To: [log in to unmask] Subject: [okgreens] Corrections... Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2001 21:59:17 -0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: from [216.115.96.64] by hotmail.com (3.2) with ESMTP id MHotMailBD6F02B700CC400438E8D873604013D4357; Mon, 17 Sep 2001 01:46:17 -0700 Received: from [10.1.4.53] by jk.egroups.com with NNFMP; 17 Sep 2001 08:44:37 -0000 Received: (EGP: mail-7_3_2_2); 17 Sep 2001 08:44:35 -0000 Received: (qmail 22840 invoked from network); 17 Sep 2001 03:01:56 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.26) by l7.egroups.com with QMQP; 17 Sep 2001 03:01:55 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO iris.services.ou.edu) (129.15.2.125) by mta1 with SMTP; 17 Sep 2001 03:01:55 -0000 Received: from [129.15.167.176] (ppp167-250.ACCESS.ou.edu [129.15.167.250]) by iris.services.ou.edu (Sun Internet Mail Server sims.4.0.2000.10.12.16.25.p8) with ESMTP id <[log in to unmask]> for [log in to unmask]; Sun, 16 Sep 2001 22:01:41 -0500 (CDT) From sentto-417072-3019-1000716276-thelordalmighty Mon, 17 Sep 2001 01:46:45 -0700 X-eGroups-Return: [log in to unmask] X-Sender: [log in to unmask] X-Apparently-To: [log in to unmask] X-Sender: [log in to unmask] Message-id:

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...to things I've been hearing all day.

1) What I've been hearing: "The President has declared war."

Correction: "The Congress shall have the power...to declare war."

US Constitution, Article I, Sec. 8

The President CANNOT declare war.

2) What I've been hearing: we need to change the rules governing the

CIA, because currently you cannot put anyone on the CIA payroll who

has a criminal record, and we need to give the CIA the right to

engage in assassinations and other assorted "dirty" tactics to defeat

folks like bin Laden.

Correction: "In no instance has an asset not been exploited

[by the CIA] because of his background." -- Sandy Berger, Clinton's

National Security Adviser, on Tim Russert's talk show this evening.

Berger went on to say that there is nothing in current law

that would prevent the CIA from "taking out" bin Laden.

Since the CIA can, under current regulations, do everything

that they claim they want to do, why are they so quick to loosen the

regulations? And why are we so quick to let them do it? (side note:

isn't it pathetic that the closest thing I found on the air to a

progressive -- or even dissenting -- voice was Clinton's National

Security Adviser? Everyone else, Democrat and Republican, who I

heard interviewed stressed the need to expand the powers of the FBI

and CIA.)

As the CIA and FBI ask to be less regulated, as the federal

government asks us to give up our civil liberties, we need to force

our representatives to ask, at every step along the way, why do you

need _this_ power? What can you not do now, that we need to do, that

this authority would let you do?

I think we are all willing to give up some freedoms if there is a

clear, rational purpose to the particular restriction. For example,

I hazard to say that, even on this list, we'd all be comfortable with

tighter airport security. I certainly don't mind checking my Swiss

Army knife.

But pundits and politicians keep asking the general question "Are you

willing to give up civil liberties to fight this war?," which is

essentially a request for a blank check from all of us. We must

loudly and clearly un-ask this question.

It was not that long ago that innocent Americans were being secretly

fed LSD in CIA experiments, that Dr. Martin Luther King was being

actively smeared by his own government, that the FBI was fomenting

dissent and encouraging internecine violence within the '60s left.

It can happen in America. It has happened in America. We must not

let it happen again.

Peace,

Ben