U.S. Attorneys

US Attorney's "Convenience Store Initiative" Probed Middle Easterners For Terror Ties

Zachary Roth | September 29, 2009, 3:35PM

In the period after 9/11, law-enforcement agencies around the country suddenly made rooting out anyone with possible ties to terrorism a top priority. But did one Bush appointee take that zeal too far by targeting people based on little more than an Arabic-sounding name?

The Convenience Store Initiative was the farcical-sounding name of a program launched by the office of Jim Greenlee, the US attorney for Mississippi's northern district, according to documents obtained by the state's Clarion-Ledger newspaper.

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