Technology, Terrorists and Turf

Someone tell the Attorney General he must protect the public, not the NRA.

By: Geo Beach

Protecting the public means using the best tools at the nation's disposal. Now tell that to the Attorney General.

Let's get back to first principles, before we get too enamored of encrustations to the Second Amendment.

Computers are tools that people use. "Schpeelberg's" "A.I.: Artificial Intelligence" notwithstanding, computers don't "think", people do - at least some people do. And what distinguishes Homo Sapiens - that's "Smart Men" - is the ability to think up new tools and put them to good use.

In a nation sensitized to terrorism, the question becomes: How should we utilize technology to best protect us? Put politically: What should the mighty computers of government be computing? More pointedly: What's NOT being done, even when it's in the obvious national interest?

Well, 'Top Cop' John Ashcroft's Justice Department has denied the FBI's request to review records of gun purchases to determine if any potential-terrorist detainees might be named there.

That looks more like a case of smart politics than smart law. Ashcroft gets along fine with the NRA. But police chiefs aren't going along - they're protesting.

Access to these records is an appropriate example of smart men using a tool to do something fast. It's not a question of type - not warrantless jackboots kicking down the door to take away a law-abiding citizen's guns - it's a question of scale: How quickly can the task of vetting possible accomplices-to-murderer be accomplished? Illegal aliens (and legal aliens admitted under a non-immigrant visa) are not allowed to purchase guns. So what's the story here - that if you make it past "Go" you can't thereafter "Go Directly to Jail"?

Sure, the FBI can still find out whether detainees have tried to buy guns - it's not against the law for them to ask. They just have to put thousands of Special Agents on the street to canvas every single gun-seller in the proximity of the last known address, hotel, and flight school of all the aliens detained. Sort of the Cro-Magnon way.

Is that how you want government to spend their time and your money, when the information is available at a keystroke?

Look, there's a mantra that's been chanted since September 11^th that needs to be unmasked as myth. People say that the terrorist hijackings were the result of a failure of U.S. intelligence, that is, of our spying. But the real failure was in law enforcement, starting at the highest levels. The CIA put hijackers on a watch list, but it wasn't watched. Numerous federal fiefdoms had information that could have been useful in disrupting the plot, but winning the bureaucratic turf war was more important. Well, after 9/11, the old ways don't wash.

Computerized audits of gun purchases are merely one example of using available technology to respond to very real violent terrorism. Airport security is another. Congress has their knickers in a twist now about whether new airport safety screening can be put in place in a year's time. They want bomb-sniffing machines everywhere, but that's an industrial age barricade (that uses [iron]), not an information age filter (using brains). In the 21^st Century, silicon beats iron.

If the existing Computer Assisted Passenger Screening (CAPS) system had merely been used on all passengers, instead of only those with checked luggage, thousands of innocent people might be alive today. Because just by applying the brains of that screening protocol, al-Qaeda operatives would have been made as obvious as rustlers galloping around with six-shooters on their hips.

What's needed is a new mindset in Washington, starting at the Justice Department. The AG's job is to protect all of us, not just the campaign contributors. Of course rounding up illegal aliens is easy. Standing up to the gun lobby is harder.

But when you're fighting Bin Laden, it's not any use getting tough if you don't get smart. John Ashcroft's no Robert Kennedy, but he could do better if he practiced one of that Attorney General's famous sayings: "Don't get mad, get even."

Evenhandedly.