Cheat-Seeking Missles

Thursday, August 10, 2006

Homegrowns At It Again

We're lucky airplanes bound from the UK to the US didn't fall out of the sky today, making August 10 our second September 11.

"We think this was an extraordinarily serious plot and we are confident that we've prevented an attempt to commit mass murder on an unimaginable scale," [London] Deputy Police Commissioner Paul Stephenson said.

The plan involved airline passengers hiding masked explosives in carry-on luggage, the official said. "They were not yet sitting on an airplane," but were very close to traveling, the official said, calling the plot "the real deal." (AP)

The 21 people arrested in London, its suburbs and Birmingham were described by Brit security forces as the primary would-be perpetrators of the liquid bomb attacks -- and as "homegrown" Muslims.

The enemy, most certainly, is among us here in America too; there is no reason to expect them not to be. They are in our mosques among the good Muslims we are supposed to trust. They look and behave normally. They are careful not to get caught.

There is no margin for error; we must catch them. And to catch them, we must have tools: Surveillance, racial profiling, invasions of privacy that stretch legality to the limit. Today would be the perfect day for the GOP to move some legislation increasing our surveillance capabilities by counter-attacking the recent Dem attacks on our domestic intelligence-gathering efforts.

Let them try to screech about privacy today.

Photo: AFP
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