Gone East

Ashcroft's America

Dan Gillmor quotes Jimmy Breslin regarding the recent conviction of terrorist Faris. Breslin:

I don't know what Faris looks like or sounds like or what he thinks and what he was doing. He could be the worst. I don't know. Prove he wanted to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge and let him paste a picture of Osama bin Laden on the cell wall for inspiration over the next half a century. But first bring him into open court and try him. Pretend you live in America.

Then Gillmor adds: "The travesty is, first, that our government now operates a secret criminal justice system, because Congress doesn't care enough about liberty to stop a power-mad Bush administration from tearing up the Constitution."