Congrats to the FBI. With nary an illegal wiretap or any of the other intrusions on civil liberties that the administration seems to believe is the only way to fight terrorism, the FBI arrested a home-grown terrorist cell composed of amateurs and incompetents. I don’t phrase it that way to diminish the accomplishment, because even morons with rocket launchers can still inflict serious damage, and it’s not like the Virginia Tech guy was an experienced merc. It’s just a factual description of a group of would-be terrorists so stupid that their cell was infiltrated practically from the begining because they wanted to transfer a training video from VHS to DVD, couldn’t figure out how to do it, and wound up with an alert video store clerk tipping the FBI.
The Feds then effortlessly infiltrated them and, sixteen months later, busted them when they tried to buy weapons for an intended strike on a military base. Dix: It’s not just a name for an army post. They’re now dubbed the Fort Dix Six. I’m hoping that someone does indeed try to make a movie about them called “The Cell That Couldn’t Shoot Straight,” which they would then turn down, so that Variety could run a headline that says, “Dix Six Nix Pix.”
PAD
• 
“With nary an illegal wiretap or any of the other intrusions on civil liberties that the administration seems to believe is the only way to fight terrorism”
Yeah, well if the video store guy had not tipped off the FBI then they would have to have relied on … wiretap (why are you calling that illegal, exactly?), or any of the other “intrusions on civil liberties” (which ones again? I’m not getting your anti-FBI/Bush Admin propaganda. Can you be more specific? No? Oh. Ok.).
So overall, I give this post a D-. And basically, your attitude is that there’s no reason for the FBI to have “illegal” authority? What? Huh? Ok, well I guess you prefer if they can’t protect us. Ok. Please go move to Mexico or any other country. I’m sure it will be much better for you there and you won’t have to Hate Bush all day. Thanks.
PS – the Bush Admin and the FBI are not the enemy. The Terrorists are the enemy. But you won’t get that, so I’ll stop wasting my breath now. Bye.
“So overall, I give this post a D-.”
Well crap, PAD there goes your GPA!
You are referring to a privilege that existed before the Bush administration’s expansion of powers — like when they refused to begin surveillance on Middle Eastern suspected terrorists flagged by flight schools July 2001.
I’m pretty sure the Variety headline would go better as “Dix Six Pix Nixed.”
Yeah, well if the video store guy had not tipped off the FBI then they would have to have relied on … wiretap
And, without a tip, how would the FBI have known whose phones to tap? Can you answer that? No? Ok. Ok.
Can you be more specific?
I believe PAD is referring to wiretaps w/o a warrant from the rubberstamp FISA court as required by law. You know the law, right? That pesky thing that every administration except Bush and Nixon had the silly idea that they were bound to?
Though I doubt you’re still here to read this, since you already said “Bye” in your smug little superior way, I should point out that there was a report last year in which the FBI complained that virtually all of the non-FISA authorized wiretaps that the Bush administration ran did not produce any viable leads and simply wasted a lot of the FBI’s man-hours investigating.
But, hey, at least you didn’t forget to repeat the tired conservative mantra of: America, love it or leave. I’m sure you made Sean Hannity proud.
well as you gentlemen have pointed out so well the foolisness of poster #1’s arguments I’ll just sigh at him and say for the rest of us “into every life some trolls must fall”.
well as you gentlemen have pointed out so well the foolisness of poster #1’s arguments I’ll just sigh at him and say for the rest of us “into every life some trolls must fall”.
well as you gentlemen have pointed out so well the foolisness of poster #1’s arguments I’ll just sigh at him and say for the rest of us “into every life some trolls must fall”.
“Please go move to Mexico or any other country. I’m sure it will be much better for you there and you won’t have to Hate Bush all day. Thanks.
PS – the Bush Admin and the FBI are not the enemy. The Terrorists are the enemy. But you won’t get that, so I’ll stop wasting my breath now. Bye.”
The Bush administration may decide that Mexico needs to be “liberated” at some point, and then may take over Mexico, making it a new American state. I wish I could have your ignorance again poster #1, so that I wouldn’t realize how really scary the world is….
Rob
I laugh when trolls post questions in their post, and then imagine the silence that their “clever” with engenders, and then “move on.”
What makes me laugh even more is my own imaginary PAD replying real-time to the question with a list of civil rights violations perpetrated by this administration…due process, habeus corpus, invasion of privacy, now the restriction on 40 years of judicial precedent over abortion (although this may be a case of right result, wrong method)…just to name a few…followed by catotheelderii’s stammering, stuttering…”yeah, so?”
Ah, good times.
“I believe PAD is referring to wiretaps w/o a warrant from the rubberstamp FISA court as required by law.”
Yeah, pretty much. I think the statement was self-evident to anyone who doesn’t have an agenda.
Where DO these guys crawl out of, eh?
PAD
If the video guy hadn’t tipped the FBI, the cell probably would have been able to do whatever was on their agenda. The FBI, in that case, would only be involved in the clean up after the disaster…
If the video guy hadn’t tipped the FBI, the cell probably would have been able to do whatever was on their agenda.
Judging from reports of their videotaped plans (apparently formulated by the Three Stooges), I seriously doubt these halfwit, would-be terrorists would have made it past the base’s front gates before being shot down.
But then again, martyrdom was obviously the endgame here.
I’m not familiar with Fort Dix, but I used to teach a class at the Army War College in Carlisle, PA. The amount of security (checking IDs, searching the vehicle, all with armed guards watching everything, etc), we had to go through just to get on base was pretty strict.
Apparently, the plan these yahoos had was to sneak onto the base as pizza delivery guys. If the security at Fort Dix is anything like that of the AWC, I can’t see them getting past the front gate.
“..that Variety could run a headline that says, “Dix Six Nix Pix.”
Man, you are just full of them (it?) today! 🙂
I was stationed at McGuire AFB in the early nineties, and it is right across from Fort Dix. At that time Ft Dix (during Desert Storm) was relegated to like a skeleton base. I don’t know if that is still the case or not…and from reading comics, I think in the Marvel GI Joe it was their home base (or at least visited during the run)
Rob
My point exactly, Den.
I can’t imagine pizza delivery guys are just waved thru at military posts without checking out their cars. Plus, these morons apparently had bizarre ambitions of killing the power to Fort Dix (as if it had a master switch on-post with no backups), and running around picking off soldiers as if in a video game.
I’m glad these individuals were busted before doing any harm to anyone. But ultimately, they were undone by their own stupidity despite Fox News painting them as would-be master criminals last night.
“I can’t imagine pizza delivery guys are just waved thru at military posts without checking out their cars.”
When I was at McGuire AFB (right across from Ft Dix), they had a crazy retired guy that was like their number one person to not let on the base. He got in one day, and got into a secured building on top of it, with a box that supposedly had a bomb in it. It seemed like most of our Security Police on that base were concerned more with picking up girls at the gate then actual security.
Rob
“It seemed like most of our Security Police on that base were concerned more with picking up girls at the gate then actual security.”
Pre- or post-9/11?
PAD
Hey PAD,
That was pre-9/11 in the early nineties (Desert Storm).
Rob
Jeez, Rob, that’s incredible. Was that before or after 9/11? I taught at AWC both pre- and post-9/11 and the security there got 100% tighter afterwards. As of 2006, they had never slacked off. In fact, my class this year was moved off base to a local high school because they didn’t want to let any more outsiders on base in the evening.
Okay, Rob answered the same question from PAD while I was typing it. Nevermind.
I’ll willing to bet the crazy old guy would not get base the check points now.
Agreed. I assumed (or at least hoped) Rob’s story pre-dated 9-11.
It’s been a lucky break for us that so many of the terrorists, would-be and actual, have not been too clever.
I seem to recall that the first WTC bombers were caught because they tried to get a refund on the car the rented to explode the bombs or some such idiocy.
The scary thing is that they only need to ratchet down their goals a bit to be effective. Replace Fort Dix with a hospital, day care center, high school football game, or any of a thousand other soft targets and you have an attack that would actually be much more horrific than an attack on an army base.
catotheelderii
But you won’t get that, so I’ll stop wasting my breath now. Bye.
Maybe it’s just me, and maybe it’s just coincidence, but why does it now seem like every time PAD starts a political thread, we get some person with a name never seen before that is just here to rip PAD a new one?
I’m seriously starting to wonder why so many people are messed up in the head that they’re intentionally looking for forums to troll, forums that they would never visit if not for the chance to play human shield for Bush.
“The scary thing is that they only need to ratchet down their goals a bit to be effective. Replace Fort Dix with a hospital, day care center, high school football game, or any of a thousand other soft targets and you have an attack that would actually be much more horrific than an attack on an army base.”
That same thing more or less was said by Jesse Ventura (still Governor at the time) in a post 9/11 interview. He stated it would be nothing to get up with some of his old military buddies and they could do things that would make the country come to a stand still. At the time, he was also thinking of living for a while in another country. I don’t know if he ever followed through with that or not…
P.S.
The crazy retired guy who got onto the base and into the secured building, by official reports, ended up shooting an officer in his office in the building. The hastily covered up evidence (as I worked in the building, just wasn’t on shift when the incident happened), indicated that the Security Police shot at the guy in the hallway, and their bullets went through the wall and killed the officer. The section of wall to where the bullets went thru was cut out and replaced very quickly. The guy was crazy, but to this day, I have my doubts if he killed the officer. The crazy guy was shot dead at the scene, so they didn’t have to worry about him coming back onto the base again…
Rob
“PS – the Bush Admin and the FBI are not the enemy. The Terrorists are the enemy.”
IMNSHO, they’re ALL the enemy. One wants to control me, the other wants to kill me. I want neither.
Sure, terrorists (not a capital “T”, please… it’s not a proper noun) and the philosophies behind them are a great danger, but so are the subjegation and surrender of our civil liberties. Neither one to me is acceptable.
The scary thing is that they only need to ratchet down their goals a bit to be effective. Replace Fort Dix with a hospital, day care center, high school football game, or any of a thousand other soft targets and you have an attack that would actually be much more horrific than an attack on an army base.
There’s no arguing that America is not a target-rich environment.
However, it seems Al Qaeda (and their 2-bit sympathizers) are obsessed with hitting larger targets carrying greater symbolic value than a H.S. football game.
Not that such soft targets are safe by any means; it just seems Islamic terrorists are driven by bigger (albeit twisted) goals intended to draw attention to their “great sacrifice.”
If someone shows up at the last minute and turns around the rejected movie deal, Variety could run a headline about the “Dix Six Pix Nix Fix.”
After reading Catoheelderii’s post, maybe we should add:
Right Mite Slights Site…
“Where DO these guys crawl out of, eh?”
Scary thing is they’re all around, only waiting for someone to say something rather than venture forth an opinion on their own. I have a guy at work that swears Bush is the First Coming, since by his talk no one has ever been greater. Now, he’s been spouting this for a while, and we still haven’t figgered out whether or not he’s serious.
Craig, I’ve noticed the same thing, and I have to wonder just how many non-verbose lurkers there are.
Rob–speaking as probably the Biggest Joe Freak around here, originally the Pit was under Wadsworth, a lovely little fort. Dix was only mentioned once or twice in the early issues.
Posted by Hugh Casey at May 9, 2007 11:32 AM
IMNSHO, they’re ALL the enemy. One wants to control me, the other wants to kill me. I want neither.
There is little value in answering catotheelderii’s irrational right-wing extremism with irrational left-wing extremism. Having a chief executive in the form of a president, and a federal law enforcement agency in the form of the FBI, are both necessary for ensuring an orderly society. No nation can truly be one hundred percent “free,” as that would result in anarchy. The question is not whether to place restrictions on individual liberty, but whether specific restrictions are acceptable under the U.S. Constitution.
Bush is not the first president to overstep his authority, nor will he be the last. We have survived Imperial Presidencies before (remember Nixon?) and will survive this one as well. The FBI has also overstepped its bounds in the past (remember J. Edgar Hoover, everyone’s favorite Cross-Dressing Abuser of Civil Liberties?) and will again. The key is to recognize that we needn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. We need an executive branch of government to enforce our laws — we just need them to do it in a way that is consistent with the U.S. Constitution. We can do that without declaring the executive branch of government is “the enemy.”
everyone’s favorite Cross-Dressing Abuser of Civil Liberties?
Rudy Giuliani?
I think it’s mainly about, a government in power who cries “freedom” while slowly making us a communist society, by sacrificing those freedoms under the facade of protecting them. As long as we embrace a two party system, that lives well above the common mans means, we will have laws that only serve those that are “the haves” (in the words of Bush). As long as an officials salary for the job is minuscule versus the funding it takes to get them in office, their first obligation will not be to the people. And as long as there is no profit in cleaning up the planet, it will continue to have it’s resources used to the inevitable conclusion…ok, I have it out now, I hope I haven’t scared anyone 🙂
Rob
“Where DO these guys crawl out of, eh?”
Scary thing is they’re all around
Or they’re one person who uses a different name each time.
Everywhere…not just on PAD’s site. One troll who is very very busy.
I used to work on a military base with two major commands during the early nineties. Sadly, at that time, security was fairly lax. One guy got saluted through the gate without an ID — he had folded up a dollar bill and slipped it into the license section of his wallet. (Well Washington *is* a four-star, so…)
But if you really wanted to get on the base without showing an ID, all you really needed was a Domino’s bucket on your antenna. And from what I have heard (but haven’t confirmed) one of the would be terrorists was a pizza delivery guy who had driven on the base a number of times and knew the layout fairly well as a result.
If someone shows up at the last minute and turns around the rejected movie deal, Variety could run a headline about the “Dix Six Pix Nix Fix.”
And if someone made a film about the efforts of making the film (it’s been known to happen!) then the ad in front of the theater window could read “Dix Six Pix Nix Fix Tix”.
As I recall from a little documentary titled “Hot Shots,” all you need to get in to most Air Force bases is a quarter at the gate. 🙂
Couldn’t the guys in question just be referred to as the Six Dix?
I remember making a delivery at Ft. Bragg about 2 weeks after 9/11. Security was tighter than a nun’s whatever. Guards with MP5’s, dogs, reportedly Delta Force snipers. Lotsa fun for the whole family.
I note that catotheelderii (a tad presumptuous, I associate his form of venom more with Kato Kaelin) ignores the old saying that “in a democracy the greatest treason is silence”.
How about “Dix Six Nix Pix. Terror Error to star Ferrer says Lehrer”
Wasn’t the whole point of the wiretaps to intercept communications between people in the U.S. and people outside the U.S.? I hardly see how thwarting a homegrown terrorist cell refutes the notion that wiretaps can’t be of great help in thwarting U.S. terrorist plots involving operatives in other countries.
-Dave OConnell
Wasn’t the whole point of the wiretaps to intercept communications between people in the U.S. and people outside the U.S.?
Yeah, that must be why DHS asked Verizon to give them all domestic phone records.
I hardly see how thwarting a homegrown terrorist cell refutes the notion that wiretaps can’t be of great help in thwarting U.S. terrorist plots involving operatives in other countries.
Actually, they weren’t “homegrown”. They were from Kosovo and other parts of the Balkans. Some were even here illegally.
“everyone’s favorite Cross-Dressing Abuser of Civil Liberties.”
A good title for a reality TV show?
the old saying that “in a democracy the greatest treason is silence”.
What’s that from? Couldn’t find it.
Posted by: Dave OConnell at May 9, 2007 04:05 PM
Wasn’t the whole point of the wiretaps to intercept communications between people in the U.S. and people outside the U.S.? I hardly see how thwarting a homegrown terrorist cell refutes the notion that wiretaps can’t be of great help in thwarting U.S. terrorist plots involving operatives in other countries.
Peter was careful to specify that illegal wiretaps are an intrusion on civil liberties. Recognizing that some wiretaps are illegal is not the same as declaring that ALL wiretaps are illegal.
You’re engaging in the fallacy of the syllogism. An example of a syllogism: “This apple is red, therefore all things that are red are apples.” In much the same fashion you are assuming, wrongly, that Peter’s reference to “illegal wiretaps” is tantamount to calling all wiretaps illegal. This is simply not the case.
Wiretaps are like any other form of “search & seizure.” Per the U.S. Constitution, such searches are permitted only upon issuance of a judicial warrant, with only certain narrow exceptions allowed (such as when a search is agreed to voluntarily by a suspect). The Bush administration has chosen to circumvent the U.S. Constitution under the auspices of the so-called “U.S. Patriot Act.” But the U.S. Constitution is the highest law of the land. Thus, regardless of what is stated by the “Patriot Act,” a warrantless wiretap is by definition illegal.
See the difference? Not all wiretaps are illegal. Just warrantless wiretaps.
The controversy over wiretaps isn’t about legality. It’s about doing things quickly and easily, without bothering with the legalities of warrants and judicial approval.
And the thing is…the quick and dirty way yields the same results as the correct and legalistic way. They’re functionally equivalent–except the right way respects constitutional safeguards.
In my book, if you’re backing the Bush way of doing things, you’re letting the terrorists win.
“Can you be more specific?”
—–
(not really in response to this specific post; just telling a story)
This reminds me of the time a guy at work was asking others if they wanted to go in on the pizza order he was placing. He asked my friend Roger what he wanted on the pizza.
Roger said: “Well, anything.”
Other guy said: “Can you be more specific?”
Roger said: “Well, anything, Úšhølë.”
.
FBI infiltrates the Apple Dumpling Gang and it takes them 16 months to make a case?
Or is it that the poll ratings are down again, so it is time to make another public display?
I hate having to live my life being this f****** cynical about the Presidency.
The controversy over wiretaps isn’t about legality. It’s about doing things quickly and easily, without bothering with the legalities of warrants and judicial approval.
The argument that we need to do things quickly, therefore we don’t have time for the niceties of FISA is just plain absurd if you look at the actual law. The law allows the government to set up a wiretap and then apply for a warrant retroactively within 72 hours.
The argument that we need to do things quickly, therefore we don’t have time for the niceties of FISA is just plain absurd if you look at the actual law. The law allows the government to set up a wiretap and then apply for a warrant retroactively within 72 hours.
Exactly.
But they just don’t want to be bothered with it. They’re taking the easy way and not doing it the right way.
Oh, and did you hear that Bush is threatening to veto the new spending bill? Because it asks him to make reports on Iraqi progress and to ensure troops are combat ready and rested?