Correspondence

...THE WEEKLY STANDARD welcomes letters to the editor...

...THOMAS G. MITCHELL Madison, Wisc...

...In the mid-1990s, associates of Colombian drug dealers were using shopping mall phone kiosks and telephone cards to make business calls...

...Correspondence NOT ALWAYS SO BLUNT FRED BARNES's profile of Missouri governor Matt Blunt was intriguing, but Barnes makes a common error when he claims that Blunt supports a planned initiative to "allow stem cell research in Missouri" ("Taking a Blunt Approach," May 22...

...How a program is characterized matters greatly, especially in a soundbite age...

...You may also fax letters: (202) 293-4901 or email: editor@weeklystandard.com...

...The author of that opinion was Justice Harry Blackmun, who—according to critics of the NSA program—should have known a thing or two about privacy...

...The DEA could not obtain a warrant to listen because it could not identify exactly which phone would be used...

...IT IS AMUSING to note how docilely we submit to the IRS every possible bit of financial information that we have, while we descend into hysterics over "data mining" for purposes of national security...

...The prospects for the bill to become law were good until the FBI characterized the proposal as authorizing "roving wiretaps...

...THEY HAVE YOUR NUMBER I WOULD LIKE TO OFFER two additional points to Heather Mac Donald's excellent "Information Please" (May 22...

...This was not an isolated incident—remember the FBI's "Carnivore" Internet search protocol and the DOD "information market" to gauge terrorist attacks supervised by former admiral John Poindexter...

...RAMON V MARTINEZ Coral Gables, Fla...

...Second, public relations matter...

...Actually, the initiative Blunt supports would create a right in Missouri's constitution to engage in human cloning for biomedical research (i.e., somatic cell nuclear transfer...

...Huntersville, N.C...

...PAUL J. LARKIN JR...

...Alexandria, Va...

...I worked with the DEA and staff from both parties to draft a revision to the wiretapping laws to enable the DEA to follow a suspect on whatever phone he used...

...Either we fight with a unified dedication al Qaeda doesn't believe is possible or we pull up the stakes and come home...

...To state the matter accurately, Blunt supports creating human embryos asexually for destruction and use in stem cell research, which is why he has gotten in trouble with Missouri's pro-life community...

...Could it be that another British PM has failed in this respect...

...All letters should be addressed: Correspondence Editor THE WEEKLY STANDARD 1150 17th St., NW, Suite 505 Washington, DC 20036...

...REALLY TIME TO RALLY REGARDING Jeffrey Bell and Frank Cannon's "Bush's Bad Polls" (May 8): If only we could hold on a national scale what we in the South refer to as a "come to Jesus meeting," with every single man, woman, and child, uniformed and civilian, urged to get involved somehow in the war effort...

...The revision ultimately became law in the Patriot Act...

...First, in 1979's Smith v. Maryland, the Supreme Court held that the warrantless disclosure to the government of dialed numbers already known to the phone company did not violate the Fourth Amendment...

...That Blair has so little to show for such an investment of time speaks volumes...

...RICHARD R. PIERCE JR...

...BLAIR'S IRISH BLARE NOTABLY, Gerard Baker's "Tony Blair's Musical Chairs" (May 22) omits any mention of the issue that was reputed to have consumed much of Blair's time as prime minister: Northern Ireland...

...War is hell, and I believe we have spared the insurgents from hell for much too long (besides, the Iranians might take note...

...SCNT is not a synonym for stem cell research, although proponents of human research cloning like Blunt pretend that it is, for political purposes...

...WESLEY J. SMITH Castro Valley, Calif...