FROM UNDER THEIR ROCKS:

Attorneys for a father and son arrested in Lodi 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 by the Justice Department in Washington said potential terrorist targets included hospitals and groceries, and contained names of key individuals and statements about the international origins of "hundreds" of participants in alleged al-Qaida terrorist training camps in Pakistan.

These details — among the most alarming in the case — were widely reported in the news media, but then deleted in the final version filed with the federal court in Sacramento on Wednesday. Federal prosecutors blamed the problem on confusion inside the bureaucracy as different versions circulated between federal offices.

"An unfortunate oversight due to miscommunication," said Justice Department spokesman Bryan Sierra. ...

But defense attorney Johnny Griffin III, who represents the father, ice-cream truck driver Umer Hayat, 47, accused the government of "releasing information it knew it could not authenticate."

Attorney Wazhma Mojaddidi, who represents the son, 22-year-old Hamid Hayat, said she plans to bring up the different versions of the affidavit when she represents her client at his arraignment scheduled for this afternoon before U.S. Magistrate Judge Peter Nowinski in Sacramento. Both father and son are accused of making false statements to federal officials.

A key deletion, Mojaddidi said, was in a paragraph claiming that Hamid Hayat had said "potential targets for attack would include hospitals and large food stores."

Remember, this is your tax dollars at work, trying to railroad these unpopular scapegoats into prison in your name. It's not to keep you safe, it is to keep you scared. This kind of willful oppression is simply disgusting. The people who released the phony fear-mongering story should be fired, and their supervisors, and their own supervisors, and then the head of the FBI should be fired too, just to make the point crystal clear to these jerks. They've been screwing up cases for years by these leaks of phony information to prejudice jurors. Throw them all in jail and send a real message. They don't make me ashamed to be an American, but they make me ashamed that they are.