Report documents abuse under Patriot Act

July 21, 2003 | WASHINGTON (AP) -- A Justice Department investigation into more than 1,000 recent claims of civil rights and civil liberties violations under the anti-terrorism USA Patriot Act concluded that 34 were credible, according to a report released Monday.

Glenn A. Fine, the Justice Department inspector general, looked into allegations made between Dec. 16, 2002, and June 15. Many of the complaints were from Muslims or people of Arab descent who claimed they were beaten or verbally abused while being detained.

These include a claim by a Muslim inmate that he was ordered to "remove his shirt so that the officer could use it to shine his shoes" and a complaint from an Egyptian national that he was improperly arrested by the FBI after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

http://www.salon.com/news/wire/2003/07/21/abuse/print.html

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=68&ncid=68&e=2&u=/nyt/20030721/ts_nyt/reportonusapatriotactallegescivilrightsviolations

<snip> (from near the bottom)
The inspector general said that from Dec. 16 through June 15, his office received 1,073 complaints "suggesting a Patriot Act-related" abuse of civil rights or civil liberties.

The report suggested that hundreds of the accusations were easily dismissed as not credible or impossible to prove. But of the remainder, 272 were determined to fall within the inspector general's jurisdiction, with 34 raising "credible Patriot Act violations on their face."

In those 34 cases, it said, the accusations "ranged in seriousness from alleged beatings of immigration detainees to B.O.P. correctional officers allegedly verbally abusing inmates."

<snip>

Hundreds of allegation dismissed without being sent to the IG? I was under the impression that the IG was required to at least examine the complaint when a complaint was filed, not that only "credible or provable" complaints were to be referred to them... what's up with that?

and I think it flies in the face of the people who beat their chest and bellow "Why are you afraid if you have nothing to hide?"

If we allow these attrocities to continue on, the abuses will only get worse because they (those involved) see that their actions not only go unpunished, but unquestioned.

We MUST take our country back. It is imperative.

As a nation, we should collectively hang our head in shame for what the government is doing supposedly on our behalf.