United We Stand, but We'll Snoop Divided by Cato Institute Senior Fellow Robert A. Levy in today's Los Angeles Times is another in a growing list of op-eds and editorials criticizing Bush and Ashcroft's "Operation Tips."

Hamdi, Lindh, Terrorism And The Courts by Joanne Mariner discusses the difference in treatment afforded Lindh and the Detainees. It's time to turn our attention to the detainees, none of whom have been charged with a crime.

The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 bars the military from making arrests, conducting searches or engaging in other police activity on US soil. Only the Coast Guard and the National Guard are exempt from the law.

The origin of The Posse Comitatus Act was the Civil War, during which civilians were tried and sometimes executed by military courts. US troops occupied the defeated southern states for several years after the war.

In 1981, Congress modified the act by authroizing the use of military troops and equipment to prevent the importation of illegal drugs.

Now President Bush, Homeland Security Chief Tom Ridge and Senator Joseph Biden (D-Del) are discussing changes to the law to allow the military a greater role in law enforcement when it comes to fighting terrorism.

We don't think the law should be weakened any further. For some reasons why, check out "The Posse Comitatus Act: A Principle in Need of Renewal "(Washington Universitys Law Quarterly)

We cheered the Postal Service earlier this week when they announced their workers would not participate in Operation Tips.

Now, the about-face. Seems the Postal Service didn't really understand the program (or so they say) and they and union officials are going to meet with the Justice Department about the program before making up their mind.

By the way, TIPS stands for Terrorist Information and Prevention System.

Also from the CNN article linked above, "Members of civil liberties and privacy groups have joined conservative groups in their condemnation of the proposed program, dubbing it "Operation Snoops."

That's our name for it from now on.

The Washington Post reports on "Operation Tips" today. Our first post on this may have gotten buried in all our Walker Lindh coverage, so here's a bump for Bush's "Operation Tips" and the threat it poses to the Constitution. It will turn a million Americans into volunteer snitches--and more.

"And check out the great Boston Globe editiorial today:

"Ashcroft's informant corps is a vile idea not merely because it violates civil liberties in a narrow legal sense or because it will sabotage genuine efforts to prevent terrorism by overloading law enforcement officials with irrelevant reports about Americans who have nothing to do with terrorists. Operation TIPS should be stopped because it is utterly anti-American. It would give Stalin and the KGB a delayed triumph in the Cold War - in the name of the Bush administration's war against terrorism."

Operation TIPS (Terrorist Information and Prevention System) is a new Bush Administration proposal that will be bundled into its volunteer Citizen Corps. The White House has announced plans to begin a pilot project in some cities in August.

Specifically, the initiative will recruit one million volunteers in 10 cities across the country and encourage them to report suspicious activity that might be terrorism-related. According to the White House, it will try to make volunteers of letter carriers, cable tv installers and gas, electric and utility workers who because their work allows them inside people's homes, are well suited to recognize the unusual.

In a press release issued yesterday, the ACLU minced no words about the intrusive nature of the program, calling it a plan to turn the workers into "a contingent of organized government informants" and "government-sanctioned peeping toms,î and attacking it as an "end run around the Constitution."

We agree with the ACLU--this is a proposal that essentially will encourage searches of our residences without a warrant or even probable cause. It will cost the Government (and us, the taxpayers) a lot of money to follow what likely will be mostly useless tips. And it may fuel vigilantism and racial profiling.

The Washington Post expressed great concern about the plan in an editorial on Sunday. It's view:

"Americans should not be subjecting themselves to law enforcement scrutiny merely by having cable lines installed, mail delivered or meters read. Police cannot routinely enter people's houses without either permission or a warrant. They should not be using utility workers to conduct surveillance they could not lawfully conduct themselves.î

A Pakistani court today sentenced Sheik Omar to death for the murder of Daniel Pearl. His three accomplices were likewise found guilty but sentenced to life.

This doesn't make us glad. State-sanctioned killing just breeds more violence. And it doesn't bring Daniel Pearl back.

Why is this story so under-reported here?

From Dan Dodson, Media Affairs Director of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers:

"Of perfect irony, a reporter in Liberia has been "detained" as an "unlawful combatant," accused of aiding a "terrorist organization" and is being held incommunicado! The U.S. State Department has issued a statement, but apparently not much more.

In a related news story, the Liberian Government's "defense" is that they are treating Bility [the reporter] the same as the US is treating "unlawful combatants" and so, cannot understand the fuss.

Who's covering the story here? As far as we can tell, only the Christian Science Monitor. Reuters has covered it a little, and Agence France-Presse is on top of it."

President Bush has named Deputy Attorney General (and former white collar criminal defense attorney) Larry Thompson to head his new Corporate Fraud Task Force, also known (by presidential description no less) as a financial fraud swat team.

We're not crazy about prosecution task forces, and swat teams even less so, but if we have to have one, we laud Larry Thompson's appointment. Larry is seasoned, fair, level-headed, smart and a very nice guy.

We liked his position on the McDade Law (the McDade law states that all lawyers, including Department of Justice lawyers, are subject to existing state ethics laws and rules governing attorney conduct). He said it's good for the profession and that the Justice Department "stubbornly and unwisely continues to urge its repeal." (Federal Lawyer, Jan. 2001.)

We like his support for grand jury reform.

Of course, we don't like his support of the Administration's anti-terrorism proposals, particularly the monitoring of attorney client conversations.

But as Meatloaf says, two out of three ain't bad.