One Anti-terror measure, Three Widely Divergent Views
By Bill Myers
University of Chicago Daily Law Bulletin
June 21, 2005
[Preface: For his part in the debate, Fitzgerald defended section 215 of the PATRIOT Act with the same logic -- more or less -- that he used to defend section 218.]
"Still another objection to section 215 is 'that even the government has asserted that it hasn't been used,' Stone said. 'If we don't need it, it shouldn't be there. It simply shouldn't be a power that's left 'sitting around' waiting for 'a U.S. attorney less responsible than Pat Fitzgerald' to abuse it."
Responding to Stone's utility argument, Fitzgerald said:
"...that it was like asking a veteran Chicago police officer to surrender his gun just because he's never fired it at a suspect. Even before the Patriot Act was passed, library records were used in the investigations of the Unabomber, the Gianni Versace homicide, abortion-clinic bomber Eric Rudolf and even al-Qaeda. Putting libraries out of the reach of prosecutors is dangerous," Fitzgerald said. "Do we really want to create a safe haven, where you tell a terrorist that the one place you can go in America and know that you won't be investigated -- or someone will wipe the slate clean when you're done -- would be a library?" Fitzgerald asked.
[End excerpt.] You can cut and paste to see the entire article at: http://www.law.uchicago.edu/news/stoneepstein-patriot.html
The obvious conclusion, to be drawn from Fitzgerald's debating points is that he feels the government's need for FISA authority almost always outweighs civil rights when fighting terrorism.
And, the presence of Heartland at the debate ought to raise one big GIANT red flag for the "congenitally no-partisan."
Here's what Sourcewatch.org has to say about Heartland:
"The Heartland Institute, according to the Institute's web site, is a nonprofit organization "devoted to turning ideas into social movements that empower people."
[In reality,] [I]t campaigns on "junk science", "common-sense environmentalism" (i.e. anti-Kyoto, pro-GM), smokers' rights (anti-tobacco tax, denial of problems from passive smoking), the introduction of school vouchers, and the deregulation of health care insurance. It also provides an online resource for finding right-wing think tank policy documents called "PolicyBot." **
["Policy + "robot" = "PolicyBot"?]
"The institute was founded in 1984 by David H. Padden (founder and first director of the CATO Institute) and Joseph L. Bast ( pro-free market, pro-"Big Pharma", anti-environmental former oil exec). Among its more interesting participants are: Roy Marden and Craig Fuller of Philip Morris, Thomas Walton of GM, Walter F. Buchholtz of ExxonMobil, and representatives of Fidelity Bank, BankNote Capital LLC, and Golden Rule Insurance Company."
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