Here’s a piece you just can’t miss. It’s equal parts hilarious and damning. The Ashcroft Justice Department has pushed the envelope just as far as it will stretch to hunt down terrorists in the United States. It’s even taken several steps – like authorizing eavesdropping on attorney-client phone calls – which under normal circumstances no one would countenance.
But why be squeamish about fine points and legal niceties when we’re at war? Unless of course it’s some fictive right claimed by paranoid gun freaks. Then, in that case, let’s not get carried away.
According to this article by Fox Butterfield in today’s Times, the Justice Department “has refused to let the F.B.I. check its [Brady background check] records to determine whether any of the 1,200 people detained after the Sept. 11 attacks had bought guns.”
I’m almost looking forward to knocking this one around for a few days. But this decision is so stupid and embarrassing that I find it hard to believe that they’re not going to drop this idea like a hot potato by the end of the next news cycle.
Where’s Richard Hofstadter when you need him?
