"War" on Terror

Really think the Bush Administration is making us safer from terrorism?

AIRPORT SCREENERS MISSED WEAPONS
By Mimi Hall, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Undercover investigators were able to sneak explosives and weapons past security screeners at 15 airports nationwide, according to a government report on aviation security.

The government watchdog for the Department of Homeland Security, Clark Kent Ervin, delivered the results of the tests in a classified report to members of Congress. "The performance was poor," said Ervin, the department's inspector general, in releasing a less detailed version Wednesday.

The tests were done during the second half of 2003. But they highlight ongoing vulnerabilities in the nation's aviation security system, particularly in detecting explosives such as those that Russian authorities say were used to bring down two airliners last month.

(Full story)

U.S. TO FREE 'ENEMY COMBATANT,' BOWING TO SUPREME COURT RULING
By Eric Lichtblau, New York Times

WASHINGTON - Yaser E. Hamdi, an American citizen captured in Afghanistan and once deemed so dangerous that the American military held him incommunicado for more than two years as an enemy combatant, will be freed and allowed to return to Saudi Arabia in the next few days, officials said Wednesday.

After weeks of negotiations over his release, lawyers for the Justice Department and Mr. Hamdi announced an agreement requiring him to renounce his American citizenship. The agreement also bars him from leaving Saudi Arabia for a time and requires him to report possible terrorist activity, his lawyer said, although legal analysts said the arrangement would be difficult for the United States to enforce.

The agreement was driven by a Supreme Court decision in June. In the ruling, a major setback for the Bush administration, the court found that Mr. Hamdi and enemy combatants like him had to be given the chance to challenge their detention. The court declared that "a state of war is not a blank check for the president." The administration decided that rather than give Mr. Hamdi a hearing, it would simply negotiate his release.

(Full story)

Let's see...terrorists still won't have much trouble smuggling explosives onto commercial airliners, and one of the two most prominent "enemy combatants" locked up by the Bush Administration under the premise of his terrorist ties is released, presumably due to there being no case against him. It's also worth noting that the administration has yet to gain a single criminal conviction against the thousands of detainees who have been taken into custody during the last three years.

Can someone explain to me how much worse it would be with John Kerry as President?