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What exactly is Najibullah Zazi guilty of?

You know the authorities have a bogus case when they charge you for lying to them while questioning you for some other crime they can't pin on you. Now, I'm not asserting that Mr. Zazi was not attempting to bring about a terrorist plot, I have no idea if he was or not. I'm not asserting he had no contacts associated with the ex-mujahedeen group that the CIA calls "al Qaeda". Frankly, the stuff that has been put out in the media so far smells of typical jury-tainting dirty tricks that investigators and DAs routinely use. The most serious evidence against him so far seems to be that he bought a lot of nail polish remover. Forgive me for being nonplussed.

In any case, Mr. Zazi needs good legal representation regardless of his guilt or innocence but his lawyer sat him down for 28 hours of free-wheeling question and answer session with the FBI without immunity. I am predicting that this case will be built almost completely from what Mr. Zazi said during those 28 hours. The prosecutor is likely going to rely on a mix of contradictions between Mr. Zazi's testimony to the FBI and the FBI's long-running surveillance to build the government's case.

It is perhaps no coincidence that several key provisions of the PATRIOT Act are up for renewal this year when the FBI suddenly foils the "biggest terror plot since 9/11". Maybe. Maybe not. I remain skeptical of anything the incompetent thugs in the FBI say after they patently lied to the 9/11 commission on many things (search "The Ground Truth" by John Farmer for more information). The Zazi case is an improvement over their usual MO of arresting some random people then claiming they foiled some major plot, while telling us they can't release any details of what the plot was or might have been due to "national security reasons."

Najibullah Zazi is innocent until proven guilty. Because of the particularly pernicious and anti-justicial nature of the PATRIOT Act, we should be especially skeptical of the government's claims about Mr. Zazi and we should hope that Mr. Zazi has the very best and brightest legal defense on his side, though it looks like his lawyer Folsom may already have irreversibly destroyed Mr. Zazi's prospects for a fair trial.

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