U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour said the successful prosecution of Ahmed Ressam should serve not only as a warning to terrorists, but as a statement to the Bush administration about its terrorism-fighting tactics.
"We did not need to use a secret military tribunal, detain the defendant indefinitely as an enemy combatant or deny the defendant the right to counsel," he said Wednesday. "The message to the world from today's sentencing is that our courts have not abandoned our commitment to the ideals that set our nation apart."
Keep in mind also that we caught this guy before he pulled it off, and we did it in 1999, without a Patriot Act to protect us.
It boggles me to wonder how we sport "Live Free or Die" bumper-stickers whilst our personal records and property are perused at will. All of this and more in the name of... not dying? That's horribly confusing, so I propose we amend the saying to just, "Live or Die"... in fact, that sounds like a good campaign slogan.
:: Damien 7/28/2005 [+] ::
