FBI can conduct Terrorist surveillance - unless suspect buys a gun

[papau]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usguns/Story/0,2763,1088057,00.html

Gun lobby hinders FBI terror hunt

Julian Borger in Washington
Wednesday November 19, 2003 The Guardian

The FBI now has the power to conduct extensive surveillance of suspected terrorists except if the suspect successfully buys a gun, because of a loophole backed by the gun lobby, the Washington Post has reported.

The Post said the FBI is alerted if a terror suspect enters a gun shop and applies to buy a weapon under the National Instant Check System. But federal agents will not be told details of the purchase, or its location. Nor can they stop the sale on the grounds that the buyer is a suspected terrorist.

If the sale is blocked (on other grounds), the FBI will have access to all available information. If it goes ahead agents will remain in the dark, because justice department rules reflect the National Rifle Association's (NRA) demands on privacy for gun-owners. <snip>

According to the Post up to 21 people on the US terrorist watch list had tried to buy guns, but it was not clear how many had succeeded.
An al-Qaida manual found in Afghanistan urged its followers to exploit the relaxed US gun laws and purchase guns legally.

[hijinks]

1. what a pantload

They are saying that the NICS *knows* the person is a terrorist suspect but can still approve the sale?

"According to the Post up to 21 people on the US terrorist watch list had tried to buy guns, but it was not clear how many had succeeded. "

Probably zero.

I call BS.

[MrBenchley]

2. Appalling, isn't it?

For the reaction of our own RKBA crowd, see

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=118&topic_id=22886&mesg_id=22886

[papau]

3. Interesting prior discussion(copied below) before it got nasty

From those posts:

"WASHINGTON — The FBI has launched a new background-check system that notifies counterterrorism agents when suspects on its terrorist watch list attempt to purchase guns — but regulations prohibit them from getting details if the transaction actually occurs, according to federal officials familiar with the system.
If authorities block the purchase, however, the FBI is permitted to launch an investigation of the person who attempted to buy the weapon.
The result, according to the officials, is an awkward situation in which terrorism suspects who do not complete gun purchases may be located, while those toting lawfully purchased weapons may not be.
More than a dozen suspects on the FBI's terrorist watch list have attempted to buy guns since the system was implemented last spring, officials said. Authorities have declined to say how many succeeded.
The rules are the result of Attorney General John Ashcroft's interpretation of the Brady gun-control law, according to Justice Department officials, who said they are simply abiding by the federal firearms background-check system the law established."

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2001793271_guns17.html

....if a terrorist actually succeeds in buying guns, this corrupt imbecile then declares him to be a "law abiding gun owner" and protects him from the scrutiny of law enforcement.

You might recall that the troops in Afghanistan found that Al Quaeda and the Taliban had been practicing on targets provided by the NRA...


"But that was just the beginning of the ironies. The same morning, The New York Times reported that Ashcroft's Justice Department had blocked efforts by the FBI and other law-enforcement agencies to check Justice's database to determine if any of the 1,200 individuals detained after the September 11 attacks had bought guns or had sought to do so. Why, asked Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy, was Ashcroft handcuffing the FBI--his phrase--in its efforts to investigate gun purchases by suspected terrorists?

The answer, said Ashcroft, was simple. The law creating the federal database of gun buyers and would-be purchasers (which mandates that the records are kept for only 90 days) didn't permit such uses; Congress had forbidden it. What Ashcroft didn't say was that as a member of the Senate--one whose libertarian streak never went much beyond the agenda of the gun lobby--he had worked as hard as anyone to write even more restrictions into that law.

Did Ashcroft think that the law should be changed? the senators asked. Would he send up a bill calling for such changes? Why were there no background checks at gun shows? How many terrorists bought semiautomatics at gun shows in complete anonymity? Again and again, the attorney general ducked: If Congress sent him something he would review it, he told the lawmakers, but "I won't comment on legislation in the hypothetical." "

http://www.prospect.org/print/V13/1/schrag-p.html

[MrBenchley]

4. You will notice that

when it came to keeping schools segregated in Missouri, AshKKKroft had no moral qualms about ignoring the law or openly breaking it.

What a scumbag he is. And some people here want the Democratic Party to adopt his corrupt and dishonest position? No way.

[madddog]

6. what's so deliciously "ironic"

about your obsession with all of this is the fact that the people on ASHCROFT'S list, (yes, the same guy you call a scumbag) have as yet committed NO crime...so to deny them any of their rights, whether it's 1st, 2nd, 4th or whatever amendment you want...would be unconstitutional.

So the Attorney General is a "scumbag" for trampling on people's civil liberties, as I'm sure you've pointed out in countless other missives here, but it's OKAY as long as it's only their 2nd amendment rights, which you don't think anyone should have anyway. OoooooKaaaayyyyyy....

[MrBenchley]

8. Gee, count on the RKBA crowd to stick up for terrorists

"So the Attorney General is a "scumbag" for trampling on people's civil liberties, as I'm sure you've pointed out in countless other missives here, but it's OKAY as long as it's only their 2nd amendment rights,"
Yeah, Koresh forbid terrorist suspects be prevented from giving the gun industry dough.....

[madddog]

10. well, to be consistent,

you'd have to agree with locking terrorist SUSPECTS up with no due process then...and let's throw in some torture too...pretty much you'd have to agree to let Ashcroft do whatever the fu** he wants to do to people he names as suspects, if you wanted to be consistent.

So...I guess that makes you and Ashcroft kindred spirits.

Damn...who'd a thought THAT.

[MrBenchley]

11. Not even close to true...

"locking terrorist SUSPECTS up with no due process"
Actually you'll notice the story is about surveillance and intelligence gathering...but what would the RKBA crowd do withoout hysteria, exaggeration and distortion? They'd have to be mute as stones.

"pretty much you'd have to agree to let Ashcroft do whatever the fu** he wants to do"
Which is just what the RKBA crowd here is advocating...AND they're claiming that opposing this NRA life member's idiotic schemes is somehow aiding him.. But then that's RKBA "logic"....no wonder that crowd thinks Mary Rosh is a scientist.

[madddog]

15. wrong...

YOU are the one advocating that "suspected" terrorists be denied their rights, not me. And if you knew anything about the "RKBA" crowd, you'd know Ashcroft is no more popular there than he is here becuase of the U.S. Patriot Act.

You can't red herring your way out of this, mo bochaill.

[MrBenchley]

16. Yeah, surrrrrrre.....

"And if you knew anything about the "RKBA" crowd"
I'd know that AshKKKroft is the loudest public member of them. WHICH HE IS.

[jody]

12. "who'd a thought THAT"? I never doubted it for a moment! eom

[iverglas]

17. some here might usefully read

... some of the discussion in the "great idea" and "a question" threads.

And learn just a tiny bit of constitutional law ... or even use a grain of common sense.

"well, to be consistent,
you'd have to agree with locking terrorist SUSPECTS up
with no due process then...and let's throw in some torture too."

Why would you assert that doing that would be "consistent" with denying terrorist suspects permission to acquire firearms?

One could deny them permission to take flight training in the US maybe -- thereby violating their rather fundamental right to liberty without due process. Would someone who advocated that measure have to advocate locking them up and torturing them, to be consistent?

Amazingly, no. It is possible to advocate that certain measures be taken to protect public safety -- where the measures are rationally related to the public safety objective, and where the limitation on the exercise of rights is not disproportionate to that objective -- without also having to advocate that people be locked up without trial and tortured.

Locking them up and torturing them would not, you see, be rationally related to the public safety objective. And it might be just a tad disproportionate to that objective, hm?

If this were not "possible" under the rules that prevail in the US and pretty much everywhere else, we'd have to agree to lock up and torture Alzheimer's patients suspected of being likely to drive dangerously, instead of just suspending their drivers' licences. We suspend their drivers' licences -- and thereby interfere with the exercise of their rights, like liberty -- not to punish them but to protect the public.

That's the purpose of a whole lot of infringements of our rights that we put up with every day. We prevent children from acquiring alcohol because it is not in the public interest that they acquire alcohol; we don't lock them up and torture them for being children. We remove children from the custody of neglectful parents to protect the children; we don't lock the parents up and torture them for being neglectful parents.

It might well be entirely possible, under those rules, to prohibit terrorist suspects from acquiring firearms. They're not being punished for anything; the public is being protected. They would be prevented from acquiring firearms *not* as punishment for being suspected terrorists who therefore have no rights and may not do what they want, but because the public interest in them not having firearms outweighs their right to do what they want. The public interest in highway safety outweighs my right to do what I want too. If I'm caught speeding once too many times I may be prevented from driving in future to protect the public, but I may not be locked up and tortured.

And the terrorist suspects would be free to challenge the state action preventing them from acquiring firearms by demonstrating to a court that they were the victims of an arbitrary exercise of government power, and that there were no grounds to prevent them from acquiring firearms.

And if current US law does *not* provide for people who there are good grounds to believe are attempting to acquire firearms for terrorist purposes to be prevented from doing that, what kind of a job of protecting the public is the government doing?

Does anyone really think that the great USAmerican public wants the suspected terrorists in their midst to be acquiring firearms? That it feels that its safety is being adequately protected if this is allowed to happen? That the government could not justify preventing suspected terrorists from acquiring firearms? Gimme the proverbial break.

.

[MrBenchley]

18. Great post....

Of course, maybe the Washington Post, the Guardian, the Department of Justice, the FBI, Senator Frank Lautenburg, etc., haven't "done their homework," as some people infer. And maybe Wayne LaPierre is Queen of the Faeries.

[beevul]

5. Just a hypothetical here

Lets say terrorists DO aquire firearms. What are they going to do with them? How and where are they potentially going to use them?

Hypothetically

[madddog]

7. my guess is

they'd shoot people.

They could go to a shopping mall and let loose...of course, they'd want to pick a place like DC, where no one could shoot back. You know, they'd want to look for one of those "Gun Free Zones" that screams "target rich environments" to terrorists and criminals :D

[MrBenchley]

9. Gee, beevul

Is THAT really such a mystery?

"On Tuesday, the jury heard a tape of Malvo telling police that the sniper shootings were part of a strategy to throw the region into chaos and even bring martial law until the suspects got what they wanted. "

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&e=2&u=/ap/20031119/ap_on_re_us/sniper_shootings_trials

[Liberal Classic]

13. Interesting that there is no mention of the so-called Patriot Act

Nor can they stop the sale on the grounds that the buyer is a suspected terrorist.

This is absurd. The FBI can block NICS checks for any reason whatsoever, and the Patriot Act and the Homeland Security Act grant broad power to subpoena public and private records. Since these laws give the government the authority sweeping authority to get customer records as well as government database records, I think that someone hasn't done their homework.

[jody]

14. Excellent summary. I agree "someone hasn't done their homework."

If a President can sign an executive order allowing the CIA to murder US citizens on foreign soil if they are a terrorist suspect, he can surely obtain any necessary records.

If not, he can always let the Mossad do it because Israel has asserted its right to murder enemies of its state on US soil. Bush gave silent assent to Israel's statement and US citizens were not excluded.

[Fescue4u]

19. Gun Lobby?

Actually the law that hinders this is Sarah Bradys, Brady Bill.

Hardly the "gun lobby"

[MrBenchley]

20. Gun lobby