Cereal Terrorism

The Wa Post has a good piece on how the administration’s terrorism statistics have been trumped up.  The article also sheds light on the workings of bureaucracy.  Here’s the most ridiculous example.

More than a year before the 9/11 attacks the FBI runs across some Arabs stealing Kellogg’s Cornflakes.  The FBI doesn’t give a damn about cornflakes so they let them go.  Sixteen months later come the attacks and now Arabs are hot property so the FBI rounds them up again, asks them a few questions about terrorism (making this a terrorism investigation), and charges them with conspiracy to possess stolen property.  No terrorism charges are ever filed but the three grocers remain on the federal list of successfully prosecuted terrorism cases.

For this we need the Patriot Act?