Stalking the wild Gamma Particle

Hat tip to Maggie's Farm for this link to Right Wing Nuthouse and their excellent post on the outcry over radiation surveillance of Muslim properties in the USA:

The Warrentless Geiger Counter
I�m having a very difficult time this morning maintaining my composure. Well, let me put it this way � a harder time than normal. The reason is this latest kerfluffle over pointing scientific instruments at the homes and businesses of Muslim Americans in order to see if someone may be harboring nuclear material that could or could not be a nuclear weapon. The joint task force made up of FBI and Department of Energy �NEST� teams conducted the monitoring without first getting a warrant:

In search of a terrorist nuclear bomb, the federal government since 9/11 has run a far-reaching, top secret program to monitor radiation levels at over a hundred Muslim sites in the Washington, D.C., area, including mosques, homes, businesses, and warehouses, plus similar sites in at least five other cities, U.S. News has learned. In numerous cases, the monitoring required investigators to go on to the property under surveillance, although no search warrants or court orders were ever obtained, according to those with knowledge of the program. Some participants were threatened with loss of their jobs when they questioned the legality of the operation, according to these accounts.
Federal officials familiar with the program maintain that warrants are unneeded for the kind of radiation sampling the operation entails, but some legal scholars disagree.

I will take a back seat to no one in my support for the Bill of Rights � ALL TEN OF THEM. Liberals usually like to stop at about #8. After all, the 9th and 10th Amendments limit the power of the federal government vis a vis the states and the people which is a total anathema to your average lefty. Come to think of it, liberals aren�t very supportive of the 2nd amendment and even several parts of the 1st � like freedom OF religion. In fact, looking at a liberal�s translation of the Constitution, it would probably appear very similar to one of those documents requested of the CIA under the FOIA; so much of it would be blacked out that about all you�d be able to read is the page number.

That said, what has me breathing fire this morning is the idea that, in order to prevent the greatest of catastrophes � a nuclear weapon being exploded on American soil � people actually want the government to get a warrant to aim a Geiger counter at someone�s house. This is nuts. This is lunacy. This is as close to suicidal as one can get without actually putting the gun to your head.

Visit Rick's site to read the rest of this excellent rant. He gets into the telephone monitoring "scandal" too...