I really think this guy’s getting the shaft. Yeah, it may turn out that he is the Anthrax killer. But can’t the damn FBI wait for at least an indictment before ruining his life?

I wonder why a guilty man would cooperate with the FBI every step of the way. He has yet to assert any of his Constitutionally-protected rights. The feds didn’t need a warrant to search his house — he let them in. And they rewarded him by leaking his name to the media, thus destroying the poor guy’s life without the need for a trial, or even an indictment.

Much as I’d like to nail this on the media, I don’t think there’s much blame to cast there. You can’t blame the media for covering a possible suspect in a series of attacks that shut down both the mail system and the U.S. Congress.

I blame the feds, first for once again failing to protect us from a domestic terrorist attack (that is, after all, the most important and legitimate function of our government); second, for the complete ineptitude of the subsequent investigation; and third, for trying to mask that ineptitute by implicating a man who may or may not be guilty with far too little evidence.

Steve Hatfill, meet Richard Jewell and Wen Ho Lee.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 26th, 2002 at 8:27 am by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.