I see the head of the Department of Justice continues not to have a clue what the word "justice" means. The concept that the federal government would monitor such conversations is abominable, as well as unconstitutional. The idea that it would monitor such conversations and then not report what was said to itself is utterly laughable.
There are already over 1,000 people in custody, most of whom the government admits have nothing to do with anything; most of them were arrested for visa infractions that INS wouldn't even have noticed before. Most have lost jobs, homes, access to friends and family, and now they get to have what's left of their rights eviscerated.
And, of course, the fun part will start when those people are, eventually released -- one assumes that eventually, challenges under the rule of habeas corpus will make their way through the system to someone who recognizes that these detentions are unreasonable on their face. (Besides, the utility of holding innocent people for indefinite amounts of time is fairly limited.) They'll be out and about, but the rule will remain. The rule itself, after all, is quite broad; it's not limited to those who whose arrests had something to do with September 11.
Copyright © 2001, Iain Jackson, after-words.org
[Archives: 2001 and after]
Archives before February 5, 2001
Search entries:
12/19/2001: vive la france
12/19/2001: princess, redux
12/19/2001: yemen and rumsfeld
12/18/2001: you're NOT in the army now
12/18/2001: interesting donation
12/18/2001: shame on winn dixie, indeed
12/18/2001: saudi princess
12/17/2001: new resolve
12/17/2001: a victim of the attack ... yeah, right
12/17/2001: polluters ho!