Inside the Fudge Factory

Matt Welch | June 14, 2005

Using the Freedom of Information Act, the Des Moines Register got hold of some Justice Department memos instructing law enforcement officials to expand and bend the terms for statistics-gathering, in order to maximize the number of cases labeled as "terrorism-related." From the paper's findings:

In a series of memos sent to the nation's prosecutors between September 2001 and April 2003, records show that the Justice Department:

• Required that any investigation involving a suspected terrorist link, even if unsubstantiated and unprosecuted, be counted as terrorism-related.
• Expanded the number of terrorism-related crime categories from two to six. Now, when federal authorities looking for terrorists make an arrest for other reasons, the case is logged by prosecutors as "anti-terrorism."
• Exempted terrorism cases from a policy that generally counts leads only when prosecutors spend an hour investigating them. Unlike leads on conventional crimes, those on alleged terrorist activities are now immediately logged by prosecutors even if they are disregarded.

Whole thing here; link via The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

Comments

|6.14.05 @ 1:47PM|#

No...the government would never lie to us. It's just the treasonous MSM up to to its old tricks again.

They're just trying to undermine the war on terror. Why can't they understand how they're playing right into the terrorist's hands. They're literally handing our freedom over to Osama Bin Laden every time they write a story like this.

And they hate God too. That's right. If they weren't so busy trying to help the liberals get God out of school and the federal government, they could take the time to properly analyze that information and come to the same conclusions...that people who do drugs are committing a terrorist act.

At least white collar criminals are committing crime in the name of God and capitalism instead of those satanic communist drug dealers.

I say Sean Hannity for Journalism Czar.

|6.14.05 @ 2:01PM|#

no, this doesn't make any sense. if agencies have added powers when an investigation is related to terrorism, why then would the justice department try to expand the number of cases defined as terrorism-related? that would suggest they're trying to expand their power, period. and everyone knows our government is beyond such opportunism. the Register is obviously full of shit.

|6.14.05 @ 2:07PM|#

Time to start using scare quotes around the word "related".

As in Number Of Terrorism-"Related" Cases, and Alcohol-"Related" Traffic Accidents.

|6.14.05 @ 2:15PM|#

So George and his minions are lying to us again. What else is new?

|6.14.05 @ 2:19PM|#

"terrorism creep". We all knew it would be here before long.

A couple days ago, I heard some dope on NPR arguing that neo-Nazis are terrorists because they teach kids Nazi ideology, and that those kids "could" later become involved in "separatist movements" later in life, which "could" lead them to commit acts of terrorism like what happened at Oklahoma City.

So now... even highly speculative and attenuated strings of events can be classified as terrorism, in the minds of those who'd like a little more authority over their little fiefdoms.

|6.14.05 @ 2:19PM|#

I think it's only a matter of time before the FOIA gets struck down for national security reasons. A pesky law, that one.

R C Dean|6.14.05 @ 2:43PM|#

"terrorism creep". We all knew it would be here before long.

Its been here all along. The PATRIOT Act is nothing but a drug war wish list gussied up in anti-terror camo.

|6.14.05 @ 3:39PM|#

Just so I understand, should I conclude from these inflated terrorism numbers that I'm safer thanks to the Dear Leader, or should I conclude that I'm in danger and I need him?

|6.14.05 @ 3:50PM|#

Both and neither, thoreau.

|6.14.05 @ 4:35PM|#

Why does the Freedom of Information Act hate America?

|6.14.05 @ 4:42PM|#

I wonder if it's only a matter of time before EVERY crime is classified as terrorism or terrorist-related.

Arguably, most crimes are considered anti-social, anti-liberty, anti-capitalist and anti-Christian (except crimes committed by Christian Capitalists). Therefore, it's only a matter of time before more crimes get pulled into the swirling vortex of the Patriot Act as "threatening to American security."

If the mystified folks on the TSA watch lists are any indication, civil disobedience is increasingly being connected to it.

Some folks are working very hard to connect drug trafficking to terrorism.

Next it'll be deadbeat dads and gang violence.

Yes, I predict tommorrow's Crips & Bloods will eventually be classified as terrorist movements. As will a number of political parties, labor unions and some religions and non-mainstream Christian denominations.

I hope I'm wrong but I don't think so.

|6.14.05 @ 4:50PM|#

Terrorism might join the words conservative and liberal in being rendered without effectively meaningless.

Unfortunately, the ability to make a word's meaning vague and simultaneously use that word to increase law enforcement powers and add penalties is scary indeed.

|6.14.05 @ 5:00PM|#

I, for one, welcome our new exaggerating, propagandizing, self-serving, turf-protecting, empire-building overlords.

Oh, wait, they've been in place for millennia.

Sam Grove|6.14.05 @ 6:47PM|#

I have a friend who once upon a time worked for the DOJ. (funny how government inverts meaning)
She and a co-worker worked for months on a report on crime, drugs, etc. After the report was completed, it was worked over by administrators so that, in the end, only a few lines of the original report were left intact.

|6.14.05 @ 9:58PM|#

Next it'll be deadbeat dads and gang violence.

Yes, I predict tommorrow's Crips & Bloods will eventually be classified as terrorist movements. As will a number of political parties, labor unions and some religions and non-mainstream Christian denominations.

I hope I'm wrong but I don't think so.


The Black Eyed Peas have apparently jumped on this bandwagon... "Where is the Love?" lyrics:
"we still got terrorists here livin'
in the U.S.A. the big CIA,
the Bloods, the Crypts, and the KKK..."

|6.15.05 @ 9:42AM|#

I hope you all have enough hand lotion by your computers while you read your masturbatory fantasies.

|6.15.05 @ 11:37AM|#

"I wonder if it's only a matter of time before EVERY crime is classified as terrorism or terrorist-related."

Too late. We've already declared every crime we investigate to be terrorist-related. That's the only way we can justify invoking the PATRIOT Act.