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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group
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To: JohnM who wrote (12386)12/2/2001 12:34:44 PM
From: tekboy  Read Replies (3) of 281500
 
the administration is doing lots of different things simultaneously, some of which might be sensible and some of which might not be. One change that has been suggested, for example--loosening the so-called "attorney general's guidelines" specifying rules and procedures for acceptable domestic surveillance--strikes me as a good idea. In fact, some people who were knowledgeable and concerned about the terrorism threat were suggesting such a change well before 9/11, as this clip from an exchange in Slate from early 1999 demonstrates:

"an important part of my ideal counterterrorism program would be an expansion of our intelligence-gathering efforts, domestic as well as foreign. Right now rules called the "attorney general's guidelines" prohibit the FBI from monitoring potentially worrisome groups unless and until there's an imminent prospect of a crime being committed. The sensible reason for this is to avoid having Big Brother snooping around everywhere, and it is true that the government has abused its authority in the past. But in an era when a previously unknown group's first criminal act might be the catastrophic use of weapons of mass destruction, I think a more comprehensive and aggressive approach is called for--one that keeps close tabs on a large number of cults and extremists, for example, and notes when they start composing love poems to chemical weapons. For enraged readers already preparing e-mail responses, I will simply say that I consider the alternatives--massive civil defense programs or complacent vulnerability--worse."

slate.msn.com

tekboy@onceinawhiletheBushiesdosomethingright.com
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