On 28 Oct 2001, at 9:39, measl@mfn.org wrote:
NEW YORK(Reuters) -- Among almost 1,000 people being held in the United States in connection with the hijacked-airliner attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon are people who made congratulatory telephone calls minutes later, The New York Times reported in Sunday editions.
...
The newspaper said officials would not say how many people were detained through the telephone intercepts, nor would they discuss evidence that any of them proved to be members of the group organized by bin Laden, Washington's prime suspect in the attacks.
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The obvious questions that come to mind are (1) How is it that the FBI was listening in on the calls of a thousand people at that time,
obviously, they weren't. Some fraction of the 1000 were making "gloating phone calls". How many of them? My guess is three, on the grounds that the FBI is too honest to unscrupulously use the plural if there were only one.
and, (2) with this story in hand, how many of these poor victims will try to assert their [obviously violated] 1st A rights?
They can try to assert whatever they want, but you'll have to spend some time looking for an American judge who won't agree that making congratulatory phone calls right after the attacks provides grounds for reasonable suspicion of involvement, particularly if they were already under surveilance. George
-- Yours, J.A. Terranson sysadmin@mfn.org
If Governments really want us to behave like civilized human beings, they should give serious consideration towards setting a better example: Ruling by force, rather than consensus; the unrestrained application of unjust laws (which the victim-populations were never allowed input on in the first place); the State policy of justice only for the rich and elected; the intentional abuse and occassionally destruction of entire populations merely to distract an already apathetic and numb electorate... This type of demogoguery must surely wipe out the fascist United States as surely as it wiped out the fascist Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
The views expressed here are mine, and NOT those of my employers, associates, or others. Besides, if it *were* the opinion of all of those people, I doubt there would be a problem to bitch about in the first place... --------------------------------------------------------------------