Remora

It is a don't ask, secret service man, need to know, high security kind of time in these here States. The ever vigilant FBI, when it is not dispatching its finest to sniff out those anthrax villains (men who have schooled their avoirdupois in some of the tough, tough donut shops of Manhattan, heros who, in the past, have won such accolades as the world's longest search for the world's oldest mobster (goes to those Boston Pros for chasing the ever elusive Whitey Bulger, who if caught might, heavens, reveal little tidbits about what FBI Men were on his payroll in Beantown), well those guys are keeping a weather eye on the foreign element. As proof, we have in our prison cells an unknown cohort of foreigners arrested after the WTC and kept without legal counsel, or communication with the outside world, and given over, on ocassion, to those merry bashings prisoners and guards, in our name, have to righteously deal out to those with the telltale brown skin and the arabic name. Andrew Gumbel of the Independent has the story:


"More than seven weeks after the attacks, the Justice Department says it has taken about 1,100 people into custody but almost nothing is known about who they are, why they have been detained, what charges, if any, have been filed, and how many of them have been cleared and released. One man has died in custody, in New Jersey, and others are being held indefinitely on immigration violations."

Ah, and there's more in the bottom grafs:

"The scanty reports to have surfaced about detainees are not encouraging. Some are said to have been beaten � either by their guards or by fellow prisoners, with the guards looking on. In at least one case, a detainee appeared in court with fresh bruises clearly visible.

A Saudi Arabian student, Yazeed al-Salmi, reported that he spent 17 days in custody in San Diego, Oklahoma and New York despite being told early on that he was not a suspect. He said he was denied contact with his family, held in solitary confinement, prevented from washing or brushing his teeth and repeatedly humiliated by his guards. "They don't call you by name," he said of his time in Manhattan, "they call you 'f****** terrorist'."

You know, if this keeps up, maybe one of those intrepid D.C. liberals will grumble about it in a few years.