U.S. attorney targeted N. Miss. store owners (Middle Eastern Convenience Store Owners)

[RamboLiberal]

Source: Clarion-Ledger.com

The U.S. attorney's office in Oxford targeted convenience store operators in north Mississippi, many of Middle Eastern descent, despite a lack of any connection to terrorism, according to documents obtained by The Clarion-Ledger.

The Convenience Store Initiative arose from meetings with local law enforcement officers in the years following 9-11 - when Middle Eastern terrorists flew hijacked planes into the Pentagon and World Trade Center Twin Towers.

U.S. Attorney Jim Greenlee of Oxford said the government was "looking to see any links to terrorism, but what we found was criminal conduct."

Instead of arrests for alleged terrorist plots, state and federal officials since 2006 have charged more than 60 people in Mississippi with such illegal acts as the sale of excessive amounts of pseudoephedrine - used to make meth.

Those who ran the Convenience Store Initiative say the FBI found nothing wrong with the initiative, which arose from tips from local law enforcement. In fact, they say the Justice Department in the Bush administration praised the concept.



Read more: http://www.clarionledger.com/article/20090929/NEWS/909290341/1002/news01/U.S.-attorney-targeted-N.-Miss.-store-owners

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Greenlee, a career Naval officer and former assistant US attorney, was appointed to his post in 2001 by President Bush, with the support of the state's two GOP senators at the time, Trent Lott and Thad Cochran. Along with many other Bush appointees, he has not yet been replaced by President Obama.

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/09/us_attorneys_convenience_store_initiative_probed_m.php?ref=fpb

WTF is taking the Obama administration so damn long to replace these Bush appointees? I looked it up and most Clinton appointed U.S. Attorneys were gone by late April of the Bush Admin. Here we are almost in to October!

"On the issue of Clinton (U.S. attorneys), we called each one and had them give us a timeframe. Most were gone by late April. In contrast, Clinton (Justice Department) told all but a dozen in early March to be gone immediately," McNulty said.

http://articles.latimes.com/2007/mar/23/nation/na-talking23

[winyanstaz]

1. In case you have not been paying attention....

a lot of Bush's people are still in office and most of Bush's laws etc are still in place. There has not been much in the way of change as of yet.