A year and a half ago, I warned that if you bought certain beauty supplies — hydrogen peroxide and acetone — you might be a terrorism suspect. Shortly thereafter, John Kyl basically confirmed that the government had been tracking certain people buying hydrogen peroxide. Yesterday, FBI Director Robert Mueller did so in even more explicit terms.

Here’s one of my biggest concerns: that the quickness with which the government slaps a WMD charge on someone experimenting with explosives reflects its interest or disinterest in fully investigating that person’s goals and associates.

Main Justice reports that Pat Leahy and DOJ’s Inspector General Glenn Fine have been chatting about further IG review of the FBI’s use of the several PATRIOT provisions that were contentious issues in last years attempt to reauthorize the PATRIOT Act. This means that Fine is going to do what the legislation would have mandated — conduct further reviews of these authorities — on his own. But I’m also interested in the scope Fine lays out for his review in his response to Leahy.

With the arrest last night of Faisal Shahzad in the case of the failed Times Square SUV bombing attempt from Saturday evening, we see the continuation of a trend in which bombing attempts are botched, allowing law enforcement to move in, arrest the immediately involved suspect and then begin to investigate ties to larger groups.

A bunch of NY subway riders may have almost gotten killed last September 11 because Dick Cheney wanted to boost poll numbers in 2006 rather than let law enforcement work.

What ever happened to terrorist suspect Najibullah Zazi’s three “associates” who bought certain hair care products this summer? Has the FBI started nosing around in their life? And have they been determined to be innocent?