damaged America's image more than anything the CIA has done.
Pullout rejected
403-3. The House last night [11/18/2005] overwhelmingly voted down a resolution
calling for immediate withdrawal from Iraq, as Republicans tried to draw a line in the sand
after a week's worth of back-and-forth charges over the war.
Is Jack Murtha a Coward and a
Traitor? Jack Murtha's call for immediate disengagement took him far outside the
boundaries of legitimate disagreement. He has never been able to articulate any plausible
basis for his position on Iraq. There is a simple reason for that. There isn't one.
The Sky Is Not
Falling. Senator Clinton and her party of appeasers have no idea how to prosecute a war against
Islamic terrorists or properly respond to madmen seeking nuclear weapons. There are, in fact, easy
answers to fighting terrorists. You start by killing all the terrorists. You don't arrest them,
prosecute them and pay for their lifetime imprisonment in American jails. You kill them. That's
the only language the terrorists understand.
The
cut and run party. True to their heritage in foreign policy, 40 out of 45 Democratic
senators voted last week to demand a timetable for withdrawal of American forces from Iraq. As
in every conflict since Vietnam, Democrats are hoping not to succeed but to skedaddle.
White House Nonchalance: Expect
the Bush administration to continue to make the Middle East the center of American foreign policy. Also
expect its strategies to remain basically unchanged.
National security
2.0: Three weeks ago, I wrote about George W. Bush's September 2002 National Security
Strategy and examined how it has stood up over time. Last week, the White House released an updated
version of the National Security Strategy — almost twice as long, and with much more specific material
on many issues.
How about a
roadmap out? A successful end game may be the most important part of
war-making. Because of the finality of V-E Day and V-J Day, FDR and Truman were
viewed as successful wartime leaders. Because of the sloppy, dishonorable end to
Vietnam, Lyndon Johnson is viewed as a failure. Will the current administration
heed that lesson?
Women in
combat (again). Critics of placing women in combat units say the Army is
manipulating language in rules governing such placement to achieve a social
objective that would substantially and significantly change the way America
fights wars and possibly put all soldiers – men and women – at
greater risk.
Facing
Our Madrid. The real target of the increased insurgent attacks — their strategic
grand prize — is American public opinion. The real reason for the surge in violence
this fall? The U.S. presidential election.
Blood for Oil: Someone, finally, has
stated the truth to the administration and to the world: Saudi Arabia is our enemy.
Only
Guns Can Stop Terrorists: It's harder to victimize armed citizens.
House of God, House of War. The
only way to protect Americans — and, coincidentally, good Iraqis — is to bomb
the Najaf mosque into a parking lot, and to announce that any building used for
such purposes gets the same treatment.
Security Guru Says Profiling Works if Done
Right: An aviation security expert says airport profiling of Arabs and Muslims must be done
immediately in order to deter future terrorist attacks. Charles Slepian is CEO of the Foreseeable Risk
Analysis Center, a group that analyzes safety and security event data in an effort to identify how future
incidents can be avoided.
PLO Not
On List Of U.S. Terrorist Organizations: Despite the recent violence in the Middle East and the
rift between the United States government and Yasser Arafat, neither the Palestine Liberation Organization nor
the Palestinian Authority, which Arafat has led, are on the list of U.S. terrorist organizations.
Patterns of Untruthfulness: U.S. State Department
"Patterns of Global Terrorism". It's always been a highly politicized document, reflecting the
Washington debate and diplomatic imperatives, but this year it has veered into unreliability and even f
alsehood. It's a dangerous document likely to harm the war on terrorism.
Should Terrorists Be Tried in Civilian
Courts? Terrorists who infiltrate the American homeland are combatants, not criminals, and they
are combatants out of uniform who disregard the rules of war, forfeiting the protection of those rules.
Fading Shock and Fading
Resolve: With the destruction of the Taliban and the dispersing of al-Qaeda's
terrorists — and after four months with no major terror attacks — many
people are beginning to adjust back to their normal intellectual and political routines. They
are relapsing into the complacency and conventional politics that prevailed before September 11.
Homeland Security? You're Kidding,
Right? Are we more secure? I don't think so. I don't think any nation with the kind
of 2,000 mile-long open northern and southern borders, countless flights from overseas, and an indigenous
population of three million Muslims can ever expect to be secure.
DHS acknowledges its own computer break-ins. The
Homeland Security Department, the lead U.S. agency for fighting cyber threats, suffered more than 800 hacker
break-ins, virus outbreaks and other computer security problems over two years, senior officials acknowledged
to Congress. In one instance, hacker tools for stealing passwords and other files were found on two
internal Homeland Security computer systems.
House Panel
Criticizes Homeland Security. A House panel gave a tongue-lashing to the
Department of Homeland Security Wednesday [5/17/2006] before approving a $32.1 billion
spending plan for the troubled agency.
The Geneva Convention and the
Guantanamo Detainees: Breaking with other Cabinet officials this week, Secretary of State Colin
Powell urged President Bush to ensure that, in the event of a surprise attack by North Korea, the Office of
Homeland Security have full resources and authority to respond to any anti-Korean hate crimes. Mr.
Powell was expressing the concerns of our allies and human-rights advocates. Actually his real beef
concerns the technical procedure by which the United States concludes that the terrorists held at Guantanamo
are not "prisoners of war."
Tracking down the enemy
within: If we are serious about this war on terrorism, Congress ought not only to declare war,
but warn that any terrorist caught in the U.S. on a mission of massacre will go before a military tribunal and
be put to death quickly and in secret [as was done in World War II].
Libertarians: Repeal all gun
laws: Party calls firearms 'practical solution' to problem of terrorism.
No more jury trials for terrorists.
War, Nuclear Weapons and
"Innocents": America is at war. To win, we must destroy not just individual terrorists like
Osama bin Laden and his allies in Afghanistan but the power of brutal, authoritarian governments to send out
their armies of terrorists against us. Central among these is Iran, but the enemy includes Iraq, Syria,
Sudan, the PLO and others.
In Crisis,
Do Americans Prefer a Republican in White House?: While there is a well-established pattern of
the public rallying behind its president in times of crisis, some say Americans breathe a little easier knowing
there's a Republican in the White House when the country is under attack.
Castro, Bioterrorist in Our
Backyard: With all the coverage lately in the U.S. media about bacteriological warfare, why
have Americans been kept ignorant about Castro's factories of bacteriological and chemical weapons in
Cuba? Undoubtedly, there is a deliberate effort by the U.S. media not to report negative information
about Cuba.
Why and How to Conquer the
Savages: A murderous leader of a foreign government forfeits his right to
life, and a murderous government forfeits its right to exist.
Declare
War: The people who planned and carried out these attacks don't see
themselves as "criminals." They see themselves as warriors against the United States,
and it would be irresponsible for us not to treat them as such.
An American Peace: How to Win the
War Against Terrorism: After over twenty years of unpunished terrorist violence
against American servicemen and civilians that culminated in a September 11th attack on
the Pentagon and World Trade Center more destructive than Pearl Harbor, the Bush
administration has declared a world war against terrorism. How can America and her
allies possibly win such a war?
U.S. sent
Afghanistan $125 million: The United States has sent nearly $125 million in
aid to Afghanistan this year, making Washington the country's largest benefactor for the
second straight year.
The section about domestic surveillance, normally
seen at this point, has been moved to a page of its own.
The ACLU Goes Shopping for a Friendly Judge
Judge Finds NSA Program Unconstitutional.
Back in January of 2006, the ACLU filed a lawsuit against the NSA wire tapping program. The ACLU's lawsuit
was on behalf of journalists, lawyers, and others who said that the NSA program made it hard to do their
jobs. I can't see as how that would be correct; unless they were in contact with terrorists.
A judge's ruling as evidence of
collapse. Somewhere in Detroit a dimwitted federal judge appointed by the late, lamentable and
toothy Jimmy Carter, who made militant Islam what it is today by his feckless and toothless response to the
capture of our hostages in Tehran back in 1979, ruled that the highly successful NSA program is
unconstitutional. And by doing so she ruled against years of precedent and all too obvious common sense,
and is trying to put the kibosh on a program which was most recently used in stopping the 24 folks in custody
in Britain.
When Bad Decisions Go Good. When
is a bad decision good? When it yields unexpectedly good returns. … The plaintiffs in this
case … apparently hand-picked a court and a judge that would deliver the desired result.
The ACLU and
forum shopping in NSA case. Of course the ACLU looked for the forum, and probably even
the judge, that gave them the best chance to be gifted with at least a lower court win.
Wiretap-case judge has ties to ACLU. Judge
Anna Diggs Taylor, who last week ruled President Bush's wiretapping program unconstitutional, serves as a
trustee and officer for a Detroit nonprofit group that has given at least $125,000 to the American Civil
Liberties Union in Michigan, a plaintiff in the case.
Wiretapping Judge May Have Had
Conflict of Interest. Judge Anna Diggs Taylor, who last week ruled the government's warrantless
wiretapping program unconstitutional, serves as a Secretary and Trustee for a foundation that donated funds
to the ACLU of Michigan, a plaintiff in the case.
The
Living Constitution's Double Standard: You do see the irony here, don't you? A
coalition of pressure groups — Greenpeace, the ACLU, and a bunch of left-wing
professors — are arguing that the Constitution must be immutably inflexible,
adamantine in the face of changing times. The fact that al Qaeda is using new technologies
the Founders could never have imagined is irrelevant, say the absolutists. … Isn't this
just a bit hard to take with a straight face from the ACLU…?
Shaky surveillance
ruling. If last week's decision in ACLU v. NSA is left standing, America may have to decide to
shut down its commercial passenger airline industry or leave passengers totally at the mercy of terrorists
armed with guns, knives, and liquid explosives.
Judicial
impropriety: Judge Anna Diggs Taylor illustrates why Democrats cannot be trusted with political
power in time of war. Judge Taylor, who is the chief judge of the federal district court in Detroit,
ruled Aug. 17 that it is unconstitutional for the National Security Agency to listen in, without warrants,
on telephone conversations between terror suspects abroad and people in the United States. Her ruling
was praised by Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, and other prominent
Democrats.
More derogatory information about the ACLU can be
found here.
Internet data retention is far worse than sifting through phone numbers.
Congress
may consider mandatory ISP snooping. A Democratic Congresswoman is proposing to fast-track a bill
or amendment to require essentially permanent retention of users' Internet activity data (until at least one
year after the user closes their account). For long-term users, this means effectively permanent retention.
Mandated Data Retention: Noble Goals
With Evil Outcomes. I believe that in the majority of these cases we're dealing with legislators
and others who genuinely believe in their causes, and either don't have the will or background to recognize or
understand the horrible collateral damage that their proposals would do.
U.S. asks
Internet firms to save data. Top law enforcement officials have asked leading Internet companies
to keep histories of the activities of Web users for up to two years to assist in criminal investigations of
child pornography and terrorism, the Justice Department said Wednesday [5/31/2006]. Attorney General
Alberto Gonzales and FBI Director Robert Mueller outlined their request to executives from Google, Microsoft,
AOL, Comcast, Verizon and others Friday in a private meeting at the Justice Department.
Feds Continue Push For Mandated Internet Data
Retention. This is a critical topic. The impracticality and cost issues associated
with the new DOJ Internet data retention proposals are relatively obvious. It's difficult to even
understand who would be required to comply with such demands.
Much more information about the government sifting through internet data
is on this page.
Privacy issues related to the Global War on Terrorism
... or whatever they call it now.
Editor's Note: This next section started out as a collection of editorials about
America's short-range plans in the immediate aftermath of the September 11th attacks. It was
a volatile time in American politics, and if you ask me, a number of politicians took advantage of the
moment to pass laws like the Patriot Act.
You may also be interested in the page
about domestic surveillance.
Trashing privacy:
Thanks to the U.S. Senate's remarkable but well-known lack of backbone, nations such as Albania, Croatia,
Uganda and many others now will be able to call up the U.S. Justice Department and find out as much as they
would like about anything you do with your computer. At this point, you probably wonder why you haven't
read about this. Frankly, there's not much reason you would have, unless you read some relatively
obscure publications that focus mostly on technology issues. Another reason you wouldn't likely
have heard of it is, of course, that most major media outlets ignored the issue entirely….
Pentagon
creating student database. The Defense Department yesterday [6/22/2005] began working
with a private marketing firm to create a database of all U.S. college students as well as high-school
students between ages 16 and 18, to help the military identify potential recruits in a time of
dwindling enlistment.
Are
you 16 to 25? The Pentagon Has Your Number, and More. The Defense Department and a private
contractor have been building an extensive database of 30 million 16-to-25-year-olds, combining names with
Social Security numbers, grade-point averages, e-mail addresses and phone numbers. The department began
building the database three years ago, but military officials filed a notice announcing plans for it only last
month. That is apparently a violation of the federal Privacy Act, which requires that government agencies
accept public comment before new records systems are created.
Total Surveillance Equals Total
Tyranny. In the name of fighting terrorism a new kind of government is being implemented in
Washington, D.C. We are witnessing the birth of a powerful multi-billion dollar surveillance lobby
consisting of an army of special interest groups, Washington lawyers, lobbyists, and high-tech firms with
wares to sell.
Complexities Of Federal
Data Mining: Whether or not the powers of the federal government to mine data make us safer from
terrorism is open to serious question. The government has yet to prove its efficacy in fighting terrorism.
CIA expands its watchful eye to the
US: It will gather intelligence at home to curb terrorism. Critics see era of
Big Trenchcoat.
Anonymity in America: Does National Security
Preclude It? Anonymous speech has proud roots stretching to the origins of America.
Gentlemen calling themselves "Publius" wrote the Federalist Papers. Thomas Paine's Common Sense was
signed by "An Englishman." Today, computer programs that allow us to encrypt emails — to
scramble them such that only the intended "key-holding" recipient can decipher the message — represent perhaps the newest incarnation of the
old tradition of speaking both freely and anonymously.
NJ Bill Would Prohibit Anonymous Posts on
Forums. Too much important opinion, including that leading to the founding of the country,
was published anonymously to permit the government to ban anonymous opinion. Even unto this day,
anonymous pamphleteering is an honorable activity at the core of the First Amendment. … I would
expect that such a statute, were it to be enacted, would be quickly challenged and almost as quickly
overturned.
Is privacy the next casualty? Sen. Mike
DeWine is crusading to hand the FBI new powers to eavesdrop on immigrants and other non-citizens living in
America.
Cyber-Surveillance in the Wake of 9/11:
"Cyber-snooping" has been the subject of heated debate in recent years between the law enforcement community
and many privacy advocates who seek to secure their right of free speech and to guard against "unreasonable
searches" that new technologies can make easier. The fears of both sides are well-founded.
Who gave your rights
away? Many conservatives, liberals and libertarians are protesting the numerous invasions of your
liberty that Congress and the Bush administration have imposed during the past two months.
The
Price of Peace: It's privacy.
Surveillance Switcheroo: How the anti-terrorism bill got
passed. In the days following September 11, it was easy to feel kinda bad for Attorney
General John Ashcroft. He really wanted to catch the terrorists, but he just didn't seem up to the
job. Whiz-bang encryption and communication technologies had left the cops in the dust, he said, and
unless the country acted fast, things would only get worse. That's compelling stuff, but it turns out
to be an almost complete inversion of the truth.
Does More Listening by Law Enforcement Make America
Safer? "Our nation's time-tested freedoms can be eroded by the overzealous use of electronic
surveillance by law enforcement. … Wiretaps can be an important and legitimate tool for law enforcement,
but the importance of probable cause and respecting privacy should not be lost."
(Not the exact title, but close enough):
Report on Federal Court Applications for Orders
Authorizing Wiretaps: One fact worth noting is that encryption was encountered in 16 wiretaps
that were terminated in 2001. However, in none of the cases involving encryption were law enforcement
officers unable to obtain the plain text of the communications that had been intercepted. [PDF file]
FBI Seeking to Wiretap the
Internet: The Federal Bureau of Investigation is seeking to broaden considerably its ability to
tap into Internet traffic in its quest to root out terrorists, going beyond even the new measures afforded in
anti-terror legislation recently signed by President Bush, according to lawyers familiar with the FBI's
plans. Stewart Baker, an attorney at the Washington D.C.-based Steptoe & Johnson and a former general
consul to National Security Agency, said the FBI has plans to change the architecture of the Internet and
route traffic through central servers that it would be able to monitor e-mail more easily.
Congress Mulls Stiff Crypto
Laws: The encryption wars have begun. For nearly a decade, privacy mavens have been
worrying that a terrorist attack could prompt Congress to ban communications-scrambling products that frustrate
both police wiretaps and U.S. intelligence agencies. Tuesday's catastrophe, which shed more blood on
American soil than any event since the Civil War, appears to have started that process.
Senate OKs FBI Net Spying: FBI agents soon may be
able to spy on Internet users legally without a court order. On Thursday evening, two days after the
worst terrorist attack in U.S. history, the Senate approved the "Combating Terrorism Act of 2001," which
enhances police wiretap powers and permits monitoring in more situations.
Show Me the War: Yes, I expected
something different from our nation and its leaders, I expected a war on terrorism, not confiscating crochet
hooks from grannies. Actually I expected that the liberal agenda of suspending our constitutional
freedoms as Americans would be set aside, at least temporarily, while we fought the terrorists. Now we're
calling out the national guard, state by state, where martial law could be imposed at any moment against any
individual, citizen or alien. Just what kind of a war is this?
Executive power grab on tap at White
House?: Attorneys say Bush's post-attack directives could lead to liberty-curbing restrictions.
Executive Orders and National Emergencies:
How presidents have come to "run the country" by usurping legislative power.
Constitutional Rights Should Trump
Terrorism Regs: After the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, the Left moved quickly to use it as an
excuse to enact draconian federal gun control. Fortunately, saner heads prevailed by showing that no new
gun control laws would have been the slightest deterrent to that tragedy.
Contrasting
Views on Preserving Civil Liberties in the Aftermath of an Attack
Former FBI Director: Balance
Intelligence Needs With Civil Liberties. Congress has a difficult but important task ahead as it
weighs new legislation that would give the Justice Department and FBI new powers to surveil U.S. citizens and
foreign visitors, says former FBI Director William S. Sessions.
Threats
to Privacy Seen in Wake of Attacks: Human and civil rights experts expressed worry Friday
[9/14/2001] about the chilling effect Tuesday's terrorist attacks may have on individual liberties. Simon
Davies, director of Privacy International and a professor at the London School of Economics, said that "a chill
went up the spine of civil liberties groups across the world in the aftermath of this horrific attack."
Other related information
If you're really concerned about this issue, you should also visit these pages:
Privacy Compromised by Big Government.
Wiretaps: Mostly having to do with
internet and cell phone eavesdropping (where you shouldn't expect much privacy anyway), but also
dealing with keystroke logging and other more directly invasive wiretapping techniques.
Carnivore: This is a computer program
(and from what I've heard, not a very effective one) designed to sift through all the internet traffic
at a given point, looking for unusual keywords, encrypted traffic, and generally
suspicious stuff.
Echelon: A world-wide system of
listening posts that can and does listen to every international phone call, and has done so for
years. I'm not sure why the domestic spying issue is suddenly so hot. International
phone calls have never come with any guarantee of privacy.
Other privacy issues, and there are many.
Back to The War With No Name
Over to Domestic Surveillance
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