corrente

Via good old Buzzflash, The UK's Telegraph reports that the FBI is still doing its part to protect us against terrorism, in a way that the National Rifle Association can get behind:

"Terrorist suspects in the United States are buying firearms with the knowledge and approval of the security forces, a congressional report revealed yesterday.
Those acquiring the weaponry included Islamists, radical militiamen and others with ties to groups with a history of using violence to advance their aims."

Why? Because unlike those with criminal records or a history of mental illness, terrorist suspects are free to purchase all the weaponry they want! That's right...the government can toss suspected terrorists into their black holes of detention with no communication with the outside world and no habeas corpus, but they won't touch thier right to wield deadly weapons. The FBI justs smiles sheepishly, shrugs its mighty shoulders, and sighs:

""We're in a tough position,'' an FBI agent told the New York Times. "Obviously we want to keep guns out of the hands of terrorists, but we also have to be mindful of privacy and civil rights concerns, and we can't do anything beyond what the law allows us to do."
Critics of the Bush administration have said that it has put the interests of gun owners before the advice of counter-terrorist officers because of an inbuilt sympathy for weapons enthusiasts. In particular, they pointed out that the former attorney general, John Ashcroft, had for many months prevented the FBI from matching its terrorist watch list against lists of gun buyers on civil liberties grounds."

Of course, a quick perusal of the venerable NRA's website fails to reveal any concerns on this issue at all, despite all their law and order blather about crime. But not to worry. Ashcroft's Patriot Act is still keeping us safe from dangerous readers at the library.