electricland

I cheered (quietly) reading the comments of the judge who sentenced Ahmed Ressam:

Judge John Coughenor called the sentencing of Mr. Ressam, a failed claimant for refugee status in Canada who used a Vancouver motel as his base for assembling explosives to bomb Los Angeles International Airport, the most difficult decision in his 24 years on the bench.

But he pointed out that all proceedings took place "in the sunlight of a public trial" without the indefinite detention of Mr. Ressam, subjecting him to a secret tribunal or denying him the right to a lawyer -- procedures U.S. authorities regularly employed against suspected terrorists after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

"Unfortunately, some believe that the tragedy of Sept. 11 renders our Constitution obsolete. If that view is allowed to prevail, the terrorists will have won," Judge Coughenor declared, his voice heavy with emotion.

Indeed. Let that be a lesson to all our governments (Canada, with its "security certificates", is hardly innocent of these kinds of tactics either).

Actually, the last part made me giggle, too.

(BTW, the Globe's Insider Edition really gets up my nose. I am already a subscriber to your paper edition. NOW you want me to pay MORE to get "exclusive web content"? Fuck you. No. And I had to Google to get this story -- it wasn't visible from their home page or their Ressam page, which is just bizarre.)