Another strong reason to boot Bush: Ashcroft's DOJ is a DISGRACE!

[BurtWorm]

This is a must-read article (rarer and rarer for the NYTimes, I'm sorry to say). Americans must not allow this gross incompetence to continue.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/07/national/07detroit.html?oref=login&hp

TRIAL AND ERRORS
After Convictions, the Undoing of a U.S. Terror Prosecution

By DANNY HAKIM and ERIC LICHTBLAU

But the Justice Department's critics say that the prosecution was overzealous and that it demonstrated how the Bush administration's pre-emptive approach to fighting terrorists by disrupting plots before they materialize can clash with legal principles of due process and the right to a fair trial.

"This case became a poster child for the Justice Department in the war on terrorism, and it had no institutional checks and balances in place to really look hard at the evidence," said Peter Margulies, a law professor at Roger Williams University in Rhode Island who has written extensively about terrorism.

The Justice Department declined to discuss the case publicly, citing a judge's gag order and pending investigations. But internal documents show that from its early days, the case never appeared as strong as the department's public enthusiasm for it.

In August 2002, just days after Mr. Sabin's internal memorandum expressed doubts about the evidence, the suspects were indicted on terrorism charges, prompting a supervisor in Washington to send the prosecutors in Detroit e-mail congratulating them on the indictment "and the nice media coverage."

"For what it's worth," the supervisor, Jeff Breinholt, wrote, "the higher-ups in D.C. are pleased."