That article rightly points out that the wall did exist previously: What's more, Mr. Ashcroft noted, the wall did not mysteriously arise: "Someone built this wall." That someone was largely the Democrats, who enshrined Vietnam-era paranoia about alleged FBI domestic spying abuses by enacting the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
I love how the author inserts a little "alleged" fbi abuses in there. This piece was a hit job from the word go. And I've got to question your ability to have an informed opinion on the matter when you said the "wall" had nothing to do with Watergate when the "wall" in question was Gorelick's directives on how FISA should be interpreted and FISA was implemented on the recommendations of the Church Committee which was brought together because of Watergate. I certainly don't knowall the ins and outs of the all the intelligence activities and history of the US, but if you are going to comment you should at least know the big stuff. And yes, the Clintion administration wanted a firm wall between domestic law enforcement and international intelligence. As your op-ed quotes: "We believe that it is prudent to establish a set of instructions that will more clearly separate the counterintelligence investigation from the more limited, but continued, criminal investigations. These procedures, which go beyond what is legally required, will prevent any risk of creating an unwarranted appearance that FISA is being used to avoid procedural safeguards which would apply in a criminal investigation" That seems like a pretty reasonable thing to me. I actually rather like it when my government is following procedural safeguards. After the last 8 years, its positively a breathe of fresh air. So yeah. FISA was put in place because of governmental abuse of power. The Clinton admin (through Gorelick) wanted to make sure that people didn't think they were abusing and circumventing the powers involved in a secret court. Even after 9/11 I am still very ok with that. So you're wrong about the wall not existing before Gorelecki, you don't have any understanding of why the wall was put there in the first place and all you seem to be able to come up with is throwing shit against teh wall to see what sticks. Anything else? Judah On Tue, Sep 16, 2008 at 3:32 PM, Sam <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Nah, you might as well point me to Gorelick's op-ed where she claims > the wall already existed. It didn't. Would you like to read about the > wall? > > http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110004956 > > > On Tue, Sep 16, 2008 at 3:22 PM, Judah McAuley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > wrote: > > > Always happy to help. Perhaps feelings and knowledge about the roles of > > national level law enforcement and intelligence are generational? May I > ask > > how old you are? Of course I'm only 34, but I admit to having a rather > > strong libertarian streak when it comes to individual rights and > > particularly privacy. If you'd like more information on the Church > Committee > > and why those "walls" you talk about were put in place to begin with, I > can > > find some more sources that you might find less boring. > > > > Judah > > > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;203748912;27390454;j Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/message.cfm/messageid:269560 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5
