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Tuesday, February 5, 2008      Geostrategy-Direct.com

Cheney: Eavesdrop because terrorists don't fight by the rules of international law

Vice President Dick Cheney said last month that the terrorist threat to the United States remains a real danger and so U.S. intelligence agencies need strong authority to conduct electronic eavesdropping and other intelligence-gathering activities.

“The terrorists waging war against this country don't fight according to the rules of warfare or international law or moral standards or basic humanity, and we have to be clear-eyed about the character and objective of these adversaries,” Cheney said in remarks at the Heritage Foundation on Jan. 23.

“They have a strategic goal to create the old 7th century caliphate, an empire stretching from Europe through the Middle East all the way around to Southeast Asia. They want to arm themselves with chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, and they would not hesitate to use such weapons.”

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Good intelligence is vital for waging the war against terrorism and is difficult to obtain, he said, and some of the best comes from the terrorists themselves through interrogation, including some who are given “tougher interrogation” at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

“We've also managed to prevent attacks and saved lives by monitoring terrorist-related communications,” Cheney said, urging the Senate to quickly renew the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Cheney said the act should be passed permanently not extended, as it was in August and ending Jan. 31.

“Fighting the war on terror is a long-term enterprise that requires long-term institutional changes,” he said, saying private sector assistance is needed and legislation should protect companies that help the U.S. government from lawsuits by opponents of electronic surveillance.

The failure to pass good legislation on surveillance will hamper “our ability to monitor Al Qaida terrorists… that we simply cannot tolerate,” Cheney said.


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