Court rules Kansas native can sue John Ashcroft for post-9/11 detention policy

[The Straight Story]

Court rules Kansas native can sue John Ashcroft for post-9/11 detention policy
September 9, 1:23 PMKansas City Young Democrat ExaminerJillian Meriweather


In a scathing admonition of a Bush Administration 9/11 policy, a panel of three judges on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that a man detained as a material witness in a federal terrorism case, Abdullah al-Kidd, can sue former Attorney General John Ashcroft for allegedly violating his constitutional rights.

Two of the judges were appointed by former President George W. Bush and another by former President Reagan and all have a reputation of being politically conservative. Despite his political leanings, Judge Milan D. Smith Jr. wrote, "Sadly, however, even now, more than 217 years after the ratification of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, some confidently assert that the government has the power to arrest and detain or restrict American citizens for months on end, in sometimes primitive conditions, not because there is evidence that they have committed a crime, but merely because the government wishes to investigate them for possible wrongdoing, or to prevent them from having contact with others in the outside world…We find this to be repugnant to the Constitution and a painful reminder of some of the most ignominious chapters of our national history."

The court’s decision rejects the notion that as prosecutor, Ashcroft would receive full immunity from lawsuits. Rather, the court held that he functioned more in the role of an investigator, which would render him liable. Some of the most convincing evidence of his role appears to come from Ashcroft himself. According to the ruling, Ashcroft said that the use of the material witness statute and other enhanced tactics "form one part of the department's concentrated strategy to prevent terrorist attacks by taking suspected terrorists off the street."

Al-Kidd’s lawyers have asserted that Ashcroft created a policy wherein governmental agencies used the federal material witness law as justification "to arrest and detain terrorism suspects about whom they did not have sufficient evidence to arrest on criminal charges but wished to hold preventively or to investigate further."

http://www.examiner.com/x-15877-Kansas-City-Young-Democrat-Examiner~y2009m9d9-Court-rules-Kansas-native-can-sue-John-Ashcroft-for-post911-detention-policy

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