For those who don't know, I am an avid reader of CNN.com. They have this great service where you can pick topics you would find interesting and have the headlines for those articles emailed to you on a daily basis - but I digress. Frequently I become annoyed at what I find, either through the interpretation or content of the material. Today was such a day. While reading the article titled, "Terror financing case in Florida puts the Patriot Act to the test" [found at http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/01/19/attacks.professor.ap/index.html for anyone interested] I found the following;

"Al-Arian's defense attorney, William B. Moffitt, has said he intends to challenge every aspect of the new law as the case heads to trial and has called the Patriot Act the product of a 'frightened society', overreacting to the horrific events of September 11."

Now you may not agree with the article as a whole, and you may have mixed feelings on the Patriot Act, but what really drives me to look for the closest clock tower and an AK-47 are the words "overreacting to ... September 11". Pardon?! Overreacting!?!?!?!?!?! I cannot even comprehend ANY action that would be too severe a reaction to that hellish day. Thousands of innocent people were murdered in one of the biggest cities in the world in a country where we celebrate freedoms rather than trying to oppress the populous through fear and ignorance.

I could go on and on, but I'll spare anyone who has bothered to come to my corner of the web. I just HAD to comment. If there is any one single historical event whose ramifications are BOUNDLESS it is September 11. In this instance there is no such thing as overreaction! And to think a lawyer made those comments. No doubt trying to save his client's a$$ through the media, but I really want to ask him if he wants some salt to go with that leather because he really stuck his foot in his mouth on that one. It's people like him who make my MY chosen profession the butt of so many jokes.

The score is lawyers 0 - naysayers 1.