Asian Pacific American Hall of Shame - Viet Dinh

VIET DINH, AUTHOR OF THE PATRIOT ACT
Viet Dinh has long been on my list of Asian Pacific Americans who've acted shamelessly in a way that contradicts the interests of the APA community and Americans in general. One of John Ashcroft's chief deputies in the wake of September 11th, Dinh is responsible for crafting the so-called Patriot Act.

As a Wired interview notes, Dinh's actions while at the Justice Department seem to run contrary to his own background as an immigrant.

In May 2001, the professor of law at Georgetown University was tapped by the Justice Department to work for two years as an assistant attorney general, working primarily on judicial nominations for the department. But three months later the World Trade Center towers collapsed, and Dinh was drafted to work on the USA Patriot Act, a bill that would give the government some of its most controversial surveillance powers. The bill, coupled with the government's subsequent treatment of immigrants and native-born citizens, prompted critics to charge the administration with overthrowing "800 years of democratic tradition."

Ironically, Dinh is an immigrant himself. The youngest of seven children born in Vietnam, he was 7 years old when communists took over the country and imprisoned his father, a city councilman, for "reeducation." Three years later, Dinh's mother escaped with him and five of his siblings to the United States. His father arrived eight years later.

In addition to the Patriot Act, Steven Brill notes in his fabulous book, After, that Dinh was responsible for developing the criteria for identifying and detaining Muslims after 9/11 (No online version - I'll try to post the text later, but paraphrasing):

First, they picked up for detention any Muslim that was associated in any way with the 9/11 hijackers. This was any association they could find - for example, if a Muslim had used the same computer at Kinko's as a 9/11 hijacker, that person was picked up for questioning.

The second criteria was anyone that was reported as suspicious by any American, regardless of the grounds for suspicion. That person received a visit by the FBI. There were a number of incidents where people just didn't like their Muslim neighbors and called or threatened to call the FBI on them.

The third criteria, was in fact, any Muslim they could find. Some FBI offices were literally combing through the telephone book to find Muslims to question and detain.

The detention was the tricky part - U.S. criminal law affords numerous protections to the individual, based on the notion that individuals are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Ashcroft and Dinh weren't interested in justice, however - they just wanted to get Muslims off the streets.

Instead of criminal law, they utilized immigration law to detain Muslims since immigration law doesn't provide for an attorney (immigrants must secure one themselves) and they can be held indefinitely if necessary. Thus, the FBI coordinated with the INS in order to detain Muslims on any violation they could find, such as overstaying their visa (not traditionally an offense calling for detention).

In cases where the individual was a U.S. citizen and the FBI wanted them held, they were defined as "material witnesses" even though there might not be any grounds for such a classification. This also allowed the Justice Department to hold them indefinitely.

As a result, more than 1200 men (and we're not sure of the full tally since the Justice Dept. has never released it) were held in prison-like conditions (some even in maximum-security facilities) despite the fact that none were charged with terrorism nor was there any real evidence to suggest it beyond their religion.

For his role in all this, please joing me in welcoming Viet Dinh into the APA Hall of Shame.

Comments

[Thomas Ward]

Strange how Chertoff gave a pass (or seems to have) to someone that wired 5.7 million $ to ?? (a family friend of Bin Laden) Dr. Elamir - who sought to get Bin Laden "conventional and nuclear arms" *********************(see universitystar.com/main/article.php?aid=1236) Article seems to say that Chertoff defended Elamir--Moreover, When Chertoff was ?? assistant attorney general and was the one charged with the responsibility to prosecute ******************************* ***“By the time Operation Diamondback culminated in arrests in the summer of 2001, Michael Chertoff was the Assistant Attorney General in charge of the criminal division and Operation Diamondback would have fallen under his prevue since it was a criminal case and not a counterterrorism case,” Duncan said. *******************Why do I post this here?? Its because, I think, Dinh worked hand and glove with Chertoff on this "pass" and (in contrast) the prosecution of John Walker Lindt**
I can"t seem to paste the article here. You can find it I'm sure---unless things are even worse than they now seem. Don't forget the missing e-mails about Chertoff's involvment with the questioning of JWL in Afghanisten. O yes, things seem to be getting VERY STRANGE. To see what missing emails-- google "missing emails, Chertoff Have a nice day. tgw@sacbeemail.com