"Persons Of Interest"

With everything going on within this administration and this country, it's easy to overlook some of the small ways in which the abuses this administration has committed have trickled down to other agencies and local governments. Take for example "Persons of Interest".

After 9/11 the DOJ, notably AG John Ashcroft used this term regarding people the government was interested in detaining/questioning about potential terrorist activity. These people were not "suspects" there was no quantitative evidence that would make them "suspects" therefore a new term was coined, "Person of Interest".

Fast forward 6 years, within the past few days I have hear on at least 3 occasions police or officials being quoted as having "persons of interest" with regard to various crimes. Now having taken Criminal Justice courses and knowing a wee bit about the laws, we don't have "persons of interest" we have suspects, suspects who are either linked with a crime and arrested or are dropped as suspects.

This new "Person of Interest" category puts a large cloud of suspicion over anyone it touches. It puts this cloud over you and over me. Why? Because there is no legal definition for "person of interest". Therefore we all could be "persons of interest" just as this administration has tried to make the case that any citizen can be called an enemy combatant and detained without charge. In fact person of interest, when used, has been eerily similar to "enemy combatant" after all there have been reports where "persons of interest" have been detained for a given period of time without charge, only to be released.

This is what we have been reduced to, this is the real "trickle down" effect. Local authorities and agencies playing monkey see, monkey do with carelessly used phrases that have no meaning. Why? Because the government has allowed it, we the people have allowed it. To quote Susan Powter it's time to "Stop the Insanity".