A Strategy for Opposing Terror Watch List Legislation

Charles C.W. Cooke is onto something here, in his very Glenn Reynoldsesque suggestion:

I shan’t re-rehearse my case against the civil use of terror watch lists here; those interested can read my three offerings from last year here and here and here. But I will suggest a modest course for those in Congress who remain opposed to this folly: Why not amend any bill so that it covers the entire Bill of Rights? Hillary Clinton is on record suggesting that the United States should impose some censorship on the Internet so that would-be terrorists cannot communicate with one other. Well, if the prospect of terrorists using the internet really is that dangerous — and if those who oppose Clinton’s coveted reforms are just dogmatically wedded to outdated concepts such as “freedom of speech, et cetera . . .” – then there shouldn’t be any problem with the federal government preventing anybody suspected of terrorism from using a modem, should there? Sure, at one point in American history it made sense to require due process before we stripped core rights. But that was back in the days of pamphlets and printing presses, not now when one can spread information across the world in the blink of an eye.

Read the whole thing. He also has clearly read his Alinsky: make them live up to their own standards. The arguments the Dems will make against this will destroy their own arguments for the gun portion of it.

4 thoughts on “A Strategy for Opposing Terror Watch List Legislation”

  1. Appreciate all the work you’ve been doing the last few days. Makes things a bit less depressing ’round these parts.

  2. That’s assuming the politicians you’re arguing with believe that there is a right to keep and bear arms. They simply don’t.

  3. Yep. Poison it by adding warrentless wiretaps for everyone on the watch list. “What do you mean we can’t watch the people on watchlist?”

    1. Also, make sure you draft telcoms to do federal work against their will or best interests: make it a federal crime to sell internet service to people on the double-secret watch list. Zero tolerance, no exceptions.

      See how long NBC Universal continues to carry the administration’s water after their telcom subsidiaries (i.e. Comcast) are put under federal investigation for providing internet services to Ted Kennedy’s family.

Comments are closed.