We watched a video in my polysci class today, detailing the arrests and treatment of muslim families directly after 9/11. They had a family and a single guy on there, and both of them spoke at length (dramatically in tears) about how they were detained unjustly and were treated poorly based on the circumstances. Sounda ll gooey and liberal and solid, right? Oh shit, there's a little snag there called.... wait for it... reality.
Let's break this down. A gigantic, pre-meditated terrorist attack occurs on U.S soil, which hasn't happened since Pearl Harbor. People all across the nation (including, sadly, politicians) are freaking out and extremely paranoid (and for chrit's sake, rightly so!) that another terrorist attack is about to happen. In response to this, the Government starts detaining people who may be potential terrorists. Now sure, a vast majority of the people detained had nothing to do with the attacks or any ones that were planned for the immideate future, but I'm sure that all of you have heard the saying "better safe than sorry"... I know it sucks, but I would rather have a social injustice happen to a thousand people than see 20,000 killed because we didn't want to offend anybody.
The kicker is that both of the people highlighted for being detained unjustly had A) Criminal records, and B' recently had just returned from a trip to the middle east. If the Governemnt is in a situation like they were and is doing a search for fucking terrorists, I'd say that those two things in conjunction with each other would be reason enough to detain someone for questioning.
One of the guys had been in a gang since he was aboput nine years old, had been to prison several times, and had recently become a muslim. He took a month long trip to syria, and then returned to the U.S where, according to the video, had lived "without legal incident for one to one and a half years".... Sorry charlie, your ass is still going to be questioned.
the other man had been a pilot in Syria for their air force. During a flight, he apparently had to land a plane that contained their vice president somewhere other than an air strip, and was charged with attempted assasination, so he fled to the U.S. He appliued for citizenship but was denied, and appealed his case so that he could put off being deported. He too was detained, and the bvideo made a huge crying soggy deal about when he was returned to his family and how unjustly he was treated.
Checklist time: Pilot? Check. (Planes are now bombs, thanks to radicals)
Muslim? Check. (all of the 9/11 terrorists were Muslims)
Criminal Record, valid or not? Check.
Citizen? No check, and he should have been deported by the time any of this happened anyway.
What I'm getting at is that out of the two thousand or so people detained directly after 9/11, I'd say that the government had decent cause to act like they did. Spare a few to save the Masses.