Potential advantage in legislative slop
Preventing Surprise Attacks: Intelligence Reform in the Wake of 9/11, by Richard Posner
Posner applies his usual cost-benefit analysis, bringing economic analysis to pragmatic legal application, to the question of whether and how to erect defenses against terrorism. Often times this is an exercise in futility because the expected events are so random and disadvantageous to the attacker, foiling coherent analysis. He then takes on the 9/11 Commission report and in particular the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act. Poking holes in both the commission and conference reports, he argues that the new law is doomed from the start -- but finds some rays of hope in the wiggle room available to the executive branch. In particular, he points out the disadvantages faced by the new intelligence organization, and the fundamental conflicts inherent in the roles assigned to our FBI. He suggests some ways out of the organizational problem, and suggests a British-style MI-5 investigation agency is a more appropriate complement to the law enforcement role of the FBI. Remedies are available to the POTUS owing to the slop in the conference report. Why was this act signed into law with so little scrutiny? Was the Congress and the President really under time pressure from the Public?
Preventing Surprise Attacks
Saturday, September 10, 2005
