Jewish World Review Dec. 14, 2001 / 29 Kislev, 5762
Debra J. Saunders
Know when to hold 'em
http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com --
IF EVER there's a case that smacks of racial
profiling and callous disregard for civil liberties, it's
that of Shaquil.
Authorities first targeted Shaquil, not because he
committed a crime, but because workers at his
trade school reportedly told authorities that the 33-
year-old Muslim of Moroccan descent was acting
strangely.
Then, based on suspicion, the FBI used a common
visa violation -- his visa had expired -- to hold
Shaquil without indicting him for four months. That's
right, four months. Some agents even wanted to tap
Shaquil's laptop. Civil libertarians can find relief in
the fact that FBI lawyers determined that there was
not sufficient cause to tap the laptop.
Still, the feds held Shaquil based on a paltry visa
violation. His mother told reporters that her son was
"brainwashed" by Muslim extremists and that he
was innocent. In America, critics used cases like
Shaquil's to show that Attorney General John
Ashcroft was the Great Satan on civil rights, as he
showed an unholy willingness to detain for long
periods noncitizens who committed what Good
People consider immigration violations too minor for
detention.
It's clear that the government detained people
innocent of involvement with terrorist cells. There
were good people who must have dreaded the
experience.
Nonetheless, the story of Shaquil explains why
Ashcroft pushed for more police powers after the
September 11 attacks.
You see, Shaquil is a nom de guerre for Zacarias
Moussaoui. The Justice Department believes that
Moussaoui, a French citizen, was the fill-in 20th
hijacker, who was chosen for the task after the
United States rejected five visa requests made by
one Ramzi Bin al-Shibh, who was then living in
Germany and apparently was the terrorists' first
choice to be the 20th hijacker.
If found guilty, the French citizen could face the
death penalty.
Authorities detained Moussaoui on Aug. 16, after
folks at the Pan Am International Flight Academy
called authorities. Moussaoui already had failed at
one flight school. Now, having chalked up 57 hours
of flight time, he still couldn't fly a private plane solo,
yet he wanted to learn to fly jumbo jets -- if without
the bother of takeoff and landing.
At first, according to this week's indictment,
Moussaoui lied in saying that "he was simply
interested in learning to fly." Then, he stopped
talking.
Still, the feds held him. They had, after all, found
two knives, flight manuals for a Boeing 747, fighting
gloves, shin guards and a flight simulator computer
program.
Authorities later would learn that in June,
Moussaoui made inquiries into starting a
crop-dusting company.
The indictment time line suggests that the terrorists
may have sped up their plans lest the government be
alerted to their bloody agenda.
Asked at a press conference if agents might have
prevented the September 11 attacks if they had
more latitude, FBI Director Robert Mueller
defended the decision not to examine the
computers, but said, "Now, could we have done
something else, perhaps, to avoid (the attack) in that
investigation? Who can say? All I can tell you is that
the agents on the scene attempted to follow up
aggressively."
Polls show that Americans support the
administration's quest for more legal powers
because citizens at least understand that this is war
and aggressive measures are appropriate.
A critic, after all, could look at Moussaoui on Aug.
21 -- the day before operatives started buying
airline tickets -- and see a man unfairly detained for
four months based on his videos, his reading
material, his speech, his quirky ideas about flying --
and his radical Islamic associations. A purist would
have demanded that Moussaoui be released, which
would allow him to disappear into America while
awaiting a hearing that would never happen.
Release might have left him free to fly a crop duster
full of poison or to provide one more body to fight
off the rebellious passengers on United Flight 93.
This American can't help but wonder how many
lives federal agents may have saved when they
decided, back in August, that Moussaoui had
violated immigration law, that it looked as if he were
up to something very rotten, and they weren't going
to let him run after a slap on the
wrist.
Comment JWR contributor Debra J. Saunders's column by clicking here.
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