From Newsgroup: alt.society.civil-liberty
Has post-9/11 dragnet gone too far?
(EXCERPT) As White House pushes to expand domestic terror laws,
critics worry limits on civil liberties will become permanent., by
Warren Richey and Linda Feldmann |
Staff writers of The Christian Science Monitor
MIAMI AND WASHINGTON - When they came for Adham Hassoun, America's counterterrorism forces took no chances. Federal agents and sheriff's
deputies circled his car in a quiet residential area not far from his
home in Sunrise, Fla., and whisked him into custody.
"It was like a movie, with helicopters above me," Mr. Hassoun recalls
in a telephone interview from Miami's Krome Detention Center. "They
thought I was somebody important.... They thought they hit the
jackpot."
Now, 15 months later, Hassoun has yet to be charged with a violation
of any US law. Nonetheless, he remains behind bars - and fears he is
about to lose everything he has ever loved and worked for during 13
years in America.
Hassoun's experience is not unlike that of other immigrants of Middle
Eastern or Islamic heritage swept up in a post-Sept. 11 dragnet aimed
at disabling terrorists before they strike again. It is a nationwide
antiterror campaign with
tactics including preventive detention, coercive interrogation, and
secret deportation hearings, targeting a community of noncitizens in
America now living in silent dread of a knock at the door.
"By my count, based on government-released figures, they've detained
over 5,000 foreign nationals in antiterrorism-related initiatives,"
says David Cole, a Georgetown University law professor and author of
the forthcoming book "Enemy Aliens." "The government has treated
thousands of people as suspected terrorists...
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