: Would You Step Into My Office, Please?

In a move that has angered Arab-Americans, Attorney General John Ashcroft has expanded a program to conduct “voluntary” interviews to an additional 3,000 Middle Easterners, in addition to the original 5,000 interviewed in the months after 9/11 (this doesn’t include the Arabs detained indefinitely as quasi-suspects). Although Ashcroft claimed those original interrogations “a success,” the relevancy of information gathered has been disputed by Arab-American groups. Coming on the heels of new raids on other US Muslim organizations (even though terror-stopping information from old raids has yet to surface), this action has led some to suspect that the primary motivation is for the Justice Department to do something – anything – to show progress.

Zahed Amanullah is associate editor of altmuslim.com.  He is based in London, England.