New direction in terror fight may stem from case

[undeterred]

Source: Associated Press

By ADAM GOLDMAN and DEVLIN BARRETT (AP)

NEW YORK — When the American-born al-Qaida recruit Bryant Neal Vinas was captured in Pakistan late last year, he wasn't whisked off to a military prison or a secret CIA facility in another country to be interrogated. Instead, the itinerant terrorist landed in the hands of the FBI and was flown back to New York to face justice.

Months before President Barack Obama took office with a pledge to change U.S. counterterrorism policies, the Bush administration gave Vinas all the rights of American criminal suspects. And he talked.

While an American citizen captured in Pakistan certainly presents a unique case, the circumstances of Vinas' treatment may point to a new emphasis in the fight against terror, one that relies more on FBI crimefighters and the civilian justice system than on CIA interrogators and military detention.

Vinas provided "an intelligence gold mine" to U.S. officials, including possible information about a suspected militant who was killed in a Predator drone strike last November, says a senior law enforcement official, one of several authorities who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the case publicly.



Read more: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jpHUj_QKz6CevzNxcyRJmrushFZgD99M7UN00

[Festivito]

1. Notice M$M spin: Good comes from case rather than from Obama.

We've known since the time of George Washington that it is in our goodness that we prevail.