Quote of the Week:

"We did not need to use a secret military tribunal, detain the defendant indefinitely as an enemy combatant or deny the defendant the right to counsel. The message to the world from today's sentencing is that our courts have not abandoned our commitment to the ideals that set our nation apart."

(...the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks have made Americans realize they are vulnerable to terrorism and that some believe) "this threat renders our Constitution obsolete...If that view is allowed to prevail, the terrorists will have won."

- U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour, sentencing Ahmed Ressam to 22 years in prison for plotting to bomb the Los Angeles airport on the eve of the millennium.