Bush issues executive order to prevent release of millions of documents
George W. Bush has issued an executive order that will delay the release of millions of historical documents for more than three years and make it easier to reclassify information considered damaging to national security.
Bush signed the 25-page order three weeks before the government’s Apr. 17 deadline for declassifying millions of documents 25 years or older. Amending a less restrictive order signed by former president Clinton, Bush’s action gives agencies until 2006 to release the documents.
In addition, the order makes it easier for the government to reclassify sensitive information if an agency determines it is in the interest of national security. The reclassification provision applies to documents between 10 and 25 years old, which would include periods in which Bush’s father, George H. W. Bush, served as president and vice-president, the White House said. (AP)

ACLU files class-action lawsuit challenging mass arrest
In a lawsuit filed in federal court Mar. 27, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in Washington, DC charged police officials with deliberately violating the constitutional rights of more than 400 peaceful anti-war demonstrators and bystanders by directing them into a police trap and then arresting them although they had not violated the law.
Among those arrested were a retired US Army Lieutenant Colonel and his daughter, a Maryland grandfather who was detained for more than 24 hours, and a man who suffered from broken ribs after being knocked down by the police. Arrestees were charged with failing to obey a police order, but no order to disperse was ever given and people who tried to leave were physically prevented from doing so, according to the ACLU complaint. The true purpose of the mass arrests, the ACLU said, was to disrupt and prevent peaceful political demonstrations scheduled for that weekend.
The lawsuit also charged that arrestees were unjustly detained for as long as 30 hours in tight handcuffs and painful wrist-to-ankle restraints, with limited access to food and toilets, and were denied access to lawyers and given false information about their legal options. (ACLU)

Muslim man attacked, set on firein Indiana
Abdullah Naderi, a 37-year-old Afghanistan native, was attacked this week by two people who burst into his Indianapolis restaurant and set him on fire. Naderi suffered second- and third-degree burns on 60 percent of his body and was taken to the hospital in critical condition.
Inside the restaurant, investigators found gasoline cans, a pry bar, rope, aerosol cans, and a disposable lighter. Fire and police investigators say there is an ongoing investigation and that no possible motive is being ruled out.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the largest Islamic civil liberties group in the US, is reporting that hate-crimes against Muslim Americans are on the rise again. A number of other anti-Muslim incidents have been reported recently across the US.
CAIR is attributing the current spate of hate-crimes to the pro-war rhetoric leading up to the attack on Iraq, coupled with existing levels of anti-Muslim bias in American society.
(Democracy Now!)

Minnesotans may have to pay if they protest
Minnesotan governor Tim Pawlenty ratcheted up debate over antiwar protests Mar. 28 when he sent a letter to Minnesota Supreme Court Chief Justice Kathleen Blatz suggesting that judges should force protesters to pay for the cost of their arrest.
“While people have a right to free speech, they do not have a right to a free arrest.” the governor wrote. He said protesters “have openly admitted they are using the arrest process as a public relations initiative,” In those cases, he said, paying some of the cost of the arrest would be fair, particularly in light of state and local budget trouble.
Money spent on arrests of protesters “could be used for homeland security efforts or other public safety needs.”
The letter represents a rare intrusion by the executive branch of government onto the judiciary’s turf. A spokesperson for Blatz said court officials could not recall another governor offering similar guidance to judges in the past 20 years.
Critics contend that antiwar activists are being unfairly targeted, saying such a policy would stifle voices of dissent and undermine protesters’ ability to use civil disobedience to publicize their concerns. (St. Paul Pioneer Press)

Revenge for 9/11 tied to suspect in four killings
A man fatally shot four immigrant workers in Brooklyn and Queens in what he called an attempt to exact revenge for the Sept. 11 tragedy, police said March 31. Larme Price, 30, of Brooklyn, told people that he was targeting people of Middle Eastern descent when he fatally shot immigrants from Guyana, India, Russia and Yemen at work in convenience stores and an all-night, coin-operated laundry.
A task force of 20 detectives had been hunting for the killer for nearly three weeks when Price walked into a Brooklyn police station Friday morning and said a man named “Dog” was responsible for the killings. He offered to help investigators track the man down, but witness reports and surveillance camera images had investigators looking for a man whose description matched that of Price. He broke down and admitted the killings over a cell phone to a police detective the next day.
He is expected to be arraigned on four counts of first-degree murder under a New York law allowing the charge for suspects defined as serial killers. (AP)

Rules on detention widened
Attorney General John Ashcroft has issued orders that allow FBI agents and US marshals to detain foreign nationals for alleged immigration violations in cases where there is not enough evidence to hold them on criminal charges, according to Justice Dept. officials.
The regulations, issued in December but not announced publicly, significantly breach the wall that has long separated federal law enforcement agents from immigration officers, who previously were the only personnel authorized in most circumstances to detain people in the country illegally.
The order could be put into wide use this week, when the FBI launches a wartime contingency plan that will include interviews with thousands of Iraqi nationals living in the US. Dozens of those immigrants, including some believed to be sympathetic to Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, are likely to be arrested on suspicion that they have violated immigration laws, sources familiar with the pending operation said.
Several immigration advocates condemned the change as the latest in a series of federal tactics that have unfairly targeted immigrants. Since Sept. 11, 2001, the Justice Dept. has conducted a dragnet that ensnared hundreds of immigrants, launched an effort to arrest more than 300,000 who have ignored deportation orders, and is photographing and fingerprinting visitors from 25 countries, almost all of which are predominantly Muslim. (Washington Post)

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