"Why bother with military tribunals for terrorists?"

"Just hold them in contempt of court. They'll languish there for years," quipped Bernie Kleinman, attorney for Ramzi Yousef, the 1993 World Trade Center bomber and nephew of the 9/11 mastermind, KSM, in a response to an article that appeared in today's New York Times - yes, a cover story - on one of his former clients.

Kleinman's former client, Martin Armstrong, an investment manager accused of securities fraud has spent the past seven years in jail because he says he does not have some documents that were requested by the courts.

Soon the number of years Mr. Armstrong will have spent in jail on civil contempt charges will exceed the maximum sentence he would have obtained had he been convicted of all 24 counts of securities fraud with which he was originally charged. (Prosecutors agreed to drop all but one of the charges in exchange for his guilty plea on one count.)