by TChris

“Show me your papers.” Chilling words, long regarded as antithetical to a free society. But not in New Ipswich, New Hampshire, where the police have taken to charging undocumented aliens with criminal trespass. “Trespass,” in this case, means being on public property—an absurd stretch of a trespassing law.

Jorge Mora Ramirez was making a cell phone call from his car, which he’d stopped on the side of a road. That lawful activity shouldn’t have subjected Ramirez to a police encounter, but a local cop interrogated Ramirez and got him to admit that he didn’t enter the country through proper channels. The cop tried to get INS to take Ramirez into custody, but INS doesn’t have the resources to waste on undocumented immigrants who pose no threat to public safety. The clever cop then decided that Ramirez was trespassing, simply by entering the cop’s town.

"I wanted the federal government to understand that I was going to take some type of action," said New Ipswich Police Chief W. Garrett Chamberlain. "If I can discourage illegal aliens from coming to or passing through my community, then I think I've succeeded."

He’s succeeded in being a jerk, but not in enforcing the law fairly or reasonably. Chamberlain has arrested nine others in recent weeks for trespassing, simply because they’re in his town without papers showing they entered the country lawfully.

Arrests have been made in last week's London bombings. The BBC also reports that all four suspects were London natives. Sky News reports all four bombers died in the attacks.

Scotland Yard is conducting a press conference. Quick notes:

Three came from West Yorkshire area. Executed six warrants under Terrorism Act at three of the four men's homes. A detailed forensic exam will follow. All four arrived in London by train on the morning of July 7. They have seen CCTV footage showing them at King's Cross station at 8:30 am on that day. One man's family reported him missing. He was killed in the bus bomb.

Personal documents bearing names of three of four man have been found close to the sites of explosion. Missing man, his property was found on the bus. Property in name of second and third man found near two of the bombs.

Another man has been arrested in Yorkshire.

Yusuf Islam, formerly known as Cat Stevens, had this to say about the London bombings.

I am horrified at the nightmarish acts of carnage we have just seen inflicted on London and its people in what authorities are describing as co-ordinated terror attacks. What on earth these murderers think they can gain by blowing up innocent men, women and children is impossible to imagine. No doubt the fatalities will include people of all religions and races without discrimination. My heartfelt sympathy goes out to all those who have suffered loss or injury.

More of Yusuf's statement is here.

Remember after the Oklahoma bombing when the U.S. wrongly assumed it was an international terrorist attack? Is the same thing happening in London? There are a few parallels emerging. Right after the London bombing, U.S. and British officials surmised al-Zarqawi and his international al-Qaeda group were behind the attack. Then the bombs turn out to be home-made, weighing less than 10 pounds apiece and composed of readily available materials. Now, the New York Times reports,

That finding supports a theory gaining momentum among the authorities that the plot was carried out by a sleeper cell of homegrown extremists rather than highly trained terrorists exported to Britain.

Over at Huffington Post, Max Blumenthal analyzes the different theories, including one that the one-eyed, one-handed cleric Abu Hamza Al-Masri, whose terror trial is supposed to begin in Britain Tuesday, is behind the attacks. Blumenthal concludes the U.S. is spinning the al-Zarqawi theory to gain support for its theory that Iraq is a key enemy in the terror war:

Michael Chertoff is giving a press conference. While there is no specific credible information indicating a threat in the U.S., the threat level is raised to orange, high, at transit systems in the U.S.

He is not asking people to stay away from transit systems.

Terrorist attacks in London today. The Guardian is running this updated news blog with the headline that London is in chaos.

Blair said the "terrorist attacks" were clearly designed to coincide with the G-8 summit opening in Gleneagles, Scotland. They also came a day after London won the bid to host the 2012 Olympics. A group calling itself "The Secret Organization of al-Qaida in Europe" claimed responsibility.

The explosions hit three subway stations and a double-decker bus in rapid succession between 8:30 and 9:30 a.m. local time. Implementing an emergency plan, authorities immediately shut down the subway and bus lines that log 8.4 million passenger trips every weekday. It brought the city's transportation system to a halt.

Here is the statement claiming responsibility.

[comments now closed - this thread has deteriorated into personal insults]

by TChris

Update: The Washington Post writes about the four other U.S. citizens detained by the U.S. after being arrested in Iraq.

******

Cyrus Kar was born in Iran, but he's lived in the United States since he was two years old. He's a naturalized citizen who played high school football in Utah and Washington before serving in the Navy. Kar's ambition was to make a documentary about "an ancient Persian king who championed tolerance and human rights." To that end, he traveled to Iraq to film archeological sites. But tolerance and human rights, increasingly scarce commodities in the U.S., are even less in fashion in Iraq. Kay was busted in Bhagdad, supposedly because "suspected bomb parts" were in the taxi in which he was riding.

Since then, Mr. Kar has been held in what his relatives and their lawyers describe as a frightening netherworld of American military detention in Iraq - charged with no crime but nonetheless unable to gain his freedom or even tell his family where he is being held.

Although an FBI search of Kar's LA apartment (and the contents of his computer) found no evidence that Kar supports terrorism, the Bush administration has been stonewalling the efforts Kar's relatives are making to find him.

by TChris

The Bush administration has been dismissive of "collateral damage"--the innocent lives taken when the bombs fall--but the government in Afghanistan wants the Bush administration to know that it takes those lives seriously.

In a rare rebuff, Afghanistan's government sharply criticized the U.S. military Tuesday for killing up to 17 civilians in an air strike and ordered an immediate inquiry. ... It marked unusual criticism from the government of President Hamid Karzai, often viewed by critics as an American puppet.

Killing innocent civilians is no way to win the hearts and minds of a population, but it's a great way--whether in Afghanistan or Iraq--to encourage anti-U.S. sentiment while providing a recruiting tool for terrorists.

Moroccan Younis Mohammed Ibrahim al-Hayari was killed in a gun battle this morning in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. This strikes me as more of a press release than an AP news article, but here are the details:

In a swift and telling victory, Saudi anti-terror forces killed al-Qaeda's top leader in the key U.S. ally in a gunbattle Sunday, but experts warn the kingdom still faces a surge in attacks despite its two-year crackdown on militants.

The 90-minute battle in the eastern Rawdah district, an upscale neighborhood in the capital Riyadh, was the latest blow dealt to Osama bin Laden's group in Saudi Arabia, whose leaders have either been killed or captured since authorities launched an unrelenting offensive against it in 2003.

Victory? Isn't this just one more person who won't be telling us where Osama is?

President Bush continues on Ashcroft's mission to tear down the walls between intelligence gathering and criminal investigations:

President Bush on Wednesday ordered changes intended to break down old walls between foreign and domestic intelligence activities by creating a new national security division within the Federal Bureau of Investigation that will fall under the overall direction of John D. Negroponte, the new director of national intelligence.

The powers accorded intelligence gathering and law enforcment agencies are different for good reason. For example, it prevents the Government from making an end run around the Fourth Amendment. The ACLU has an excellent explanation of the issue here.

What exactly is "the wall?" Former Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick describes it this way:

by TChris

Bump and Update: The report is here. The ACLU's statement is here.
........

The Bush administration used "material witness" warrants to detain at least 70 individuals suspected of terrorism, a statistic leading two groups to conclude that the administration has been misusing its power to seek material witness detentions.

Only 28 of the suspects were eventually charged with a crime, according to the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights Watch, and most of those charges were not related to terrorism. ... At least 30 detainees were never called to testify before a court or grand jury, the advocacy groups said in a report [to be released Monday]. All but one of those detained are Muslim, they said.

The most publicized abuse was the detention of Brandon Mayfield, but the report accuses the administration of twisting the material witness law "beyond recognition."

Steve Lopez in the Los Angeles Times has a great idea....bring the troops home and then send Duane "Dog the Bounty Hunter" Chapman to find Osama.

If you are unfamiliar with Dog, go here and here.