Well blame the guy that drafted the EO, not the guy you blame because you hate him so much. You seem to have forgotten the USS Cole and embassy bombings. The fact is attacks have been thwarted if you want to dispute that I can provide a whole bunch of linky poos, or maybe do a bunch of cuttin and pastin.

I still would like to know:behead: :smash: :rocketwho

That's a bogus claim, predicated on fear and ignorance.
 

Just get yerself a lawn jockey or garden gnome. Looks good and exudes security, without all those pesky erosions of civil liberties.

This became an issue after they nabbed the admitted would be dirty bomber right?

What is your point? That we have nothing to fear or there is nothing we can do?

We absolutely should fear State overreach, AND we should remain vigilant for hanky panky by those that MAY theoretically choose to harm us...oh, and try not to get whipped into an undignified frenzy when the guv/media drops their periodic terror-hype bombs. Civil liberties need not be abrogated in the hot pursuit of phantoms of lost security.

Didn't the guv change tack and now, isn't even attempting to try Padilla with dirty bomb charges anymore? WTF?

Ames is (and was at the time) a U.S. citizen. His now ex-wife, however, is not. That one-time, unusual situation is what that was for.

Bush 43's use of executive privilege is a scary insult to the U.S. Congress and our constitution. In our form of government, we the people assign some of our "unalienable" liberty to the state and ask for the state to protect us in return. We yield that liberty, though, only within the bounds spelled out in the constitution and the law. Bush 43 clearly exceeded the law established by our congress enacted precisely to prevent this type of encroachment.

If he wanted to do it legally and had had it legislated, then fine. The American people probably would have been OK with it. The fact of the matter, though, is, without asking the American people, he boldly broke the law enacted by our congress to prevent the government from taking liberty from U.S. citizens. The government continues to do it today.

The folks who wrote our constitution would be shocked at the extent to which the president (and not just Bush 43) has encroached, without the consent of the people, on their liberty. Remember our constitution was written the way it was to prevent the office of the president from turning into a dictator like the then-contemporary governments in Europe had. If we the people want to assign an unlimited amount of our liberty to a king or dictator, fine. Just talk about it and decide it as a nation first.

The broader question here is what we the people want do about this. Should we ask our congress to investigate Bush 43 and consider bringing a criminal indictment?

2006 should be interesting!

WASHINGTON -- President Clinton's proposed $1.84 trillion budget includes millions of dollars in new spending on technology and law enforcement programs.

The record budget request for the 2001 fiscal year, which begins 1 October, asks Congress for more money for wiretapping, police databases, antitrust enforcement, and computer crime forensics.

One of the heftiest increases, from $15 million to $240 million, will pay telephone companies to rewire their networks to facilitate federal and state wiretapping.

Under the 1994 Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement Act (CALEA), Congress may "reimburse" phone companies for their efforts, but the controversial process is the subject of a lawsuit currently before a federal appeals court.

Half of that money, $120 million, will come from the Department of Defense's "national security" budget -- a move that alarms privacy groups.

"The proposal to use thinly disguised intelligence agency money to fund CALEA confirms what we have suspected all along: The National Security Agency is a silent partner in the government's campaign to make our entire telecommunications system, including the Net, wiretap ready," says Barry Steinhardt, associate director of the American Civil Liberties Union.

"If it's up to the FBI and the NSA, the only medium of communications they won't be able to tap will be two tin cans and a string."

According to the Defense Department's budget, Clinton asked for $4.96 billion in military "intelligence and communications activities," a $51 million increase over last year.

The Department of Justice is another big beneficiary from the mammoth budget, which Republicans have already pronounced an election-year political statement that's "dead on arrival." The White House is asking for $3.28 billion total for the DOJ, including:

* $1.42 billion to pay for the 94 U.S. Attorneys and their nearly 10,000 aides, a $100 million increase. The extra cash is supposedly necessary for firearm and pornography investigations and "to increase prosecutions of computer crime or those involved with the theft of intellectual property."

* $11.4 million to "hire data forensics examiners to retrieve and enhance examinations of computer evidence."

* $100 million for "automated data processing and telecommunications and technical investigative equipment" -- up from $50 million, and $300 million for "counter-terrorism."

* $5 million to combine the Immigration and Naturalization Service's IDENT fingerprint system with the FBI's IAFIS database.

* $4.3 million to "implement a Public Key Infrastructure" for the Justice Department's own computer network.

* $134 million to pay for antitrust investigations and lawsuits, up from $110 million, though the DOJ's antitrust division will likely collect at least that amount in fines and fees. As of October 1999, the division had 411 cases pending.

* $1 million for a Web site and "communications network" for DOJ newsletters and publications. The idea is to save on printing and warehousing costs.

* $10 million to develop "gun detection/childproof technologies."

* $1.8 million to complete a "Joint Automated Booking System" so the FBI can monitor arrests and have a "current, nationwide reference for criminal offenders, arrests, cases, and related data." The system includes images and fingerprints.

Clinton presses for anti-terrorism tools
clinton
Congress agrees tougher measures needed

July 29, 1996
Web posted at: 7:25 p.m. EDT

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Clinton asked Congress Monday to put more teeth in a tough new anti-terrorism law, and won broad agreement but no specific commitments from Republican lawmakers.

Clinton and the Congressional bipartisan leadership met for about an hour at the White House to discuss what steps can be taken to further combat terrorism at home and abroad. Both sides agreed to meet again Tuesday and Chief of Staff Leon Panetta planned to go to Capitol Hill to continue the discussions.

sound icon Flanked by Republican and Democratic leaders of the House and Senate, President Clinton opened the meeting by saying, "You can see that when we are attacked, whether it's from within or without, we come together and that's what we're doing here." (191K AIFF or WAV sound)

In a month that has seen an attack on military barracks in Saudi Arabia, the bombing of Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta and the possible sinister downing of TWA Flight 800, leaders of both parties were rallying behind efforts to eradicate terrorism.

sound icon During a photo opportunity before the meeting, House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Georgia, told Clinton, "We look forward to having a serious discussion here about how we can work with you to continue to strengthen our ability to deal with these kind of people." (254K AIFF or WAV sound)
gingrich

Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott echoed Gingrich's spirit of cooperation and suggested a willingness to adopt parts of the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1996 that the White House had supported but were eliminated from the original bill, such as the placing of tracing elements in explosives.

Sen. Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-South Dakota, who has voiced concerns about the constitutionality of certain measures, urged the Congress be "expeditious and not rash," in adopting a stricter plan for fighting terrorism.
daschle

Seizing on a signal that Congress might relent on anti-terrorist tools that were denied him earlier this year, Clinton is asking Gingrich and other legislative leaders "to provide these additional protections."

"He'd like to give the FBI more tools so there will be no more bombing like at the Olympics," White House spokeswoman Mary Ellen Glynn said Monday.

Clinton told a veterans convention in New Orleans Sunday that he was encouraged by televised remarks by Gingrich that indicated a softening of resistance to expanding wiretapping and to requiring chemical markers in black powder explosives.

He spoke a day after a pipe bomb exploded at an after-hours Olympics celebration in Atlanta, killing one person and injuring more than 100, and 11 days after a suspected bomb downed a TWA jumbo jet at a cost of 230 lives.
gephardt

sound icon Clinton planned to press his request at the meeting Monday with Gingrich, Lott, Daschle, House minority leaders Rep. Dick Gephardt, D-Missouri and FBI Director Louis Freeh. (254K AIFF or WAV sound of Gephardt)

sound icon The aim, he said to applause, is "to help to agree on a package that will provide these additional protections against terrorism and any other measures we need to take to increase the protection of the American people." (127K AIFF or WAV sound)

Daschle said Monday it was possible an amendment might be offered in the Senate this week to approve Clinton's new proposals but said nothing had been decided.

"It may put Republicans in an awkward position," he said, in a reference to the watering down of the anti-terrorism bill last spring before it reached Clinton's desk. "They have to decide between the NRA and the FBI. I hope they choose the FBI."

Speaking of terrorism at home and abroad, Clinton told the Disabled American Veterans: "This is a challenge we can and will meet. It may well be the most significant security challenge of the 21st century to the people of the United States and to civilized people everywhere."

Meanwhile, it was announced that Attorney General Janet Reno will lead the U.S. delegation to a multinational conference on terrorism in Paris on Tuesday.

The anti-terrorism bill that Clinton signed earlier this year applied the death penalty to convicted terrorists and provided $1 billion in special assistance for law enforcement.

But a provision to allow the FBI to wiretap all telephones used by a suspected terrorist was dropped and one requiring explosives manufacturers to insert chemical tracers in their products was weakened to cover only plastic explosives.

A rare grouping of conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats succeeded in killing the wiretap provision on the grounds that it would encroach further on personal liberties.

Clinton said he wanted increased wiretap authority "for terrorists who are moving from place to place," adding: "Where they are flexible, so must we be."

The right thing would be that we Americans who stand for truth and justice should try to get him there. He should be sitting in a cubicle right next to Saddam and they should be tried together.

I doubt you can prove that.

They can indict anybody they want.

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He's going after citizens? I dodn't know that.

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And the first WTC bombing. And the shooting at the CIA HQ.

"THEY" need to indict Bush NOW!

Let them do what they wish. All they need is an Army capable of enforcing their will. See, this is why the concept of "international law" is so bogus. There is no enforcement unless somebody has the will and power to enforce.

Lets look all around the globe and see if we can find an entity that can enforce international law. Show of hands?

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