CBS News | Guilty Until Proven | April 6, 2003 23:45:04

I certainly agree with the authorities fulfilling their responsibilities to question anyone and everyone that might be able to shed light on terrorist activities.

But it is necessary to hold people for so long?

“The government was able to hold Omar and hundreds of other Muslim detainees by charging them not as criminals but as visa violators. The law says criminals, even murderers, must be charged with a crime quickly – usually within 48 hours – or released.

Immigration laws used to work the same way, but after 9/11, the justice department rewrote the rules so that suspected visa violators could be held in jail as long as the government wants – without any charges filed against them. ”

Generally, America has a great system in place to protect citizens from government abuses.
This Afghani-American citizen believed in the system:

“Shokriea says she wasn’t worried when her husband was picked up for questioning. At least not right away.

“I knew the US justice system. You’re innocent until proven guilty,” she says. “I just thought, you know, he would be questioned and just released.”

But her husband was held for 10 months in solitary confinement at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York. He later told his wife that “innocent until proven guilty” was not how it worked here. ”

I think vigilance is in order.

Thank you, Steve Rhodes, for pointing out this story.