Katherine Kersten, Minneapolis Star-Tribune commentator reports:
Last week, we learned that federal authorities have foiled a plot to kill American soldiers at Fort Dix, N.J. The FBI uncovered the plan after an alert Circuit City clerk passed on suspicious video footage that the alleged conspirators had asked him to transfer onto a DVD.
The clerk’s action was just the kind of citizen vigilance that a new bill before Congress is designed to encourage, and to shield such citizens against intimidation. The bill was inspired by a lawsuit filed in federal District Court in Minneapolis in March by the now famous “Flying Imams.”
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The bill’s sponsors submitted it as an amendment to another bill in March. It passed 304-121. Every House Republican and 105 Democrats voted for the it. Opponents included Minnesota’s Keith Ellison, Betty McCollum and Jim Oberstar.So where is the bill now? It’s stuck in a House-Senate conference committee. Last Friday, however, Sen. Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut Independent, and others introduced a standalone version of the bill, and this week sponsors plan to do the same in the House.
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The stakes here are large. What would have happened at Fort Dix if the store clerk had hesitated to contact authorities because he feared a retaliatory lawsuit? We might be watching funerals on TV.
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J.P Weis, the FBI agent in charge of the case, praised the anonymous clerk. “I want to especially salute the unsung hero who took the initiative to report the video to local authorities,” he said in a news release. Weis continued: “We need to reach the point where everyone is willing to come forward and say to law enforcement, ‘I have seen or heard something that you need to know.’ ”But if Congress refuses to act on the Protecting Americans Fighting Terrorism Act, that point will never come.
“This bill should have sailed through the House and the Senate and been on the president’s desk in a week,” says Kline. “It’s amazing to me that some people still don’t understand the nature of the threat we face.”
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