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Since it is now clear that the FBI's investigative procedures were adequate to get all the information they needed about the terrorists of 9/11, but the internal processing was inadequate and incompetent to put it all together to actually do something worthwhile for the country, why is it necessary for Attorney Generalissimo Ashcroft to re-write the FBI investgative policies to allow for more spying on American citizens, more heavy handed attacks on our freedoms on the Internet, in our Churches and so many other places.

The problem was not that the FBI could not get the information, the problem was they did not handle it right. One has to ask, Why is the art censor doing this?

If you ain't doing anything wrong, you've got nothing to worry about. Think about it, what's the worst thing a typical person does wrong? I sometimes drive too fast. That's the only law I know of that I break.

I'm not interested in funneling money to terrorist organizations, or building a bomb, selling drugs or anything else of that nature.

So what are you worried about? Protecting those who are set on destroying us one way or another?

Derick

I also understand that, among these other gestapo tactics, they will also be able to *gasp* do research on the internet.

Derrick

I, for one, have an FBI file. Know how I got it? Protesting the government's actions in VietNam. I did not lead any protests, I never spoke at one. But my picture was taken and specific and personal information as gathered about me simply because I was at some protests -- all done by the FBI.

I did not believe this when I first heard some of my friends had such files. So, about 10 years ago, long after we got out of that immoral war, I requested my file through the freedom of information act. Know what I found?

For all of those years after the Viet Nam war, that files was being added to -- probably still is. It had a copy of every driver license application I had ever filled out, records of all of my student loan papers. Since I had worked for local government agencies, it had every application I had ever filled out It had all of my Federal and state income tax returns in it. It had every document I had signed that had been publicly recorded, like my home mortgage, in it. It had a copy of every traffic ticket I had ever received. And it included a credit report done on me that was run about every two years.

What it did not have was a record of ANY laws being broken, except the traffic tickets.

No, it is not a matter that if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about.

As well as follow you around the Internet, anywhere you go. And walk into your Church and spy on you. And walk into your classroom and spy on you. Write it all up, analyze it and then decide what more they want on you. All done without probable cause and all without a court issued warrant.

You got me there George061875. I really would feel uncomfortable knowing that I might be observed in public places without probable cause. Kind of like what the police do already on our public roads. Of course, I have to wonder if the FBI is really as inept as that brain dead Norman Mineta in assuming that the ladies Saturday afternoon sewing circle would be a proper object for their scrutiny. Or maybe, just maybe, they will tend to confine their attention to the types of people who (dare I say it?) fit the profile. Of course that would only be logical as you yourself have stated.

When the FBI begins to build files on war protesters again I will be concerned. Until then, either let them do their job or quit grousing about how clueless they are. You can't have it both ways.

Since I have been posting to this forum in the Coffee room, I am very surprised at the reactions of so many of you. Those who participate in these discussions are, for the most part, intelligent, educated people. Good people. People who lovee their country and believe in its values and freedoms.

And yet, so few of you seem to see the danger of this step by step diminution of our rights. With each one of these new laws and new regulations and new policies, our rights are being diminished. Yes, each is just a small step, but each is a step in the wrong direction.

You all seem to justify it because of 9/11. I understand this. I understand people feeling that this is a dangerous time and perhaps we need to do things we don't like because of what happened.

But I am surprised that so few of you, especially being intelligent as you are, don't seem to realize that there is no time limit on any of these things. The actions being taken are not limited to just this time of danger.

If there were a declared war, they would all end when the war ended. If there were sunset clauses, they would end when the period ended. But there are no timeframes, which means they wil not go away. We will not get back what the goivernment has taken without a fight. And the next time something like this happens, there will be more small steps taken to reduce our freedoms and we will be even less free. And the next time after that. And the next time after that.

The question I raised in this thread is a serious one for me -- and I think it should be for all Americans. Severe steps have been taken limiting our freedom and increasing government intrusion into our privacy and our lives. Whether legal or constitutional or not, these steps have been taken. And they have been taken on the premise that we needed to give them up to prevent another 9/11 from occurring.

But the information that has come out in the past two weeks makes it very clear that the tools were in place to get the information that was needed -- they just were not used. No new tools were needed -- the information had, in fact, been gathered before 9/11.

So, the question in my mind, the question of this thread, is very serious. If the Government did not need all of this before 9/11 -- and we now know they did not -- then should we not, as free citizens who cherish our freedom, tell the government it is now time to reduce if not eliminate these new intrusions. They do not seem to be needed, so why give them to the government?

History has shown us -- indeed our own history, our recent history, within our lifetimes -- has shown us that government cannot be trusted. Just take a look at J. Edgar Hoover. He began as a good, solid American. He ended, decades later, as one of the greatest threats to our democracy that was ever embodied in one government official.

We must be ever vigilant to ensure that the rights of the citizens are not taken from them. Our rights are not bequeathed on us by our Government. Rather our rights are inherent in us, the people. The government can only take them away if we, the people, allow it to take them away.

Because of 9/11 we seem to have lost our jealous hold on our freedom. We seem to have decided that whatever the government tells us that is needed, we accept without question. We do not demand justification, nor do we demand that what it takes from us be only for a limited time.

Nor, does it seem, that we are prepared to demand our rights back when it becomes clear that the government need not have taken them from us in the first place -- even of the government did so with the best of intentions but lacking the information we now have.

I am just surprised that so few of you seem to see this -- or even seem to care.

Believe me George, I care. But the little baby steps they have taken in the last few months are nothing compared to what has been going on for many years now. You say that the FBI had the information in hand to prevent 9/11. I just don't see that. There were a lot of dots that, now in hindsight, seem to line up perfectly. That is easy. Pearl Harbor looks like a foregone conclusion in the same way. And how about those Germans, falling for the phony army assembled at the Pas De Calais and completely missing the obvious (now in hindsight) signs of Operation Overlord. Their Abwehr was pretty good at intelligence at that time.

Believe me, I care. I am concerned that their are no sunset provisions for a lot of the anti-terrorism act that Bill Clinton could not sell to Congress but they now seem to joyously embrace. I am concerned that many of these provisions are not confined to terrorism but seem to give a sort of blank check to , say, the war on drugs.

The problem is that these are unusual times. This is about a lot more than an oil pipeline and a declaration of war is impossible if there is no country to declare war against. In our times we have seen a transition from war waged by states against states to war waged against a people by an organization that is not a government, does not have any sort of normal diplomatic functions, and does not even, officially, exist. Forget your declaration of war. But make no mistake about it. War has been declared against us and for much longer than these few months that have passed since 9/11.

We cannot blindly accept every intrusion into our freedom that is foisted upon us in the name of security. At the same time, we must realize that we are at war and our very lives are at stake. I am all too aware that encroachments on our liberty in times of crisis are seldom reversed when the crisis is over but let us not be unmindful of the fact that we are in a real crisis and the status quo as far as intelligence gathering and law enforcement will not do, no matter how much you believe that to be the case. I certainly hope it does not take a greater catastrophe than 9/11 to convince you of that but I am afraid that it is all too possible.

I really don't know why I have wasted all this time writing this since you seem to think the crisis we face has been manufactured for the sake of an oil pipeline. But then there are those on this board that believe you do this on purpose to ignite controversy. I am not one of those.

Nicely put, JBryan. You too, George.

No, JBryan, I do not believe that the crisis we face is because of an oil pipeline. I do believe the crisis we face, though, is primarily because of our need for oil -- which is the reason I believe we are in the Middle East and thus have engendered so much hatred to cause something like 9/11.

I also believe that there are those who have seen this crisis an a opportunity for such things as the pipeline in Afganistan (and increased surveillance of people they whose view they do not like in the US) and are taking advantage of it.

I worry when the stated purpose of our going into another country changes so quickly and so dramatically. I also worry when I know that one of the first major international initiatives of a US installed government toitally dependent on the US, which should be focusing on securing its country, is to give to an American company something that company has wanted for a long time -- a company the US Ambassador once worked for.

Cynical? Yes. Correct? Who knows? But such things cannot and should not be ignored.

There have always been war profiteers. Why should this be any different?

And no, it does not increase my feeling of security knowing that history of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney in the oil industry, where they have gotten money in the past, what they have done in the past and what is now happening.

God knows I hope I am wrong. But the President and his administration can spew all the patriotic rhetoric they want and give all the rousing speeches they want. And then we need to look at their deeds. And right now, I do not see their deeds matching their rhetoric.

If you truly believe that what they are doing is all for the highest motivation, then more power to you. I, though, do not give Bush2 the benefit of the doubt on such things, any more than I gave it to Clinton, Bush1, Reagan, Carter (well, maybe Carter), Ford, Nixon , Johnson, Kennedy, Eisenhower or any of the others.

I agree with you. Test them by their deeds not their words. I also agree with you that American corporations are taking advantage of the situation to better their positions in the world. And I agree that the American government is facilitating this. So? What is wrong with this?

The United States can no longer assume its prosperity because it is protected by oceans too wide to attack across. It can only do so by being economically strong. If the other countries are weak and we need something they have, history tells us we have the right to take it. And so we should.

When we do, it is almost always to the benefit of the country we take it from. They have no means of exploiting their own resources and in most instances do not really need it. What they need is our cash. The leaders of the country usually do not care enough about their people to provide jobs, so we provide them.

You attack Bush and Cheney for their links to the oil industry. It is those very links that I saw as a benefit. I expected they would find some way to get at the resources of Asia so our economy could continue to grow and it appears they have. Its too bad it had to come at the expense of the World Trade Center, but for them to ignore the opportunity this presented would have been criminal.

And if they are using our troops to clear the path for American corporations, what is wrong with this? Besides defending our borders, what else should the troops be used for but to expand our economic interests? We have close to 2,000,000 men in uniform with nothing else to do but fight wars. So, let them fight, let the corporations come in on their heels and get what we want (in the old days it was called plundering and was considered a good thing, now we have to use more politically correct terms like economic development or nation building).

We are the strongest country the world has ever produced. Let us enjoy it and get the benefits for it. Maybe someday, these backward nations will actually get their act together and do something for themselves. But until then, and until they can protect and use their own resources, those of us who are strong should take what we need, what we want and what we have a right to.

I appreciate your moral outrage, George. But if everyone thought that way, we might as well roll over and die.

You know, Jim, you are really scary in some ways.

But then, I have met many people who do not incorporate any morality or ethical base in their world view other than whether something makes money.

It is why so much of the world is ravaged by malnutrition, disease and ignorance.

"until they can protect and use their own resources, those of us who are strong should take what we need, what we want and what we have a right to."

Yikes. Jodi

This has been the case throughout history, well into the 20th century and remains the basics of most geopolitics even today. Do you know of any great power in history who has not done this, Jodi? If not, why assume that anything is or should be different now -- even for the United States? It is our time, we should make the most of it.

While I find George's bleeding heart to be silly emotionalism, I do agree with him that our current actions are meant to spread American economic interests and to garner the resources we want to either have or control. I think he is right, the War on Terrorism simply gives us a good excuse to do this. And the President is exploiting it brilliantly!

To the benefit of whom?

If anything would percipitate a worldwide (possibly nuclear) conflagration it would be America embarking on wars of conquest. Let us hope that our leaders in government are never that stupid.

We are much more subtle than that. We use our greatest strength -- our economic power -- invade with our corporations, then place our troops to "protect" these resources which the weak country is now dependent on. Bush has just completed the circle in Columbia with the oil pipeline. A smart move. He is doing the same thing, with a slight twist, in Afganistan. He has also moved troops into the two former Soviet republics who will be connected to the new Unocal pipeline. All very shrewd and very smart.

His comments yesterday at West Point were brilliant, saying we can go into any dark corner of the world to "search out evildoers." If this sticks, we have carte blanche to use our troops to prepare the way for our corporations anywhere we want. Then we expand our military forces to "protect" valuable American interests.

Brilliant! Simply brilliant!

The United States! Who else?

You opposed to benefiting the United States?

It's also our Achilles heel.

Not at all.

On the other hand, Unocal is not the United States. Neither is Halliburton.

Both are global, and even the appearance of their being able to command the US military to do their business is chilling, to say the least.

Perhaps it is all on the up and up. I pray that this is so, but it bears investigation.

Now.