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Newt Gingrich Says Free Speech May Be Forfeit
At a dinner honoring those who stand up for freedom of speech, former House speaker Newt Gingrich issued his opinion that the idea of free speech in the U.S. needs to be re-examined in the interest of fighting terrorism. Gingrich said a "different set of rules" may be needed to reduce terrorists' ability to use the Internet and free speech to recruit and get out their message. The article has few details of what Gingrich actually said beyond the summary above, and no analysis pointing out how utterly clueless the suggestion is given the Internet's nature and trans-national reach.
FP
On one hand, it galls me that Mr. Gingrich would say free speech should be limited at a First Amendment Award banquet. The real irony, though, is that this is exactly what the speech, press, and association clauses of the first amendment are all about: protecting the expression of political ideas that might disagree with law, government policy, or popular opinion.
I can't find a way to mod Newt Gingrich down as "Troll", "Flamebait", or "Redundant". Can someone help me?
Ninjas use italics.
Gingrich re-evaluates you!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
People need to understand that the reason we have freedom of speech and the right to bear arms is so that the people of this country can, if necessary, reshape the government WITH FORCE.
-Bill
Gingrich should be legally prevented from saying such dumb things.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Gingrich holds no elected office.
Newt's not elected to anything, though he is talking about a 2008 presidential run.
The only possible reason to want to curtail freedom of speech is to maintain a tighter control on a domestic population, which falls right in line with the current Republican agenda, so it's no surprise that that's what he wants, but I'm surprised even he would come right out and say it.
Anyone who is incapable of understanding why Freedom of Speech is essential to a democracy has no business being anywhere near government. That people don't rise up and tear him apart explains, in a nutshell, why, historically, democracies don't last.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
It's uncanny how recent law changes and the subsequent cries for more control and less freedom in the US mimic the changes that take place in "Animal Farm"...
It appears that Newt is just another pig, and the American constituency are the remainder of the barnyard animals. You need to find some mules with voices to nip this in the bud before it goes any further.
So you don't know what he actually said, but you're going to post an article on a tech oriented site lambasting it.... That's responsible of you.
The more you know, the less you understand.
Why do we let them be in charge?
Terrorism is bad. It really is. It does not follow that it is so bad that we need to re-examin our fundemental rights.
Far more people die at the hands of run-of-the-mill criminals, in automobile accidents, of heart disease, and of AIDS. The number of Americans who were killed by terrorists last year was laughably small (Even our president calls those guys in Iraq insurgents and not terrorists, just in case you wanted to lump them in).
So why give up free speech? Privacy? Protection against unreasonable search and seisure? To stop the "scourge" of terrorism that didn't bomb a single target you can actually name last year?
These guys want power over you. They want to arrest you for mere suspision, they want to detain you for disagreeing, they want to hold you as long as they want without a trial, and they want to beat the confesion out of you when time alone doesn't make you change your tune. Then they want ot take the false info you gave them and proclaim "Look! We stopped this terrorist!"
Don't give it to them. Don't give them your rights. Anyone who says you need to make that kind of sacrifice, he's the one you want to kick out of office.
TW
Clearly his opinions are unchecked.
Oh, wait...
There's always some "threat" that requires that we give up some Freedoms ... just until the threat is over ... so the government can "protect" us.
Freedom is not safe.
Our forefathers felt that it was better to die Free than to live under tyranny.
I'll take their opinions over Newt's any day.
As usual, there is more than meets the eye, especially when the original article is from the "Union Leader"..
From a fairly robust article in the Boston Globe I dug up with a quick Google News search for "Gingrich":
MANCHESTER, N.H. --Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Monday that First Amendment rights need to be expanded and cited the elimination of McCain-Feingold campaign finance reforms as one solution.
Noting the thwarted London terrorist attacks this summer, Gingrich said there should be a Geneva Convention for such actions that makes those people subject to "a totally different set of rules."
From this Globe article (hardly a conservative-friendly paper) it appears Gingrich's "totally different set of rules" has not to do with freedom of speech, but with the Geneva Convention as applied to terrorists, which is a whole 'nother bag of worms in and of itself; however, the question remains as to how the OP managed to spin what seem to be two separate points into one decidedly negative message.
Does anyone have the actual transcript of his speech there so we can figure out who's full of BS and who's not? Think about it -- if the man is even THINKING of running for President in '08, he certainly isn't going to get elected if he runs on a platform of RESTRICTING basic freedom of speech.
John Adams
I nominate Newt as democracy's first victim.
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
That said, the larger issue is important. Just last night NBC ran a story about nuclear plant and security information being available in public libraries. My first reaction was that I generally favor public access to information, and that private watchdogs and the free press are probably why the US has not had a Chernobyl. The idea of purging public libraries is distasteful. But then they talked about what information was available, and I had to agree some of it should not be public, such as specifically the most damaging place to hit a nuclear power plant with an airplane. It is old information, and that sort of information would probably never be released now. Is that a good or bad thing?
I'm still stunned that the conservative movement, which used to claim to champion smaller government and strict constitutional readings, has turned into a champion of authoritarian governmental control. The Bill of Rights is key to the freedoms we enjoy as Americans and these rights were ironed out by leaders who just emerged victorious from a civil war. They understood war and its dangers but more importantly they understood the danger of tyranny, and so the very first right in the Bill of Rights is the right to free speech. To try and claim that now we must suspend this fundamental right because of "war" is to go against the very underpinnings of this country's foundation and sets the stage for increasing authoritarianism by the US Government.
I honestly hope we don't enact restrictions like Europe (and elsewhere) http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-02-26-euro pe-free-speech_x.htm.
"If the Constitution doesn't protect scum like me, it doesn't protect anybody."---Larry Flint.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
We have military tribunals that usurp Habeas Corpus.
We have warrantless wiretaps and searches that basically ignore the Fourth Amendmant.
Now some want to curb free speech.
At some point you have to ask yourself what are we fighting for?
There was a time when our steadfast will to uphold the US Constitution gave us somewhat of a moral compass that differentiate us from our foes.
Now we are basically eroding the very document that made the US a great nation.
The very purpose of terrorism is NOT to kill. That is a means to an desired end result.
Here is a common definition of terrorism:
the calculated use of violence (or threat of violence) against civilians in order to attain goals that are political or religious or ideological in nature; this is done through intimindation or coercion or instilling fear
By us disregarding the Constitution we are giving the terrorists what they want.
The terrorists are winning because the governments of the western world are GIVING THEM WHAT THEY WANT.
And don't think for a second some of this is not for the benefit of the mega-multinational corporations either.
This is facism at it's purest. Welcome to the 21st century. I hope you enjoy your coup that George W Bush et al engineered.
Summary of Modern Politics:
"I'll show you politics in America. Here it is, right here. 'I think the puppet on the right shares my beliefs.' 'I think the puppet on the left is more to my liking.' 'Hey, wait a minute, there's one guy holding out both puppets!'"
---Bill Hicks
Living With a Nerd
They missed libraries, and museums, and all the tiny little things. If it was such a success, why did the Republicans back down so quickly, and how come Clinton was re-elected (the very thing it was designed to prevent?)
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
The intellectual laziness of current conventional political thinkers really galls me. One thing that all of the Founding Fathers agreed on is that a free society presents some difficulties and challenges, but that it's well worth the extra effort freedom requires.
It may be that to maintain our liberty we will be more vulnerable to terrorist attack. Well, that's a price of freedom, but one that with a sensible and progressive foreign policy we can attenuate.
All of the Founding Fathers knew that a free society is inconvenient for our leaders. It makes it a little harder to govern a nation that is free to say and do what they want as long as it doesn't step on the toes of others. It's one of the reasons Jefferson, Washington and others maintained that we've got to keep religion out of the government, because religion proposes easy answers, shortcuts if you will, to get people to behave a certain way.
But the Great Men of the Enlightenment knew that the price of being unwilling to do the hard work of Liberty is darkness for all mankind.
There was a time that America's willingness to work at staying free was a beacon to the world. It provided encouragement to young men and women who lived in Totalitarian societies and kept a flame of hope alive for those who suffered under tyrants. The desire of lazy leaders to skip over the inconveniencies of things like warrants, habeas corpus and free speech, along with the notion that the natural resources of the world are ours to command, have turned us into the object of hatred instead of the hope of the world, which is the natural place of a free people.
You are welcome on my lawn.
> Newt's not elected to anything, though he is talking about a 2008 presidential run.
Which is what this attack piece is all about, a preemptive strike to make Newt radioactive again and prevent him tossing his hat into the ring. I'm sure within a day the full text will appear and make a lot more sense. I'm also certain it won't receive a tenth the exposure this hit job gets.
Newt isn't some Bob (Klansman) Byrd fossil who doesn't understand what the net is.
Democrat delenda est
Sorry to say folks, but the ideals that created America were pure and just, and they have run their course.
What I mean by this is not that we should give up on those ideals, rather, they simply won't work any more in the land mass and 300 Million strong group of people we now call the U.S.A. The ideals need to be there even more than ever before.
In fact, we need to restart, and re-assert with utmost clarity the freedoms that allow humanity to flourish. We need to have another continental congress (of sorts) and begin the process of building smaller groups that support human freedoms from the tyranny that Newt represents.
Statements like those by Newt are sad by not unexpected. Rome failed too, and so will the USA, for similar reasons. In Newt's world, he CAN NOT SEE how people can be truly free and actually realize the real freedoms encoded in the constitution while simultaneously maintaining the system of controls needed for the USA to function the way it does now.
The challenge is different now than it was in the mid 1770s. People have lots more guns, a lot less land to move into, a more technology for those in power to maintain control. Yet - it has to happen, and it will, even if only virtually. People need to reassert the freedoms that we agree upon, and structure the society we live in to maintain those freedoms.
The USA no longer does.
I don't see any Democrats stepping up to repeal the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. act. I don't see them stepping up to reduce the abuses of the executive branch. They won't, because they can't. Pelosi will block impeachment. Dems benefit from more powerful government as most of them are career politicos just like the Republicans. The USA version of Left/Right in politics is a false dichotomy supported for power by the right and unable to be opened/changed by the dis-united left.
Actually, one could view the Bill of Rights as our own "Tough Guy Manifesto", thus:
1) You can't tell me what to believe, or make me go home and shut up.
2) I'll go armed and defend myself, thank you.
3) You can't make me let someone else live in my house.
4) This is MY house; if you can't demonstrate a compelling need to snoop, stay the fuck out.
5) This is MY shit; keep your greedy hands off it. And don't go accusing me of Evil without evidence.
6) If you've got evidence, lay it on the table. And no fair getting a confession by pitchforking me in the ass.
7) I ain't guilty just on YOUR say-so.
8) You can't keep me in jail just because you want to.
9) As to the rest of my life, you can't tell me what to do or not do.
10) And neither can your big fat uncle in Washington.
Yeah, the Founding Fathers framed it in far more polite language, but the intent is the same. They understood standing up for yourself and not letting the gov't push you around -- your own or anyone else's. That was, after all, what the War for Independence was all about.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
No. It pissed everyone off because:
1. It was done out of spite and stubornness. Things don't get that bad without a complete failure of compromise and statemenship.
2. It should people just how much they depended on the government.
People get pissed when things don't work. Not when everything is going fine. And in the end, Gingrich's stunt backfired. His, and the rest of GOP's, popular support fell like a rock, and he ended up getting nothing more than what was originally offered. It was a spectacular failure, and led to him being him being voted in several polls "the most hated man in politics."
How on Dog's Blue/Green Earth did this get modded Insightful?
We need to get ahead of the curve before we actually lose a city, which I think could happen in the next decade
That is Grade A Fearmongering.
Lose a city? Really? How would that supposed threat be worse now as opposed to 10 years ago? Same boogeymen were around 10 years ago, same tools were available. Why is it urgent now?
The systematic abuse of this tactic over the last 6+ years to centralize power and isolate/marginalize any meaningful discussion or disagreement should be a felony crime.
It is the equivalent of yelling "Fire!" in a crowded room. A non-credible statement designed and distributed to keep the citizens in a state of fear and heightened paranoia.
Please, consider the fearmongering more objectively.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Several points: I have read the transcipt. Newt never said that free speech should be curtailed. Indeed, he said it should be expanded. But what's accuracy between a few friends? It should be pointed that the few attempts at LEGISLATION that would curtail free speech was sponsored by Democrats. It is also worth noting that the PMRC was the brainchild of Tipper Gore and that the panel was packed with Democrats. The two Repulicans on the panel, not any of the Democrats, were the ones who called the opponents of free speech restrictions as witnesses. A lot of folks forget that it was Edwin Meese, the Attorney General at the time and a Republican, wrote a legal opinion opposing the proposed PMRC legislation. He said parents were the bets people to decide whether children should be listening to Frank Zappa or whomever. Next, people like to whine about the suspension of habeas corpus and about warrantless searches, like George Bush invented these things or in responsible for them. Suspension of habeas corpus for prisoners of war has been the standard for nearly 65 years in the United States. In fact, President Lincoln utilized it during wartime. Also, before moving forward on it, President Bush consulted congress, or as I like to call them elected representatives of the people, and had its full support, included the democrats. Meanwhile, there is a legal standard for searches without warrants. Indeed, it's provided for in the U.S. Constitution, and the Bush administration followed the standard required by the court.
However, we do know from past experiences that Newt Gingrich doesn't believe in Free Speech. He spearheaded and passed the Telecommunications Decency Act of 1994 if you recall, which made it a federal crime punishable by prison and a $200,000 fine to transmit anything offensive over an electronic medium.
When interviewed he openly stated that he knew it was unconstitutional, and that he didn't believe in free speech.
The law was stricken, not for being unconstitutional, but for being unenforcible.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
In innumerable battles, soldiers of the United States of America went forth with a high degree of certainty that they would die. But they went forward in the belief that they would protect our liberties.
Yet today, with the incredibly remote threat that we might be harmed, we gladly offer these same liberties up for sacrifice at the altar.
*sigh*
More to the point, we already lost a city this decade - New Orleans. It wasn't lost to some surprise terrorist attack noone foresaw, either. Talk about being behind the curve.
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
Since when is Newt and his fascist, crooked friends "America?"
... and yet how much security did they provide?
Every time we talk about Corrupt leaders, THEY talk about "hate speach" and terrorist propaganda.
This from a group, that didn't conduct an investigation into actual suspects and money trails... and has yet to make a credible arrest. So where is the "protection?"
The Democrats had to force them to start taking port security seriously... and then the Republicans went ahead and sold the ports to Dubai when nobody was looking. Remember Dubai of the UAE? BCCI? How is allowing our port security to be run by the same government that launders terrorist money "sercurity".
It seems that when Newt is saying "terrorist recruiting" what he means is "NeoCon Opposition speech." All the "sky is falling" chicken littles fail to realize that the widespread NSA wiretaps started BEFORE 9/11
So while Grandma gets swiped and probed for bombs, we have little port security, where we have millions of tons of cargo that could contain something a lot bigger than a shoe bomb arrives every day.
Oh, and this same group, which is riddled with War Profiteers, Incompetent Chicken-Hawk war mongers, and people of questionable loyalty (just look at how many get money from foreign nationals or are compromised by NeoCons who know who they've slept with), also sold 7 military industrial plants to Dubai. So you now have the UAE making weapons on our soil, with some of our technology.
Does that make you feel safe? Or are we going to scan every web page for suspect comments -- just incase it has some info from Bin Laden. Look, if I were interested in doing something wrong, and sending a message to someone else, I could send them a picture with the data encoded, and only they would have the origina picture without the data. It's a simple technique but impossible to thwart. So -- the only possilbe use for controlling the internet to get "bad guys" is to control the internet. The only possible use for a database of all my purchases, is to have a database of all my purchases to sell to PR agencies, marketing companies, and election promoters -- because Al Qaeda is going to use cash.
No, Newt is just a corporate shill. And America attacked two countries for oil and genocide, who had nothing to do with 9/11. Please note, that none of the hijackers were from either country. There are no credible NeoCon leaders, and they have never shown any ability other than to get elected and steal our tax dollars for private gain.
>>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
Because they know how to manipulate "the people." The recipe is hundreds of years old. Nazi war criminal Hermann Göring summed it up very nicely.
From Snopes, http://www.snopes.com/quotes/goering.htm
"Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."
-- Herman Göring at the Nuremberg trials
Let's recap: 1) We're under attack by Terrorists. 2) America hating Cut-and-Run Democrats will harm the nation. It's the same chapter from the same playbook the Nazi's used.
This is a boring sig
Stick with your instinct. I very highly doubt that the terrorists are even looking through our libraries for this type of knowledge, because it is so widely and vastly known at this point. The point you start purging libraries and telling people what they can and can't say due to what terrorists could possibly learn is the moment you begin sliding down the hill toward complete information control. Controlling speech does not make us safer, as we don't have a monopoly on information. The same type of information would be available at large from other sources.
People pretend as if the terrorists are using our own information against us, or as if they are very sophisticated and rely upon things they'd like to restrict. The truth is that the terrorists took out 3,000 people with a few pilot lessons and a couple boxcutters, and their bombs mostly consist of garbage bin fertilizer recipes. The key to stopping these people isn't in clamping down on information that they probably won't even use to stop their largely unsophisticated (at least in technological terms) attacks. One of the keys to winning the war on terror is to stop being so afraid.
Judges and senates have been bought for gold; Esteem and love were never to be sold.
They have never really thought of the United States as a politically free people; the US is simply our team, and we will do whatever we need to in order to win. They are sadistic, and get off on the idea of torture, war, etc. They've never served, but they have adolescent fantasies of blowing shit up and killing bad guys.
blah blah blah Newt's a fascist blah blah doesn't understand our constitution blah rights blah blah stupid blah blah blah freedom blah blah
OK great. We've all totally GOT IT that freedom of speech is a critical and inalienable HUMAN (ie applies to all, not just US citizens) right.
Then again...
It's pretty frikken' easy to stand at the sidelines and lob criticism at policymakers. After all, you're just some wanker on an anonymous login, YOU'LL never be tasked with the responsibility of actually making policy, right?
So, if you can spare a moment between breathless rants about how sacrosanct our rights are, please, let us all in on YOUR secret plan to neutralize a fundamentalist religious creed (Wahabism) that
- believes women are chattel, homosexuals should be killed, etc.
- believes that the Koran is the only source of any worthwhile laws
- will cheerfully kill you because you disagree
How do YOU stop someone sitting next to you whose beliefs are not only inimical to yours, but he WANTS to kill you? Do you 'tolerate' him until he (hopefully) goes away? What about when he starts grabbing the local kids off the playground and starts explaining to them how wonderful his creed of hate is, blaming you for everything wrong that's ever happened to him, and telling them that if they kill you they will be rewarded, even if they die doing it?
And don't say "education" or "poverty" in your answer, as the 9/11 hijackers were all well educated and came from (at least) comfortably middle-class backgrounds.
I can't wait to see how many THOUSANDS of +5 insightful responses we get in here, since so MANY people are so instantly ready to criticize, they MUST have solutions themselves, right? Otherwise they are just typical internet windbag hypocrites.
-Styopa
Republicans who don't believe in the value of oversight, good government, and social supports have done a great job illustrating what NO GOVERNMENT looks like.
Look at the Katrina disaster; FEMA outsourced all their equipment to the former head of FEMA... which is no big deal, since they didn't seem to think FEMA was much more than a check machine for Florida hurricanes. So the fat government deal given to the former head of FEMA, get's outsourced to other companies... because he doesn't do the work, just gets the profits. Unfortuneatly, this great experiment in "outsourced" government, went awry when an actual disaster occured. No buses were available. We all know about the smoke-screen cover arguing about how New Orleans was too corrupt or lazy to save themselves -- but the actual fact was that buses were planned and ordered but never arrived.
What was FEMA thinking, when they stopped 400 fanboat rescue volunteers from Florida? Either it was CYA or there was an interest in getting rid of troublesome New Orleans squatters... but if you assume that it was merely incompetence, we come to the other failure in government; Jobs. Haliburton was contracted, in a no bid deal, to fix up a lot of homes. They've outsourced that job to "guest workers" from Mexico while still retaining huge sums to do the work. So, in order to save Americans from the burdens of Socialist projects that use citizens for public works, we spend more to get less, and keep more citizens too impoverished to better themselves.
I'm sick of the mentality that accepts 100% corporate control or it's Communism. Our drug companies make huge profits on drugs our government subsidized to research... but above on beyond the argument that "profits=progress" why is it every woman in this country must spend about $35 a month for birth control? Wouldn't it make sense, that the government research this basic need, and provide it for free or perhaps a $1 month? Where did the Public Good, change to "someone needs to profit?" There is no inherent right to profit or even existence for corporations -- yet that's how our government now acts.
They spent $13 Billion subsidizing big oil, which has made record profits. $13 Billion could provide a lot of school lunches and books, or healthcare for every kid in this country. $13 Billion is apparently, chicken feed, when we urgently need it for 6 weeks of the Iraq war... but too much when actually helping Americans who didn't "work" for it.
Well that's crap -- what people earn or "work for" is an arbitrary value. One Oil CEO getting a Billion $ a year, or a minimum wage worker making $12,000 a year is an arbitrary value. It's just a lot of corporate-BS in people's heads that has them convinced that somehow these values reflect any true value of the person working. IF so, then CEO's would get paid less, or perhaps outsourced to INDIA. I'm sure I could lose GE money for a lot less than their current CEO -- I could perhaps even make them a profit.
If we allow everything to be driven by what corporations want, then no bar will go too low. As soon as Burger King hires "guest workers", McDonalds will have to fire their workers and do the same.
So Newt shutting down the government, would have had greater effects the longer it lasted. And we've seen how important Congressional oversight can be -- with the lack of it these last 6 years and a total failure in government.
We have an EPA that protect polluters. While the level of Mercury in pregnant women has doubled.
We have an FDA that protects bad drugs on behalf of drug companies.
Our government has been stood on its head... and the repercussions of that are just beginning to be felt. We will have a generation of poorly educated test-takers, who have developed asthma, diabetes and Autism in epidemic numbers. Eating all manner of modified foods, breathing adulterated air in some grand experiment. The solution will not be for everyone to be an expert in health, and to test their own foods, and teach their own kids -- this is
>>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
Freedom of speech is one of the core principles upon which this country is founded, and in this post 9-11/Internet/Pentagon Papers/McCarthyism/American Century era, a re-examination of those principles is perhaps exactly what this country needs. Let us examine such highfalutin ideals like freedom of speech, expression, religion, and the press that our founding fathers saw fit to make the foundation of jurisprudence in this country in light of enemies who really DO hate freedom. How much do we want to become like our enemies in order to be safe from them? Do we need to become like them at all? Is it possible to survive as a nation clinging to principles that are two centuries old? Is it possible for us to survive if we forsake them?
It's definitely time to have this conversation, because we have already given up so much in the name of making ourselves more secure. And while we're at it, let's have this conversation with the Republican party, which is purportedly in favor of tax cuts, smaller government involvement in daily lives, greater personal freedom, and greater personal responsibility. While we're asking the American people if we want to go so horribly wrong, let us ask the Republicans how they have gone so far astray from the core values of the Party of Lincoln.
Gingrich is the same kind of politician that asserted that waging war on Iraq would make us safer, when, in fact, it has done the opposite. And now, he is making similarly wild assertions about how restricting free speech would make us safer.
The problem here is not any difficulty of dealing with terrorism, the problem is that Gingrich and politicians like him are completely and utterly incompetent.
Tragic as it is, an instance of 3000 deaths does not warrant throwing away our democracy or spending billions of dollars on ill-conceived wars; we have tens of thousands of preventable deaths from the flu and from traffic accidents each every year.
And maybe Gingrich didn't notice, but we did lose a city recently. That loss would have been completely preventable if people like Gingrich had done their job. And it would have been preventable at a fraction of the cost of the current anti-terrorism measures and without destroying our democracy.