The Washington Post ran a chilling story this week about the tactics used by federal government in detaining potential material witnesses in the 9/11 terrorist attack. Some of the tactics being used seem patently unconstitutional.
The scariest part of the detentions is that they are being done in absolute secrecy. As The Post reported, nobody knows for sure how many people are being detained, and it is impossible to obtain a list of those being obtained much less find out why they are being detained. Post writers Lois Romano and David S. Falls described how,
They have no contact with each other or their families and limited access to their lawyers. Their names appear on no federal jail log available to the public. No records can be found in any court docket in New York showing why they are detained, who represents them or the status of their cases.
Attorney General John Ashcroft appeared on ABC’s “Nightline” and claimed that the detentions were “consistent with the framework of law that we operate under,” but it sounds like the sort of thing that might happen in Afghanistan or Iraq, rather than the United States.
Source:
Questions over men in terror probe. Lois Romano and David S. Fallis, The Washington Post, October 15, 2001.