AG Nominee Ordered Suspects Held Indefinitely

September 24, 2007
AG Nominee Ordered Suspects Held Indefinitely

Even though Mr. Awadallah was not charged at the time with any crime and had friends and family in San Diego who would vouch that he had no terrorist ties, Judge Mukasey ordered that he be held indefinitely, a ruling he made in the cases of several other so-called material witnesses in the Sept. 11 investigations. A prison medical examination later identified the bruises across his body.

Critics say a 1984 material witness law was abused by the Justice Department, and by Judge Mukasey and his judicial colleagues, to hold terrorist suspects indefinitely after Sept. 11 without having to accuse them of a crime and afford them the rights of a criminal defendant.

Bush civil rights nominee under fire

July 28, 2007
Bush civil rights nominee under fire

July 28, 2007 | A deal that would see David Palmer, a Bush administration nominee, quietly confirmed to the powerful Equal Employment Opportunity Commission appears to be faltering. Momentum against Palmer's confirmation has been building since former Department of Justice employees took the unprecedented step of formally accusing him of having an abysmal professional and personal record on workplace discrimination issues.

And Thursday, in a letter to Sen. Ted Kennedy, Sen. Barack Obama joined the chorus of those calling for an investigation into Palmer's fitness to serve on the EEOC, the agency tasked with protecting employees from discrimination based on race, gender and religion under the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.