The Patriot Act: A Very Bad Deal

The New York Times > Opinion > A Very Bad Deal

The president used the "enemy combatant" rule to jail hundreds of supposed members of Al Qaeda and the Taliban at the military prison in Guantánamo Bay, and would not submit his judgments to public scrutiny until the Supreme Court ordered it. It turns out that the supposedly dangerous terrorists were for the most part neither terrorists nor dangerous. This week, the deputy commander of that military prison said that most of those 550 prisoners had said nothing of value - suggesting that they probably should never have been held - and would be released. "Most of these guys weren't fighting," the officer, Brig. Gen. Martin Lucenti, told The Financial Times. "They were running."

This article does a nice job of listing many of the shocking examples of misjustice perpetrated on the undeserving by the Patriot Act. The above quote is a new one for me. There hasn't been a lot news coverage of the outcome of the investigation in Guantanamo. The only reason I can think of that the Administration would hold people who appear to be guilty of no crimes and not an apparent danger is to extract information. We have heard just how these prisoners have been treated.

The behavior of this Administration is unprecedented and well outside the values we Americans hold dear. The fact that so many people in this Country don't see a problem suggests of at minimum a xenophobic compartmentalization of our values. People associated with terrorists even remotely regardless of passed behavior and especially if they are Muslim are seen as unworthy of basic human rights. At worst, it smacks of racism. This Administration and its reaction to 9/11 has brought out some of the most despicable government sanctioned behavior not seen for many years in this Country.

No wonder America's credibility in the world is at an all time low.


Complete Article

A Very Bad Deal

October 8, 2004



In the days of fear following the 9/11 attacks, Congress

gave the government new powers to track down terrorists.

Most Americans approved, expecting that, at worst, they

were trading minor infringements of civil liberties for

well-planned and well-executed operations that would make

us safer. Instead we got a mounting pile of bungled

operations, ranging from merely inept to scandalously

abusive, and military prisons filled with Afghans, Iraqis

and other Muslims who had committed no real offenses.

Our investigators, sent after dangerous terrorists, came

back with a motley crew of hapless innocents and people who

had said and done stupid things but were hardly a threat to

the nation's security. Some cases were Keystone Kops

capers, like the grounding of a trans-Atlantic flight so

the authorities could nab the former pop singer Cat

Stevens, now a Muslim named Yusuf Islam, who was on the

federal watch list. Others were more serious, like the

terrible miscarriage of justice, reported yesterday in The

Times, by top Justice Department officials in moving

against four Middle Eastern immigrants. Three of them were

convicted and imprisoned - two on terrorism charges - until

the government was forced to repudiate its own case.

Brandon Mayfield, an Oregon lawyer who was imprisoned for

two weeks after the F.B.I. botched a fingerprint match and

accused him of complicity in the Madrid railroad bombings,

is suing to have parts of the Patriot Act overturned. Mr.

Mayfield says federal agents invaded his home secretly,

tapped his phone and seized some of his family's

belongings. His name was among 20 produced by a

computerized fingerprint comparison. He was the only one

arrested, and Mr. Mayfield says he was singled out because

he is a Muslim.

Confidence in the Justice Department's judgment and sense

of proportion has been undermined by the government's

tendency to make a huge deal out of arrests that turn out

to involve unimportant people with bad attitudes but no

ability - or even any apparent will - to do anything

dangerous. In November, a Somali citizen was imprisoned in

Columbus, Ohio, for supposedly talking about blowing up a

shopping mall. There was no evidence of any confederates or

weapons, or even a plot, but people in Ohio were treated to

days of debate about whether it was safe to go shopping

anymore.

The government managed to get six young Arab-Americans from

Lackawanna, N.Y., who had spent time at training camps in

Afghanistan, to plead guilty to terrorism charges and

accept long prison terms last year. But that very thin case

is a far cry from what Mr. Bush advertised in his 2003

State of the Union speech: "We've broken Al Qaeda cells in

Hamburg, Milan, Madrid, London, Paris, as well as Buffalo,

N.Y."

After 9/11 Mr. Bush gave himself the power to declare

anyone, including American citizens, an "enemy combatant"

and then jail such people indefinitely without charges or

due process. The government held Yaser Hamdi, a U.S.

citizen who grew up in Saudi Arabia and was captured in

Afghanistan, in solitary confinement for two years. Without

ever demonstrating that their prisoner had any connection

to terrorism, officials recently offered Mr. Hamdi a chance

to be deported to Saudi Arabia if he stayed there for at

least five years, renounced his citizenship and agreed to

report contacts with potential terrorists. At last word,

the Saudi government was refusing to join this absurd

arrangement.

The president used the "enemy combatant" rule to jail

hundreds of supposed members of Al Qaeda and the Taliban at

the military prison in Guantanamo Bay, and would not submit

his judgments to public scrutiny until the Supreme Court

ordered it. It turns out that the supposedly dangerous

terrorists were for the most part neither terrorists nor

dangerous. This week, the deputy commander of that military

prison said that most of those 550 prisoners had said

nothing of value - suggesting that they probably should

never have been held - and would be released. "Most of

these guys weren't fighting," the officer, Brig. Gen.

Martin Lucenti, told The Financial Times. "They were

running."

Americans are serious about protecting the nation from

terrorist plots. Federal officials say they have made

progress in many important investigations, any one of which

may turn out to be the critical case that prevents deadly

violence. We hope that's true. But our confidence isn't

bolstered by the hyping of unimportant arrests or the abuse

of the rights of people whose only crime appears to be

their religious faith.

We're certain to hear Mr. Bush call many times before Nov.

2 for the Patriot Act to be renewed. Republicans in the

House are trying to add expansions of the act to the

intelligence reform bill. But everything we've learned

since Sept. 11, 2001, shows that this is a time to review,

revise and provide more oversight over the extraordinary

powers of federal authorities, not to expand them.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/08/opinion/08fri1.html?ex=1098258823&ei=1&en=98817a651b21e856



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