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February 10, 2012
Lisa M. Krieger: Man with defibrillator demands access to his own heart's information
David G. Savage: Why activists may not be in a hurry to have High Court rule on alternative marriage
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The Kosher Gourmet byDana Velden: Going to the bother of making soup? You know it better be good. This CREAM OF TOMATO SOUP certainly is! And it's a cinch to make, too (Includes techinques and serving secrets)
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Julie Deardorff : Researchers say antioxidants may not be that effective and could do more harm than good
Mark Clayton: How did Anonymous hackers eavesdrop on FBI and Scotland Yard?
February 3, 2012
Edmund Sanders : Israeli official says Iran is creating missile that could reach East Coast of US
Victoria Kim: Immigrant-smuggling ring used black drivers to avoid racial profiling
February 2, 2012
Jim Carney: Wrong number call may have saved her life
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Tina Susman: For woodchuck rescuer, every day is Groundhog Day
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Brian Bennett: US officials see increasing threat of domestic attack from Iran
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January 30, 2012
Paul Richter and Ramin Mostaghim: Misreading Teheran's limits -- deadly and economically devastating as they may be -- is a risk administration, Europe seem willing to take
Suzanne Bohan: Warning: Nap-deprived tots missing more than sleep, study finds
Meg Handley: Banks Revamping Rewards Programs to Woo Customers
January 27, 2012
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Yochonon Donn: In liberal New York City, fervently-Orthodox Jews may soon be getting a district to call their own
Jeannine Stein: An inflated ego and thinking you're 'all that' doesn't just make others sick of you, it can make you ill
Katy Hopkins: New budget rules may affect how much money you get for college
January 26, 2012
Ed Koch: To the New York Times, calling for the murder of Jews by those capable of having their incitement taken seriously isn't news
Jeannine Stein: Mental illness struck one in five U.S. adults in 2010: Report
January 25, 2012
Richard Simon: House passes two bills endorsing the use of religious symbols at military memorials
Fred Weir: Putin: Multiethnic Russia cannot survive as a US-style 'melting pot'; must find its own way
Susan Johnston: 5 Sneaky Coupon Strategies Consumers Should Watch Out For
January 24, 2012
Carol Clark: The price of your soul: How your brain decides whether to 'sell out'
Caroline B. Glick: America lost most in 'Arab Spring'. Sadly, many voters still don't grasp the extent
Warren Richey: Drug criminal scores win in GPS ruling from conservative-leaning high court
Erika Bolstad: Black conservatives gather to talk about gaining strength
January 23, 2012
Melissa Dribben: Jewish voters to play a key role in Florida's Republican primary
Jordan Rau: In quest to grow, Catholic hospital system will announce this morning its break from church
Ali Safi: U.S. envoy gives Taliban terms for peace talks
January 19, 2012
January 18, 2012
January 17, 2012
Frank J. Gaffney Jr.: No-kidding red lines: U.S. response to an Iranian nuke may be bluster, but Israel's won't be
David G. Savage: They sued their principals after slandering them online --- now the cases are headed to the Supreme Court
David Francis: Where to Invest in 2012: With stocks expected to rebound, opportunity abounds for investors
January 13, 2012
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Alexia Elejalde-Ruiz: Thriving through touch: Gentle massage helps older people with low mobility improve in mind and body
January 12, 2012
Warren Richey: Landmark Supreme Court ruling a 'resounding win' for religious groups
Warren Richey: Supreme Court says no to new rule on eyewitness testimony
John Fauber : Statins found to raise diabetes risk in postmenopausal women
Katy Hopkins : Consider This Before You Pay for an Online Degree
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January 11, 2012
Shari Roan: Millions of atrial fibrillation sufferers at risk for devastating, but preventable, stroke
Tom Hussain: Pakistan -- recipient of more than $21 billion in civilian and military aid -- speeds pursuit of Iranian pipeline, defying US
David G. Savage: High court signals it won't be loosening TV's 'indecency' rules
Stephen Ceasar: Oklahoma's Islamic law amendment can't go into effect, court rules
January 10, 2012
Reza Kahlili: From an ex-CIA spy: US must exploit new split in Iran's Revolutionary Guard
Karen Kaplan: Study: Nicotine replacement products ineffective when used in real-life situations
January 9, 2012
Michael Doyle: Put through legal hell over dream home, couple fought back hard --- all the way to Supreme Court
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Jewish World Review
August 18, 2006
/ 24 Menachem-Av, 5766
Zeal can be good, but it's dangerous
By
Wesley Pruden
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
You don't have to be a Philadelphia lawyer to understand the First Amendment guarantee of free speech is fundamental to everything we are and to regard anyone who tries an end run around it as someone who deserves a bracing smackdown.
Presidents of both parties are sometimes tempted to try an end run or a shortcut because the Constitution can get in the way of the easiest way to enforce the law. The ruling yesterday by a federal judge in Detroit that the government's wiretapping without a warrant is unconstitutional and must be stopped at once should have been unnecessary. There's a law that enables the government to get a warrant, but sometimes a president and his attorney general think that's too much trouble.
The judge, Anna Diggs Taylor, ordered a permanent injunction temporarily stayed to allow appeal to higher courts barring agents of the National Security Agency's Terrorist Surveillance Program from listening to conversations between American citizens and suspect parties abroad. "It was never the intent of the framers [of the Constitution] to give the president such unfettered control, particularly when his actions blatantly disregard the parameters clearly enumerated in the Bill of Rights," she wrote (and continued for another 42 pages).
The Bush administration argues that it has the right to eavesdrop without a warrant because this enables the government to move quickly to protect American lives. The government says proving it would reveal state secrets. "We could tell you," the attorney general is saying, "but then we would have to kill you."
Before the Corporate Republicans in the government, whose instincts are to run the government as they would a large corporation where how secrecy is enforced is nobody else's business, ride off in three directions at once to denounce the ruling they should invoke a variation on the WWJD rule ("what would Jesus do?") and ask, "what would Janet do?" Janet Reno, the attorney general under Bill Clinton, rankled Republicans and other conservatives with imaginative assertions of dubious federal rights (think Waco, think Elian Gonzalez) to make the jobs of cops and government bureaucrats easier. Republicans, even Corporate Republicans, would rightly scream foul if a Democratic attorney general in the mold of Ramsey Clark or Janet Reno should assert the right to flout the requirement of obtaining a warrant because it was just too much trouble.
It's not that the government has a shortage of lawyers, or a shortage of sympathetic judges. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act created a secret court where the government can apply for warrants. The court has turned down government requests only three times in 30 years, and in the present climate where nobody well, almost nobody discounts the lethal threat of Islamic fascism it's difficult to imagine the court making it difficult for the president's men to get a warrant to protect American lives. "It's not the most difficult statute to comply with," says Evan Caminker, dean of the University of Michigan Law School, "but they do have to have some reasonable belief that the person may commit a crime." No fishing without a license, you might say.
Maybe you can't blame the government, which knows a lot of scary things it doesn't want to talk about, for its zeal in putting evildoers away. But it's nevertheless still true that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, it's still true that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, and it's still true that Ronald Reagan was right when he warned us to "trust, but verify."
The government sometimes warns of catastrophe when it really means someone is merely annoyed. The Justice Department, for example, has indicted two former lobbyists for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, under a law enacted at the beginning of World War I, for talking about what they heard gossip, essentially about what the government might do about Iran. This follows the government's case against journalists who may, or may not, have leaked gossip about Valerie Plame, the queen of the pastepots at the CIA. The government is asking us to put up with certain infringements on rights and privacy, and most of us understand that we're in a different kind of war against a shadowy but no less lethal enemy. But the government, whether Republican or Democrat, has to be careful what it asks us to put up with. Confidence lost is difficult to regain.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
JWR contributor Wesley Pruden is editor in chief of The Washington Times. Comment by clicking here.
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