Judge Helps Experts Help Terrorists
Best of the Web Today - January 27, 2004
By JAMES TARANTO
Judge Helps Experts Help Terrorists
What would terrorists do without experts? They may not need to find out, thanks to a ruling by Judge Audrey Collins, who sits on a federal trial court in California. The Associated Press reports that on Friday Collins "declared unconstitutional a portion of the USA Patriot Act that bars giving expert advice or assistance to groups designated foreign terrorist organizations."
The AP reports that Collins, a Clinton appointee, "said the ban on providing 'expert advice or assistance' is impermissibly vague" because it prohibits giving advice on "lawful, nonviolent activities"--even though the ban applies only to advice whose recipients the U.S. government has designated terror groups.
Here's a question for John Kerry and John Edwards, both of whom are now waging demagogic campaigns against the Patriot Act, despite having voted for it: Do you believe the U.S. Constitution protects the right to give expert advice and assistance to terrorist groups? And if so, do you pledge to appoint judges who share this view?
Kerry: Bush Should Have Deferred to Saddam
Ever since Howard Dean emerged as a force in the Democratic nomination contest, John Kerry has been backpedaling from his October 2002 vote in support of the war that liberated Iraq. The Manchester Union Leader reports on the latest explanation offered by the haughty, French-looking Massachusetts Democrat, who by the way served in Vietnam:
"I voted for the process," Kerry said. "Go to the UN, build a coalition, and go to war as a last resort. George Bush broke his promise and went around us. He set the date for the war, not Saddam Hussein."
Well, on Dec. 7, 1941, and again on Sept. 11, 2001, America's enemies "set the date for war." Wouldn't we have been better off if FDR and President Clinton or Bush had beaten them to the punch, thus averting thousands of American deaths? |
