At last nights "BayFF" public meeting on pending anti-terrorist legislation, John Gilmore made what I felt was a very good point in the Q&A: Who is representing the 500+ people detained in the ongoing Sept. 11 investigation? Even assuming the Feds are being good at picking up people fitting profiles, there are doubtless innocents in the detained group. My understanding is that most are being held as material witnesses, under immigration rules (recently revised), not formally charged with any crime -- and hence not eligible for public defenders. The two panelists representing general civil rights causes, Robert Rubin (Legal Director, Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights of the SF Bay Area) and Ann Brick (Staff Attourney, ACLU of Northern California) were disturbingly uninformed on the issue, Ann's comment was "nobody's contacted us" (well, um, yes...). As the names of the detainees haven't been released (this might compromise the investigation), yet the detainees may not have access to council, this seems to be, as one audience member commented, a catch-22. Press coverage on this topic is sparse at best. I've found one Yahoo story dating from Oct 2 which claims the detainees "were permitted to consult a lawyer" and were provided "documents in their native language". http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20011002/pl/attack_detentions_dc_1.html Anyone here have data on the situation? Peace. -- Karsten M. Self <kmself@ix.netcom.com> http://kmself.home.netcom.com/ What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? Home of the brave http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/ Land of the free Free Dmitry! Boycott Adobe! Repeal the DMCA! http://www.freesklyarov.org Geek for Hire http://kmself.home.netcom.com/resume.html [demime 0.97c removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature]