A few days ago I reported to you that the Bush administration had been overstating the number of terrorism-related prosecutions and convictions in the U.S.

As it turns out, under the revised rules, just about anything could be a terrorism-related investigation. The Des Moines Register obtained copies of internal Department of Injustice memoranda which specifically ordered the overstatement of terrorism-related investigations in specific ways:

In a series of memos sent to the nation’s prosecutors between September 2001 and April 2003, records show that the Justice Department:

• Required that any investigation involving a suspected terrorist link, even if unsubstantiated and unprosecuted, be counted as terrorism-related.
• Expanded the number of terrorism-related crime categories from two to six. Now, when federal authorities looking for terrorists make an arrest for other reasons, the case is logged by prosecutors as “anti-terrorism.”
• Exempted terrorism cases from a policy that generally counts leads only when prosecutors spend an hour investigating them. Unlike leads on conventional crimes, those on alleged terrorist activities are now immediately logged by prosecutors even if they are disregarded.

– Des Moines Register

Contrast this to statements made by Barry M. Sabin, chief of the DOJ counterterrorism section:

A person could not have been put on this list if there was not a concern about national security, at least initially. . . . Are all these people an ongoing threat presently? Arguably not. . . . We are not trying to overstate or understate what we’re doing. You don’t want to put language or a label on people that is inconsistent with what they have done. — Barry M. Sabin

As you can see, there is a clear discrepancy between Mr. Sabin’s statements and the way the DOJ has actually been classifying investigations as terrorism-related. I will argue that stealing cereal is not a terrorist act.

The fudging of the numbers has the effect of making the Department of Homeland Security look far more effective at catching terrorists than it really is, and makes the problem of terrorism in the U.S. itself look much larger than it really is.

Classic scare tactics.

Be careful out there; there are FBI agents and U.S. Attorneys behind every rock, and they want to label you a terrorist, too!