Yep, it's troubling

Instapundit links this report that the GWOT depends on unreliable translators because there is no way to do quick background checks to identify those with ties to terrorism or radical Islam, with the comment "That's troubling."

What is more troubling is that the advocates of privacy keep stalling the Patriot Act and opposing giving those we expect to defend us the power to do their jobs. It may make me feel exposed to learn that there is a dossier on me somewhere, but not if all it says is "This guy is not a risk." That's really what a national ID card should do: 1) Be uncounterfeitable and 2) State only whether the person has been identified as a risk. The real objections to intrusions on privacy deal with who has access to the data and how it can be used. Any person should be allowed to see his/her own file, and have a right to correct it. What's troubling to me that the 9/11 terrorists were so easy to trace after they killed 3,000 people but not before, and that we haven't ever really had a discussion of how to fix that problem.