Enough of this thread. On Sun, 14 Apr 1996, jim bell wrote:
Exactly! I think the issue is important enough so that we really ought to develop new wording, something that far more accurately reflects the bulk of our opinion towards wiretapping.
The quote should be taken in context. If you look at the whole thing (it's still at www.vtw.org) he was talking about a corrupt cop who had killed a mother of three while he was being wiretapped by the FBI. The wiretap did nothing to save her. He continues in the same sentence as the one we're disputing, to question the effectiveness and utility of wiretaps in light of this and does so throughout the rest of the text. Come on, Jim, no offense meant, but there's criticizing and then there's nitpicking. One half of one sentence does not sell out the whole argument, no matter how it's worded. We're not in court, let's not waste our time on semantics. Cheers.