…and yet there’s still this little matter of the secret FISA court that doesn’t appear to bother him one little bit, as long as it constrains the Justice Department. [Intrusive and annoying registration required to read the article]
WHY is this court secret? I can understand why its deliberations and decisions would have to be under seal. What I don’t understand is why its membership is secret. And don’t give me this “protection from possible retribution” argument that seems to work in Columbia. There should also be a sunset limitation on how long its records can be kept sealed, eg, 10 years or conviction of the guilty, whichever comes first.
I still maintain that there is a war on, and in this war it’s completely and entirely possible that we have cells of the enemy acting on our own soil. When the first nuke goes off in one of our cities, we’ll know where to point at least one finger of blame. The FISA court was set up in reaction to Richard Nixon’s illegal spying on Americans for political reasons, but long after he left office, therefore being akin to closing the barn door after the horse gets out. There is no reason to believe that any other president (well, except maybe Clinton) would do such things.
There is a point at which we have to get serious and root out the al-Qaeda in our midst, and use every weapon in the intelligence arsenal to do that. We haven’t reached that point yet, apparently. The continued existence of the FISA court and its decision not to allow the Justice Department to do its job is symptomatic of our attitude. We’ll beat up on the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, but horrors await should we give up, even temporarily, an iota of our personal freedom to beat up on them here.
I am depressed.
A "surly curmudgeon[], suspicious and lacking in altruism." (Robert A. Heinlein)