Go back to Russia
By Thoreau
Sen. Christopher Bond (R-East Germany), the co-author of the warrantless wiretap bill, said after Senate passage of the bill “I can sleep a little safer tonight.”
Really? You feel safer when the state can act without restraint? Then surely Russia must be the safest place on earth right now. Senator, would you care to spend a night in Chechnya, a place where the Russian military acts without regard for any law, without your usual bodyguards?
That’s the bottom line. If unrestrained states are really better at combating Islamic terrorists, why is Chechnya so dangerous?
One other observation, along the same lines: It’s been nearly 6 years since 9/11. In that time, the Bush administration has been breaking laws as they please. And yet Osama Bin Laden is still alive. Yes, I realize that the status of Osama Bin Laden is not the only metric by which to judge the success or failure of a counter-terrorism policy, but it’s surely an important one. So far, the unrestrained state is coming up with a big fat zero on that score.
