A 9/11 Lesson: Don't Photograph the Water

On a cloudless autumn day three years ago, Ansar Mahmood, a pizza deliveryman for a Domino's near here, took a few hours off from work to snap pictures of the Hudson River amid the foliage, to send home to his family in Pakistan. With his arrest, Mr. Mahmood became part of the wave of Arab and Muslim aliens and citizens who were detained for questioning in the two months after Sept. 11. A United States Department of Justice report estimates that 1,200 people were rounded up, but advocates for the detainees say the number was much higher. Like Mr. Mahmood, many were then prosecuted for immigration violations or past crimes. [more]