Here comes a bowl of jello!
Well...we definitely have a food fight!
IMO our perception of the threat of terrorist groups and their ability to do harm to America has obviously changed since 9/11. Before that date, as a nation we were too complaisant and IMO we felt that terrorist attacks of the magnitude seen on 9/11 were something we would never see in the United States.
Before the Patriot Act was passed, IMO it was too easy for a potential terrorist to function without detection...and to use our laws to go undetected. From an article published after 9/11... "FBI agents in Minneapolis seized Moussaoui’s computer in mid-August after officials at an Eagan, Minn., flight school tipped them off that the 33-year-old French citizen was acting suspiciously. ....agents in Minneapolis were never given approval by Justice Department officials in Washington to open up the hard drive on the suspect’s computer. The Minneapolis agents sought approval to do so—and to take other investigative steps aimed at Moussaoui—in early September under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), officials said. This came after a FBI “trace”—a request for information from friendly foreign governments—yielded a report from French intelligence that Moussaoui had been associated with members of an Algerian terrorist group and may have traveled to Afghanistan."
msnbc.com
Before 9/11 this request was denied....after 9/11 this request was approved. Could this request have prevented the events of 9/11....IMO we'll never know if this could have made a difference.
When 4 planes on one morning in September had a 70% cancellation rate while at the same time had a 500% increase in Saudi Arabian visa carrying passengers, that could have/ should have set off a neural network "check this out" on the NTSB's mainframe.
Hmmm..."after the fact" of the most horrendous terrorist act our country has ever experienced, it seems very easy to be a "Monday morning quarterback".
I've never seen it documented that the flights of 9/11 (specifically the flights of the planes involved in the terrorist acts) had a 70% cancellation rate. I'm sure that if you looked at the flights booked that day, the cancellation rate would be much higher....since all flights were grounded after it was determined an attack was underway.
Then they could have sent aboard a couple of plain clothes airmarshals armed with Magnum 44s.
Air marshals seemed to be in "short supply" prior to 9/11...but after 9/11 the use of air marshals has once again gained acceptance by the general public. The attitude of the public, and the airlines has changed since 9/11 regarding armed law enforcement agents on a flight. Those in law enforcement who were able and wanted to carry a gun on an airline flight prior to 9/11 had to go through various steps before boarding a flight. The airlines in many cases saw this as an annoyance...and something that they "put up with" from various agencies. After 9/11...those in law enforcement who happened to be armed, and traveling (not on official business)....seemed to get preferential treatment, and the pilots seemed happy to have them aboard their plane.
INS is a joke. If they spent 1/10 the time they currently use to abuse green card holders at their little windows on figuring out who was entitled to get into this country, and actually investigated and deported, immediately, those in violation of their visas, we'd be infinitely safer.
I agree with you 100% on this statement....and IMO with the new focus on Homeland Security, there will be some radical changes made with the INS. Some major changes have already been made...but not IMO not enough, and more need to made ASAP.
Existing laws might actually suffice, if enforced. New laws, if not enforced, or only selectively enforced, won't make much difference. I haven't read all 184 pages of your cite yet (and may never), but just from the headings it seems to be more of an aid to arrest and prosecution, and in grabbing terrorist bank accounts, than in discovery and prevention.
I disagree with your statement....IMO existing laws did not suffice, and that is the reason the Patriot Act was passed so quickly. Those in law enforcement were hampered by the current laws in their attempts to track and follow suspected terrorists.
I don't think any law we could pass would really get us better "inside information" on what the terrorists were planning, but better computer work could show a sudden movement by X, Y, Z, and Q, all suspected terrorist/sympathisers, suddenly driving separately toward O'Hare a/p, via bank withdrawals, car rentals, gasoline purchases, motel stays, restaurant chits, etc.
IMO the computer "work" you are mentioning was not possible prior to the passage of the Patriot Act...there were too many legal roadblocks to overcome before this computer work could have been accomplished.
Before 9/11 what we lacked was not the tools but the consciousness.
I disagree....IMO we lacked the tools necessary to fight terrorists. There were too many legal hurdles to "connect the dots"....and follow the trail of a potential terrorist. I do agree that we probably didn't take the terrorist threats as seriously as we should have taken the threats....but I don't blame the FBI or the CIA...I blame our lawmakers who were too interested in being "politically correct."
I posted this article after 9/11: "First We Cripple the CIA, Then We Blame It" by Tom Clancy.
arlingtoninstitute.org
From the article:
"It is a lamentably common practice in Washington and elsewhere to shoot people in the back and then complain when they fail to win the race. The loss of so many lives in New York and Washington is now called an "intelligence failure," mostly by those who crippled the CIA in the first place, and by those who celebrated the loss of its invaluable capabilities. What a pity that they cannot stand up like adults now and say: "See, we gutted our intelligence agencies because we don't much like them, and now we can bury thousands of American citizens as an indirect result." This, of course, will not happen, because those who inflict their aesthetic on the rest of us are never around to clean up the resulting mess, though they seem to enjoy further assaulting those whom they crippled to begin with.
Call it the law of unintended consequences. The intelligence community was successfully assaulted for actions taken under constitutionally mandated orders, and with nothing left to replace what was smashed, warnings we might have had to prevent this horrid event never came. .... But the next time America is in a fight, it is well to remember that tying one's own arm is unlikely to assist in preserving, protecting and defending what is ours." |
