9-11

. . . why when I travel to Pittsburgh in a month, I'm willing to drive the 12 hours rather than fly:

47 trapped on 'nightmare' flight to the Twin Cities

Security and rules kept passengers confined all night in a small plane at Rochester due to thunderstorms.

When Link Christin boarded a Continental Airlines flight from Houston to the Twin Cities on Friday night, he expected to be on the ground in about three hours and ready for a comfy bed.

Instead, he was among 47 passengers who spent the night trapped inside a small airplane, parked at the Rochester airport, complete with crying babies and the aroma of over-used toilets.

* * *

The airline crew on the plane reached their maximum work hours in the air, so another crew had to be flown in. The alternative of chartering a bus didn't work out. And letting the passengers into the Rochester airport was not possible because they would have to go through security screening again, and the screeners had gone home for the day.

Following up to the March revelation that the Bush Administration had concluded that it had the legal authority to effectively suspend civil liberties, comes a piece in the New York Times about how they almost used that authority in 2002:

Bush Weighed Using Military in Arrests

WASHINGTON — Top Bush administration officials in 2002 debated testing the Constitution by sending American troops into the suburbs of Buffalo to arrest a group of men suspected of plotting with Al Qaeda, according to former administration officials.

Some of the advisers to President George W. Bush, including Vice President Dick Cheney, argued that a president had the power to use the military on domestic soil to sweep up the terrorism suspects, who came to be known as the Lackawanna Six, and declare them enemy combatants.

This is what I was afraid would happen.

And it makes me, well, worried. Very worried.

Prompted by 9/11, we watched the fairly rapid curtailment of civil liberties during the Bush administration (though supported & enabled entirely too much by Democrats in Congress). The Patriot Act. The expansion of FISA. Warrantless wiretapping by the NSA. Legal opinions which effectively gave the president dictatorial powers, and which allowed for torture of terrorism suspects.

Offered, without need for additional comment:

George W. Bush’s Disposable Constitution

Yesterday the Obama Administration released a series of nine previously secret legal opinions crafted by the Office of Legal Counsel to enhance the presidential powers of George W. Bush. Perhaps the most astonishing of these memos was one crafted by University of California at Berkeley law professor John Yoo. He concluded that in wartime, the President was freed from the constraints of the Bill of Rights with respect to anything he chose to label as a counterterrorism operations inside the United States.

Here’s Neil Lewis’s summary in the New York Times:

That's pretty much my maxim for dealing with any government agency, at any level: no matter what they tell you, the situation will always turn out to be worse the more you find out about it.

You know what's going to happen when they're talking about road construction being delayed or taxes having to go up. I expect it when I hear that the economy is "having difficulties". That's bad enough. But when they start talking about infringements on your civil liberties, you might as well reach for the lube and grab your ankles.

Latest such instance:

More Groups Than Thought Monitored in Police Spying

The Maryland State Police surveillance of advocacy groups was far more extensive than previously acknowledged, with records showing that troopers monitored -- and labeled as terrorists -- activists devoted to such wide-ranging causes as promoting human rights and establishing bike lanes.

Yeah, those evil bike-lane loving terrorists had to be watched!

Via Lawyers, Guns, and Money a link to this post:

WHAT IF BUSH HAD NUKED TORA BORA?

I have believed from the start that Bush should have nuked Tora Bora in 2001. The GWOT would have ended right then and there. It would have sent the right message: Don't Tread On Me!

* * *

Nuking Tora Bora with a few small tactical nukes would have killed the entire al Qaeda leadership and warned everyone - terrorists and the nations which aid or harbor them - that they shouldn't fuck with us. Had Dubya done this the Bush Doctrine ("you're either with us or against us") would've has some teeth - and some positive effect. Now it's too late; what we could've done then in righteous reprisal can not be done now. Not until we are attacked here in the USA again.

Poor lad sounds almost sad that there haven't been any recent attacks which killed thousands of Americans...

Anyway, thought-experiment time: what do you think would have happened had we followed this course of action?

Md. Police Put Activists' Names On Terror Lists

The Maryland State Police classified 53 nonviolent activists as terrorists and entered their names and personal information into state and federal databases that track terrorism suspects, the state police chief acknowledged yesterday.

Police Superintendent Terrence B. Sheridan revealed at a legislative hearing that the surveillance operation, which targeted opponents of the death penalty and the Iraq war, was far more extensive than was known when its existence was disclosed in July.

"The names don't belong in there," he told the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee. "It's as simple as that."

I'm not real big on conspiracies. I don't think that the US government was behind the 9-11 attacks, or that the UN has an agreement with extra-terrestrials to reveal their presence and influence in our world in 2017. While the Warren Commission had problems, I don't think that Oliver Stone was right about the JFK assassination.

But maybe - just maybe - the International Banking Conspiracy nuts have a point. I've never really thought so, despite the growth in power and scope of multinational corporations, the increasing symbiosis between politics and industry, et cetera. I just figured that normal political & economic forces were at work.

But the Big Bailout Debacle(tm) has me wondering. From the AP:

That's the closing line of yesterday's post by Bruce Schneier. Of course, Schneier has thought this for a long time. But what is he going on about? This:

Are the fire hydrants in your neighborhood turned on?

ROCKWALL COUNTY - A North Texas homeowner wants you to learn from his family's tragedy.

The fire hydrants in his neighborhood are turned off.

Now, why are the hydrants turned off?

You guessed it: terrorism.

More from the news story:

Clay Hodges is the general manager of Cash Special Utility District.

He explains all the district's hydrants, including those in Alexander Ranch, have had their water turned off since just after 9/11 - something a trade association spokesman tells us is common practice for rural systems.

"These hydrants need to be cut off in a way to prevent vandalism or any kind of terrorist activity, including something in the water lines," Hodges said.

My dad called me and woke me up that morning. "You have to turn on the TV and take a look at this," he said. I did, and we ended up spending the entire day watching the awful news as it unfolded. We didn't go to work, the kids didn't go to school. We sat as a family and grieved and raged and were struck dumb by the horror and the - immediacy of it. We were angry, scared, and affronted by the sheer gall that these wackjobs had struck at our cities, into our very heart, our place of sanctuary, killed our fellow citizens, in our own country!

Where were you?