I’m sure most people saw the news last week about the man charged with plotting to kill President Bush. I wonder how many people realized that the accused is also the subject of an unlawful detention lawsuit, in which the Justice Department is trying to not only present secret evidence, but also wants to argue its side of the case in secret:

ATTORNEYS FOR the Justice Department appeared before a federal judge in Washington this month and asked him to dismiss a lawsuit over the detention of a U.S. citizen, basing their request not merely on secret evidence but also on secret legal arguments. The government contends that the legal theory by which it would defend its behavior should be immune from debate in court. This position is alien to the history and premise of Anglo-American jurisprudence, which assumes that opposing lawyers will challenge one another’s arguments.

The timing is interesting, too: the Post story appeared last Monday, and the news about the assassination plot was released Tuesday.

Ethel has some interesting speculation about the timing of when FEMA arrived in NYC after the attacks. Yeah, it’s probably a co-inky-dink, but then why lie about it? (Oh, wait, because this administration lies by default…)

The St. Petersburg Times comes up with the story on three Saudi nationals that did a lot of flying around the country… on 13 Sept 2001, when commercial aviation was all still grounded. As the story says:

“They got the approval somewhere,” [Manuel Perez, a retired FBI agent who accompanied the Saudis on the flight,] is quoted as telling [Author Craig Unger, who first disclosed the possibility of a post-9/11 Saudi airlift in his book House of Bush, House of Saud]. “It must have come from the highest levels of government.”

The “highest levels” had no comment, of course.