|
CNN - Oct. 15, 2007
Little evidence of jihadists in the U.S.
NEW YORK - October 15, 2007 (CNN) -- Six years of investigations and prosecutions have turned up little evidence of Islamic jihadists at work in the United States, according to a study released today.
The study, conducted by New York University's Center on Law and Security, tracked 510 cases billed as terrorism-related when arrests were made.
But it found only 158 of those people arrested since al Qaeda's September 11, 2001, attacks were prosecuted for terrorism.
In a statement issued this afternoon, the Justice Department said the report "reflects a serious misunderstanding" of anti-terrorism efforts and includes "wildly inaccurate" statistics.
The study found only four people -- including confessed al Qaeda operative Zacarias Moussaoui and "shoe bomber" Richard Reid -- were convicted of planning attacks within the United States.
"The vast majority of cases turn out to include no link to terrorism once they go to court," the report found. The analysis "suggests the presence of few, if any, prevalent terrorist threats currently within the U.S."
The report questioned the usefulness of the anti-terrorist USA Patriot Act, passed after the September 11, 2001, attacks, finding prosecutors relied primarily on previous laws.
"Although we are just beginning to discern the true extent and manner in which the administration has used the sweeping investigative powers granted by the Patriot Act, the record indicates that the criminal law provides an adequate tool set for trying suspected terrorists," the report stated.
In his 2006 State of the Union address President Bush urged Congress to reauthorize the Patriot Act. "We now know that two of the hijackers in the United States placed telephone calls to al Qaeda operatives overseas. But we did not know about their plans until it was too late," Bush said.
"So to prevent another attack --- based on authority given to me by the Constitution and by statute -- I have authorized a terrorist surveillance program to aggressively pursue the international communications of suspected al Qaeda operatives and affiliates to and from America."
Receiving applause, Bush said, "If there are people inside our country who are talking with al Qaeda, we want to know about it, because we will not sit back and wait to be hit again."
The Justice Department disputed the law center's figures in today’s study, saying more than the 62 people who the study cited have been convicted of terrorism-related offenses since the September 11, 2001, attacks.
But the law center said most of those 62 cases involved people planning attacks overseas, not inside the United States.
And looking at possible attacks worldwide, just 7 percent of those arrested in what authorities called terrorism-related cases have been convicted of terrorism charges or providing material support for terrorism, the report said….
In many cases, prosecutors used criminal conspiracy charges to obtain convictions against suspects like Jose Padilla, the accused al Qaeda operative found guilty in August of plotting to support overseas terrorism.
The Bush administration jailed Padilla without charges for nearly four years on allegations that he planned to set off a radioactive "dirty bomb" in the United States, but eventually tried him on unrelated charges.
The report praised what it called the increased effectiveness of the FBI, which it credited with breaking up plots to bomb fuel pipelines at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport and attack an Army post at Fort Dix, New Jersey.
But it questioned the use of what it called "preventive arrests" by federal agents to disrupt plots rather than let agents continue watching suspects and gathering more evidence.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/10/15/terror.study/index.html
USA Today – October 23, 2007
Terror watch list swells to more than 755,000
By Mimi Hall
WASHINGTON — The government's terrorist watch list has swelled to more than 755,000 names, according to a new government report that has raised worries about the list's effectiveness.
The size of the list, typically used to check people entering the country through land border crossings, airports and sea ports, has been growing by 200,000 names a year since 2004. Some lawmakers, security experts and civil rights advocates warn that it will become useless if it includes too many people.
"It undermines the authority of the list," says Lisa Graves of the Center for National Security Studies. "There's just no rational, reasonable estimate that there's anywhere close to that many suspected terrorists."
The exact number of people on the list, compiled after 9/11 to help government agents keep terrorists out of the country, is unclear, according to the report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO). Some people may be on the list more than once because they are listed under multiple spellings.
Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., who plans a hearing on the report today, says "serious hurdles remain if (the list) is to be as effective as we need it to be. Some of the concerns stem from its rapid growth, which could call into question the quality of the list itself."
About 53,000 people on the list were questioned since 2004, according to the GAO, which says the Homeland Security Department doesn't keep records on how many were denied entry or allowed into the country after questioning. Most were apparently released and allowed to enter, the GAO says.
Leonard Boyle, director of the FBI's Terrorist Screening Center, which maintains the list, says in testimony to be given today that 269 foreigners were denied entry in fiscal 2006.
The GAO report also says:
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) could not specify how many people on its no-fly list, which is a small subset of the watch list, might have slipped through screening and been allowed on domestic flights.
TSA data show "a number of individuals" on the no-fly list passed undetected through screening and boarded international flights bound for the United States. Several planes have been diverted once officials realized that people named on the watch lists were on board.
Homeland Security has not done enough to use the list more broadly in the private sector, where workers applying for jobs in sensitive places such as chemical factories could do harm………
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-10-23-Watchlist_N.htm
BBC – October 29, 2007
British Muslim Minister detained at US airport
Britain's first Muslim minister, Shahid Malik, says he is "deeply disappointed" that he was detained by airport security officials in America.
The international development minister was stopped and searched at Washington DC's Dulles airport after a series of meetings on tackling terrorism. Mr Malik, MP for Dewsbury, West Yorks, had his hand luggage checked for explosives when returning to Heathrow (yesterday).
He said the same thing happened to him at JFK airport in New York last year. On that occasion he had been a keynote speaker at an event organised by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), alongside the FBI and Muslim organisations, to talk about tackling extremism and defeating terrorism.
Mr Malik said he had received numerous apologies and assurances from the US authorities after that incident. But he was again searched and detained by DHS officials on Sunday (October 28, 2007).
Mr Malik said two other Muslims were also detained.
"I am deeply disappointed," he said.
"The abusive attitude I endured last November I forgot about and I forgave, but I really do believe that British ministers and parliamentarians should be afforded the same respect and dignity at USA airports that we would bestow upon our colleagues in the Senate and Congress.
"Obviously, there was no malice involved but it has to be said that the USA system does not inspire confidence."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/england/west_yorkshire/7066944.stm
BBC – October 19, 2007
US lawmakers' apology to Maher Arar
Members of Congress have apologized to a Canadian who was seized in New York in 2002 by US officials and sent to Syria, where he says he was tortured.
Syrian-born Maher Arar told a congressional hearing his 10 months in a Syrian jail had been "hell". Mr Arar appeared by video link from Canada because he remains on a US government watch list.
A Canadian government inquiry cleared him of any involvement in terrorism. Syria denies that he was tortured.
Mr Arar appeared on a giant screen before a joint hearing of House of Representatives committees into "extraordinary rendition".
This term refers to a highly secretive process by which US intelligence agencies send terror suspects for interrogation by security officials in other countries, where they have no legal protection or rights under US law.
Mr Arar described being detained by US homeland security agents at New York's JFK airport and of later being sent by private jet to Syria, where he spent 10 months in a prison cell he described as a grave.
"I was beaten with an electrical cable and threatened with a metal chair, the tyre and electric shocks. I was forced to falsely confess that I had been to Afghanistan," he said.
"When I was not being beaten I was put in a waiting room so that I could hear the screams of other prisoners. The cries of the women still haunt me the most."
Mr Arar was later released without charge.
Among those offering their apologies at the hearing was Congressman Jerrold Nadler from New York.
"On behalf of my fellow citizens I want to apologise to you, Mr Arar, for the reprehensible conduct of our government for kidnapping you, for turning you over to Syria - a nation that our own state department recognises as routinely practising torture. This conduct does not reflect the values of the American people," he said.
Rep Dana Rohrabacher also apologised, saying the US should be ashamed of what happened to Mr Arar.
But, he said, "that is no excuse to end a programme which has protected the lives of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Americans... We are at war. Mistakes happen. People die".
The Canadian government has formally apologised to Mr Arar and offered him compensation amounting to more than $10 million………
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/7052155.stm
IPS News - October 29, 2007
Rumsfeld Flees France, Fearing Arrest
Former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld fled France today fearing arrest over charges of "ordering and authorizing" torture of detainees at both the American-run Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and the U.S. military's detainment facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, unconfirmed reports coming from Paris suggest.
U.S. embassy officials whisked Rumsfeld away yesterday from a breakfast meeting in Paris organized by the Foreign Policy magazine after human rights groups filed a criminal complaint against the man who spearheaded President George W. Bush's "war on terror" for six years.
Under international law, authorities in France are obliged to open an investigation when a complaint is made while the alleged torturer is on French soil.
According to activists in France, who greeted Rumsfeld, shouting "murderer" and "war criminal" at the breakfast meeting venue, U.S. embassy officials remained tight-lipped about the former defense secretary's whereabouts citing "security reasons".
Anti-torture protesters in France believe that the defense secretary fled over the open border to Germany, where a war crimes case against Rumsfeld was dismissed by a federal court. But activists point out that under the Schengen agreement that ended border checkpoints across a large part of the European Union, French law enforcement agents are allowed to cross the border into Germany in pursuit of a fleeing fugitive.
"Rumsfeld must be feeling how Saddam Hussein felt when U.S. forces were hunting him down," activist Tanguy Richard said. "He may never end up being hanged like his old friend, but he must learn that in the civilized world, war crime doesn't pay."
International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) along with the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), and the French League for Human Rights (LDH) filed the complaint on Thursday after learning that Rumsfeld was scheduled to visit Paris.
http://www.alternet.org/story/66425/
Associated Press - Oct 14, 2007
Detentions top topic for Attorney General pick
By LARA JAKES JORDAN
As the chief federal trial judge in Manhattan, Michael Mukasey approved secret warrants allowing government roundups of Muslims in the days after the Sept. 11 attacks. Six years later, the man President Bush wants to be attorney general acknowledged that the law authorizing those warrants "has its perils" in terrorism cases and urged Congress to "fix a strained and mismatched legal system."
Mukasey's caution about the material witness law probably will please Democrats who control the Senate Judiciary Committee. At confirmation hearings set to begin Wednesday, they plan to press the retired federal judge about the Bush administration's terrorist detention policy.
The committee chairman, Sen. Patrick Leahy, long has criticized the government's use of the warrants. They allowed the FBI to detain, without charges, an estimated 70 people, all but one of whom was a Muslim, as witnesses after the terrorist attacks in 2001.
Leahy, D-Vt., is expected to question Mukasey about this and other issues the senator has described as arising "from this administration's abuse of secrecy and expansion of executive power."
A fellow Democrat on the committee, New York Sen. Charles E. Schumer, said he supports Mukasey but disagrees with some of his positions on terrorist detentions.
"We may have some disagreement on what that structure should be. But he will not try to unilaterally expropriate all of the lawmaking to the executive branch. The point is that it's done with open debate, and Congress has to pass it," Schumer said Friday.
Congress authorized material witness warrants in 1984 to allow the temporary detention of witnesses who might flee before being called to testify to a grand jury or at trial. The warrants are signed by a judge in secret; the public is barred from court hearings about the people targeted by the warrants.
Critics have said the administration has used the law to detain suspected terrorists when the government lacked sufficient criminal evidence to hold them. The administration has tried to deflect criticism by pointing out that judges must sign the warrants.
"Material witness warrants are really short-lived," former federal prosecutor David N. Kelley said. "You give your information and the government is either going to have you testify and let you go, or if there is another crime, you're going to be charged with that. People who are held as witnesses are witnesses because they were involved or connected with the conduct."
Mukasey was the chief judge in the federal courthouse just blocks from ground zero. He presided over several hearings — the Justice Department will not say how many — for men detained as material witnesses, but not initially charged with a crime.
He criticized a fellow U.S. District Court judge in Manhattan who ruled that warrants issued in the post-Sept. 11 roundup was an illegitimate use of the law. Mukasey issued a ruling upholding the warrants as constitutional.
But the case of Jose Padilla, branded by authorities at first as an important al-Qaida operative who planned to detonate a radioactive "dirty bomb" in a U.S. city, eventually gave Mukasey pause.
In May 2002, Mukasey approved Padilla's arrest on a material witness warrant as part of the government's investigation of al-Qaida. But when Padilla, a U.S. citizen, was convicted more than five years later of murder conspiracy, the allegations that he was a key al-Qaida operative never made it to court.
The outcome led Mukasey to say that the current legal system is not well-equipped to aid a largely military effort to fight terrorists.
"The material witness statute has its perils," Mukasey wrote in the Aug. 22 editions of The Wall Street Journal.
He added: "Perhaps the world's greatest deliberative body (the Senate) and the people's house (the House of Representatives) could, while we still have the leisure, turn their considerable talents to deliberating how to fix a strained and mismatched legal system, before another cataclysm calls forth from the people demands for hastier and harsher results."
Mukasey's views on material witness warrants probably will be used as a starting point for senators seeking clues on how he will address the Justice Department's defense of detaining suspected terrorists without charging them.
"Is he going to take steps to make sure that we don't have another roundup like that?" said Chris Anderson, legislative counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union.
The ACLU and Human Rights Watch in 2005 reported that only 28 of at least 70 suspected terrorists held on material witness warrants were ever charged with a crime and most of those charges were unrelated to terrorism.
The report found that one-third of those held on the warrants were detained for at least two months before they were charged or released.
The issue could give senators an opening to press Mukasey on what legal rights would be extended to suspected terrorists if they are moved into U.S. prisons from the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Only a few of the detainees held there for years have been charged with a crime. But they would have stronger legal footing to challenge their detention if they are relocated into the United States.
"It's an important question — it goes to the heart of the Constitution and American values," Anderson said. "The United States does not have a tradition of holding people indefinitely without charges."
Mukasey enters his confirmation hearings with a reputation as a judge who was tough on defendants in terrorism cases, but fair.
"He is definitely a law-and-order person. There are times when he has sided with the government, but there have been times he's ruled against the government," said defense lawyer Andrew G. Patel, who represented Padilla. "I may not agree with how he ultimately comes out on an issue, but always find that his method of arriving at that decision is intellectually honest."
Patel declined to address the details of Padilla's case.
Kelley, the former prosecutor, helped run the government's investigation of the Sept. 11 attacks. He said Mukasey signed off on warrants only after deciding that prosecutors made a good case for them.
Kelley also said he could not remember any lawyers representing the people being held who demanded the immediate release of their clients.
He added: "To say the judge was signing off pro forma is unfair and terribly misleading. The government was doing its job of meeting its standard."
http://www.cair.com/ArticleDetails.aspx?mid1=676&&ArticleID=23423&&name=n&&currPage=1
The Age Australia - October 22, 2007
US Muslims 'fear mass internment'
Barney Zwartz
American Muslims fear that if there is another terrorist attack in the United States the whole Muslim population will be interned.
Many Muslims had made plans to send their families to havens overseas immediately after any terrorist strike, said visiting academic Al-Husein Madhani, who teaches at Georgetown University in Washington and is executive editor of Islamica magazine.
America was at the crossroads, Mr Madhani said, and if there was no attack within a few years, mainstream society might accept Muslims as Americans — a process being aided by a new TV comedy with a Muslim hero.
"Aliens in America, the first sitcom to have a sympathetic Muslim main character, can make Muslims seem as human and harmless as Will and Grace did for gays and Murphy Brown did for single mothers," said Mr Madhani, who will speak at a counter-terrorism conference at Monash University this week.
He said polls showed that Islamophobia in the US was higher than ever, worse than after September 11, 2001. Some commentators were calling for all American Muslims to be interned in camps if there was another attack, as happened to Japanese Americans during World War II.
"When people say things like that in a time like ours, American Muslims fear that perhaps it's not so far-fetched. This anxiety is widespread," Mr Madhani said.
Popular culture, such as TV comedy, could decisively affect how Americans viewed Muslims and how Muslims viewed themselves, he said.
He said his magazine, based in Jordan and America, aimed to encourage intelligent debate in Islam that was also open to non-Muslims. Islamica had an important role in counter-terrorism, he said……………
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/us-muslims-fear-mass-internment/2007/10/21/1192940903809.html
|
