Senate approves USA Act, sends to Bush, Ashcroft vows "newera"

[Steve Furlong]

"Karsten M. Self" wrote:
> 
> on Thu, Oct 25, 2001 at 02:31:42PM -0400, Declan McCullagh (declan at well.com)
> wrote:
> 
> > >Attorney General John Ashcroft
> > >Prepared Remarks for the US Mayors Conference
> > >October 25, 2001
> 
> <...>
> 
> > >         Within days of the September 11 attacks, we launched this
> > > anti_terrorism offensive to prevent new attacks on our
> > > homeland.  To date, our anti_terrorism offensive has arrested or
> > > detained nearly 1,000 individuals as part of the September 11
> > > terrorism investigation.  Those who violated the law remain in
>                               ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> > > custody.  Taking suspected terrorists in violation of the law off
>     ^^^^^^^^
> > > the streets and keeping them locked up is our clear strategy to
> > > prevent terrorism within our borders.
> 
> Conviction without trial?

Deliberate vagueness on Asscruft's part, I suspect. As I understand it,
most of the Arab-looking men in custody are being held on technical
immigration charges. Thanks to changes in the law a couple of years ago,
immigrants in violation can be held indefinitely without trial or legal
representation, or even deported based on secret evidence. And
immigration laws are like traffic laws: it's virtually impossible to go
through life without an occasional technical violation.

INS's motto: Habeus corpus is for citizens.


-- 
Steve Furlong    Computer Condottiere   Have GNU, Will Travel
  617-670-3793

"Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly
while bad people will find a way around the laws." -- Plato