> >> Do you believe that the 9/11 crew were determined to commit a
> >> crime?
> >
> > I repeat myself. If the 9/11 crew were determined to commit
> > a crime then it is _logically necessary_ that they must have
> > talked among each other about committing their crime.
>
> You snipped the rest of my post. After we convict them (or not!)
> of Conspiracy (1/10^7 of the crime they actually perpetrated[*]),
> they cool their heels, get out, and are just as determined to
> perpetrate a crime. What do we do with these people? It's a new
> kind of criminal, it deserves a new look.
Why not argue for summary execution, then? After all, a person indefinitely detained by a fiat of one administration may be freed by a fiat of another (or even of the same one, as in the case of Yaser Esam Hamdi: <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/ A45796-2004Sep23.html>), the person may be freed by a jail break or escape during prisoner transport (if the person, unlike the evidently unimportant Hamdi and Jose Padilla, is actually important enough to command the assistance of his comrades), etc.
The more Americans give up their rights (betting that they are only giving up other people's rights, not their own), accepting or advocating torture, indefinite detention, etc., the more political victories Osama bin Laden, et al. win -- very bad for Washington's reputation, and very good for recruitment for Al Qaeda and other terrorist operations.
"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." That's a statement attributed to Benjamin Franklin. Whoever actually said it, it is a fair warning to Americans who would throw away habeas corpus to lock up Padilla (who is, in all probability, just a hotheaded dim bulb) without a trial. A mess of pottage, anyone?
W. Kiernan wrote:
> I repeat myself. If the 9/11 crew were determined to commit a
> crime then it is _logically necessary_ that they must have talked
> among each other about committing their crime. That talk alone,
> even before they made material preparations (attended flight
> school, cashed that $100K check from Pakistani ISI, purchased box-
> cutters, bought plane tickets, etc.) would have been criminal
> conspiracy, sufficient grounds to arrest them, try them and convict
> them.
Washington doesn't have enough translators who can translate all that its extensive surveillance collects. It often doesn't have a clue whether persons it overhears are plotting a big terrorist attack or having a Big Mac attack.
<blockquote>The New York Times July 28, 2005 Thursday Late Edition - Final SECTION: Section A; Column 3; National Desk; Pg. 20 LENGTH: 910 words HEADLINE: At F.B.I., Translation Lags, as Does the System Upgrade BYLINE: By ERIC LICHTBLAU DATELINE: WASHINGTON, July 27
BODY: The Federal Bureau of Investigation's backlog of untranslated terrorism intelligence doubled last year, and the time it takes the bureau to hire translators has grown longer, officials said Wednesday.
None of the backlogged material came in what the bureau considered its highest-priority investigations, Glenn A. Fine, the inspector general at the Justice Department, told the Senate Judiciary Committee, in releasing the findings of a new report by his office.
Still, Mr. Fine said the F.B.I. ''has no assurance'' that some 8,300 hours of untranslated material does not include information that could be critical to terrorism investigations.
In addition, the bureau told the committee that its long-delayed effort to overhaul its computer system and allow agents to search terrorism files more easily would not be completed until 2009 at the earliest.
Leading senators and national security experts said they were frustrated to learn that two of the F.B.I.'s most pressing problems -- its computer capabilities and its ability to translate terrorism material -- have continued to languish, and in some respects have worsened.
Lee H. Hamilton, the former vice chairman of the Sept. 11 commission, told the committee that by failing to have an effective computer system in place until 2009, ''you're just giving the terrorist activity an opening, and the risk goes up for the American people the longer you extend these deadlines.''
Pressing for a more urgent approach to the bureau's problems, Mr. Hamilton said, ''It sounds to me very much like business as usual, and business as usual is unacceptable.''
The bureau has struggled for years to update its computer systems, and it had to scrap a $170 million project this year for a ''virtual case file'' system to allow for easier searching and organizing of investigative files on terrorism and other matters.
That project has been replaced by another incarnation, the Sentinel Project, and Robert S. Mueller III, director of the F.B.I., told the Judiciary Committee that the bureau now expected a 40-month timetable beginning at the end of this year. He said he could not disclose the estimated cost because it could compromise bidding for the job.
Mr. Mueller vowed that with the project devised to include four phases, ''we will have returns'' long before 2009 in improving the bureau's ability to integrate its terrorism and investigative files.
But both Republicans and Democrats on the committee expressed skepticism. ''If it's going to take us another three and a half years to get all this together, can we afford to wait?'' asked Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois.
Beyond its computer problems, the F.B.I. has struggled to develop quicker translation capabilities. That task is considered a top priority for counterterrorism agencies across the federal government, particularly in light of messages from Al Qaeda associates that were intercepted by the National Security Agency on Sept. 10, 2001, but translated only days later.
The messages said, ''Tomorrow is zero hour,'' and, ''The match is about to begin.''
The report released Wednesday by the Justice Department inspector general was a follow-up to a report last July that generated widespread concern. In its follow-up, the inspector general's office said that while the bureau had made some progress in translating terrorism material, ''the F.B.I.'s collection of audio material continues to outpace its ability to review and translate that material.''
The report, using what the F.B.I. considers a more refined and accurate measurement system, said that the backlog of counterterrorism audio material that was not translated grew to 8,354 hours in March of this year, from 4,086 hours in April 2004.
Mr. Mueller said much of the backlog was the fault of ''white noise'' in the background from microphone recordings and the difficulty of translating obscure languages and dialects in which the bureau's linguists might not be well versed.
The report also found that the F.B.I. had made progress in hiring more linguists, expanding its ranks to 1,338 in March, from 1,214 in April 2004, but continued to face problems. The F.B.I. met its hiring targets in fewer than half of 52 languages examined, and the average time it takes to hire a linguist grew from 13 months to at least 14 months, according to the bureau's data. The inspector general's office said its assessment showed that the average time was 16 months, with much of the delay blamed on applicants ''waiting in queue'' because of bureaucratic slowdowns.
The F.B.I. was not the only counterterrorism agency that came under fire at Wednesday's Judiciary Committee hearing.
At the office of John D. Negroponte, the director of national intelligence, a program manager who runs the information sharing environment office -- responsible for linking federal, state and local offices to combat terrorism -- told the committee that he had only one full-time employee and two contractors, some seven months after the directorate was created.
Senator Arlen Specter, the Pennsylvania Republican who leads the Judiciary Committee, told the program manager, John A. Russack, that he found the tiny staffing at such a critical office to be troubling.
Noting that the status of the information sharing office must be reviewed in two years, Mr. Specter told Mr. Russack pointedly that if more progress was not made, ''you may lose your office sooner.''</ blockquote>
In any case, a government unwilling to protect, and incapable of protecting, the lives of Americans from a predictable disaster like a hurricane is also unwilling to protect, and incapable of protecting, them from an unpredictable disaster like a terrorist attack.
Yoshie Furuhashi <http://montages.blogspot.com> <http://monthlyreview.org> <http://mrzine.org> * Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: <http://montages.blogspot.com/2005/07/mahmoud- ahmadinejads-face.html>; <http://montages.blogspot.com/2005/07/chvez- congratulates-ahmadinejad.html>; <http://montages.blogspot.com/ 2005/06/iranian-working-class-rejects.html>