From Economist:
"THERE are apparently a significant number of people in America who don't think that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab should have been arrested, read his rights, and interrogated by FBI officers, with a view to ultimate prosecution in a court of law for the crime of attempted murder.
...when Jeff Sessions (Republican Senator Alabama) said Mr Abdulmutallab should have been "properly interrogated" as opposed to arrested by FBI agents, read his rights, and interrogated, what he presumably meant was that he should have been treated the way we treated the inmates at Bagram and Guantanamo: locked up extra-legally and tortured...As Scott Brown says, "In dealing with terrorists, our tax dollars should pay for weapons to stop them, not lawyers to defend them." I have no idea what Mr Brown is afraid might happen to Mr Abdulmutallab in court: that, with a clever lawyer, he might beat the rap? The man's underpants burst into flame in full view of an airplane full of passengers.
Should any such people care, the New York Times reports that the reason why Mr Abdulmutallab is providing FBI interrogators with valuable information about terrorist networks is that his family persuaded him to cooperate. And his family did so because they, poor fools, trust the American system of justice.
Mr. Abdulmutallab, 23, began speaking to F.B.I. agents last week in Detroit and has not stopped, two government officials said. The officials declined to disclose what information was obtained from him, but said it was aiding in the investigation of the attempted terrorist attack.
“With the family, the F.B.I. approached the suspect,” the senior administration official said, speaking to reporters at the White House on the condition of anonymity because of the pending legal case. “He has been cooperating for days.”
I'm sure this will convince no one who believes in the efficacy of torture...After the attacks of September 11th, a certain number of people stumbled down a dark staircase that led to a twisted path. Blinded by stubbornness, they pressed on through years of such strange turns and illogical leaps that by now they find themselves speaking from a place that no longer seems to me to be part of America, or of the civilisation of the Western Enlightenment. I don't know where they're at, and I don't care."
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2010/02/abdulmutallabs_family_gets_him_talk_fbi
TW: While I empathsize with the Economist blogger, I do actually do care about my fellow Americans' attitudes. For some fear has overcome common sense and good judgment. Paranoia will destroia...We are better than that which Jeff Sessions and Scott Brown (and a plethora of their fellow fraidy cat conservatives) would create. We CAN walk and chew gum at the same time (i.e. remain secure whilst retaining liberty and civil rights).
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