"NOYB" wrote in message
ink.net...

Perhaps. But only if the ACLU continues to dismantle the President's
authority to detain illegal combatants in this war on terror.

You mean, the government's new hobby, detaining people like these?

And, don't hand us any bull**** about the source, as you usually do.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2005Apr20.html


Muslims Detained at Border Sue U.S. Homeland Security

By Michelle Garcia
Special to The Washington Post
Thursday, April 21, 2005; Page A08

NEW YORK, April 20 -- American Muslims detained at the border as they
returned from a religious conference in Toronto sued the Department of
Homeland Security on Wednesday alleging they were targets of ethnic and
religious profiling.

The five Muslims, all U.S. citizens, say customs officials detained dozens
of others from their conference in December, subjecting them to
interrogations, fingerprinting and photographing. Four carried U.S.-issued
passports; the other had a New York state driver's license, which is an
acceptable form of identification at the Canadian border.

The plaintiffs traveled separately and arrived at the checkpoint throughout
the afternoon and night. Travelers who told agents they had attended the
conference titled "Reviving the Islamic Spirit" were held for questioning,
and women wearing hijab were asked whether they had attended the conference,
according to the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court by the New York Civil
Liberties Union and the Council for American-Islamic Relations.

"They were the victims once again of our government's overzealous and
counterproductive ethnic and religious profiling in the name of national
security," said Donna Lieberman, executive director of the NYCLU.

The lawsuit seeks to prevent government agencies from detaining,
interrogating or photographing Muslims returning to the United States from
religious conferences. The five Muslims want their fingerprints and
photographs taken at the border destroyed or expunged.

Homeland security officials said that 34 people were selected for the
secondary questioning at Queenston Lewiston Bridge and four others at
Rainbow Bridge in Niagara Falls. None was charged with a crime.

"In this instance, we had credible intelligence that conferences similar to
the one from which these individuals were leaving were being used by
terrorist organizations to fundraise and to hide the travel of terrorists
themselves," said Kristi Clemens, spokeswoman for U.S. Customs and Border
Protection.

Clemens declined to elaborate on the sort of conferences that draw
heightened scrutiny or whether people were held at other border crossings.
She said U.S. citizens have the right to refuse fingerprinting and that the
department has not received complaints about agents forcing citizens to
submit fingerprints.

Sawsan Tabbaa, 43, an orthodontist in Buffalo, took her four children in the
family van for their third trip to the conference, which featured imam Hamza
Yusuf. Yusuf is a prominent scholar who visited the White House in the days
after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to pray with President Bush and endorse
his plans for military action.

Tabbaa, who wears hijab, said that at 2 a.m. Dec. 27 she arrived at the
border checkpoint where agents asked her about the conference and instructed
her to wait inside the customs building. Inside, she said, "I saw all the
people from my Islamic community."

Tabbaa, a Syrian-born naturalized citizen, said agents refused to let her
leave unless she submitted to fingerprinting. After several hours, she said,
a female agent escorted her to a room to demonstrate the procedure.

"She just grabbed my hand and [began] fingerprinting it," Tabbaa said. "I
was just forced to do it. She grabbed my hand."

As part of the lawsuit, the NYCLU and CAIR have filed a Freedom of
Information Act request about policies related to the fingerprinting or
profiling of U.S. citizens at border crossings.

© 2005 The Washington Post Company