On Wednesday, October 3, 2001, at 10:08 AM, Eugene Leitl wrote:

Date: Wed, 03 Oct 2001 12:59:34 -0400 From: David Farber To: ip-sub-1@majordomo.pobox.com Subject: IP: Newsweek: FBI had one hijacker before Sept 11th and Justice Dept Bumbled

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Date: Wed, 03 Oct 2001 09:44:40 -0700 From: "Robert J. Berger"

{The FBI and the Justice Dept had tools before Sept 11 and didn't use them. They don't need more ways to errode our civil liberties, they need to be competent}

Let's look at a section of the article cited: ""....after officials at an Eagan, Minn., flight school tipped them off that the 33-year-old French citizen was acting suspiciously. Moussaoui had sought training only in making turnsnot take-offs and landingsand specifically asked about flying over New York air space, officials said. " But, while Moussaoui himself was placed in detention on minor immigration charges on August 17, agents in Minneapolis were never given approval by Justice Department officials in Washington to open up the hard drive on the suspects computer. ..." So, "acting suspiciously" is now the backdoor to the Fourth Amendment? Or was it the "minor immigration charges"? There are thousands, even tens of thousands, of "minor immigration charges" every day. Papers not in order, visas expired, even failure to produce proof of citizenship. (Hint, yours truly, T C May, cannot easily find any proof of his citizenship...we native born folks don't _need_ no stinking proofs of citizenship. So, if I am "acting suspiciously" and cannot produce my citizenship papers, does my hard drive suddenly become fair game for snoopers?) Beware the logic of using 20/20 hindsight as a justification for expanded search powers. "Had we been allowed to look in his trunk, we would have found the gun he later used to kill those people. We need the power to do our job." "Police admit that they could have detected the illegal drug deals if only they had deployed more video surveillance cameras. We must give them the power to do their jobs!" "Key escrow would have helped." --Tim May