Thinking About Private William Long

TERRORISM: "Report of Motive in Recruiter Attack," by James Dao and David Johnston, New York Times, 3 June 2009.

I have been following the reporting on the attack by Carlos Bledsoe (aka Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad) at an Army recruiting office in Little Rock, Arkansas. The attack killed Army Private William A. Long, and wounded another, Private Quinton Ezeagwula. In addition to the fact that Bledsoe needlessly took the life of an American patriot, there is a detail associated with this story that set off my radar.

According to the Times, Bledsoe, an American convert to Islam, was detained in Yemen for possessing a "fake Somali passport and other counterfeit documents."

The episode in Yemen prompted a preliminary inquiry by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other American law enforcement agencies into whether the man, Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, had ties to extremist groups, the officials said. But that investigation was inconclusive, they said, leaving the bureau with insufficient evidence to wiretap his phone or put him under surveillance.

This article prompted me to ask myself these questions

1. Should people like Carlos Bledsoe, who have suspicious terror related activity in their past, be open to more scrutiny by U.S. law enforcement?

2. How do we protect American civil liberties, while at the same time protecting Americans from the Carlos Bledsoe's?

3. Is the death of an American worth the price we pay for not tracking the Carlos Bledsoe's because law enforcement does not have sufficient evidence to wiretap their phone or put them under surveillance?

In my book, a fake passport and counterfeit documents equals probable cause and warrants significant scrutiny on the part of U.S. law enforcement.

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