Are you a terrorist?

[frandroid]

And while officials maintain Project Thread was about immigration fraud, the men say hours of questioning by immigration and RCMP officials during their detainment had little to do with the bogus school.

"They asked us where Osama bin Laden is," Mohammad Akhtar, one of the accused men, recalled, shaking his head. "Then they said, `Is he alive or dead?' I mean, how do I know where he is? I've never even been to Afghanistan."

Other questions included: What is your definition of jihad? What do you think of (U.S. President) George Bush? Do you approve of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the U.S. and what do you think of the war in Iraq?

There were also religious questions: What mosque do you attend? How often do you pray? Do you give money to the mosque and what charities do you support?

"It's part of the new national-security paranoid method of investigating," offered Toronto immigration lawyer Lorne Waldman.


Is this how they fight terrorism?

Comments

[missruckus.livejournal.com]

that makes me so ill.

[estrellada.livejournal.com]

Also sounds as effective as walking into a room (in this case, a mosque?) and saying "Could all terrorists please raise your hands?"

"Profiling" sounds more and more like a new word for "stereotyping".

[konami.livejournal.com]

I agree they are arresting on bad material.

But they certainly aren't arresting enough (of the real people). there's tons of sleepers here, supposedly.

[frandroid.livejournal.com]

Well, who's telling that? CSIS? Where did they get their information from?

Our entire justice system is based on arresting people after they've committed a crime. The current patch (anti-terrorism law) is like a bacteria eating the system from inside. It might live in symbiosis in other contexts, but our law system is badly equiped to deal with "suspicions". I mean we've been dealing with the same law paradigm for quite a few hundred years... Maybe we do need to update it to account for terrorism, but the current patch is kinda icky. Judges themselves say that they don't like it at all. I'm talking about the part where the crown can classify information on grounds of national security, and keep it away from the defense. Judges then have to act as party and jury.

Anyway...