From: MSN NicknameEagle_wng  (Original Message)    Sent: 8/21/2007 6:01 PM
Wake-up call

Tuesday, Aug. 21 2007

After nearly six years of hearing the Bush administration make assertions
about the war on terrorism that turn out to be — to put it kindly — overblown,
Congress and the public it represents should be wary about surrendering
personal liberties for dubious claims of greater security.

Recent days have brought two reminders that America still has a tough time
being hard on terrorism without being soft on liberty. The first was Congress'
abdication of its responsibilities in approving changes in the 1978 Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act. The second was the conviction last week of Jose
Padilla, the one-time alleged "dirty bomber," on charges unrelated to those
that got his constitutional rights suspended.

The House and Senate, in a hurry to begin their August recess, approved the
FISA changes Aug. 4; instead of reining in the administration's abuses of the
FISA law — including warrantless eavesdropping on electronic communications —
Congress actually may have made the problem worse.

Under the new language, the government need not get a court warrant to
eavesdrop on communications between the United States and abroad if there is a
"reasonable belief" that the target of the investigation is outside the United
States. Previously the law required that the target be someone known to be on
foreign soil and suspected of direct terrorist involvement.

Congress got rolled. The language of this provision and others is so vague that
some experts now warn that spy agencies may be able to seize business records
and conduct physical searches on American soil without first obtaining warrants
from a FISA judge.

After the Senate approved the new language, Sen. Christopher S. "Kit" Bond,
R-Mo., one of the bill's most ardent supporters, said "I can sleep a little
safer tonight." We're grateful for that, but more grateful that Congress at
least had the sense to put a six-month limit on the new rules. When they come
up for review next year, we hope Mr. Bond's Missouri colleague, Democratic Sen.
Claire McCaskill, wakes up. She was one of 16 Democrats who joined with
Republicans in falling for Mr. Bush's "hurry up, surrender your liberties, the
terrorists are coming" trick.

As for Jose Padilla's conviction, seldom has the phrase "mixed emotions" seemed
so apt. Clearly he was an angry, disaffected would-be jihadist who, given the
right resources, might have proved a danger to his fellow Americans. He
apparently applied to train to become a terrorist and talked about it with
others, which proved to be his undoing, but there was never any evidence that
he posed a real threat.

The jury decided that being a terrorist wanna-be is enough. Padilla faces 15
years to life in prison on his conviction in federal court in Miami for
conspiring in the 1990s (long before the 9/11 attacks) to provide support for
Islamist fundamentalists — in Bosnia and Chechnya.

He was not charged with any of the things with the government claimed he was
involved when he was arrested in May 2002 in Chicago as an "enemy combatant,"
including the sensational and apparently specious allegation that a former Taco
Bell cook could explode a "dirty bomb" attack on U.S. soil.

Padilla, a United States citizen, was held in a military prison for two years
without charges and without access to a lawyer. He was subjected to the series
of coercive interrogation techniques sometimes known as "torture lite,"
including total sensory deprivation. In 2004, fearing that the U.S. Supreme
Court might insist that U.S. citizens had rights, the Bush administration
kicked him over to the federal criminal court system, where the Constitution
still applies.

If Congress can wake up, it should insist that the Padilla case proves that
special military courts aren't needed to try terrorism cases, nor are special
military prisons needed to hold suspects. Since 1787, the U.S. judicial system,
operating under the Constitution and the rule of law, has managed the fine
balance between liberty and security. To bypass the Constitution is to risk
both.
 
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