Gremlin Gets Off Easy

Michael Chertoff, dubbed "the Gremlin" by some who keep watch on civil libeties, faced a congressional hearing today as part of the process of becoming head of Homeland Security, and according to the New Standard was given an easy ride during the short (four hour)hearing.

At the top of the list of his critics’ concerns is that Chertoff is credited as the architect of a post-9/11 government policy to hold hundreds of people indefinitely for minor visa violation or under the premise that they were "material witnesses" in terrorism investigations, without having to provide evidence they were involved in any criminal activity.

This controversial policy was the subject of a harsh Department of Justice Inspector General report, which found that shortly after 9/11, the government cast a very wide net in its investigation into the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, detaining hundreds of immigrants, most of whom had virtually no connection to people involved in the attacks. The inspector general further found that many of the individuals were held for weeks and even months without access to legal counsel or information about the charges against them. Many of the detainees suffered brutality at the hands of guards while in detention, as evidenced by videotape.

Civil liberties advocates also criticize Chertoff for his key role in developing the USA PATRIOT Act and other laws giving the FBI increased powers of secret domestic surveillance; his direction of the widely criticized systematic interviews of Middle Eastern men after 9/11; his participation in revising the internal Attorney Guidelines to allow the FBI to infiltrate religious and other gatherings with undercover agents; and his co-authorship of a brief in the Supreme Court case, Chavez v. Martinez, in which Chertoff argued that there is no constitutional right to be free from coercive police questioning as long as the resulting statements are not intended for use in a criminal trial.


Not a single Senator asked the Gremlin about his program of "voluntary" inteviews held between federal agents and thousands of Muslim and Arab immigrants, which led to several hundred deportations but netted no viable terrorism suspects.

Chertoff also denied under oath that he had ever endorsed specific torture techniques despite a recent New York Times article alleging he had told the FBI that "waterboarding" was ok. And the Senators just let it slide - because heaven forbid that anyone should call a member of this administration an outright liar or even question their integrity...

I bet Condi is jealous.