AMY GOODMAN: Attorney General John Ashcroft being questioned by 9-11 commission member Bob Kerrey, Kate Martin on the phone with us. She is the Director of the Center for National Security Studies, your response.

KATE MARTIN: I think that Ashcroft’s testimony highlights the basic problem in their counterterrorism approach, both before September 11 and still to this day. Which is that the FBI and now this Attorney General failed and refused to distinguish between individuals — those few individuals who are actual terrorists, and a large number in this case of simply immigrants from American Muslim countries. In the past, Palestinian activists, for example, who the government can kind of claim are the subject of some terrorism investigation, so, what you have is before September 11, they target people who have nothing to do with planning attacks. And then they blame it on — their failure to find the people on made-up legal barriers. After September 11, they say, "Oh we need basically limitless powers. We have to share every piece of information about everybody between the CIA and the FBI, and we have to arrest and detain 800 people who Ashcroft forgot to mention had nothing to do with terrorism." When he, when he’s talking about they were in violation, they were in violation, perhaps, of technical immigration laws. Still, the commission needs to focus on how do we get the FBI to focus on real terrorists, and not go after the people they have always gone after, those who look like terrorists to the agents in charge.

AMY GOODMAN: I refer people to our program yesterday where we spoke for half an hour to Farouk Abdel-Muhti, who is a Palestinian activist who was picked up April 26, 2002, after being on Pacifica station WBAI over issues of the occupied territories. They ransacked his apartment as he was on once and picked him up. He has just been released after almost two full years in jail, in detention. He was never charged. He was never deported. A judge simply ordered his release. How unusual is that, Kate Martin?

KATE MARTIN: Well, it turns out that since September 11, if you look at what the Attorney General boasts of in his counterterrorism efforts, it’s mainly targeting Palestinians, and other Arabs and Muslims who had had no connection with terrorism. But they’re vulnerable under our arcane and unfair immigration laws.

AMY GOODMAN: We only have ten seconds. I want to ask you about the suggestion of a domestic spy agency.

KATE MARTIN: It would solve nothing. It would turn, and it would threaten civil liberties. It would make the counterterrorism effort less effective rather than more effective.

AMY GOODMAN: Kate Martin, Director of the Center for National Security Studies. I want to thank you for being with us.