To Live and Lie In Lodi

The Bush FBI claims incompetence, which is certainly possible, but that doesn't explain why the FBI was more interested in a public relations offensive than it was in performing its job:

SACRAMENTO -- Attorneys for a Central Valley father and son arrested in connection with a broad FBI terrorism probe plan to challenge the government case in court today over significantly differing versions of the affidavit used to charge the two men.

The first version of the affidavit released to media organizations Tuesday by the Department of Justice in Washington said potential terrorist targets included hospitals and stores and contained names of key individuals and statements about the international origins of "hundreds" of participants in alleged Al Qaeda terrorist training camps inside Pakistan.

Those details -- among the most alarming in the case -- were widely reported in the press but then deleted in the final version filed with the federal court in Sacramento on Tuesday.

Federal prosecutors blamed the problem on confusion inside the bureaucracy as different versions circulated between federal offices.

An FBI flack in Sacramento said the information was deleted because it was "not relevant or not accurate in context" (well, which one?) but it certainly was relevant enough to feed to the press in advance of Bush's Patridiot Act Tour. An unnamed FBI source was quoted as saying the FBI didn't want to panic the public -- a most convincing explanation for leaving the scary bits in the press handout and deleting it from the court filing.

Just another reason not to give these idiots expanded powers -- I have no desire to disappear for 10 years because of "[a]n unfortunate oversight due to miscommunication."