http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/law/july-dec02/court_8-23.html 2 australians continue to suffer cruel and unusual punishment at X-ray.No charges,No lawyers,No visitors apart from au goons.No letters.Kidnapped months ago. TERENCE SMITH: That's "Boston Globe" columnist Tom Oliphant and syndicated columnist Michelle Malkin. Both Mark Shields and David Brooks are on vacation. Welcome to you both. FISA court ruling Tom Oliphant, the, we just heard a discussion about what amounts to a standoff now between this secret intelligence court and the Justice Department. What's the significance of that? TOM OLIPHANT: Well, the significance is not going to be any at all in a larger political sense. There's no question that public opinion today continues to be overwhelmingly on the side of security as opposed to civil liberties, as is often the case at this stages of war, including this unique one. Civil liberties tends to be a minority concern that has to claw its way to attention. On the other hand, I do think this has some impact on the effectiveness of the administration's administration of the criminal and intelligence bureaucracies, and it's this. Credibility in secret proceedings is everything. And I think the court went out of its way to indicate its displeasure on those grounds, including making this decision public, which itself was a form of rebuke. I think --. TERENCE SMITH: By saying that on 75 occasions - TOM OLIPHANT: Absolutely. TERENCE SMITH: -- the FBI had misled them. TOM OLIPHANT: There are other cases not just before this special court, and I think other judges are going to be more inclined now to look behind the government's claims to check further. And most importantly of all is on the street. The biggest aid in prosecution of this war is the citizen who helps the government. And you want to have the confidence that you're going to be treated squarely, and this undermines it. TERENCE SMITH: Michelle Malkin, what's your take? MICHELLE MALKIN: I do think it would be a mistake to characterize the ruling, though, as a stark repudiation or rebuke of the way that Ashcroft and the Bush administration specifically are conducting the war on terror because these 75 errors and misrepresentations that the court was clearly piqued about happened under the prior administration. And, in fact, the Justice Department had started self reporting a lot of those errors in the first place. So I think the end result of the decision right now is that it's a big yield sign. It's a warning to the FBI and the agent there's to make sure that the affidavits that they file for search warrants as they conduct this war on terror have all their "t's" crossed and their "i's" dotted. There will be an appeal of the case and that's unprecedented as well. But I think, you know, the clear message is, we cannot have a completely opaque wall between intelligence gathering and criminal prosecutions. But if you're going to poke holes in those walls, you have to make sure that the whole facade doesn't come crumbling down. TOM OLIPHANT: Michelle makes a very important point, particularly because the head of the FBI until last year was Louis Freeh, whose administration is already very controversial, and this is another criticism of that. TERENCE SMITH: And these cases of course crossed over. TOM OLIPHANT: Very much so. In fairness, it should also be said that this administration, in a sense has sought to enjoy the fruits of the policy that was being pursued, as witness with the appeal. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/political_wrap/july-dec02/wrap_8-23.html