Interesting story. The feds employed a program of monitoring mosques, residences, etc. in U.S. for radiation without warrants. As liberal as I am, I think they probably were safe in what they were doing as thermo-imaging for hydroponic pot does not require a warrant either. Still, it's another example of how the government is watching us . . .

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10588528/

Interesting story. The feds employed a program of monitoring mosques, residences, etc. in U.S. for radiation without warrants. As liberal as I am, I think they probably were safe in what they were doing as thermo-imaging for hydroponic pot does not require a warrant either. Still, it's another example of how the government is watching us . . .

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10588528/

This just involves a device that samples the air and puts it through a detector. Depending on the direction of the wind, you can do it from a reasonable distance. If you are not constructing a nuclear device or handling radioactive material, you have nothing to fear. If it involves profiling, that is a problem. I would think that any group that has issues against the US is suspect. The most powerful bomb used for a terrorist attack against the US was made by a couple of WASPs. This does not involve listening, observing, or otherwise violating anyones privacy. I think that making a big deal out of this (the OP didn't) is a coat tail effect of the eavesdropping story. Playing on people's fear and paranoia, anything to grab a headline and sell papers or advertising space.

Bigbill, according to libs...the next time you fire up some gorgeous steaks on your BBQ, I'm out back, smell it, come over with a six pack of beer to let you know the game is on and let's eat....apparently you can call the police :rolleyes:

Bad analogy. Next time you put on a steak, the Government smells it, and a cop comes over to make sure the beef is DOA approved, then you can call your lawyer. See the difference?

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union,
establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common
defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to
ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the
United States of America."

I'd lean on insuring domestic tranquility, providing common defence and promoting general Welfare in defense of trying to locate nukes in America. Yup.

I'd also remind the court that we are at War.

"Watching us" or protecting us. Guess it boils down to perception.

We are not at war, despite what they want you to believe. We are in a state of occupation. And, even if we were at war, the people against whom we are "fighting" do not have nuclear weapons. The IEDs our troops are facing would not be a problem if we weren't there.

We are at War. Where were you on 9/11/01 :confused:

We are at War and the fact you deny this scares me.

I don't know were this person lives, but they really need to get cable tv. We are at war against terror and terror has no home nation, just a loose organization that would strike at the US if given the opportunity. Fighting the war is about keeping the terrorists from organizing, never letting them settle in a region again (Afghanistan), and drawing them out and killing them. Even if you don't buy into the Iraq/Al Qaida connections, you cannot divide the two now. Our enemies would use a nuclear weapon against us and using surveillance to search likely locations keeps the terrorists at bay.

Bigbill, agreed 100%.

When someone says this..."We are not at war, despite what they want you to believe. We are in a state of occupation. And, even if we were at war, the people against whom we are "fighting" do not have nuclear weapons. The IEDs our troops are facing would not be a problem if we weren't there"...

You can well realize why Democrats cannot cannot cannot win in 2008. How can America trust the party that tends to believe the above quote is even close to valid?

How friggin scary...you'd rather close your eyes, run and what? What? What is your solution to defeating Terrorism :confused: What?

I WISH all the libs in the world sat where I sat on 9/11, watched the buildings fall, in technicolor, live and with your own eyes. If you did not realize we were at War when the second plane hit, then you are lost in your allegiance to peace, the hippy movement, Ghandi, Dean, Kerry and whomever.

America, your United States of America is at War and ya ought to start listening to Joe Lieberman (if you are only able to hear a Democrat's voice).

Avoid the IEDs? Avoid Saddam. Avoid his rapes, tortures and aggression? Avoid his WMD (which are somewhere in Syria, Iran or hiddden under twenty feet of sand etc). Avoid Bin Laden. Forget about the USS Cole. Forget about the 1993 attack on the WTC which killed six people. Forget that your Pentagon, Military HQ BTW, was attacked. Forget that they wanted to attack the White House. Forget that a grenade was thrown at President Bush. Foget that they want to destroy America and all Americans?

Forget that Anthrax was mailed around the US and five people did indeed die from it (I believe it had about 50% rate of death). Most of the anthrax letters contained this quote:

"09-11-01
YOU CAN NOT STOP US.
WE HAVE THIS ANTHRAX.
YOU DIE NOW.
ARE YOU AFRAID?
DEATH TO AMERICA.
DEATH TO ISRAEL.
ALLAH IS GREAT."

These zealots are attacking America (like Bin Laden) due in large part to our support of Israel, fyi.

Your country protects you and look what you do Morrison. You claim there is no War at all? What took place on 9/11 was worse than Pearl Harbor and that says a great deal. Watching the second plane hit...you had to know, had to know we were at War. Even my Dog knew.

Wake up kiddos and smell the coffee. Thus far the Bush Administration has kept us safe and sound, due 100% to the effort of our fine Military, men and women who follow their Commander in Chief.

KP,

OMG now you went and did it.

With all those hot button words, I'm certain the NSA pulled this post and is now observing our little PO forum.

This is a warning. They are watching. I'm wondering how long it will take for Greg to get a visit. I'm outa here for awhile.

Not a joke.

About 200,000 of our finest are at war. The rest of are biking on weekends, complaining that day light savings time makes it too difficult to ride after we finish pushing paper at our desk job, driving home in our SUV and screaming at Hardball for being too liberal or conservative on any given day.

We are not at war, despite what they want you to believe. We are in a state of occupation. And, even if we were at war, the people against whom we are "fighting" do not have nuclear weapons. The IEDs our troops are facing would not be a problem if we weren't there.

Perhaps this is the huge chasm that differentiates our thoughts on the state we find ourselves in today. I believe we are at war and were, long before we started shooting back. I also believe that refusal to acknowledge that fact and respond, would cause us to change even more than we have done and it would not be temporary. It would be insidious and slow evolution in response to the presures put on us by the terrorist activities. The IED's our troops are facing would, instead, be attacks on us here at home to gain some political response. There are a lot of noble words posted along these lines, mostly empty rhetoric. The one quoting the lines about Hitler coming for various groups one at a time with no response is one. This government is not rounding up ethinc or social groups and putting them in prison. What they are doing is police work, proactive work which is the only way to prevent the attacks that will surely come if we allow this poison to continue to grow and fester both at home and abroad. That it targets Muslims is understandable as that is where the danger lies. We have policed the various homegrown nutjob groups throughout our history. The danger today comes from an idology that has been hijacked by radicals. That radical view is not going to survive in strength, if it does, the entire world is threatened. They have been "coming for the jews" for as long as I can remember.

I'm no right winger but, assuming that my grasp of the facts is correct, I think that this one is inside of the lines. As I understand it, all that they did was to take air samples from a public area.

I'm no right winger but, assuming that my grasp of the facts is correct, I think that this one is inside of the lines. As I understand it, all that they did was to take air samples from a public area.

Nothing they did in this case was against the rules. They took samples from the air in public areas surrounding the mosques, but did they have some information though that told them that mosques were holding nuclear weapons or radioactive material? To me, this just seems like profiling at its worst. I guess the question that I would ask the security experts, and this just seems like a common sense kind of thing, if terrorists did have nuclear or radioactive material in the US, and they were Muslim terrorists, do they really think that they would hide it in their mosques? That is the first place we'd look. But anyway, I digress. It's bad profiling of a religious group is what it is in the US.

Technically, to answer KPCW from before, we are at war, but technically, we are NOT at war. War has not been declared by Congress on any one, or any nation at this point in time, so technically, we're not at war, but we are fighting terrorism on a global basis, and if you want to call that a "war" on terrorism, that's all fine. Sort of like how we are at war with the drug lords.

And America was not attacked at Pearl Harbor, the American Naval Base at Pearl Harbor was attacked. History tells us that Hawaii was not an American State when the Japanese attacked our Naval Base in 1941.

Would any lib please like to enhance Morrison to the fact that we are at War?

That is an extreme, radical and dangerous pov (that America is not at War).

Last time I checked ~250K of our finest men and women are stationed around the entire globe and their main task is rooting out terrorists. War was officially declared on America about 8:30am EST, September 11th, 2001.Evidently the RTP don't take a hol*day :rolleyes:

The Dutch invented a nice way to get around this whole technicality debate about war when fighting a colonial one in Indonesia. We euphemistically called it a police action, and yes, the enemies were known as terrorists, and yes, war atrocities were committed by the Dutch, but not technically, it being a police action and all. The USA didn't buy it then, I don't buy the crap about illegal combatants now. If you are fighting a war, the prisoners you take are POW's and are to be treated as such. Don't be half arsed about it.

The Dutch invented a nice way to get around this whole technicality debate about war when fighting a colonial one in Indonesia. We euphemistically called it a police action, and yes, the enemies were known as terrorists, and yes, war atrocities were committed by the Dutch, but not technically, it being a police action and all. The USA didn't buy it then, I don't buy the crap about illegal combatants now. If you are fighting a war, the prisoners you take are POW's and are to be treated as such. Don't be half arsed about it.

What's that got to do with radiation testing on a public street?

What's that got to do with radiation testing on a public street?

Erm, the discussion had drifted somewhat away to the technicalities of being at war or not.

I'm not so sure that the governments actions were legal. In fact I believe that they probably were not. A lot depends on your definitions of what is surveillance. In 2001 the Supreme Court held that using thermal imaging to look at a persons house was surveillance and thus was a search and therefore a warrant needed to be issued before the use of the imager. Supreme Court case (http://straylight.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/99-8508.ZS.html)

War was officially declared on America about 8:30am EST, September 11th, 2001.
bullsh*t. the terrorist crazies declared war on America way earlier than that (remember the WTC bombings when Clinton was pres?). 9/11 just did a lot more damage than before.

Question--when Timothy McVeigh blew up the fed building in Okla City was that "declaring war" on the US? If so, who do we attack to make it right? Ourselves?

bullsh*t. the terrorist crazies declared war on America way earlier than that (remember the WTC bombings when Clinton was pres?). 9/11 just did a lot more damage than before.

Question--when Timothy McVeigh blew up the fed building in Okla City was that "declaring war" on the US? If so, who do we attack to make it right? Ourselves?

McVeigh was a home grown crazy. What our government did was the same thing it did inthe 60's when we had a couple of paramilitary groups that stepped over some lines. Law enforcement is responsible for cleaning up these groups in this country and they have been equal to that task at this point. Law enforcement in the Muslim countries where this kind of activity comes from does not even attempt to do the same, these groups are supported by various governments there. The escalation of the damage inflicted has made it imperative that we do something to end it before we have some kind of catastrophy that could bring our country down or increase our vulnerability to the point we can not defend ourselves. That is a possibility, depending on what kind of weapons would be used. Nuclear or biological would be horrendous.

9/11 was an event that changed the way the world must deal with these groups. It is far past time to commensurate and sympathize with them, that can come after they lay down their weapons. There is no need for us to be paralyzed by historical guilt or by the size of the task, it simply has to be done and we are the ones elected to do it. It is underway.

I'm not so sure that the governments actions were legal. In fact I believe that they probably were not. A lot depends on your definitions of what is surveillance. In 2001 the Supreme Court held that using thermal imaging to look at a persons house was surveillance and thus was a search and therefore a warrant needed to be issued before the use of the imager. Supreme Court case (http://straylight.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/99-8508.ZS.html)

I don't think that it would be the same. Sampling the air doesn't involve observing anyone in the privacy of their home or property. No boundaries are violated as they would be using thermal imaging and looking into someone's property. I think this one would hold up in court.

I don't think that it would be the same. Sampling the air doesn't involve observing anyone in the privacy of their home or property. No boundaries are violated as they would be using thermal imaging and looking into someone's property. I think this one would hold up in court.

But in light of the Supremes stating that they generally look at these cases from the point of view of requiring a warrant, I don't know if it's enough of a difference. In the pot case they used a heat signature from inside the building. The had Feds argued that they were not looking inside for intimate details. In this case the Feds are using air samples from outside a person home or mosque. I am having a hard time trying to figure out how they can make a different argument than the one used in the pot case, the same argument that failed before. Now, If the Feds had been taking air samples from all around the city and not just specific areas that they wanted to watch it might be different but in this case it doesn't sound that dissimliar from the pot case.

McVeigh was a home grown crazy. What our government did was the same thing it did inthe 60's when we had a couple of paramilitary groups that stepped over some lines. Law enforcement is responsible for cleaning up these groups in this country and they have been equal to that task at this point. Law enforcement in the Muslim countries where this kind of activity comes from does not even attempt to do the same, these groups are supported by various governments there. The escalation of the damage inflicted has made it imperative that we do something to end it before we have some kind of catastrophy that could bring our country down or increase our vulnerability to the point we can not defend ourselves. That is a possibility, depending on what kind of weapons would be used. Nuclear or biological would be horrendous.

9/11 was an event that changed the way the world must deal with these groups. It is far past time to commensurate and sympathize with them, that can come after they lay down their weapons. There is no need for us to be paralyzed by historical guilt or by the size of the task, it simply has to be done and we are the ones elected to do it. It is underway.

Being that you are an American, it's no wonder you take the American viewpoint. There have been lots of countries around the world that have lost a lot more people to terrorist attacks over the years than the US has. There is no sympathizing with terrorists, but don't you think it would be imperative to figure out why they are carrying out attacks and what their motivation is? Shouldn't we learn about our enemy to find out how they tick, how they think, how they work? Such as, the mere fact that American foreign policy is one of the driving motivations as to why terrorists want to kill Americans. Ultimately, the terrorists are still of course responsible for the attacks perpetrated against innocents the world over, but I don't think it's wrong to find out why they are doing this. Time and again, the terrorists are attacking people because of how their governments deal with foreign policy and so on (not just the US).

9.11 didn't change the way the world dealt with terrorists, it changed the way the US dealt with terrorists. And the way we apparently deal with terrorists is to invade a country that literally (aside from supporting some fringe Palestinian groups that had nothing to do with the US and its citizens) had no dealing with the terrorists that we're now still trying to find. Afghanistan, now that is where we should have dropped 200,000 troops. Not Iraq.

It's not wrong to find out what terrorists are thinking, and it's not sympathizing, but it is wise to learn your enemy's ways and their motivations. If you don't, you won't ever defeat them.

We know they are thinking they would like to kill us. We listen in when we can to hear their conversations about it. I think maybe it is time to make THEM think we aren't gonna put up with that crap anymore. It's all pretty uncomplicated really.

We know they are thinking they would like to kill us. We listen in when we can to hear their conversations about it. I think maybe it is time to make THEM think we aren't gonna put up with that crap anymore. It's all pretty uncomplicated really.

...have been killing terrorists for years. This is nothing new and interesting since 9.11. Nothing new at all, it's just that the tempo of the operations has increased, and we invaded a country. We do know that they want to kill us, but this BS line that the Bush administration and others give us for it is just that. BS. They want to kill innocents because of our foreign policy, before Bush, and after Bush. They don't want to kill is because they hate or way of life and our freedoms as we are told many times over since 9.11. That's just not the truth. They kill us or want to kill us because of our foreign policy. I'm not saying that we should change because of this, but in the years past when we have pulled back from the Muslim and Arab world, terrorist attacks against the US and our interests have decreased dramatically. We are part of the problem, or our foreign policy is. It's not our people. It's not our freedoms. It's not our liberty.