Our Earth is surrounded by the answers to our problems. Saturn’s moon, Titan, for example, rains hydrocarbons and, according to Ralph Lorenz, a Cassini researcher, is “a giant factory of organic chemicals." In other words, Titan is a gas station 50% larger than our own moon. Saturn’s rings are mostly water. Comets may also be a rich source of fresh water, liquid hydrogen and oxygen, i.e. rocket fuel. Near Earth asteroids “could provide precious metals like natural stainless steel to be used in space construction projects, such as the space cities envisioned by the Permanent Project. One cubic kilometer of a nickel-iron asteroid is estimated to contain seven billion tons of iron, one billion tons of nickel, and sufficient cobalt to supply the Earth for three thousand years. The total current value would exceed five trillion U.S. dollars,” according to John Lewis, author of Mining the Sky.
As sure as America was “destiny” for 16th, 17th, and 18th Century Europeans, the future for the people of Earth will be one spent traveling, settling, and working our solar system. The search for gold, and later the desire to spread their Christian faith, was enough to prompt European monarchs to finance dozens of uncertain, risky quests. Fortunately, the risks were taken. The seeds that were planted bore fruit that grows, still, growing the wealth of the world ten-thousand fold.
Since there are no local aliens to convert, the potential for wealth, harvesting the mineral resources of our solar system, alone, will have to be enough to spawn 21st Century space entrepreneurs and pioneers. To date, the hard work of breaking through our atmosphere and establishing a permanent presence in space has been accomplished by governments, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration [NASA] in the United States, the European Space Agency [ESA], the Russians, the Chinese, the Japanese. As great as our achievements have been, I think it’s clear we have failed to capitalize on the promise of the Apollo missions so long ago.
The people of the United States spend over a half trillion dollars annually propping up people who for whatever reason cannot manage to take care of themselves, but when it comes to investing in the most important work of securing humanity’s place in the cosmos, we drop a couple of dimes in the basket. Since 1969’s moon landing, NASA’s annual budget [in real and adjusted dollars] has never exceeded 20 billion dollars. And many Americans think even that’s too much.
Currently, dozens of individuals across the globe have amassed enough personal wealth to fund NASA’s annual budget using their own dollars. What prevents private individuals from investing in space exploration? Government’s failure to secure property rights on the moon, near-Earth asteroids, Mars, or anywhere else in our solar system.
Presently no legislation or treaty exists to protect the property rights of the space entrepreneur planning to establish a permanent, human settlement on the moon, for example. The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 prohibits governments from claiming land on the moon and elsewhere, but the issue of private ownership remains unresolved, according to the Space Settlement Initiative. Why would anyone, however determined, risk billions without some assurance that they’ll get to keep what they produce or discover?
Forward-thinking Alan Wasser, former chairman of the Executive Committee of the National Space Society and author of the Space Settlement Prize Act, is a notable voice in the battle against government apathy to address the inevitable commercialization of space.
“Presumably it is only a matter of time until new treaties are negotiated, establishing a functional private property regime and granting suitable land ownership incentives for privately funded space settlements. The U.S. will, of course, abide by such new international law when it has ratified such a new treaty. But, given the urgent need for privately funded human expansion into space, as soon as possible, something must be done immediately, on a provisional basis, to correct the present inefficiencies in the international standard on property rights in space and to promote privately funded space exploration and settlement...”
To encourage a future where private interests will set up shop on the Moon, the United States will be launching several unmanned probes, including the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter [LRO] on February 27, 2009. Perhaps less romantic than the 19th Century Lewis and Clark Expedition, the robotic LRO will survey the Moon’s surface searching for landing sites and reasons to inspire future, private investment. If there’s water on the Moon, the LRO will find it. We know asteroids produced more than craters on the Moon’s surface. The Moon may be a rich source of “Platinum Group Metals [PGM’s], indispensable for efficient fuel cell operation.” [Moonrush: Improving Life on Earth with the Moon’s Resources, by Dennis Wingo.] The LRO and its siblings will pave the way for NASA’s Constellation space craft destine to land on the moon in 2020.
If the Moon’s resources can be harvested profitably, and governments work to protect property rights, capitalism will drive the human development of our solar system, one world at a time.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Smoking
Smoking cigarettes is irrational. Cigarette smoking can steal your health and take years off your life. If I could live true in every sense to the ideas I promote, I would certainly quit smoking. To date, I am unable to do so.
Perhaps, I’ve confessed a weakness here? So be it. But know this: I have not relinquished my right to care for, or to abuse, my own body. Nobody has the right to tell me what I can put into my body.
So how did state and local governments manage to ban smoking in work places, restaurants, and bars across the country? They hypothesized about something called second-hand smoke and then proved it exists. They argued that my smoking actually has an adverse effect on the health of other people, non-smokers who are exposed to my smoke. If I accept the science of second-hand smoke, which by the way, I do, then I cannot in good conscience smoke in an enclosed environment where non-smokers might be exposed. I have no problem with this. I would never light up in my classroom, or in the teacher’s lounge, or anywhere else inside the school building. I don’t have to be told not to. But, once I walk out that door and I’m standing with nothing but the great blue sky over my head, there is no justification for any law that criminalizes my decision to smoke a cigarette.
I have been an outlaw since the early 1990s, when the school system for which I worked banned smoking anywhere on campus. The school I worked for was an “open-air” school: when I stepped outside of my classroom, I could see the sky. I ignored the ban on smoking because I recognize no man’s right to tell me what I can put into my body. In an open-air environment, there is no rational basis for the infringement of my right.
Some of you will say that a smoking ban on school grounds is valid because I’m setting a bad example for my students. Ridiculous. Sneaking off to smoke in my car, hiding my lawful behavior, denying who I am and what I do is a hypocrisy my students never have to factor into their definitions of me. Furthermore, students who like me love to beg me to stop; some have even researched the dangers of smoking for me. Students who dislike me love to walk by and say things like “you’re going to die!” Whenever my students demand I explain my irrational behavior, I am afforded a unique “teaching moment.” I begin by asking: “Do you know why I smoke?”—They respond with science, humor, psychology, etc.—I say: “No…I smoke for one reason: Because I started.” An anecdote about how I’d love to go back to that day at Chuwakala Park, Auburn, Al. when I decided to switch from Skoal chewing tobacco to cigarettes follows. When all is said and done, I’ve taught a complete lesson, including: the science of addiction, the psychology of peer pressure, the ethics of hypocrisy, and the philosophy of a free man.
Those of you who argue that I’m putting a drag on the health care system because smokers get sick, I say, are you kidding me? I pay for my health insurance. My behavior is between me and the insurance company I am paying. I’ve been paying premiums for twenty years and during that time I have never been seriously ill, I’ve never been hospitalized, I rarely go to the doctor, I can’t remember the last time I took a prescription drug. My insurance company must love me: I’ve been paying for nothing for twenty years.
Supporters of universal health care are famous for making the “drag on the health care system” argument. When they finally have their way, and America follows Europe’s socialist lead, the health police will be out in force, unchecked, banning all kinds of harmful choices. Liberty will be sacrificed in the name of what’s good for you…whether you like it or not. I’d like to know the numbers: How much of a drag do overweight, inactive people put on the health care system? Will they be banning all fast food? Mandating exercise? The solution to the health care crisis in this country, as is the case in every instance where value is traded for value: Take the government out of the equation. Capitalism, the laws of supply and demand, individual responsibility…these are the solutions. Yet, we continue to move in the opposite direction.
Probably the most troubling thing about the new laws is government’s use of force to ban smoking in privately owned and operated establishments, restaurants and bars. In a free, capitalistic economy decisions about appropriate behavior in a private establishment are made by the owners. Rather than the all-inclusive ban we have today, what we should have is restaurants and bars that advertise a non-smoking atmosphere and others that permit smoking. The choice would be left to the owners, those who have the most to gain or lose. No force was ever necessary.
Why do we continue to hand this sort of power over to the politicians? Free people should be permitted to make choices about where they want to go and what they want to do when they go out.
Perhaps, I’ve confessed a weakness here? So be it. But know this: I have not relinquished my right to care for, or to abuse, my own body. Nobody has the right to tell me what I can put into my body.
So how did state and local governments manage to ban smoking in work places, restaurants, and bars across the country? They hypothesized about something called second-hand smoke and then proved it exists. They argued that my smoking actually has an adverse effect on the health of other people, non-smokers who are exposed to my smoke. If I accept the science of second-hand smoke, which by the way, I do, then I cannot in good conscience smoke in an enclosed environment where non-smokers might be exposed. I have no problem with this. I would never light up in my classroom, or in the teacher’s lounge, or anywhere else inside the school building. I don’t have to be told not to. But, once I walk out that door and I’m standing with nothing but the great blue sky over my head, there is no justification for any law that criminalizes my decision to smoke a cigarette.
I have been an outlaw since the early 1990s, when the school system for which I worked banned smoking anywhere on campus. The school I worked for was an “open-air” school: when I stepped outside of my classroom, I could see the sky. I ignored the ban on smoking because I recognize no man’s right to tell me what I can put into my body. In an open-air environment, there is no rational basis for the infringement of my right.
Some of you will say that a smoking ban on school grounds is valid because I’m setting a bad example for my students. Ridiculous. Sneaking off to smoke in my car, hiding my lawful behavior, denying who I am and what I do is a hypocrisy my students never have to factor into their definitions of me. Furthermore, students who like me love to beg me to stop; some have even researched the dangers of smoking for me. Students who dislike me love to walk by and say things like “you’re going to die!” Whenever my students demand I explain my irrational behavior, I am afforded a unique “teaching moment.” I begin by asking: “Do you know why I smoke?”—They respond with science, humor, psychology, etc.—I say: “No…I smoke for one reason: Because I started.” An anecdote about how I’d love to go back to that day at Chuwakala Park, Auburn, Al. when I decided to switch from Skoal chewing tobacco to cigarettes follows. When all is said and done, I’ve taught a complete lesson, including: the science of addiction, the psychology of peer pressure, the ethics of hypocrisy, and the philosophy of a free man.
Those of you who argue that I’m putting a drag on the health care system because smokers get sick, I say, are you kidding me? I pay for my health insurance. My behavior is between me and the insurance company I am paying. I’ve been paying premiums for twenty years and during that time I have never been seriously ill, I’ve never been hospitalized, I rarely go to the doctor, I can’t remember the last time I took a prescription drug. My insurance company must love me: I’ve been paying for nothing for twenty years.
Supporters of universal health care are famous for making the “drag on the health care system” argument. When they finally have their way, and America follows Europe’s socialist lead, the health police will be out in force, unchecked, banning all kinds of harmful choices. Liberty will be sacrificed in the name of what’s good for you…whether you like it or not. I’d like to know the numbers: How much of a drag do overweight, inactive people put on the health care system? Will they be banning all fast food? Mandating exercise? The solution to the health care crisis in this country, as is the case in every instance where value is traded for value: Take the government out of the equation. Capitalism, the laws of supply and demand, individual responsibility…these are the solutions. Yet, we continue to move in the opposite direction.
Probably the most troubling thing about the new laws is government’s use of force to ban smoking in privately owned and operated establishments, restaurants and bars. In a free, capitalistic economy decisions about appropriate behavior in a private establishment are made by the owners. Rather than the all-inclusive ban we have today, what we should have is restaurants and bars that advertise a non-smoking atmosphere and others that permit smoking. The choice would be left to the owners, those who have the most to gain or lose. No force was ever necessary.
Why do we continue to hand this sort of power over to the politicians? Free people should be permitted to make choices about where they want to go and what they want to do when they go out.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Science and Freedom
I remember actually looking forward to dying when I was in high school. When I die, I thought, I’ll finally have the answers to all of my questions.
Because I attended private, Catholic schools, K-12, and studied liberal arts in college, I was 32-years-old, a regular churchgoer, and tenor in the choir, when I picked up my first science book and began to read. It was Carl Sagan’s masterwork Cosmos. By the end of the first chapter I was hooked.
What I realized reading Cosmos was that most of my questions were being answered by really smart humans working in their laboratories. I found their answers both exciting and very comforting. It all made sense to me [except maybe some of the math], and it made me realize what an excellent thing a human being is. We have come so far: We have so much further to go.
As I read Cosmos, my Bachelor’s Degree in History—that hodgepodge of names, and dates, and places, and stories—finally became meaningful. Context joined my thinking, and I was on my way to defining my world view. Those first three days cosseted in my otherwise empty apartment, were three of the best days of my life. I was truly born again.
I laughed at myself often...”My God! I’ve lived on this planet for 32 years, and today I learned why the sky is blue!” I ridiculed myself for my stupidity. I nearly cursed my parents for sending me to parochial schools, where for thousands of dollars per year I was made metaphysically dishonest and epistemologically disabled. For the first time in my life I was learning about the nature of the planet that gave birth to the human race. This Earth, this Heaven...There is no better place in all existence for humans.
Over the next several months I read every book Sagan had written, and then I read Asimov, and Darwin, Green, Feynman, and Drexler. I stopped reading fiction entirely. Science was wonderful. Church was becoming less and less meaningful. I began to wonder if my priests had ever read any science? I thought if they had they wouldn’t be standing there spouting hearsay about ancient miracles. I was 34-years-old when I stopped going to church entirely.
While I was sure Jesus wasn’t a God, or God’s son, or God’s spirit, or any of that, I remained faithful to the moral teachings of Jesus. I didn’t know any other way to live. I didn’t know there was another moral code. I knew Christianity, like all faiths, is metaphysically and epistemologically irrational, and that I had purged those inconsistencies from my thinking learning science. There is no supernatural. The creation of the supernatural was a pre-science short-cut, invented “truths” dedicated to the pacification of man, dishonest. But, I didn’t know the Christian ethic, altruism, is also irrational. I didn’t know that Christian moral teachings are actually anti-man, that Jesus’ example was self-destruction, that the guilt I had always carried around with me [for not being able to be like Jesus] was actually harming me. Did one have to fall on swords in order to live a moral life on Earth?
I was 39-years-old, flipping through the channels one evening, when I stumbled on the answer to my moral dilemma. C-Span was airing an interview with Ayn Rand recorded at the University of Michigan in 1950. I had read The Fountainhead twenty years ago, but I was so stupid then, I thought it was a book about an architect. Rand’s reasons for writing the book had completely escaped me. Now I listened. As she spoke I heard myself saying, repeatedly, “yes...exactly...that’s precisely what I think!” Rand defined the pursuit of happiness: “...man’s right to set his own goals, to choose his values, and to achieve them...happiness is that state of consciousness which comes from the achievement of your values...happiness is a profound, guiltless, rational feeling of self-esteem and of pride in ones own achievements...it is the enjoyment of life...” She explained to me what I had always known but had been made to feel guilty about: The purpose of life is to live it! Life isn’t about suffering, or the avoidance of suffering, or even the relief of suffering. Rather, life is about the pursuit of your own self-esteem, your own happiness.
Next day I began reading Atlas Shrugged and discovered the truth. I discovered the truly heroic nature of man. I found a truly moral moral code. Science and reason had freed my captive soul.
Six years later, I am guiltless. I am fearless. I’m sure.
Because I attended private, Catholic schools, K-12, and studied liberal arts in college, I was 32-years-old, a regular churchgoer, and tenor in the choir, when I picked up my first science book and began to read. It was Carl Sagan’s masterwork Cosmos. By the end of the first chapter I was hooked.
What I realized reading Cosmos was that most of my questions were being answered by really smart humans working in their laboratories. I found their answers both exciting and very comforting. It all made sense to me [except maybe some of the math], and it made me realize what an excellent thing a human being is. We have come so far: We have so much further to go.
As I read Cosmos, my Bachelor’s Degree in History—that hodgepodge of names, and dates, and places, and stories—finally became meaningful. Context joined my thinking, and I was on my way to defining my world view. Those first three days cosseted in my otherwise empty apartment, were three of the best days of my life. I was truly born again.
I laughed at myself often...”My God! I’ve lived on this planet for 32 years, and today I learned why the sky is blue!” I ridiculed myself for my stupidity. I nearly cursed my parents for sending me to parochial schools, where for thousands of dollars per year I was made metaphysically dishonest and epistemologically disabled. For the first time in my life I was learning about the nature of the planet that gave birth to the human race. This Earth, this Heaven...There is no better place in all existence for humans.
Over the next several months I read every book Sagan had written, and then I read Asimov, and Darwin, Green, Feynman, and Drexler. I stopped reading fiction entirely. Science was wonderful. Church was becoming less and less meaningful. I began to wonder if my priests had ever read any science? I thought if they had they wouldn’t be standing there spouting hearsay about ancient miracles. I was 34-years-old when I stopped going to church entirely.
While I was sure Jesus wasn’t a God, or God’s son, or God’s spirit, or any of that, I remained faithful to the moral teachings of Jesus. I didn’t know any other way to live. I didn’t know there was another moral code. I knew Christianity, like all faiths, is metaphysically and epistemologically irrational, and that I had purged those inconsistencies from my thinking learning science. There is no supernatural. The creation of the supernatural was a pre-science short-cut, invented “truths” dedicated to the pacification of man, dishonest. But, I didn’t know the Christian ethic, altruism, is also irrational. I didn’t know that Christian moral teachings are actually anti-man, that Jesus’ example was self-destruction, that the guilt I had always carried around with me [for not being able to be like Jesus] was actually harming me. Did one have to fall on swords in order to live a moral life on Earth?
I was 39-years-old, flipping through the channels one evening, when I stumbled on the answer to my moral dilemma. C-Span was airing an interview with Ayn Rand recorded at the University of Michigan in 1950. I had read The Fountainhead twenty years ago, but I was so stupid then, I thought it was a book about an architect. Rand’s reasons for writing the book had completely escaped me. Now I listened. As she spoke I heard myself saying, repeatedly, “yes...exactly...that’s precisely what I think!” Rand defined the pursuit of happiness: “...man’s right to set his own goals, to choose his values, and to achieve them...happiness is that state of consciousness which comes from the achievement of your values...happiness is a profound, guiltless, rational feeling of self-esteem and of pride in ones own achievements...it is the enjoyment of life...” She explained to me what I had always known but had been made to feel guilty about: The purpose of life is to live it! Life isn’t about suffering, or the avoidance of suffering, or even the relief of suffering. Rather, life is about the pursuit of your own self-esteem, your own happiness.
Next day I began reading Atlas Shrugged and discovered the truth. I discovered the truly heroic nature of man. I found a truly moral moral code. Science and reason had freed my captive soul.
Six years later, I am guiltless. I am fearless. I’m sure.
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Privacy
Which is government’s primary responsibility…to preserve order or to protect the rights of individuals? The answer is BOTH. Therein lays the problem that creates the debate, Order v. Liberty.
If you’re dead, liberty is useless: If you’re enslaved, you may as well be dead.
The institution primarily tasked to preserve the rights of individuals is the most passive branch of our government, the Judiciary. Federal courts initiate nothing. They decide cases brought to them. The courts do not have the power to enforce their decisions. Nonetheless, during peacetime, arguments to protect the rights of individuals generally prevail.
The institution tasked to preserve order is the most active [and the most dangerous] branch, the Executive. Fears of an unchecked Executive Branch are real and justified. During peacetime the Executive Branch is hard pressed to justify actions taken for security purposes that hedge upon the realm of our most sacred civil liberties. During wartime, however, fear of the enemy generally trumps our fear of tyranny.
The problem we face today is that a significant percentage of Americans have forgotten we are at war.
If you go to the American Civil Liberties Union website to find a description of the weeks old FISA Amendment Act of 2008, for example, you’ll find the headline: Unconstitutional FISA Bill Becomes Law, followed by the following description of the law:
On July 10, President Bush signed into law the unconstitutional FISA Amendments Act, which gives the Bush administration virtually unchecked powers to monitor Americans' international phone calls and emails, and grants immunity to telecommunications companies that illegally aided in the president’s warrantless wiretapping program.
Putting aside for now the fact that an Obama or a McCaine Administration will have the same power, if you go to GovTrack.US, look up the legislation, and read the prepared summary, you will find out what the ACLU means by “virtually unchecked.” Section 4 of the FISA Amendment Act of 2008
Allows that in emergency situations, the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence to authorize surveillance for up to 45 days of non-United States persons who are reasonably believed to be outside of the United States and who may be communicating with someone inside the United States, but that within seven days, an application must be filed for approval from the court established under FISA.
It seems to me giving our intelligence community seven days to file for approval by the FISA court is a reasonable check on our government’s surveillance activities in emergency situations. Requiring a warrant prior to the initiation of surveillance activities places cement shoes on the feet of our operatives who are expected to protect us from terrorist threats coming from “wherever” in the very fluid, high tech global environment. When a lead shows itself, it must be acted upon immediately, or it will soon become cold and useless.
This whole argument reminds me of an Emo Phillips joke. [It’s been years since I heard the joke, but I’ll do my best to explain it.] Emo starts off making the point that his sister is choking on a chicken bone. He tells us a few funny things about his sister and then goes into a five minute discussion of how he parks his car, goes into the library, finds the book he’s looking for, asks the librarian for change of a dollar so that he can make a copy of the page he needs; he cracks on the stupid librarian for a while and the library’s stupid policy of not making change, walks across the street to the KFC to get change, then back to the library to make his copy. Five minutes and a dozen little jokes later, Emo finally lets it be known that the page copied at the library explains how to do the Heimlich maneuver… “By this time my sister is just blue, choking on that chicken bone…”
The ACLU’s right about a lot of things, but not this one. Effective intelligence can not be achieved by a lumbering bureaucracy. Rules for stopping these unconventional warriors, the terrorists, must give our agents broad latitude to do their most important work. Intelligence officers must act quickly without fear of prosecution should they make an honest mistake. If they have made a mistake, the FISA Court will have the power to order the cessation of surveillance activities on the subject[s] in question.
The logic is similar to the War Powers Act, where the President can order U.S. combat troops into action anywhere on the globe without prior Congressional approval. Within 60 days the president must convince Congress that the deployment is just and necessary or Congress can order the troops home. The War Powers Act, like the FISA Amendments Act, gives the executive branch the power to act quickly in an emergency, while Congress and the FISA Courts, respectively, retain the power to check the executive action and order corrective action.
ACLU cynicism in this case assumes that the professionals who make-up our intelligence community, tasked with the life or death responsibility of weeding out Al-Qaida terrorist cells in our neighborhoods and across the globe, will use their new tools to read e-mails and listen to phone conversations of ordinary Americans. Fortunately, our Republican president, our Democratic Congress, and most Americans do not share their doubts.
If you’re dead, liberty is useless: If you’re enslaved, you may as well be dead.
The institution primarily tasked to preserve the rights of individuals is the most passive branch of our government, the Judiciary. Federal courts initiate nothing. They decide cases brought to them. The courts do not have the power to enforce their decisions. Nonetheless, during peacetime, arguments to protect the rights of individuals generally prevail.
The institution tasked to preserve order is the most active [and the most dangerous] branch, the Executive. Fears of an unchecked Executive Branch are real and justified. During peacetime the Executive Branch is hard pressed to justify actions taken for security purposes that hedge upon the realm of our most sacred civil liberties. During wartime, however, fear of the enemy generally trumps our fear of tyranny.
The problem we face today is that a significant percentage of Americans have forgotten we are at war.
If you go to the American Civil Liberties Union website to find a description of the weeks old FISA Amendment Act of 2008, for example, you’ll find the headline: Unconstitutional FISA Bill Becomes Law, followed by the following description of the law:
On July 10, President Bush signed into law the unconstitutional FISA Amendments Act, which gives the Bush administration virtually unchecked powers to monitor Americans' international phone calls and emails, and grants immunity to telecommunications companies that illegally aided in the president’s warrantless wiretapping program.
Putting aside for now the fact that an Obama or a McCaine Administration will have the same power, if you go to GovTrack.US, look up the legislation, and read the prepared summary, you will find out what the ACLU means by “virtually unchecked.” Section 4 of the FISA Amendment Act of 2008
Allows that in emergency situations, the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence to authorize surveillance for up to 45 days of non-United States persons who are reasonably believed to be outside of the United States and who may be communicating with someone inside the United States, but that within seven days, an application must be filed for approval from the court established under FISA.
It seems to me giving our intelligence community seven days to file for approval by the FISA court is a reasonable check on our government’s surveillance activities in emergency situations. Requiring a warrant prior to the initiation of surveillance activities places cement shoes on the feet of our operatives who are expected to protect us from terrorist threats coming from “wherever” in the very fluid, high tech global environment. When a lead shows itself, it must be acted upon immediately, or it will soon become cold and useless.
This whole argument reminds me of an Emo Phillips joke. [It’s been years since I heard the joke, but I’ll do my best to explain it.] Emo starts off making the point that his sister is choking on a chicken bone. He tells us a few funny things about his sister and then goes into a five minute discussion of how he parks his car, goes into the library, finds the book he’s looking for, asks the librarian for change of a dollar so that he can make a copy of the page he needs; he cracks on the stupid librarian for a while and the library’s stupid policy of not making change, walks across the street to the KFC to get change, then back to the library to make his copy. Five minutes and a dozen little jokes later, Emo finally lets it be known that the page copied at the library explains how to do the Heimlich maneuver… “By this time my sister is just blue, choking on that chicken bone…”
The ACLU’s right about a lot of things, but not this one. Effective intelligence can not be achieved by a lumbering bureaucracy. Rules for stopping these unconventional warriors, the terrorists, must give our agents broad latitude to do their most important work. Intelligence officers must act quickly without fear of prosecution should they make an honest mistake. If they have made a mistake, the FISA Court will have the power to order the cessation of surveillance activities on the subject[s] in question.
The logic is similar to the War Powers Act, where the President can order U.S. combat troops into action anywhere on the globe without prior Congressional approval. Within 60 days the president must convince Congress that the deployment is just and necessary or Congress can order the troops home. The War Powers Act, like the FISA Amendments Act, gives the executive branch the power to act quickly in an emergency, while Congress and the FISA Courts, respectively, retain the power to check the executive action and order corrective action.
ACLU cynicism in this case assumes that the professionals who make-up our intelligence community, tasked with the life or death responsibility of weeding out Al-Qaida terrorist cells in our neighborhoods and across the globe, will use their new tools to read e-mails and listen to phone conversations of ordinary Americans. Fortunately, our Republican president, our Democratic Congress, and most Americans do not share their doubts.
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