Bush chose for Homeland Security czar a man in the forefront of one of the worst abuses of the modern era. Chertoff help plan and carry out the mass roundup of Arabs and Muslims after 9/11 in what was a de facto suspension of habeas corpus. In congressional testimony, Chertoff wrongly claimed that ““Nobody is held incommunicado. We don’t hold people in secret, you know, cut off from lawyers, cut off from the public, cut off from their family and friends.” The Justice Department Inspector General later reported that this is exactly what happened. The mass roundup was a dismal failure at discovering terrorists but was typical of the repressive ways the Bush administration has sought to comfort Americans by trampling the Constitution. Chertoff’s enthusiasm for data mining also raises the danger of the feds building dossiers on millions of innocent Americans.
