http://www.stpetersburgtimes.com/2002/01/02/news_pf/Opinion/Trumped_up_terrorism_.shtml St. Petersburg Times editorial January 2, 2002 Trumped up terrorism numbers Is a drunk, rowdy passenger on an airplane a terrorist? Is a man who pushes a judge? They are according to annual reports from the Department of Justice. An investigation by the Miami Herald found that the department routinely overstates the number of terrorist arrests and convictions it makes every year. It does so, apparently, to cook the numbers for Congress, as a way to justify its annual $22-billion budget of which counterterrorism is a part. Is a drunk, rowdy passenger on an airplane a terrorist? Is a man who pushes a judge? They are according to annual reports from the Department of Justice. An investigation by the Miami Herald found that the department routinely overstates the number of terrorist arrests and convictions it makes every year. It does so, apparently, to cook the numbers for Congress, as a way to justify its annual $22-billion budget of which counterterrorism is a part. In the department's most recent annual report, released in May, the department claims there were 236 terrorism convictions in the fiscal year ending September 2000. But when pressed to provide specifics, the department refused to release information backing up that number or disclosing the details of those convictions. In its investigation, Herald reporters reviewed dozens of so-called terrorism cases over a five-year period, examining files obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. The reporters found that numerous convictions labeled as terrorism were just ordinary crimes, having nothing to do with a politically motivated agenda. For example, the department listed as a case of domestic terrorism, the conviction of a man from Arizona who got drunk while returning from Shanghai. He had continually demanded liquor and manhandled a flight attendant. The judge in the case called it a case of a man "being an annoyance beyond belief," but not terrorism. According to the department, terrorism was also involved in the case of an Ecuadorian man who tried smuggling 12 guns from Miami to his home country for the purpose of reselling them. And the conviction of seven Chinese sailors was counted as terrorism after they commandeered a boat in order to sail it into U.S. territorial waters to ask for political asylum. Disturbingly, the federal prosecutor office in San Francisco was the office that listed the most cases of domestic terrorism over the past three years. For much of that time, Robert Mueller, now director of the FBI, was at its helm. [...] ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Jan 05 2002 - 09:04:17 PST