Dear President Bush:We are writing to express our serious concerns about your administration's failure to monitor all mail to and from convicted terrorists in federal prisons. Your administration's disregard for this basic surveillance obligation leaves our nation at grave risk.YJCMTSU
As you know, the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) is supposed to carefully screen 100 percent of mail sent and received by high-risk inmates, including convicted terrorists. When the mail is in a foreign language, the BOP is expected to have the mail reviewed and translated by someone fluent in that language. The BOP is also supposed to monitor the verbal communications of convicted terrorists over the telephone, in visiting rooms, and in the cellblock.
What!?!...CAIR and the ACLU are OK with thisÂ…thisÂ…violation of civil liberties? Say it ainÂ’t so.
These screening requirements are intended to address the real threat posed by terrorists in our prisons. For instance, in March 2005, news reports indicated that three convicted terrorists at the federal penitentiary in Florence, Colo., who were imprisoned for the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center had written approximately 90 letters to Islamic extremists between 2002 and 2004. Some of these letters were written to members of a Spanish terror cell with links to terrorists suspected in the March 2004, train bombings in Madrid.
Some might consider that as an example of successful surveillance. So why do I get the feeling there’s a “but” coming here?
However, in a report released yesterday, the Department of Justice Inspector General (IG) Glenn Fine concluded that "the BOP has not ensured that mail for terrorist and other high-risk inmates on its monitoring lists is consistently read and analyzed to detect terrorism, criminal activities or other inappropriate behavior." As a result, according to the IG report, "the threat remains that terrorist and other high-risk inmates can use mail and verbal communications to conduct terrorist or criminal activities while incarcerated."
The failure to monitor the communications of these deadly terrorists already in captivity calls into question your ability to wage an effective war on terror and competently conduct intelligence operations that are crucial to keeping our nation safe.
We urge you to take immediate action to ensure that the Bureau of Prisons remedies this serious security failure. In the War on Terror, there is no excuse for any agency to allow terrorist activity in its midst. The Department of Justice and the Bureau of Prisons must stop convicted terrorists from engaging in terrorist communications.
Huh...No "New Direction" cliche? They must have been in an awfull rush to get this one out.
Sincerely,
Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid
Sen. Barack Obama