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July 3, 2008

Rabbi Dr. Abraham J. Twerski: A spiritual budget (TOUCHING!)

Jeff Jacoby: Israel still paying for its defeat

JWisdom:: Re-Jew-venating prayer, Part IV by Rabbi David Aaron

July 2, 2008

Jonathan Tobin: Appeasers Make Poor Patriots

The Kosher Gourmet By Kathleen Purvis: Slaw, y'all: For BBQs or Sabbath dinner, these southern recipes are something else!

JWisdom:: Rabbi Mordechai Becher: Jewish Rx for A Simpler Life

July 1, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q. I think it's important to leave a legacy to my children. How much should I save towards this end?

Paul Greenberg:A President who is history deficient?

JWisdom:: Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith by Rabbi Nosson Scherman: Poland's Unique Antisemitism

June 30, 2008

Jonathan Rosenblum: Remembering the architect of Torah Judaism for the modern world

Abe Novick: Hulk: Still a Jew?

JWisdom: : Putting the Spirit Back into Spirituality, Part 2: The Abandoned Child

June 26, 2008

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: Quantum leap to evil

Caroline B. Glick: Victimized families must not be allowed to dictate policy

June 25, 2008

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Today in Biblical History: King Jeroboam of Israel prevents pilgrimage to Jerusalem

Jonathan Tobin: Real Friends and Real Enemies

JWisdom: Raping of reason By Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

June 25, 2008

Steven Emerson: Kristof: Never Mind the Terrorists

Stratfor Intelligence Briefing: Mediterranean Flyover: Telegraphing an Israeli Punch?

JWisdom: Rabbi David Aaron: Re-Jew-venating prayer, Part III

June 24, 2008

Caroline B. Glick: What were they thinking!?

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Guilty knowledge

JWisdom: Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith by Rabbi Nosson Scherman: Warping Innocence

June 23, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Diploma dilemma

Jeff Jacoby: A world without children

JWisdom: Rabbi Dovid Gross: Putting the Spirit Back into Spirituality --- Introduction

June 20, 2008

Rabbi A. Henach Leibowitz: Man: The Crowning Glory of Creation

Caroline B. Glick: Israel's darkest week

JWisdom: We aren't worthy? by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

June 19, 2008

Rabbi Elazar Meisels: The saints who don't come marchin' in

Chris Christoff: Muslim woman demands an apology from Obama after camera snub

June 18, 2008

Jonathan Tobin: Still Dancing Around Jerusalem

The Kosher Gourmet by Steve Petusevsky: Chilled fruit and vegetable soups

JWisdom: Souls Need A Check Up? by Rabbi Mordechai Becher

June 17, 2008

Rabbi Avi Shafran: Baby Einstein

Caroline B. Glick: Bush's rhetoric, Bush's policies

JWisdom: Re-Jew-venating prayer, Part II by Rabbi David Aaron

June 16, 2008

Varda Branfman: Bob Dylan, won't you please come home?

Diana West: Academic dares to question the 'religion of peace'

JWisdom: Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith by Rabbi Nosson Scherman: Positive Backfire

June 13, 2008

Rabbi Berel Wein: Trading manna for whine

Caroline B. Glick: Peace with friends

JWisdom: From the mouths of … by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

June 12, 2008

Michael Feldberg: Meet Paul Revere's pal, the Orthodox Jew who played a key role in laying Boston's cultural and business infrastructure

The Kosher Gourmet by Kathy Manweiler: No need to be tempted by Wendy's mandarin chicken salad

JWisdom: Re-Jew-venating prayer, Part I by Rabbi David Aaron

June 11, 2008

Rabbi Avi Shafran: What would Hillel say?

Jonathan Tobin: UNRWA and NGOs: The Real U.N. 'Insult'

JWisdom: Sara Yoheved Rigler: Greatness Made Simple: How a momentary decision shifted life's course and destination

June 6, 2008

Rabbi Pinchas Stolper: Revelation: The basis of faith

Binyamin L. Jolkovsky: Mere hours after becoming Israel's new 'best friend' Obama backtracks on status of Jerusalem

Caroline B. Glick: UN choosing to protect rogue nuclear programs

JWisdom: Sameness in difference by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

June 5, 2008

David Lightman: Now Obama wants to be Israel's newest 'best friend'

Obama's remarks to AIPAC policy conference

The Kosher Gourmet By Ethel G. Hofman: Shavous cuisine: Ruby Fruit Soup, Lokshen Kugel with Cheese, Key Lime Curd, Calsone Casserole Frittata with Wild Mushrooms, Sun-dried tomatoes and Olives, Baked Tilapia with Pepper Cheese Cream and Brown Sugar Shortbread

JWisdom: Why a Jewish Jerusalem makes so many nervous by Rabbi Mordechai Becher

June 4, 2008

Jonathan Rosenblum: A different sort of 'religious broadcaster'

Jonathan Tobin: Misgivings on the Road to Damascus

JWisdom: 44 Years Without An Argument? by Sara Yoheved Rigler

June 3, 2008

Daniel Pipes: Obama vs. McCain on the Middle East

Everything's Relative: There is a crisis growing in Orthodox synagogues worldwide, reveals Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkel

JWisdom: White Facades; Black Secrets by Rabbi Mordechai Becher

June 2, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q: Lie to outsmart discriminator?

He writes the songs that make our souls sing:Gavriel Aryeh Sanders interviews Jewish music legend Ben Zion Shenker; includes stirring, uplifting song

JWisdom: Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith by Rabbi Nosson Scherman: Of laws and lives

March 22, 2007

J-Rhythms with Avraham Rosenblum: JWR's cutting-edge music program showcasing performers -- singers, song writers, musicians, and bands -- who learn and live the Torah lifestyle (OUR NEWEST IGODCAST !)

Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review Oct. 16, 2007 / 4 Mar-Cheshvan 5768

Loophole puts U.S. in danger

By Jonathan Gurwitz


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Come February, the safest place in the world for a terrorist to plot an attack against the United States might just be ... right here in the United States. That's when the six-month authorization of the Terrorist Surveillance Program — which Congress passed in August — expires.


Under pressure from the new Democratic majority, the White House in January agreed to bring the program under the provisions of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. But one of the 11 judges on the secret FISA court issued a ruling that hamstrung the program and created a dangerous intelligence gap.


Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell told the Senate Intelligence Committee in May, "We're actually missing a significant portion of what we should be getting." And in a demonstration of the priorities of its leadership, Congress addressed this pressing national security issue by passing a temporary authorization three months later.


If Congress allows the TSP authorization to lapse, it will reproduce a situation described by Gen. Michael Hayden, then director of the National Security Agency, in testimony to the House Intelligence Committee in 2000. Hayden spoke about the limitations an antiquated FISA statute imposed upon his agency and referred to a relatively unknown terror leader:


"If, as we are speaking this afternoon, Osama bin Laden is walking across the Peace Bridge from Niagara Falls, Ontario, to Niagara Falls, N.Y., as he gets to the New York side, he is an American person and my agency must respect his rights against unreasonable search and seizure as provided by the Fourth Amendment."


"American person" or "U.S. person" can refer to an American citizen or a legal alien resident of the United States.


Hayden is now the director of the CIA. Like McConnell, he was selected to head the NSA by Bill Clinton. So the partisan charges that these two intelligence community professionals are flacks for the Bush White House — like the repugnant personal attacks against Gen. David Petraeus — are far off the mark. And in the years since Hayden talked about FISA's obsolescence, it has become even more outmoded.


When Congress passed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act three decades ago, U.S. spy agencies obtained most foreign intelligence with satellites in space and listening posts in foreign countries, by latching onto cables in international waters and wiretapping foreign telephone lines. If the targets of U.S. surveillance happened to talk to U.S. persons, it was of no legal consequence since the intercepts took place beyond U.S. borders.


The revolution in telecommunications has changed all that. The digital packets of a telephone call or e-mail from a terror mastermind in Pakistan to a cell in Germany might be routed through communications hubs in the United States. And according to at least one anonymous FISA judge, since that foreign-to-foreign intercept is taking place on U.S. soil, it requires a FISA warrant.


Whereas Hayden described a hypothetical situation where bin Laden could be granted Fourth Amendment protections by virtue of being a U.S. person, the FISA court has effectively granted those protections to him as a foreign person. If the terror kingpin happens to call or e-mail a U.S. person, the legal proscriptions and barriers are even more pronounced.


The FISA court has turned what should be an advantage in the war on terror — U.S. dominance in telecommunications — into a dangerous disadvantage. What's needed is a permanent fix to FISA law, not a temporary extension of the surveillance program.


The main sticking point in August was the refusal of Democratic leaders to extend retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies for cooperating with a surveillance effort they believed to be legal. That's a petty loophole to keep open for litigious opponents of the terrorist surveillance program, one that could turn the worst nightmares of our intelligence community and the fervent dreams of our terrorist adversaries into reality.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

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JWR contributor Jonathan Gurwitz, a columnist for the San Antonio Express-News, is a co-founder and twice served as Director General of the Future Leaders of the Alliance program at NATO Headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. In 1986 he was placed on the Foreign Service Register of the U.S. State Department.

Jonathan Gurwitz Archives


© 2007, Jonathan Gurwitz

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