Tuesday, December 09, 2003
Throwing the net too wide
The terrorism dragnet cast after September 11 has ensnared 6,400 suspects nationwide, but has led to only a handful of convictions for plotting terrorist acts, according to a review of federal investigations released Sunday.
The review found nearly 2,700 of the cases have already been concluded, yielding 879 convictions, mostly for immigration violations and other minor offenses.
Only an unspecified few have been charged with crimes directly related to terrorism. Just 23 cases have led to prison sentences of five years or more, about the same number as in the two years before the attacks.
The numbers suggest the reach of the federal war on terrorism has been far broader than the government previously has suggested, scooping up thousands of people with no clear criminal links to terrorism, concluded researchers at Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, which published the report.
More. Via August.
posted by chris at 10:54 AM
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