Dick Morris: spying on Americans will prevent Brooklyn Bridge bombing

[ProSense]

What an s***head!

Civil liberties and security: Democrats terror
Dick Morris
Cagle Cartoons
December 27, 2005


Snip...

Equally irresponsible is the criticism Democrats are leveling at President Bush for his use of National Security Agency wiretaps to catch terrorists. Before Clinton and Schumer criticize this policy, they'd do well to reflect on the fact that the Brooklyn Bridge might well be rubble, with thousands dead, if Bush did not use these wiretaps.

In 2002, the feds (presumably the NSA) picked up random cellphone chatter using the words "Brooklyn Bridge" (which apparently didn't translate well into Arabic). They notified the New York Police Department, which flooded the bridge with cops. Then the feds overheard a phone call in which a man said things were "too hot" on the bridge to pull off an operation. Later, an interrogation of a terrorist allowed by the Patriot Act led cops to the doorstep of this would-be bridge bomber. (His plans would definitely have brought down the bridge, NYPD sources told me.)

Why didn't Bush get a warrant? On who? For what? The NSA wasn't looking for a man who might blow up the bridge. It had no idea what it was looking for. It just intercepted random phone calls from people in the United States to those outside - and so heard the allusions to the bridge that tipped them off.

In criminal investigations, one can target a suspect and get a warrant to investigate him. But this deductive approach is a limited instrument in fighting terror. An inductive approach, in which one gathers a mass of evidence and looks for patterns, is far more useful.

But, if the Democrats are to be heeded, it will no longer be possible.

Bye-bye, bridge.

http://www.thedesertsun.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051227/OPINION01/512270304/1004


Anyone else get the feeling that terrorists operate within a network, and that Americans aren't walking down the street randomly plotting to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge while talking on their cell phones? Or is it just me?


Mabybe Morris should read this:


December 21, 2005 latimes.com

THE NATION
Officials Fault Case Bush Cited
Internal breakdowns, not shortcomings in spy laws, were at play before Sept. 11, they say.

By Josh Meyer, Times Staff Writer

But some current and former high-ranking U.S. counter-terrorism officials say that the still-classified details of the case undermine the president's rationale for the recently disclosed domestic spying program.

Indeed, a 2002 inquiry into the case by the House and Senate intelligence committees blamed interagency communication breakdowns — not shortcomings of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act or any other intelligence-gathering guidelines.

The incident Bush referred to involved at least six communications between the hijackers in San Diego and suspected terrorists overseas.

The current and former counter-terrorism officials, who requested anonymity, said there were repeated phone communications between a safe house in Yemen and the San Diego apartment rented by Alhazmi and Almihdhar. The Yemen site already had been linked directly to the Al Qaeda bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998 and to the 2000 bombing of the U.S. destroyer Cole in Yemen, several current and former U.S. counter-terrorism officials familiar with the case said.

Those links made the safe house one of the "hottest" targets being monitored by the NSA before the Sept. 11 attacks, and had been so for several years, the officials said.


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/la-na-targets21dec21,0,7243681.story?coll=la-home-headlines



More reading for Morris:


The war on terror should not supersede the laws of the land

By Dante Chinni
Tue Dec 27, 3:00 AM ET

snip...

But another potentially bigger issue arose last week in Richmond, Va. There, a three-judge panel smacked down a legal maneuver by the Bush administration.

The case stems from the detainment of Jose Padilla, the alleged would-be dirty bomber from Chicago. Mr. Padilla was being held without a trial as an enemy combatant, a move his lawyers said was unconstitutional. Padilla's case has made it all the way to the Supreme Court and, just as the case was about to be heard, the White House suddenly changed gears and decided they wanted Padilla charged as a civilian - hoping such a move would mean the high court would no longer be involved.

But the Richmond court not only denied the administration's request to move the case, it said the request to move him after demanding he be held without trial came at "substantial cost to the government's credibility."

If that wasn't enough of a rebuke, consider that it came from the same Richmond court that sided with the administration in September, when it agreed Padilla could be held without a trial. Want more? How about the fact that the Richmond court's opinion was written by Michael Luttig, the judge Bush recently considered to fill an empty seat on the Supreme Court.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20051227/cm_csm/ychinni27

[Hissyspit]

1. Dick Morris is a joke.

Still pissed about getting caught with the call girl.

[marmar]

5. A cruel, unfunny joke...

who gets way too much air time.

:yoiks:

[Hissyspit]

10. Actually, I should have said he is the punchline of a joke. n/t

[tecelote]

2. China Calling!

There is a place for people that think state is more important than the individual.

Plus, the cost of living is sinful!

[tlsmith1963]

3. They Just Don't Get It

I wish prominent Democrats would say the truth: that we don't have a problem with spying on al-Qaeda. The problem is that Bush is spying on people because they are liberals who are against the war. That is the part that isn't acceptable. That is a Mc Carthyist tactic, & it is wrong. Stick to the terrorists. Leave your political enemies alone.

Tammy

[tecelote]

6. You're right.

The question should be, was the intelligence used to profit and/or for partisan politics?

Why wouldn't a court approve the wiretaps? Because, it was not about terrorism.

[TheGunslinger]

4. So, cutting down the bridge with *blowtorches* is now bombing it...

with *thousands dead*?


:eyes:

[grytpype]

7. Yeah, and it would really screw up traffic patterns.

Oh God Almighty, save the Brooklyn Bridge from the little brown guys with blowtorches.

And save us from f*ckwits like Dick Morris.

[ComerPerro]

8. DIck Morris is Da Man!

(or, is it, duh man?)

He knows what it takes to go far and get rich in his line of work:

He sold out to the right, he whores himself out to Faux News on a regular basis, he writes a pathetic RW rant every nine months or so, and he has so far made millions of dollars telling right wingers exactly what they want to hear.

Nice work if you can get it.

[The Backlash Cometh]

9. Geez, with all the media whores admitting that they're getting paid

under the table, you'd think that Dick Morris would have removed his neon "For Sale" sign to ward off suspicion.

[mcscajun]

11. "His plans would definitely have brought down the bridge..."

Um...I Don't Think So.

Here's the detail from a 2003 news story:

In a secret deal only revealed yesterday, Faris, who often made deliveries to cargo aircraft at American airports, pleaded guilty last month to two counts of providing "material support" to al-Qa'eda and conspiring to provide such support.

That included researching ultralight aircraft for al-Qa'eda, trying to procure gas cutters for severing bridge cables and trying to buy tools to derail trains.

Faris's American citizenship had allowed him to live a "secret double life", Mr Ashcroft said.

Last year Faris, 34, was ordered to reconnoitre the Brooklyn Bridge, linking Manhattan with Brooklyn. He later sent a coded email to al-Qa'eda leaders, telling them: "The weather is too hot."

This apparently indicated his view that the plan would fail because of tight security and the robust construction of the bridge.

http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/06/20/wterr20.xml

Yeah...a couple of guys with gas cutters trying to sever the incredibly thick, twisted cables (15 and 3/4 inches thick, with an actual weight of 12,000 tons!) of a major NYC bridge. Sure, that would never draw any attention. :sarcasm:

When this story broke, most NYers took it even less seriously than the shoebomber failing to get his "shoe bomb" (which lacked a detonator cap) lit with matches.

[citizen snips]

12. why do people take this dude seriously?

Didn't he get caught with a prostitute?

[Elidor]

13. Hardhead: Dick Morris sucks on the toes of prostitutes

And nothing else about him is particularly relevant.