The Justice Department is asking Congress to expand its anti-terror powers.

Daniel Bryant, assistant attorney general for legal policy... said Congress should change the definition of "material support or resources" to include virtually any "tangible or intangible" money, property or service except medicine or religious materials. The current law includes a finite list of actions that could be criminal, ranging from financial services to provision of safe houses to making false identification.

The Justice Department also wants lawmakers to expand the scope of terrorism acts covered by the law beyond those that terrorists are believed most likely to commit, such as a chemical weapons attack, to include virtually any act of violence or destruction linked to them.

We don't need to give law enforcement more powers. We need to rein them in. We need the Safe Act to correct the flaws in the Patriot Act. We agree with the critics who say:

by TChris

A Justice Department inspector general's report theorizes that Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations are likely "to radicalize and recruit inmates." While the IG acknowledges that the problem of terrorism in prisons isn't widespread, the report contains a classified addendum that purports to contain evidence that "people leading prison prayer sessions — including authorized chaplains, volunteers and inmates — may have ties to terrorist groups."

The IG is relying on information supplied by counterterrorism officials. Keep in mind that counterterrorism officials wrongly accused a Muslim chaplin at Guantánamo Bay of aiding terrorists. The IG's office says that "volunteers leading prayer services had been linked to people who showed up on terrorist watch lists," but the addendum is classified, so there's no way to determine whether the information is reliable or whether the "links" are meaningful.

Prison officials say they'll pay closer attention to the people who lead prayer groups, but they're concerned that they won't recognize a call to jihad if they hear one.

Although some chapel services are videotaped, prison officials admitted that they might not be in a position to detect radical religious messages. "Not a whole lot of folks are in tune with that stuff," said an associate warden quoted in the report.

Maybe the prison officials are sleeping through the sermons.

by TChris

Federal authorities visited the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court 1,727 times during 2003 to ask for secret warrants in terrorism or espionage investigations. All but three requests were at least partially approved; two of those three were approved after the requests were modified.

The warrants authorize electronic interception of communications as well as physical searches. Requests for secret warrants have doubled since 2001, an increase that some find troubling.

Civil liberties advocates maintain that the sharp rise in the government's use of the secret warrants, made easier by the antiterrorism law known as the USA Patriot Act, represents a worrisome trend because the authorities are held to a lower standard of proof in spying on suspects than they are in seeking traditional criminal warrants.

The increased requests are reportedly "overwhelming the ability of the system to process them and to conduct the surveillance."

by TChris

TalkLeft has written (here, here, here) about the dangerous theory the government is pursuing in its prosecution of computer scientist Sami Al-Hussayen for providing "material support" to terrorists in the form of his "expert guidance or assistance." In its opening statement, the government argued that Hussayen had helped maintain a website that "could eventually access 20 other sites with ties to radical organizations."

Jacob Sullum sees the problem:

Talk about guilt by association. Given the interconnected nature of the World Wide Web (they don't call it a "web" for nothing), just about any site with hyperlinks "could eventually access" something sinister.

The government wants to hold Hussayen responsible for four fatwas that appeared on a website he helped maintain. Hussayen says that thousands of posts were made to the website and that he didn't agree with the fatwas. Sullum provides a useful summation of the evidence against Hussayen and of the implications of the government's interpretation of the Patriot Act in Hussayen's case.

Speaking of the Patriot Act, Earl Ofari Hutchinson advises John Kerry to stop "treading gingerly" and to become a vocal opponent of its extension. It's good advice.

by TChris

Another embarrassment for the Bush administration:

The head of the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq, Paul Bremer, warned six months before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that the Bush administration seemed to be paying no attention to the problem of terrorism and appeared to "stagger along" on the issue.

Bush can't very well accuse Bremer of seeking publicity to promote a book, or of developing a sour grapes attitude after losing a job. What new spin move will the White House show us to deflect Bremer's criticism?

We're on the road today, so here's an open thread to discuss the Bush-Cheney hearings, which won't be televised and are not being conducted under oath.

Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney will meet jointly with the commission beginning at 9:30 a.m. EDT for what is expected to be several hours of questions. White House counsel Alberto Gonzales and two members of his staff also will be present. One of the most pressing issues is the allegation that the administration failed to make terrorism a top priority in the face of what CIA Director George Tenet has said was a system "blinking red" with warnings.

Unlike the commission's televised hearings that produced some sharp exchanges, Thursday's meeting will not have cameras or a stenographer in the room and there will not be any record of what was said beyond note-taking...."If they thought it would help him, they'd televise it," James Thurber, director of American University's Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies, said of White House advisers. "And obviously they don't think it will help him, and so they are not."

Only a contortionist could twist abortion rights into having a connection to 9/11. President Bush's former (and returning) media spin artist Karen Hughes managed to do the job. Kicking Ass has the details, orginally contained in this Salon article.

Hughes' comments:

I think that after September 11, the American people are valuing life more and we need policies to value the dignity and worth of every life. President Bush has worked to say, "let's be reasonable, let's work to value life, let's reduce the number of abortions, let's increase adoptions." And I think those are the kinds of policies the American people can support, particularly at a time when we're facing an enemy and, really, the fundamental issue between us and the terror network we fight is that we value every life."

by TChris

The government's terrorism prosecution of Saudi graduate student Sami Omar Al-Hussayen (TalkLeft background here and here) has run into a snag. The government accuses Hussayen of supporting terrorism by maintaining websites. Judge Edward Lodge ruled today, however, that the government can't show the web pages to the jury unless it first introduces evidence that Hussayen either created the pages or embraced their content -- something the government wasn't prepared to do at this stage of the trial.

Although the government promised to prove later in the trial that Hussayen created the pages and endorsed their content, the judge wisely ruled that it would be impossible to unring the bell after the jury saw the web pages. He gave the government until Tuesday to reshuffle its witnesses so that any proof of Hussayen's involvement in the content of the pages -- if any such proof exists -- can be presented before the jury sees the web pages.

The defense contends that Hussayen helped maintain the sites but wasn't responsible for their content. Not only does the government want to hold Hussayen responsible for providing "expert assistance" to terrorists, it contends that his alleged role as a moderator of an email discussion group should land him in prison.

by TChris

The state attorney general's office in New York will join the investigation of repeated acts of vandalism at the contruction site of a mosque.

Vandals drew swastikas on the partly finished building, which is to be the new home of the Islamic Center of Ocean County; punched holes in the walls and left graffiti, including the words "Hail Hitler."

The site has been vandalized seven times since construction began in 2000.

by TChris

After serving eight years in a Belfast prison, Sean O'Cealleagh came to the United States to make a new life. He got a green card so he could work, then took a job as a bartender at O'Malley's in Seal Beach, where he became popular for his ability to croon Celtic tunes. O'Cealleagh and his wife had a baby. He traveled freely between the United States and Ireland, never experiencing a problem returning to Seal Beach. Life was good.

But in February, returning to Los Angeles International Airport after a trip to Northern Ireland, he was detained by immigration officials who boarded the plane and separated him from his 3-year-old American-born son. They said he should have never been allowed into the United States because of his conviction.

After a four day trial, an immigration judge ruled that O'Cealleagh had been convicted in a tainted trial and had been held by the British as a political prisoner. Although immigration authorities contended that O'Cealleagh had participated in the Casement Park killings, where two corporals were beaten by a Belfast mob before being shot to death by members of the Irish Republican Army, a videotape of the incident failed to satisfy the immigration judge that O'Cealleagh was even in Casement Park when the beating occurred.

Another low point in airport security, pointed out by Walter in Denver:

Security agents at Orlando International Airport in Florida barred Athena LaPera, 35, from boarding a Frontier Airlines flight to Denver because the ravages of her treatment for cancer had left her no longer looking like the pictures on her passport and Colorado driver's license. Two days later, on Wednesday, the 4-foot-11, 78-pound LaPera finally got on a Frontier airliner with her 15-year-old son and returned to Denver.

Do you feel safer now?

9/11 Commission member and former DOJ official Jamie Gorelick will prepare part of the draft of the final report of the 9/11 Commission:

Al Felzenberg, spokesman for the commission, said Ms. Gorelick's recusal applies to the time she was deputy attorney general at the Justice Department, so she is free to take part in the investigation and drafting of the report for anything that happened after she left. That, he said, includes the legal barrier known as "the wall," which prevented the sharing of information between law-enforcement and intelligence officials. "The wall as it existed after she left, the wall as it existed in the beginning of the Bush administration, she's perfectly free to ask questions about," Mr. Felzenberg said.

Background on the Ashcroft-Gorelick controversy is here.

Update: 11 Republican Senators are calling upon Gorelick to testify.