Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid... Posted by Adam Blickstein

Richard Clarke, former head of counterterrorism at the National Security Council who famously tried to warn the Bush Administration of the threat from al-Qaida before 9/11, takes President Bush to task in this morning's Philadelphia Inquirer over his use of fear in the debate over FISA.  Strong words from one of the most credible critics of the Administration's failed intelligence and counter-terrorism policies:

In order to defeat the violent Islamist extremists who do not believe in human rights, we need not give up the civil liberties, constitutional rights and protections that generations of Americans fought to achieve. We do not need to create Big Brother. With the administration's attempts to erode FISA's legal standing as the exclusive means by which our government can conduct electronic surveillance of U.S. persons on U.S. soil, this is unfortunately the path the president is taking us down.