ROBERT SIEGEL, host: John McCain was talking national security of a different sort today. He addressed the National Sheriff's Association in Indianapolis. Senator McCain made several pledges, including one to build what he called a national interoperable public safety broadband network. That, he said, would help law-enforcement agencies across the country communicate with each other.</s>MICHELE NORRIS, host: McCain also reminded his crowd that the next president will appoint countless federal judges, from the Supreme Court on down, and that the stakes are high.</s>Senator JOHN McCAIN (Republican, Arizona; Republican Presidential Candidate): When a serious crime is investigated, prosecuted and punished, it takes many hours and the best efforts of police, trial courts and juries. Yet one badly reasoned opinion by one overreaching judge can undo it all, just like that.</s>MICHELE NORRIS, host: Soon after that speech, Senator McCain hopped on a plane to Colombia - the country, not the university in New York. More on his foreign travel and Barack Obama's coming up later this hour.
John McCain has said Barack Obama's Supreme Court nominees would make decisions like the one that struck down a Louisiana law allowing capital punishment for people who rape children under 12. He was speaking to the National Sheriff's Association.