While I cannot speak to your particular corner of the NeoEmpire, in my chunk, one is hearing, over the past week or so, various people remarking that the Brits have rounded up their transit terrorists in less than a month while Mr. Bush’s administration, after spending vast sums of tax-payer cash and US prestige, have, in almost 4 years, had no luck in arresting Sheik Omar or Osama binLaden.
Mr. Bush’s haphazard and special interest-benighted conduct of the War on Terra takes another hit in the court of public opinion, with a story published yesterday in The Sunday Times of London and somewhat telegraphed by a July 26 story in another British Murdock-owned newspaper The Sun.
According to yesterday’s Times:

One by one, Al-Qaeda’s affiliated websites have vanished…Someone has cut the line of communication between the spiritual leaders of international terrorism and their supporters…The Israelis detect the hand of British intelligence…One global jihad site terminated recently was…entitled How to Strike a European City…Ironically, the most readily available sources of accurate online information on bomb-making are the websites of the radical American militia.

According to The Sun article:

The role of patriotic hackers in taking down extremists websites is [as] clouded in deep secrecy, as it is illegal. The FBI has put out a statement in the past warning them to stop or face prosecution…the US is now the country where most of these sites are hosted. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) says that it would be 'unconstitutional' and against the US constitution's First Amendment on freedom of speech if they were to pressure the hosting companies.

Fascinating, no?
Federal agents, in these Patriot Act days, have plenty of time to collate book requests at public libraries and to lurk at innocuous political blogs but find it, according to The Sun, “unconstitutional” to “pressure the hosting companies” of domestic extremist websites.
Now I can immediately hear a Bush supporter say that successful efforts in the War or Terra or rather the newly minted Struggle Against Global Extremism might not necessarily be publicized.
To that I would say, “Piffle.”
After last summer’s string of politically-inspired terror alerts and the seemingly intentional outing of Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan in early August 2004, an outing some suggest contributed to the London bombings, I find it implausible to imagine Mr. Bush would not try to hike his dangerously low poll numbers with a well-publicized terror bud-nipping.
Any sensible American should pause and reflect on Britain’s successfully fast-paced counter terror efforts; efforts achieved without a war, crimping the freedoms of British citizens or vast new expenditures of special-interest cash.

Photos: Google, Ready.gov, USAToday
- posted by Sean @ 10:00 AM