Rudy G. On The Senate’s Short Memory
Writing in the New York Times:
The central provisions of the Patriot Act allow law enforcement and the intelligence community to share information. This might seem elementary, but for years law enforcement had been stymied by a legal wall that prevented agencies from sharing information. For four years now, inter-agency collaboration, made possible by the Patriot Act, has played an important role in preventing another day like Sept. 11. The act’s provisions helped make possible the investigations in Lackawanna, N.Y., and Portland, Ore., in which 12 people were ultimately convicted for attempts to aid Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
So what happened in Washington? The House voted on Wednesday to renew the act; it stalled in the Senate. If the Senate fails to approve the extension, the government will be forced to revert in many ways to our pre-Sept. 11 methods. Sixteen provisions of the Patriot Act are set to expire on Dec. 31, including the key information-sharing ones.
It is simply false to claim, as some of its critics do, that this bill does not respond to concerns about civil liberties. The four-year extension of the Patriot Act, as passed by the House, would not only reauthorize the expiring provisions – allowing our Joint Terrorism Task Force, National Counterterrorism Center and Terrorist Screening Center to continue their work uninterrupted – it would also make a number of common-sense clarifications and add dozens of additional civil liberties safeguards.
Concerns have been raised about the so-called library records provision; the bill adds safeguards. The same is true for roving wiretaps, “sneak and peek” searches and access to counsel and courts, as well as many others concerns raised by groups like the American Library Association and the American Civil Liberties Union.
Given these improvements, there is simply no compelling argument for going backward in the fight against terrorism. Perhaps a reminder is in order. The bipartisan 9/11 commission described a vivid example of how the old ways hurt us. In the summer of 2001, an F.B.I. agent investigating two individuals we now know were hijackers on Sept. 11 asked to share information with another team of agents. This request was refused because of the wall. The agent’s response was tragically prescient: “Someday, someone will die – and wall or not – the public will not understand why we were not more effective.”
How quickly we forget.
Civil liberties ARE a fundamental part of what it means to be an American…but how many people who are so up in arms about the Patriot Act realize that the modifications Giuliani outlined have been made?
For a view of how unsecure we can be without these and similar measures, read the absolutely astonishing rant of Steve Clemons, who wants the complete list of people that “Bush” spied on (as if the President was the only one who knew about this and approved of it) published in full:
Post the list. It should be made public because at this point there is NO NATIONAL SECURITY rationale to justify the monitoring of citizens in cases that have not been approved by a court. That means that all of those citizens monitored are innocent — and unwitting victims of this domestic spy campaign launched by George W. Bush.
No national security rationale? None? Not even the prevention of a major terrorist attack? Not even the prevention of a dirty bomb attack? How about a full-fledged nuclear attack?
Ridiculous, you may say – but then, so was the idea that the World Trade Center would be laid low in two hours by two commercial airline jets…
Rudy doesn’t even mention the fact that we’ve never seen the footage of the actual destruction of the towers in any of the MSM for over 4 years now. Nor have we seen the harrowing scenes of desperate people hanging out of the windows, then jumping to their deaths.
But of course, we see 24/7 the coverage of bombs that go off in Iraq, the inane poseurs like Mother Sheehan, and the sonorous tones of our daily combat casualties. No doubt some of these subjects are important, but during this time there is no review or perspective regarding why the hell we went to the ME in the first place.
Collective amnesia has been forced – fed to us by the MSM for a long time now, and we can only hope the effect will not be permanent.
Rudy = the nation’s top cop under Reagan = Rudy Can’t Fail.
With all due respect to Sen. Allen, does he have law enforcement experience? Disaster management (not just 9/11; NYC was a disaster area long before that) experience? Experience standing up to blue collar *and* white collar malfeasance?
Yes, I know. Rudy wore a dress on Saturday Night Live. O the iniquity!
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MC, we’re moving (to Sen. Allen’s state, no less) tomorrow, where we probably won’t have broadband, at least not right away. It may be a long time before I have the time to comment, so … Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!
Knemon, a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you, as well…you were one of my original supporters, and I won’t forget that…hurry back as quickly as you can, best of luck on your move, and drive safely…
I think what Clemons should have said is no COMPELLING national security rationale. We can yammer on all we like about terrorists and nuclear weapons and dirty bombs, but if there’s a good reason to wiretap someone then a court will approve it. If not, the cost to civil liberties is way way way way way too high. I too would like a list of the people who have been spied on.
And Rudy’s a great guy and all, but he forgets the one major problem with the PATRIOT Act: this administration. I don’t care how many new provisions you cram in, this is an administration that spies on its citizens and tortures its prisoners. Give it more police power to “prevent terrorist attacks?” No thanks.
What good would that list do you or Clemons, Ryan? On the flip side, how many operations might it blow wide open? If you want to argue that the policy is wrong, you can certainly make a strong case, I don’t deny that – but who benefits from publicizing that list? I can see a lot of people who would be harmed by it…
Ryan should spend a few weeks in Israel, and perhaps then he’d know what a country must do to survive and anticipate terrorist attacks. Their surveillance of their own citizens (which is widely approved) makes the Patriot Act look like child’s play.
dmac: Do you honestly believe that life here is anything like life in Israel? We may as well say “Look what it was like in Nazi Germany!” to justify policy. I don’t contend that PATRIOT Act doesn’t do any good; I just think it’s patently unconstitutional and certainly not worth the cost. As for wide approval, maybe the president should, you know, ask the American people if they approve before he starts spying on them. On top of all that, I’m not entirely convinced that Israel really needs to do a great many of the questionable things it does. There is no doubt that a good half of Israel’s problems are self-inflicted.
Mark: It would let everyone see just exactly what a bunch of hooligans the Bush administration is. I’d love to know who’s on the list because I have a suspicion that a fair number of them aren’t likely to be threats to anyone. As for the number of operations blown open, oh well. They shouldn’t have been in existence in the first place.