Posted on 12/14/2001 6:41:17 PM PST by CometBaby
Edited on 09/03/2002 4:49:47 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
NEWARK, N.J. -- The American Civil Liberties Union and some northern New Jersey immigration lawyers will provide free legal representation to Muslims facing questioning by the FBI in its probe of the Sept. 11 terror attacks. They have set up a toll-free hot line for people notified that the FBI wants to interview them, and are trying to line up additional lawyers willing to donate their services. The U.S. Justice Department is questioning about 5,000 young Middle Eastern men who recently came to this country, looking for leads that might advance the terror probe. About 70 are from New Jersey. ...
(Excerpt) Read more at newsday.com ...
They have set up a toll-free hot line for people notified that the FBI wants to interview them, and are trying to line up additional lawyers willing to donate their services.
The U.S. Justice Department is questioning about 5,000 young Middle Eastern men who recently came to this country, looking for leads that might advance the terror probe. About 70 are from New Jersey.
"Most of these people are very simple people; they don't speak English," said Mohamed Younes, president of the American Muslim Union and a leader of Paterson's Arab-American community. "They come from areas where the police are a problem. They're scared; they don't know what to do."
Sohail Mohammed, a Clifton lawyer who represents several Muslims being held on immigration charges, was asked at a press conference why innocent people should have anything to fear from talking to the FBI.
"That's the precise question one of my clients was asked immediately after Sept. 11: `If you have nothing to hide and you ask for a lawyer, that raises suspicions in my mind,"' Mohammed quoted a law enforcement officer as saying. "It's not illegal to have a lawyer. It's a fundamental right."
Magdy Mahmoud, president of the Human Rights Education and Law Project, said about 10 people have called seeking advice on whether they should submit to the questioning, which the government calls voluntary. The hot line number is 877-865-5026.
The interviews began a week ago, and are nearing completion, said Special Agent Sandra Carroll, a spokeswoman for the Newark FBI office. She said the interviews have been going well.
"We haven't had any complaints," she said.
But some of those who have been interviewed took offense to the questions FBI agents asked them.
"They were asking questions that were overly intrusive, like `How many times do you pray? Do you pray in the mosque? Do you know the names of other people who pray at the mosque? Do you know anyone involved in a bankruptcy? Why do you pray so many times a day?"' Mohammed said.
He said the FBI interviews are a form of racial profiling, which had been reviled in New Jersey before Sept. 11.
"You have race, ethnicity and gender," he said. "If this is not profiling, someone please tell me what is. If this had happened prior to Sept. 11, we would have asked for their resignation."
Deborah Jacobs, executive director of the New Jersey ACLU chapter, wrote letters to about a dozen New Jersey police departments, including Jersey City, Passaic and Paterson, asking them not to participate in the interviews if asked by the FBI. J.C. Salyer, an ACLU staff attorney, said none of the departments indicated they had been asked for help with the interviews.
"We understand the importance of cooperating with the FBI, but these interviews are based on ethnic profiling, not on any information that would suggest (the targets) had any knowledge or involvement in the terrorist attacks," Jacobs said.
Yes, the ACLU doses believe that the Constitution is a suicide pact.
In a way, they remind me of college students who believe that anything counter-intuitive must be right. Except they’re much more annoying.
The ACLU wants to make constitutional hay on this one. For good or bad.
The wish crossed my mind that the schmuck could spend a couple of days (the end of his life) in a Muslim camp.
I don't think anyone would deny or want to deny any Muslim or any person, for that matter, legal representation. Of course those being questioned should retain counsel, should they so choose. What is a little irritating, though, is that the ACLU goes out if its way to take advantage of situations such as this current one, to insinuate that everyone's rights are automatically being violated.
Or, you mean if they have a real case kinda like OJ? The elite get off scott free or maybe with minor blemishes. Please spare me a recitation of how the virtues of the ACLU are going to protect everyone. The ACLU is vehemently leftist and probably anti-american. They are anti-second amendment also. And they don't give a hoot about property rights.
I hope we are never in a position where we have to depend on the ACLU to provide *justice*.
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