Why the Patriot act was a good thing.

[NUKE_CLEVELAND]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7340464/site/newsweek/

 

 

Roxanne Evans, a spokeswoman for the Washington school system, said today that the terrorist charges against Jayyousi—and the fact that he had even been under federal investigation while overseeing the city's school buildings—came as a complete surprise to school officials there. "I haven't found anybody who knew anything about this,"  she said.

 

One possible explanation for the fact that Washington school officials would have known nothing about the probe was indirectly cited by Killinger, the lead prosecutor  in his case. He noted today that the surveillance of Jayoussi was a secret "intelligence" investigation—authorized under the Foreign Intelligence  Surveillance Act (FISA)—and not a criminal case.  Prior to 9/11, he noted,  there was a "wall" that prevented FISA wiretaps from being shared with criminal investigators. (As a result, FBI  agents, who might have been expected to review Jayyousi's status under a standard background check required by the  Washington public schools for its top officials, would not have known Jayyousi was under investigation.) The tearing down of the "wall"—and the sharing of intelligence evidence with criminal investigators—was one of the major effects  of the Patriot Act passed after  9/11 and has allowed the Justice Department to bring cases like the one against Jayyousi.

 

 

 

Here is a guy who was being watched by the government under the FISA act for supporting terrorism and he was hired by the DC school system to be a building manager. His responsibilities included the maintenance of the school system's facilities to include HVAC and water. Who knows what kind of damage this guy could have done in his position.

 

Pre-patriot act: FISA investigations could not be shared with local officials. This allowed someone like this to slip through the cracks and get a job with responsibility over an entire city worth of school children.

 

Post-patriot act: This guy is in custody.

Edited March 31, 2005 by NUKE_CLEVELAND

[YASNY]

That's all well and good. The law enforcement - intelligence operations should be sharing intelligence. But what you are going to see released to the press are cases like this that make the act look good. What is not going to be released for press is the sneaky underhanded crap they do as they slowly whittle away our rights and freedoms. Do not trust those bastards. Any of them. Maintain a viligence on our politicians and government agencies or our free society will be a footnote in history.

[Texsox]

YASNY

 

We need to give up freedom to preserve freedom

[mreye]

YASNY   

 

We need to give up freedom to preserve freedom

I'll second that! While I understand Nuke's point, I am in full agreement with Yas.