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American Morning
Some Concern Aggressive Search of Suspects Comes at High Price
Aired December 06, 2001 - 08:09 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Back here in the U.S., the government says it is using every weapon in its arsenal to fight terrorism, including the legal system. Authorities have cast a wide dragnet in an effort to snag suspected terrorists. But there is some concern that this aggressive search of suspects comes at high price.
CNN's Eileen O'Connor explains.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
EILEEN O'CONNOR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Farouk Ali- Haimoud is one of the people who had been held in connection with the September 11 investigation, and like 93 others who were publicly charged, he was accused of something other than conspiracy, murder or terrorism.
In his case, it was identity fraud and the misuse of vises, after FBI agents found airline catering I.D. cards and what looked like the diagram of an airport flight line in the apartment he shared with two others who are still being held -- an apartment once used by another man linked to al Qaeda. Ali-Haimoud's lawyer, Kevin Ernst, says the documents belong to a roommate, and that normally his client would not have been held.
KEVIN ERNST, LAWYER FOR FAROUK ALI-HAIMOUD: What's going on is profiling, and profiling based on ethnic background or maybe even religious background. And I think that that, if it doesn't cross the line, it comes awful damn close to crossing the line of civil liberties violation.
O'CONNOR: Ali-Haimoud was released -- the charges dropped for now. The attorney general denies people are being held with little evidence, or that there is any racial profiling, but does not deny that the Justice Department is moving aggressively, he says to protect American lives.
JOHN ASHCROFT, ATTORNEY GENERAL: The United States and its citizens are at war with terror. Our response has been to wage a deliberate campaign, and arrests and detention of violators and suspected terrorists, in order to protect Americans lives. We are removing suspected terrorists who violate the law from our streets.
O'CONNOR: There are people, like Louis Martinez Flores (ph) and three others, charged with helping several hijackers obtain fake Virginia driver's licenses. According to the affidavit, Flores and the others often vouched for people's residency in exchange for money. Still, what they are accused of doing is illegal, and did help hijackers, Hani Hanjour and Khalid Almihdhar, accomplish their mission: flying a plane into the Pentagon.
The attorney general likens it to the war against organized crime, which often used charges like tax evasion, in the case of Al Capone, to lock them up.
ASHCROFT: We're going to use every tool in the American judicial system and justice system to protect innocent lives in the United States of America.
O'CONNOR: The attorney general insists everything the Department is doing, from interviewing some Middle Eastern men to listening in on the conversations of some defendants authorities suspect of still being engaged in terrorism from prison, is constitutional.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'CONNOR: Still, Ali-Haimoud's lawyers, and other lawyers involved in these cases, worry that perhaps there is also a danger of ruining some innocent lives -- potentially innocent lives, in being cast along with terrorists as suspects.
In addition, Congress will, today, hold hearings on Capitol Hill in the Senate Judiciary Committee. They are going to be looking into these. They say, they too, like the attorney general, wants to make sure that the ultimate good is not sacrificed, as he said, to fight the immediate evil -- Paula.
ZAHN: Eileen O'Connor, thanks so much for that report.
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