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Politics : I Will Continue to Continue, to Pretend.... -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sully- who wrote (16755)	12/24/2005 7:58:16 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Hypocrisy Alert: It's Coming By Cori Dauber Rantingprofs Pay careful attention in the coming days. I've argued before that one problem with news reporting is that it's utterly context free. So an enormous fuss is made over one story and then a few weeks or months (or years) later a fuss is made over another story with no acknowledgement that there is a relationship between the two. Example: On more than one occasion since September 11th ABC News has created a firestorm by smuggling radioactive material into the United States. When this happened, as you might imagine, they got the predictable response. The truth of the matter is, no matter how much money we spend or how much effort we put into port security, it's difficult to imagine that we can ever guarantee the borders are sealed against any particular kind of threat. All that can be done is to reduce probabilities and manage risks -- the borders are too long, the coasts are too long, the number and size of ports is to large and, for God's sake the amount of shipping entering the country every day is too large. But just remember the upset over ABC's stories about nuclear material getting through -- the horror! nuclear material might be smuggled through, and the government couldn't stop it before it got into the country! -- and line that up against the upset you'll hear over the next days over this nuclear surveillance story. 'Nuclear Monitoring of Muslims Done Without Search Warrants' Was this program legal, was it appropriate, was it handled correctly, I don't know. My point is that in the surge to angst over today's upset (surveillance nation!) the press will be downplaying any sense of risk. (Nuclear materials inside the United States? psshaw! Those paranoid, neocon Bushies again) something they have all the more motivation to do given the apparent racial profiling angle. So -- when the government failure is one of preventing nuclear material from entering the country, then the story is that the world is awash in nuclear goo and it could be on any ship, anytime, and headed this a-way. When the government failure is perhaps being too quick on the draw without search warrants, the very idea that nuclear material could be in our cities is preposterous, the stuff of right wing conspiracy fantasists. (After all, that one alert soon after September 11th wasn't froma reliable source, and it didn't turn out to be true.) The problem is that real policymaking involves balancing tradeoffs between competing values when what is at stake is not clear harm but only the ability to play the percentages, to reduce the probability of harm with no crystal ball. And, at the end of the day of course, when nothing bad has happened, if civil liberties were sacrificed at some increment (and rhetoric aside, we're almost always talking about an increment), was that a needless reduction in innocent people's rights -- or did nothing happen precisely because of that program? Meanwhile, back at the ranch, notice the cascade effect of leaks. Somehow each leak seems to justify the subsequent one. The justification for leaking this program, arguably even more sensitive than the NSA program, is that, here too, participants were "concerned" over its legality. Do these agencies not have IGs with full clearance? Do these employees not have access to the House and Senate Intelligence committees, whose members have clearance? Since when did the best way to handle "concerns" become a full vetting in public? Their concerns now become trumps, since once these programs become public they are to a large extent unable to continue in the same fashion as before. I'm all for personal integrity and standing up for what you believe in, but there's a degree of confidence in your own opinion here that's completely alien to me. rantingprofs.com abcnews.go.com schumer.senate.gov whitehouse.gov usnews.com

To: Sully- who wrote (16755)	12/24/2005 8:51:04 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Fifth Column Again Aids Terrorists By Exposing US Tactics Posted by bulldogpundit Ankle Biting Pundits Date: Friday, 23 December 2005 This is getting ridiculous. . .and extremely dangerous. Once again unnamed Fifth Columnists are doing everything in their power to ensure that classified tactics used by America to fight terrorism are exposed for all to see. The latest example is the revelation that the government is monitoring radiation levels outside of mosques and other sites inhabited by Muslims, and are doing so without warrants. Is there anything the traitors revealing these secrets won't do to hurt America? Are these chicken $hits who won't reveal their names be made to answer when, God forbid, another terrorist act occurs that might have been stopped had it not been for their exposing government secrets. There's truly a special place in hell for the ones leaking this info. Unfortunately they don't get to that place till their dead. While they're alive, however, a 6 x 8 jail cell will do. Of course in the coming days you will hear how unfair it is the government is doing this outside of places where Muslims live, work and congregate. Pay no attention. If Italians were responsible for killing 3,000 Americans then there should be radiation detectors outside every pizza shop in South Philly. If it were Irish the detectors should be outside every corner bar in Hell's Kitchen. If the Swedes did it well then....there should be radiation detectors outside of wherever the hell it is that Swedes congregate. You will also hear much about the Supreme Court in the case of Kyllo v. U.S. in which the Court held that warrants were required to direct heat sensors at houses in order to detect marijuana growing devices. If you can't see the difference between detecting drugs and detecting nuclear bombs then there's really no hope for you, as you are stuck in the September 10th world of fighting terrorism by using law enforcement techniques. And we all know how that worked. anklebitingpundits.com usnews.com law.cornell.edu

To: Sully- who wrote (16755)	12/25/2005 3:05:05 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

MORE WARRANT-LESS WORK Jim Robbins The Corner Generally speaking, can law enforcement authorities use nuclear detection devices against someone's house without a warrant? This question is at root of the latest "no warrant" controversy. Readers would do well to examine the Supreme Court case Illinois v. Caballes, decided earlier this year. The Court ruled that when a dog sniffed out drugs during a routine traffic stop, without a warrant, it did not constitute an illegal search because, in the words of Justice Stevens, "Official conduct that does not 'compromise any legitimate interest in privacy' is not a search subject to the Fourth Amendment. Jacobsen, 466 U.S., at 123. "The Court noted that "any interest in possessing contraband cannot be deemed 'legitimate,' and thus, governmental conduct that only reveals the possession of contraband 'compromises no legitimate privacy interest.' Ibid." Note that in an earlier case, Kyllo v. US, the Court ruled that thermal detection devices could not be used to surveil houses without a warrant because this would compromise privacy -- the difference being that such devices pick up licit as well as illicit activity. In his dissent in that case, Justice Stevens pondered whether "public officials should not have to avert their senses or their equipment from detecting emissions in the public domain such as ...radioactive emissions .. which could identify hazards to the community. In my judgment, monitoring such emissions with 'sense-enhancing technology,' ... and drawing useful conclusions from such monitoring, is an entirely reasonable public service." Clearly Caballes rather than Kyllo controls in the case of using detection equipment to pick up emissions from nuclear materials banned under 18 USC 831 since, to quote Stevens' majority opinion, such activity "reveals no information other than the location of a substance that no individual has any right to possess." And even if you want to subject this to a balancing test, I think the government would not have to argue very strongly that there is a compelling state interest in keeping nuclear weapons out of the hands of private citizens. corner.nationalreview.com usnews.com supct.law.cornell.edu supct.law.cornell.edu caselaw.lp.findlaw.com

To: Sully- who wrote (16755)	12/25/2005 4:33:50 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

The Washington Crime Wave Continues Power Line Another scandal--Bush is protecting us against nuclear attack! U.S. News reports: <<< In search of a terrorist nuclear bomb, the federal government since 9/11 has run a far-reaching, top secret program to monitor radiation levels at over a hundred Muslim sites in the Washington, D.C., area, including mosques, homes, businesses, and warehouses, plus similar sites in at least five other cities, U.S. News has learned. In numerous cases, the monitoring required investigators to go on to the property under surveillance, although no search warrants or court orders were ever obtained, according to those with knowledge of the program. Some participants were threatened with loss of their jobs when they questioned the legality of the operation, according to these accounts. >>> As usual, the legality of the radiation monitoring might be debatable, but the legality of the leaks isn't: Two individuals, who declined to be named because the program is highly classified, spoke to U.S. News because of their concerns about the legality of the program. Subpoena the reporters. Identify the leakers. Prosecute them for their felonious conduct. Lock them up. Still, it is scary to see the full weight of federal power brought to bear against a handful of citizens: <<< At its peak, they say, the effort involved three vehicles in Washington, D.C., monitoring 120 sites per day... >>> Three vehicles! Bushitler has indeed loosed the federal juggernaut on those poor suspected terrorists. What about the legality of the radiation monitoring? It's no surprise that it was warrantless, since there presumably was no probable cause to search any one of the locations involved. The closest precedent is the Kyllo case, in which a marijuana grower was caught following thermal imaging of his home. In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court threw out his conviction, holding: <<< Where, as here, the Government uses a device that is not in general public use, to explore details of the home that would previously have been unknowable without physical intrusion, the surveillance is a 'search' and is presumptively unreasonable without a warrant. >>> Kyllo is an interesting decision, pre-September 11 both literally and metaphorically: it was decided in June 2001. Justice Scalia, bete noir of the left, wrote the majority opinion, while liberal icon John Paul Stevens wrote the dissent, which argued that the "observations were made with a fairly primitive thermal imager that gathered data exposed on the outside of [Kyllo's] home but did not invade any constitutionally protected interest in privacy," and were, thus, "information in the public domain." The radiation surveillance case could be distinguished from Kyllo on a number of grounds, but let's cut to the bottom line; I can't improve on what Eugene Volokh wrote, somewhat presciently, in 2002: Sure, normally the Fourth Amendment applies equally to all serious crimes, and that's normally right. But finding dirty bombs must simply be different from fighting normal crime. Searches for weapons of mass destruction can't be treated like searches for marijuana-growing devices or even for murder weapons. The Fourth Amendment, by its terms, only bans "unreasonable searches and seizures" - and it cannot be unreasonable to examine homes with Geiger counters in order to prevent a city from being rendered uninhabitable by an enemy bombing. Protecting people's privacy is important, and so is constraining government power. But sometimes we need extraordinary government power to protect against extraordinary threat. In my opinion, the idea that, in the context of the terrorist threat we currently face, the government can't use radiation-detecting devices in public places--there is no indication that federal agents broke into anyone's home with a Geiger counter--to look for nuclear weapons, is ludicrous. I'd like to hear from the Democrats on this one. Yesterday, Mrs. R. and I were watching a television news program, when someone pointed out that no leading Democrat has yet called on President Bush to terminate the NSA intercept program. I laughed out loud. Good point! Likewise with the radiation story: Do we have the Democrats' pledge that under a Democratic administration, the government would not use radiation-detecting equipment to search for dirty bombs? If so, that should make it a lot easier for millions of Americans to cast their votes in the 2008 election. powerlineblog.com usnews.com oyez.org volokh.com

To: Sully- who wrote (16755)	12/25/2005 4:59:10 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

THE WARRANTLESS GEIGER COUNTER Rick Moran CATEGORY: Government Right Wing Nut House I’m having a very difficult time this morning maintaining my composure. Well, let me put it this way – a harder time than normal. The reason is this latest kerfluffle over pointing scientific instruments at the homes and businesses of Muslim Americans in order to see if someone may be harboring nuclear material that could or could not be a nuclear weapon. The joint task force made up of FBI and Department of Energy “NEST” teams conducted the monitoring without first getting a warrant: <<< In search of a terrorist nuclear bomb, the federal government since 9/11 has run a far-reaching, top secret program to monitor radiation levels at over a hundred Muslim sites in the Washington, D.C., area, including mosques, homes, businesses, and warehouses, plus similar sites in at least five other cities, U.S. News has learned. In numerous cases, the monitoring required investigators to go on to the property under surveillance, although no search warrants or court orders were ever obtained, according to those with knowledge of the program. Some participants were threatened with loss of their jobs when they questioned the legality of the operation, according to these accounts. Federal officials familiar with the program maintain that warrants are unneeded for the kind of radiation sampling the operation entails, but some legal scholars disagree. >>> I will take a back seat to no one in my support for the Bill of Rights – ALL TEN OF THEM. Liberals usually like to stop at about #8. After all, the 9th and 10th Amendments limit the power of the federal government vis a vis the states and the people which is a total anathema to your average lefty. Come to think of it, liberals aren’t very supportive of the 2nd amendment and even several parts of the 1st – like freedom OF religion. In fact, looking at a liberal’s translation of the Constitution, it would probably appear very similar to one of those documents requested of the CIA under the FOIA; so much of it would be blacked out that about all you’d be able to read is the page number. That said, what has me breathing fire this morning is the idea that, in order to prevent the greatest of catastrophes – a nuclear weapon being exploded on American soil – people actually want the government to get a warrant to aim a Geiger counter at someone’s house. This is nuts. This is lunacy. This is as close to suicidal as one can get without actually putting the gun to your head. I guess we’re really in trouble now. The Constitutional absolutists (I’m beginning to include some of the more pompous libertarians out there who are starting to annoy me more and more every day) are acting as if this is some kind of gigantic abstract game we’re playing. I can assure you that al Qaeda is not playing games. And the people who are currently responsible for seeing that the last thing you see isn’t a bright flash in the sky followed by the sighting of a mushroom shaped cloud are, thank the Lord, not playing games either. What is not serious is this spate of revelations regarding what the government is doing to prevent the destruction of the United States. What is not serious is this internet-wide hand wringing over what appears more and more as a sensible, rational, response to a threat posed by an enemy that has sworn to destroy us – or perhaps many of you have forgotten that salient fact. And the next person that quotes Ben Franklin’s warning about security and liberty is going to get a pie in the face – or my boot up their ass. Ben Franklin didn’t have to worry about a goddamn nuclear weapon going off in Philadelphia while he was romping between the sheets with some harlot. He could afford to be smug. We can’t. It is legitimate to question the legality of programs that actually snoop on people – physically read their email or listen to their phone conversations. But if your telephone number is caught up in some kind of digital dragnet being carried out by the NSA only to be sloughed off and forgotten within minutes after it becomes clear that you’re not a terrorist, what’s the big deal? Jesus Christ! Telephone solicitors keep your number longer than the NSA for God’s sake! We still don’t know many details of the NSA intercept program. Apparently, they had the cooperation of Telecom companies who allowed the technospooks access to these “switches” where national and international calls can be intercepted: <<< Officials in the government and the telecommunications industry who have knowledge of parts of the program say the N.S.A. has sought to analyze communications patterns to glean clues from details like who is calling whom, how long a phone call lasts and what time of day it is made, and the origins and destinations of phone calls and e-mail messages. Calls to and from Afghanistan, for instance, are known to have been of particular interest to the N.S.A. since the Sept. 11 attacks, the officials said. This so-called “pattern analysis” on calls within the United States would, in many circumstances, require a court warrant if the government wanted to trace who calls whom. >>> With pattern analysis, there is no reason to physically listen in on or read your email unless there are some pretty good indications that you’re buddy-buddy with a terrorist. How can this be considered unreasonable? Only a muddle headed absolutist would insist on getting a warrant to analyze traffic patterns or have your telephone number briefly in some gigantic computer or aim radiation detection equipment at a home. Can we afford the Constitutional absolutist position on these things? Maybe it comes down to something much simpler – whether you really believe we are at war or not. If we are not at war or even if the threat to the US has been overblown for political purposes (either case being demonstrably untrue if you take the time to read what our enemies are saying) then by all means, impeach Bush. In quieter times – even during the cold war – I would have had a difficult time stomaching much of what has been revealed about our domestic spying over the past week. But these are not quiet times. And if the government is forced to abandon these vital monitoring programs or more likely, thanks to their being revealed, al Qaeda counters them, and if we are hit with a massive attack, those who are currently clucking their tongues like a bunch of old women at a quilting bee better not open their yaps criticizing the efforts government made to prevent the catastrophe. Your high falutin sense of the Constitution will be meaningless in the face of tens of thousands of dead and the country in shambles. It’s time to grow up and get real. After all…there’s a war on, remember? rightwingnuthouse.com usnews.com caselaw.lp.findlaw.com caselaw.lp.findlaw.com nytimes.com

To: Sully- who wrote (16755)	12/26/2005 4:00:59 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

The degree to which the mainstream media’s hatred of President Bush has pushed it into a state of logical incoherence is simply amazing. But even more amazing is that this incoherence is not lessened even by the basic human desire to protect innocent people’s lives. Bush Violates Terrorists' Nuclear Privacy by Mac Johnson HUMAN EVENTS Posted Dec 26, 2005 Just over a week ago, the New York Times revealed the shocking news that the Bush administration has been spying on the international communications of suspected terrorists, thus setting off a rippling artificial scandal in the Times private reflecting pool, the increasingly stagnant mainstream media. Not to be outdone, U.S. News and World Report put on its water wings Friday and tried to create a splash of it own, by reporting that the same renegade Bush administration has been monitoring radiation levels in the public air -- without a warrant! Gasp! The power-mad Bushies have done this in a diabolical attempt to get early warning of terrorists preparing to use a nuclear or dirty bomb against an American city. According to the story, this program is fraught with all sorts of subtle privacy issues. Obviously, such warantless radiation monitoring creates a searing civil rights crisis for the average American, who now must live in fear, knowing that his private high-energy photon emissions, personal beta-particle broadcasts, or even his confidential radionuclide wafting could be subject to detection by the crass and intrusive thugs of the federal government. I mean, when you don’t have the right to leak radiation into the communal air from a clandestine nuclear bomb, what rights do you have really? Clearly, Bush is Hitler, but worse. Let us examine what this “far-reaching” and “controversial” program of “questioned” legality entails. A technician in a vehicle drives around Washington, D.C., or another high-risk city, and samples the air with a little device. If the air is not radioactive, he drives somewhere else. Disturbing! The technician never kicks in a door, or even knocks on one, but he does -- from a publicly-accessible area -- sample the air. SHOCKING! All this raises very important privacy issues, such as: What if the air was radioactive for a perfectly harmless reason? Wouldn’t detecting this radiation violate the privacy of the person contaminating the air for this harmless reason? You can see what a slippery slope this becomes really quickly. Am I kidding here? The article quotes Georgetown University professor David Cole, a “constitutional law expert,” on this legal conundrum: <<< "They don't need a warrant to drive onto the property -- the issue isn't where they are, but whether they're using a tactic to intrude on privacy. It seems to me that they are, and that they would need a warrant or probable cause." >>> Professor Cole did not explain, however, how exactly the right to privacy would cover the emission of harmful, illegal radioactive material into the common air. If ever there were a narrowly focused and non-intrusive search, monitoring the air for radiation would seem to be it. Name for me one legal personal activity for which such monitoring would violate the expectation of privacy, or what harm would likely result. The reason many searches are regulated by constitutional law is they can impose a significant burden upon the searched, and the search can reveal much more than its target. For example, having a policeman search your body cavities or rifle through your personal possessions is potentially unpleasant and demeaning and could lead to the revelation of personal information unrelated to any legal investigation. But what can measuring roadside radiation levels reveal -- other than your possession of materials causing unusual roadside radiation levels? Radiation monitoring cannot detect whether you look at goat porn on the Internet, belong to the ACLU, voted for Ross Perot, cheat on your spouse, or secretly prefer catsup to ketchup. It cannot read your thoughts or fumble through your underwear drawer. It can do only one thing: determine if you have a significant source of radiation in your possession, which I believe is both illegal and not healthy for children and other living things. And it can do this one limited thing as an unnoticed drive-by service. So you don’t even have to lose any personal time or face social stigma. But exposing this alleged “invasion of privacy” is what U.S. News has been reduced to in its eager quest for a Bush-bashing warrantless search “scandal.” For political expediency and a desire to ape the New York Times, the 4th Amendment’s guarantee against “unreasonable search and seizure” has now been morphed into a guarantee against any search for Cesium. You know, because high-level gamma emissions might be part of someone’s protected political speech. The degree to which the mainstream media’s hatred of President Bush has pushed it into a state of logical incoherence is simply amazing. But even more amazing is that this incoherence is not lessened even by the basic human desire to protect innocent people’s lives. “Exposing” the government’s radiation monitoring program in such detail will not help the public fend off any real assault on our liberties. Neither does it contribute to any significant political debate. It won’t even harm Bush politically. All it does is inform our terrorist enemies what measures we have taken to catch them before they can harm us, and allow them to attempt more effective countermeasures. Mr. Johnson, a writer and medical researcher in Cambridge, MA., is a regular contributor to Human Events. His column generally appears on Mondays. Archives and additional material can be found at www.macjohnson.com. humaneventsonline.com

To: Sully- who wrote (16755)	12/29/2005 5:05:51 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Media in Meltdown Over Mosque Monitoring by Gary Bauer HUMAN EVENTS Posted Dec 29, 2005 While most of us were celebrating our faith, "Big Media" was continuing to do its best to blow-up U.S. efforts to win the war declared on us by the Islamofascists. The latest media outlet to get into the "gotcha game" was U.S. News and World Report, a magazine once perceived as conservative, but now chooses to "ape" the New York Times. In its pre-Christmas issue, U.S. News breathlessly broke a story that the federal government was running a top-secret program to monitor sites in some U.S. cities, including Washington, D.C., Chicago, Detroit, Las Vegas, New York and Seattle, for evidence of radiation. The goal is to be able to detect, in time, a dirty nuclear bomb that we know our enemy wants to smuggle and detonate in the United States. Sounds like a good program to me. But what has the media in a meltdown is that many of the sites monitored were Muslim and that the radiation monitoring, which at times included driving the monitoring truck into a parking lot or driveway, was not done pursuant to obtaining a search warrant. David Cole, a professor at Georgetown University Law School, said the tactic would clearly "intrude on privacy." Where should we begin? Do the critics really see a problem with the fact that many of the sites were Muslim? If Lutherans or Episcopalians claiming to act by the dictates of their faith had killed three thousand Americans on 9/11 and had a history of hiding weapons in their churches, would we conduct surveillance outside of Amish churches? Secondly, just what privacy right is being violated by the government checking the air for unusual levels of radiation? There is no right to posses dirty nuclear bombs. No person was being searched, and no house was entered. The Supreme Court has already ruled that publicly accessible driveways and parking lots are not areas that require warrants. The threat to our constitutional liberties does not come from a truck attempting to stop a mushroom cloud over a major U.S. city. Rather, it comes from an enemy that will, if it prevails, sink the world back into another dark age. Clearly, the Bush-Bashers have their theme for 2006. It is just another permutation of Bush as Hitler. Instead of congratulating the administration for preventing another 9/11-like attack over the last four years, we are supposed to all be panicking about our loss of liberty at the hands of the these "fascist Republicans." But, what if the Bush Administration had conducted the war during the last four years the way the media elites preferred: You know -- an ACLU attorney for every terrorist and Miranda rights read on the battlefield -- with the inevitable result being another attack on our homeland and more lives lost. Yes, you guessed it -- the same media mavens would be writing about how Bush-Cheney slept while Americans died. Mr. Bauer, a 2000 candidate for president, is chairman of Campaign for Working Families and president of American Values. humaneventsonline.com

To: Sully- who wrote (16755)	1/3/2006 11:13:27 AM
From: Sully-	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 35834

A 'radioactive' mosque by Jeff Jacoby Townhall.com Jan 2, 2006 Ever since 9/11, we learned last month, federal officials have been monitoring radiation levels around a number of American mosques. It is an understandable precaution, given Al Qaeda's interest in acquiring nuclear weapons, and its history of mass murder. Understandable -- but also troubling. In a nation as tolerant as this one, nobody can be happy about the need to focus self-defensive attention on mosques. Unfortunately, we are at war with violent Islamist radicals, and we know from experience that they are not above using mosques to incubate terrorism. If there is evidence of heightened radioactivity around a Muslim facility, the government should be aware of it, and should find out -- lawfully, of course -- whether it represents a threat. The federal monitors have been checking for signs of physical radiation, but there are other ways in which mosques can be radioactive. Last year, for example, Freedom House issued a report on the extent to which Saudi publications in US mosques promote Wahhabism, the harsh, supremacist version of Islam that is the established creed in Saudi Arabia. Many of these publications, it turned out, were riddled with religious bigotry. They advocated contempt for "infidels," portrayed America as alien territory, and urged Muslims to prepare for jihad. Considering the use of such teachings in the recruitment and training of terrorists, one might well view the presence of this literature in the library of an American mosque as "radioactive," and a legitimate cause for concern. Which brings us to the roiling controversy over the mosque being built by the Islamic Society of Boston -- a controversy made all the worse by an abusive lawsuit the Islamic Society has filed against its critics. When completed, the $24 million mosque will be the largest Muslim house of prayer in the Northeastern United States. For thousands of Boston-area Muslims, it will be a welcome improvement over existing mosques, which are too small and crowded. The Islamic Society has pledged that it will also be a center for moderation, peace, and dialogue among different religious communities. It was in part on the strength of that pledge that the Islamic Society was allowed to buy the land for the mosque from the city for a fraction of its fair market value. But for more than two years, questions have been raised about just how committed the Islamic Society really is to moderation and interfaith understanding. Beginning with reports in the Boston Herald, news outlets, citizen groups, political officials, and private citizens have been pointing out disturbing signs of extremist "radioactivity" around the Islamic Society and its leadership. To mention only a few: + The society's original founder, Abdurahman Alamoudi, is now serving a 23-year prison term for his role in a terrorist assassination plot. The Treasury Department identified him as a fund-raiser for Al Qaeda, and he has publicly proclaimed his support for two notorious terrorist groups, Hamas and Hezbollah. + Yusef al-Qaradawi, who for several years was listed as a trustee in Islamic Society of Boston tax filings and on the ISB website -- the ISB now claims that was due to an "administrative oversight" -- is a radical Islamist cleric who has endorsed suicide bombings and the killing of Americans in Iraq. In 2002, he was invited to address an Islamic Society fund-raiser, but had to do so by video from Qatar -- he has been barred since 1999 from entering the United States. + Another Islamic Society trustee, Walid Fitaihi, is the author of writings that denounce Jews as "murderers of the prophets" who "brought the worst corruption to the earth" and should be punished for their "oppression, murder, and rape of the worshipers of Allah." After Fitaihi's words were reported in the Boston press, the Islamic Society was urged to unequivocally repudiate them. It took seven months before it finally did so. + When Ahmed Mansour, an Egyptian-born Muslim scholar, examined the Islamic Society's library in 2003, he found books and videotapes promoting hostility toward the United States and insulting other religions. Among the publications on hand were several of those listed in the Freedom House report. Individually, none of these points proves that there is anything amiss with the Islamic Society of Boston. Taken together, they give rise to obvious questions and concerns. Surely the Islamic Society, which emphasizes its commitment to moderation, tolerance, sincerity, and dialogue, should be at pains to answer those questions and allay those concerns. Instead it accuses its critics of defamation, and has sued many of them for -- of all things -- conspiring to deprive Boston-area Muslims of their religious freedom. But the last thing Muslims in Boston or anywhere else need is a leadership that treats legitimate public misgivings as an anti-Muslim "conspiracy," or that launches specious lawsuits in order to intimidate those looking into its record. The Islamic Society's overreaction does rank-and-file Muslims no favors -- and gives all of us, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, another reason to wonder about its motives. Jeff Jacoby is an Op-Ed writer for the Boston Globe, a radio political commentator, and a contributing columnist for Townhall.com. Copyright © 2006 Boston Globe townhall.com