Decius wrote:
However, I'm not sure thats whats going on in this case. This guy was implicated (albeit incorrectly) in an international terrorism attack. It seems to me that the primary purpose of searching such a person would be national security related. I don't have time to read it... Eagerly awaiting Orin Kerr's analysis...

How? How is this national security related? Is he planning to invade the US? Is he smuggling state secrets? Is he... what?

I think we need to fix one misunderstanding right now. 9/11 was a terrorist act. It was not an action by a foreign power, foreign agent or any other such thing, it was a criminal act by a bunch of people that represent no government or other power. Hell, they're not even Coca-Cola. It was a not so simple crime, and the information to maybe prevent it was out there, but because of a combination of inattention and turf fights, it wasn't.

bin Laden and company are no different from the mafia dons or Columbian drug lords before them. Their motivation is different, and their means of measuring success is different, but they are nothing more than criminals, just the same as those who came before them. The fact that they are not US citizens means there are some niceties of the law which can be glossed over, but inflating Al Qaeda to the level of a nation is giving them more credit than they should ever be given.

9/11 was not a national security event. It was a crime. The fact that it was the biggest crime in the history of the United States does not make it stop being a crime, and does not make magically change it into an invasion. If Al Qaeda were another country, that might be a different situation. They aren't and it isn't.

RE: Patriot Act provision struck