This is a snip from Lucianne.com

New York Times

The government portrays the arrest and detention of more than 1,100 people in connection with the investigation of the Sept. 11 attacks as evidence of its fight against terrorism. Civil liberties groups argue that the widespread arrests are a sign of a dangerous erosion of rights. But an examination of those arrests suggests that the impression fostered by both sides is overstated. Interviews with top law enforcement officials show that several hundred, and possibly more than half, of the 1,147 people taken into custody since the terror attacks have been released from jail. They also acknowledged that many of them were simply questioned briefly — either at police precinct houses or while detained on old warrants for petty crimes — and found to have nothing to do with terrorism. In fact, senior F.B.I. and Justice Department officials were unsure how many remained in custody. "If the chief of police in Saginaw, Mich., finds a drunk driver, and there's something funny about his ID, and he thinks, `Maybe he's connected,' and brings him in and asks him questions for a few hours," that would count in the total, a senior Justice Department official said.

-- Anonymous, November 02, 2001