How Obama Fights Terrorism

After writing about how different, in practice and results, the Democratic and Republican views towards anti-terrorism were comparing President Clinton to President W. Bush, here comes Democratic President Barack Obama to show us that there is simply a “Barack” way when it comes to fighting terrorism.

* No imminent danger, congressmen say

* Focus on one man who met with people in Queens

* Apartment shared by five Afghan men searched – witness

* Militant ideology sympathetic to al Qaeda detected – NYT

I’ll let the highlights from the article sink in first…

After you read the article, you learned that there is a new sheriff in town, and, a new way of fighting terrorism; preventative anti-terrorism.

The New York Times, citing an unnamed senior law enforcement official, said authorities had uncovered a small group of people who espoused a militant ideology aligned with al Qaeda.

Neither a specific plot nor a target of any planned attack had been detected, but their activities had aroused enough suspicion to obtain search warrants, the Times said.

Let me see just what the FBI could have been written in a search warrant:

1) Five guys living together, all from Afghanistan, espousing militant, Al-Qaeda ideology.

2) It was observed that one of the five had talked to people in New York City.

What wasn’t in the warrant?

1) No known terrorist plot.

2) No known desire for there to be a future terrorist plot.

3) No probable cause, whatsoever, that there was a terrorist plot even being thought of between other thoughts.

Do you know how we know this?  The individuals were “interviewed” and RELEASED.  Let go.  Told to hit the bricks.  Not detained.  Not arrested.  IE, nothing, absolutely nothing was found in searching two apartments.

TPM asks if this was the terror plot you didn’t hear of, and it is, because there was no plot.

NYPD and FBI officials provided few details, calling it part of an ongoing investigation of the joint terrorism task force.

This is laughable.  Part of an ongoing investigation??? I hate to break it to the FBI idiot-in-charge, but, any “investigation” you might have had going is blown all-to-hell now that you’ve pulled in five guys for “interviews” after storming their apartment like it was Normandy Part Deux.  

But, maybe we can get a glimpse into the decision making here given that I have documented how the FBI screwed up numerous times prior to 9/11.  You see, when agents said there was funny business going on, the FBI managers dithered prior to 9/11.  Now, it’s “hey, five guys are living together, all from Afghanistan, and it looks like they are sympathetic to Al-Qaeda”… well, that means the FBI has to storm the building now!

There is another aspect to this story; the warrant itself.  As I documented, prior to 9/11, the Minnesota FBI office wouldn’t seek a warrant to search the briefcase and computer of a known terrorist, claiming it would take too long, not enough justification, etc.  Now, the FBI gets a search warrant based on nothing more than, “we have five guys from Afghanistan who live together that are likely sympathetic to Al-Qaeda… can we have a search warrant?” — and, it’s APPROVED.

Have we reached it? — the point where everything starts becoming “preventative” for our government?  For President Obama, who wants “preventative detention” as a policy, maybe.  If you are going to trot out preventative detention, where someone “might” be too dangerous to be free regardless of not having committed a crime, it follows that you would storm an apartment building because there are five guys who “might” do something.

What will be tomorrow’s headline?

“Four Arrested After Giving President Dirty Look”

Washington — Today, four men were arrested when an FBI agent saw them give the President what he characterized as “a look meant to kill”.  FBI spokesman put out this statement:  “It was clear to us that these four were thinking about killing the President.  The close proximity these four kept to each other, coupled with the look one gave the President, was all we needed to arrest the individuals.  With our preventative detention law, America will not have to worry about these four individuals anymore.”

Seriously… is this where we are headed?