From the Times, pages A13 and A24:
"Judge in Pakistan Dismisses Charges in Bomb Plot" by SALMAN MASOOD
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Dec. 13 — A judge threw out terrorism charges on Wednesday against Rashid Rauf, a Briton of Pakistani descent whom prosecutors depicted as a major figure in a plot to smuggle liquid explosives onto trans-Atlantic airliners and detonate the bombs in flight.
The ruling means there are now no terrorism charges against two people once accused of being linchpins of a major bombing plot by Al Qaeda. The other is Tayib Rauf, Mr. Rauf’s younger brother, who was detained in Britain in August and was soon set free without charge.
Mr. Rauf has not been charged in Britain in connection with any airline plot. Mr. Rauf left Britain in 2002 to settle and marry in Bahawalpur. He was not a subject of scrutiny before his arrest in August, although the police had linked his wife’s family to an outlawed Islamist group."
More charges collapse!
Ever notice after the the initial coverage of the "busts" that gin up unwarranted fear, the coverage lessens as the cases go to trial and verdicts are rendered (pun intended)?
More prove to be government entrapment by (informants acting as agent provocateurs) or something far more sinister -- FALSE-FLAG, BLACK OPERATIONS ordered and directed by western intelligence services.
Meanwhile, Congress neutralized the Supreme Court:
"Judge Sets Back Guantánamo Detainees" by NEIL A. LEWIS
WASHINGTON, Dec. 13 — For the first time, a court has affirmed that a law enacted this fall accomplishes what the White House and its Congressional supporters sought: stripping the federal judiciary of the authority to hear challenges from detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
Congress this fall explicitly eliminated the right to file a habeas corpus challenge. The Military Commissions Act, passed by Congress in September and signed into law by President Bush the following month, was unambiguous in denying Guantánamo detainees the use of a habeas corpus statute.
Circumstances had changed fundamentally with enactment of the new law. And not only is Mr. Hamdan barred from a challenge under the habeas statute, he cannot follow the usual second avenue to bring a habeas challenge — invoking the Constitution — because it is unclear that noncitizens at Guantánamo have that right.
The Supreme Court, which will almost certainly have to revisit the case.
What does it matter?
Bush made it clear he listens to no one and nothing, save his own abysmal judgments on what is "right."
HE certainly is NOT listening to US!!!!
Can't invoke the Constitution because the C.I.P - the Military Commissions Act gave the Great Dictator ABSOLUTE POWER!!!
And one year later, we find the this White House approved of the destruction of evidence and proof of torture!!
"Lawyers Cleared Destroying Tapes"
"C.I.A. officials had continued to press the White House for a firm decision, and that the C.I.A. was never given a direct order not to destroy the... hundreds of hours of videotapes.
“They never told us, ‘Hell, no.’ “If somebody had said, ‘You cannot destroy them,’ we would not have destroyed them.” -- a former senior intelligence official with direct knowledge of the episode."
HUNDREDS of HOURS of it!!!!!
But by the time the cases make their way through the system, the habeas issue will be moot."
Or torture tapes can be destroyed!!!
Here we are one year later, and all this MSM garbage back when was crap!
How can anyone believe in the courts anymore?
Slow, reactive, unenforceable decisions, administrative and executive branches that ignore them, legislators that strip them, WTF?
