"Please tell me what effectiveness wiretapping would have had against the Germans. Against the Vietnamese? Against the Koreans?"
None.
>IF< you only consider them, in their country.
By that same token, what use is wiretapping against Osama?
Against any of the countries that protect him?
Against any country that supports terrorism?
"There is no war to compare this against."
Why not? We've lost more US citizens in other wars. This is described as a "war".
"Just comparing it to other large scale conflicts is ludicrous."
Why?
"The fact that you don't see this...or refuse to acknowledge it...is well...your prerogative, I guess."
Just as it is your perogative to fail to see that measures we didn't use before are being advocated now when the threat is less than before.
And that is the truth of the matter.
More US citizens will have been killed in WWI or WWII or Korea or Vietnam than will be killed by terrorists.
Even when we ran the Japanese-Americans off to camps, we didn't pass laws to tap our own people. We never infringed upon the rights of the majority.
Bill says this is only because no one ever hit the continental US (except Japan).
Not that they wouldn't (look at Germany bombing England or any other European country).
But just because they didn't get around to doing it.