Via the CSM we get the following: Terror allegations disappear from court filing
The Los Angeles Times reports that the Federal Bureau of Invesigation apparently gave the media a different, far more damaging version of an affidavit against a Lodi, California father and son charged with lying to federal officials than the one that was finally given to a court in Sacramento Thursday.The affidavit filed Thursday did not contain any of the sensation material from earlier in the week which said the son’s “potential terrorist targets included hospitals and groceries, and contained names of key individuals and statements about the international origins of ‘hundreds’ of participants in alleged Al Qaeda terrorist training camps in Pakistan.”
The LAT story has the details (albeit they are somewhat confused):
Federal prosecutors blamed the problem on confusion inside the bureaucracy as different versions circulated between federal offices.“An unfortunate oversight due to miscommunication,” said Justice spokesman Bryan Sierra.
[...]
Sacramento FBI spokesman John Cauthen said the deletions in the document were made because the original details were “not relevant or not accurate in context” for the purposes of proving a probable cause to arrest Hayat and his father.
Another federal source close to the investigation said the material about the hospitals and food stores was deleted out of fear that it might “panic the public.” The same source said other deletions, including the names of a friend and uncle who allegedly encouraged Hamid Hayat to go to the camps, were deleted because the younger Hayat was the only person to name them.
Now, it could very easily be the case that this was just a mistake. However, it comes across as the FBI trying too hard to prove that it being successful in the war on terror. Further, releasing such inflammatory charges leads to both a potetial poisoning of the jury pool, and a heightened sense of distrust vis-a-vis the Pakistani community in Lodi.
At the moment the charges are far less dramatic than the initial reporting indicated they might be:
In the Lodi case, authorities allege only that Hamid Hayat and his father lied about the son’s travels to an alleged terrorist training camp in Pakistan.
In general, this situation doesn’t make the FBI look very good, nor will it raise confidence of those who already see the entire anti-terror enterprise as one of keystone cops.
