[Mickey Brausch]

[ QUOTE ]
Just to be clear, all of the liberals in this thread who are trumpeting the latest British success, you do in fact believe the following, right?:
-Wiretapping foreign telephone calls is an impeachable offence.

[/ QUOTE ]Just to be clear : I am, in fact, extremely glad of the latest success of British intelligence. As an airline passenger AND as a citizen.

Now, moving forward, why does everything have to be black or white?? Winning in poker entails thinking in shades of grey most of the time. So, as to telephone wiretapping, (a) it should still be necessary to obtain a warrant from a judge (or the respective procedure in the UK or Europe) citing probable cause, and (b) the judge should be more tolerant when the warrant involves a potential terrorist threat.

And to make sure that law enforcement agencies do not abuse that power to go after political opposition or simply to take shortcuts in purely criminal cases, every demand for wiretapping should be subsequently reviewed to validate the probable cause.

Yes, I can live with that -- literally...

[ QUOTE ]
-Taliban members and captured al-Qaeda cannot be detained unless they're being tried by a civilian court.

[/ QUOTE ] Hmm, you mean Taliban suspects and alleged terrorists, right? Well, I think civilian courts, under the appropriate laws, should be perfectly able to handle terrorist cases. European countries faced very violent terrorist activities in the 1970s and 80s but they were all handled mostly without stepping outside of the law, at least not to the extent that Bush wants the UY.S. to go.

Come on! Democracy is not that impotent! I am all for severe penalties for terrorist acts -- but I also want those penalties to be meted out through a strict observance of the law. Why should that be tough?

If anything, those young boys and girls fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq are supposed to be dying precisely for political freedoms, amongst which is the right to a fair trial. Don't you agree ?

[ QUOTE ]
-Details of anti-terror operations should be publicized on the front page of the NYT as often as possible

[/ QUOTE ] No, of course not. They should not be. That would be the same as passing on information to the enemy. (I hope this does not come off as sarcastic. I'm very serious.)

But the people responsible for those operations should be held responsible for keeping their moves under wraps. Every leak has two parents; the one giving (or allowing to slip out) and the one receiving the information.

Mickey Brausch