One problem I have with all of this is the time, effort and money that the Justice Department, CIA, Secret Service, and who knows who else, are spending on these kinds of "victories" against terrorism. If they can't find real villains, they need a different plan rather than continued intimidation and removal of our constitutional rights.

ACT NOW

by Peter Rothberg

Detained Without Charge

04/13/2005 @ 4:47pm

The Nation

Several weeks ago, two 16 year-old Muslim girls, one from Bangladesh and the other from Guinea, were arrested in New York City on the specious grounds that they were potential suicide bombers. Neither of the girls has been formally charged with any crime, but both have been detained indefinitely in facilities far away from their homes and families.

As Ari Berman reported yesterday, few details about the arrests have been released. What we do know, however, suggests that the charges could well be completely unfounded.

While both of the girls are in the United States illegally, both have also lived here for most of their lives. The lead editorial in yesterday's New York Times reveals that investigator's suspicions are curiously based on an essay written by one of the girls in her high school--an essay arguing that suicide is a violation of Islamic law. And while investigators maintain that the two suspects are friends who attended the same radical Mosque where they plotted together, their families say that they never even met before their arrests. [...] Read more at http://www.thenation.com/blogs/actnow?bid=4&pid=2322 or http://tinyurl.com/antu4 Some of Fiore 's stuff is so true it is almost not funny -- but he can't be missed: http://sfgate.com/columnists/fiore/


© Virginia Metze