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January 30, 2006

Debra Burlingame

reminds us

A mere four-and-a-half years after victims were forced to choose between being burned alive and jumping from 90 stories, it is frankly shocking that there is anyone in Washington who would politicize the Patriot Act. It is an insult to those who died to tell the American people that the organization posing the greatest threat to their liberty is not al Qaeda but the FBI. Hearing any member of Congress actually crow about "killing" or "playing chicken" with this critical legislation is as disturbing today as it would have been when Ground Zero was still smoldering. Today we know in far greater detail what not having it cost us.

Critics contend that the Patriot Act was rushed into law in a moment of panic. The truth is, the policies and guidelines it corrected had a long, troubled history and everybody who had to deal with them knew it. The "wall" was a tortuous set of rules promulgated by Justice Department lawyers in 1995 and imagined into law by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court. Conceived as an added protection for civil liberties provisions already built into the statute, it was the wall and its real-world ramifications that hardened the failure-to-share culture between agencies, allowing early information about 9/11 hijackers Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi to fall through the cracks. More perversely, even after the significance of these terrorists and their presence in the country was known by the FBI's intelligence division, the wall prevented it from talking to its own criminal division in order to hunt them down.

Furthermore, it was the impenetrable FISA guidelines and fear of provoking the FISA court's wrath if they were transgressed that discouraged risk-averse FBI supervisors from applying for a FISA search warrant in the Zacarias Moussaoui case. The search, finally conducted on the afternoon of 9/11, produced names and phone numbers of people in the thick of the 9/11 plot, so many fertile clues that investigators believe that at least one airplane, if not all four, could have been saved.

In 2002, FISA's appellate level Court of Review examined the entire statutory scheme for issuing warrants in national security investigations and declared the "wall" a nonsensical piece of legal overkill, based neither on express statutory language nor reasonable interpretation of the FISA statute. The lower court's attempt to micromanage the execution of national security warrants was deemed an assertion of authority which neither Congress or the Constitution granted it. In other words, those lawyers and judges who created, implemented and so assiduously enforced the FISA guidelines were wrong and the American people paid dearly for it.

Of course, one of the first responses to this article comes from someone characterizing Burlingame as "hysterical" and that she should just shut-up and go away.

Just as Richard Dreyfus' character in Jaws says to the mayor who wants to keep the beaches open inspite of two confirmed attacks, "You aren't going to believe [in the threat] until it swims up on the beach and bites you on the ass."

The denial of Islamism and how terrorists work is breathtaking.

Posted by Darleen at January 30, 2006 08:29 AM

Comments

Too bad bush sat on his ass and did nothing when warned about osama by wilson and others.

Posted by: Bill Smithe at January 30, 2006 09:10 AM

Oh? Mr. Valerie Plame who actually lied about his tea-sipping trip to Niger?

Posted by: Darleen at January 30, 2006 09:51 AM

How did Joe Wilson lie, Darleen? References, please.

Posted by: Brad at January 31, 2006 08:09 AM

I am in a dark dark mood after the Alito vote.

The thing I want to know is how anyone can defend voting for Bush on the basis of keeping us safe and being prepared for a terrorist attack after Katrina. It is pure luck that nothing greater has happened -and if it did would we have the same pathetic response to it that we saw in New Orleans?

Now we have Alito. I feel like throwing up. This is a dark dark day for Americans who do believe in the rule of law, civil rights, and the right to have an abortion without interference from the government.

Posted by: Mieke at January 31, 2006 09:04 AM