Moving to forestall congressional and civil liberties' criticism of the Justice Department, the US Attorney General, Mr John Ashcroft, has released the names of some 93 people facing federal charges arising from the September 11th investigations.
But he continues to insist that he is not obliged to release those of some 548 being held on immigration charges, maintaining that to do so would both be a violation of their privacy rights and would be of significant assistance to al Qaeda. He did however release a breakdown of the nationalities of the latter group - of the 548, the greatest number, 208 were from Pakistan with the next largest group, 74, from Egypt.
Mr Ashcroft has agreed to be questioned next week by the Senate Judiciary Committee which has opened hearings on the measures that Justice has acquired. These range from the additional wire-tap and surveillance powers approved by Congress itself in the wake of September 11th, to powers taken by Mr Ashcroft and President Bush unilaterally such as the right to eavesdrop on the conversations between terrorist suspects and their lawyers, and the possible use of military tribunals to try suspects.
Yesterday, the New York Times reported the Justice Department has given itself the right to continue detaining suspects even after their release has been ordered by a federal immigration judge for lack of evidence. Instructions issued by the FBI to regional offices to question up to 5,000 legally resident Muslim men have provoked anger in the Arab community which argues that such "profiling" stigmatises their entire community.
