Gingrich's Crusade

Yeah, Newt was in NH yesterday as well. Another voice that could be lived without. His message? Let's restrict first amendment rights.

"This is a serious, long-term war," the former speaker said, according an audio excerpt of his remarks made available yesterday by his office. "Either before we lose a city or, if we are truly stupid, after we lose a city, we will adopt rules of engagement that use every technology we can find to break up their capacity to use the Internet, to break up their capacity to use free speech, and to go after people who want to kill us to stop them from recruiting people."

Mr. Gingrich acknowledged that these proposals would trigger "a serious debate about the First Amendment." He also said international law must be revised to address the exigencies posed by international terrorists.

"We should propose a Geneva Convention for fighting terrorism, which makes very clear that those who would fight outside the rules of law, those who would use weapons of mass destruction, and those who would target civilians are, in fact, subject to a totally different set of rules that allow us to protect civilization by defeating barbarism before it gains so much strength that it is truly horrendous," he said.

There you have it. The technology must be really simple that would allow you to shut down the use of the internet to terrorists but not completely destroy the internet as it exists. The technology doesn't exist and you can be assured that if the government is involved in that "control" that the result will be an internet that is completely broken. Maybe he should talk to his buddy McCain and find a good way to legislate further suppression of speech to go along with McCain's suppression of political speech legislation.

Some times it's quite obvious when a law maker doesn't get it or does and should be left by the wayside.

Geneva convention for fighting terrorists? There is one dolt. The Geneva conventions have protocol II that would treat terrorists like legal combatants. By the standard in place today we'd be nearly totally disarmed. Fortunately the US hasn't ratified this protocol. Imagine trying to move the UN into forming a new protocol that allows for action against terrorists. It would go nowhere due to so many countries denying that the present groups like Al-Qaeda are terrorist organizations.

Go home Newt.