Look who wrote the law that shielded the terrorists from the FBI

The FBI agents who apprehended one of the September 11 hijackers weeks before the attack were prevented from downloading his computer and tapping his phone, thanks to a law co-authored by Senator Edward M. Kennedy.

“If they had downloaded [terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui’s] computer, they might have known that New York was a target, as he was studying the air currents over the city,” says former top congressional investigator Herb Romerstein. “If his friends, who didn’t know about his arrest, phoned him, the FBI might have been led to the other 19 hijackers.”

The new USA Patriot Act failed to close the loopholes in the old Kennedy law, and incorporates language from the Kennedy law that prevents the FBI from wiretapping a terror suspect if the only evidence is his exercising of his First Amendment right to say he supports terrorism.

“Who succeeded in getting these pernicious elements into the Patriot Act?” asks Romerstein. “The ever-present Sen. Kennedy was particularly active. He was joined in the House by Rep. John Conyers . . . The Republicans rolled over for them because the administration needed the bill passed even with its defects.”

Rumsfeld explains weakness of US ability to fight terror at home

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld explains why the US will have such a tough time fighting terrorism at home: “The United States of America is one of the few countries on the face of the Earth that does not have a domestic intelligence-gathering agency. We may very well be the only English-speaking democracy in the world that doesn’t have one.” Those domestic intelligence capabilities were eliminated by Congress in the 1970s.

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