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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Skywatcher who wrote (265241)	6/19/2002 1:48:27 PM
From: Karen Lawrence	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

That's good news. This is from that Hawaii Guy at RB re Bush news spins to take heat off the pres: 2002, 06:37 PM EDT Msg. 25524 of 25539 OT: See how well it's done: ragingbull.lycos.com First they took advantage of the cover afforded by the Rowley firestorm to announce sweeping rollbacks in the U.S.'s meager edifice of rules against indiscriminate domestic spying, rules spawned by the exposure of prolific FBI abuses in the 1960s. Under the new guidelines set forth in John Ashcroft's little-noted May 30 diktat, there is no longer any pretense that intelligence agencies need "reasonable suspicion" of criminal activity to mount prolonged fishing expeditions into the affairs of private individuals. The administration then turned to defusing Rowley's story. Hence the rushed announcement of plans to reorganize the entire intelligence apparatus, even though the particulars are so ill-formed that Bush has no intention of soliciting funds for it this year. Thus, too, the sudden fanfare regarding the arrest of Jose Padilla a month earlier. After the Padilla story had simmered for a couples of days, the administration cheerfully conceded it was less than advertised. It was unlikely Padilla would ever be prosecuted; as a Defense Department deputy told CBS, "I don't think there was actually a plot beyond some fairly loose talk." Job well done. Padilla served his purpose, which was to steal the last bit of thunder from Rowley's Congressional testimony a few days earlier.