Sunday, October 06, 2002

Talk Left has another post which is enough to send me to the bar to spend some of the generous contributions to this site. I'm sure there's a more constructive response, but...


Senior law enforcement officials have told the New York Times that the FBI is tracking hundreds of muslims in its search for terrorist plots within the U.S.

"The surveillance campaign is being carried out by every major F.B.I. office in the country and involves 24-hour monitoring of the suspects' telephone calls, e-mail messages and Internet use, as well as scrutiny of their credit-card charges, their travel and their visits to neighborhood gathering places, including mosques."

"The campaign, which has also involved efforts to recruit the suspects' friends and family members as government informers, has raised alarm from civil liberties groups and some Arab-American and Muslim leaders. The men are suspected of ties to Al Qaeda or other groups affiliated with Osama bin Laden's terrorist network."

"Still, the F.B.I. has acknowledged that it has no evidence of any imminent terrorist threat posed by the so-called sleeper cells connected to Al Qaeda."