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June 30, 2008

Exclusive: CRC Open Sources

W. Thomas Smith, Jr., Director, CRC Open Sources

In this week's CRC Open Sources, we want to focus your attention on Sen. Barack Obama's rejection of the current two-track investigative-prosecutorial system - as described by political analyst Dick Morris - designed to thwart terrorism, and which has proven to be extremely effective in that regard. And don't let the lawyerly sounding label, "two-track investigative-prosecutorial system," keep you from reading further.

In a conversation I had with Morris, Wednesday (subsequently published, Thursday, at Townhall.com), he explained to me how the system's rejection by Obama and other Democrats seriously hampers the U.S. intelligence community's ability to gather intelligence, and it leaves a massive hole open for terrorists to work through.

Morris is not attempting to further what the Democrats have so-effectively and misleadingly labeled "the politics of fear," nor is he suggesting we subvert the Constitution. On the contrary, the two-track system protects the Constitution, and it is just plain common sense.

Read on:

" ... ‘He [Obama] does not believe in the two-track investigative-prosecutorial system [where one track pursues admissible evidence for criminal prosecution, and the other track pursues intelligence to break up terrorist activity before terror strikes],' says Morris. ‘What Obama is basically saying is that even if we are just gathering intelligence with no intention of admissing that intelligence into court, we have to follow all the constitutional norms of the fourth, fifth, and sixth amendments.'

"For instance, Obama opposes wiretapping without warrants, launching investigations without notification, ‘and he basically lauded the 1993 World Trade Center bombing-investigation, which was conducted according to those rules, and sets that up as a model,' says Morris. ‘Pres. Bush, on the other hand, says his priority is not locking a guy up so that he does 10 to 20. His priority is stopping the guy from blowing us up,' which despite Bush's shortcomings, he has indeed accomplished.

"As Morris explains, the current administration's approach both protects the constitution and prevents evidence obtained through the naturally-shadowy world of intelligence-collection from being used in criminal prosecution unless the intelligence-peg fits into the hole of fair-play evidence collection.

"Moreover, the two-track system strengthens our intelligence arm, feeds the intelligence community's information channels, and dramatically increases our ability to thwart terrorist attacks long before they become operational. And because the two-track system is technically following the letter of the law - intelligence prevented from being used as evidence if it is improperly obtained - the constitution is not violated.

"‘Obama would change this,' says Morris."

Morris' and wife Eileen McGann's new book, FLEECED, was just released on Tuesday, and almost immediately soared to the top of the chart at Amazon.com.

Read the interview with Morris in its entirety here and here.

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- Visit W. Thomas Smith Jr. at uswriter.com.

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