Speaking of the PATH Train/Holland Tunnel and FISA

But today we are not facing such people. The archetype of those imprisoned for violating national security while execising freedom of speech are Emma Goldberg and Alexander Berkman. While Berkman WAS a violent union rights worker, and Goldberg has been convicted of attempting to assasinate Pres. Mckinley (getting the idea about WHAT KIND OF PEOPLE MAKE THE GRADE?), it was their use of the federal mail to send out newspapers urging what they considered acts of conscience (desertion and draft evasion) that got them both jailed in 1917-18 for the now (thanks to the NY Times) 1917 Espionage Acts.

Likewise, decided AFTER the war Schenck V United States delivered the verdict on when freedom of speech crossed the line, which got Euguene V Debs stuck in prison as well (who ran -AGAIN- for president from prison in 1920 and received 3.4% of the VOTE !!)

But all of this deals with those who have not planned or committed violent acts of war designed specifically to kill civilians.

The PATH train plan brings us precisely to the crossing point of the war on terrorism being as Kerry and EU claim and want, a criminal investigation or war prisoners.

It is my contention that those whose actions are designed to specifically target the innocent, by strategy and tactics cannot be treated as criminals, nor can the 'fighters', who support this effort taken on the field of battle in no uniform and fighting for no state.

Their actions by necessity will span nations and therefore nations' law system, which as we have seen will mean that those who plot to kill americans from Germany or England cannot be extradited since WE might KILL them at the end of the legal process. The legal system is designed for criminal acts, not acts of war against the populace.

Details emerged yesterday of the suicide conspiracy that spread across three continents to destroy the PATH train tubes this fall:

* Hammoud e-mailed a map of the PATH system to the other conspirators, who live in six countries, according to law-enforcement sources.

* At least one of the conspirators lived in Canada and another in Denmark. The Canada-based plotter is believed to be the one who would begin firsthand surveillance of the trains.

* There were indications that some of the plotters had direct contact with al Qaeda in Iraq and indirectly with its blood-lusting leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was killed by a U.S. airstrike last month.

Law-enforcement sources told ABC News that 15 to 20 suicide bombers were going to be used, and the target date was to be as close to Sept. 11 as possible.

FBI Assistant Director Mark Mershon, at a press conference yesterday, said the plot "involved martyrdom and explosives."

Sources said at least some of the plotters planned to become suicide bombers by carrying explosives onto PATH trains and detonating them.

Lebanese officials acknowledged their investigation began almost a year ago with a tip to U.S. intelligence.

The plotters were linked through Internet chat rooms and e-mails.

But as the investigation grew, the conspirators were also followed through electronic eavesdropping, sources said.

The plotters took special precautions in how they communicated, but "we were able to piece together their code words," one law-enforcement official said.

These people simply need new laws defined, via the cooperation of the president and congress. These are not car thieves, mafia extortionists or crack smugglers. Like those who find themselves in Guantanamo today, they are not criminals, but have planned or acted to harm the people of the United States in an effort to further Dar al Islam. These people should find themselves hooded on a 'black' plane on the way to XXXX? nomatter where the plots were hatched. What are we gonna do, turn up the AC and have some Barbie in a tight t-shirt ask them some questions while they have pilaf and honeyed chicken? Play loud music? Barry Manilow at 78db? Make them watch an endless loop of Robert Schuller in the Crystal Cathedral? Old time tapes of Oral Roberts healing every sunday in a tent? When the war is over, they can go home.

These people are not entitled to the rights and protections I enjoy as a citizen of the USA. Justice Kennedy, are you listening? The burden of cost, and time to try and danger of exposing methods and sources demands another process. One backed up by a Jacksonian willingness to see the Supreme Court try to enforce a variant decision (provided both congress and the pres are on the same page).

If we catch an american in such a web, he or she IS, but not others. But how would you like to be convicted in federal court and then end up in a supermax, in isolation? Forgotten. Irrelevant.