FC: Stewart Baker in WSJ: Don't give up security for liberty

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

**********

From: "James Lucier" <James.Lucier () att net>
To: "Declan McCullagh" <declan () well com>
Subject: stewart baker in WSJ online: Don't give up security for a false 
sense of liberty.
Date: Fri, 5 Oct 2001 08:55:12 -0400

Opinionjournal.com is free content from the WSJ.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=95001279

TRADE-OFFS

Dangerous Secrets
Don't give up security for a false sense of liberty.

BY STEWART BAKER
Friday, October 5, 2001 12:01 a.m. EDT
For weeks, pundits have been warning us against new legislation that would
sacrifice essential liberties in the name of a false security. Judging by
the reaction to the Bush administration's antiterrorism bill, the real
question is whether we'll be sacrificing essential security in the name of
false civil-liberties concerns.
Perhaps the most pointed example of this is Congress's handling of the
administration proposal to let law-enforcement authorities share grand jury
information with national security and intelligence agencies. Senate
negotiators stalled the entire bill over this issue, and the House has
already modified the proposal in a way that renders it nearly meaningless.
The concerted opposition to this proposal is hard to justify. Barriers to
information-sharing between intelligence and law-enforcement agencies have
already cost us dearly in the fight against terror.

[...]

The real question is not whether this trade-off between civil liberties and
security is justified. The real question is why Bush administration
negotiators didn't work harder to push through the change. Here, I can only
speculate that the Justice Department, at least at the start, wasn't
wholeheartedly behind the measure.

[..]

Mr. Baker, former general counsel of the National Security Agency, practices
law in Washington.




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