Eric Muller at IsThatLegal is guest blogging at the Volokh Conspiracy. He doesn't want to let the issue of the FBI-Iraqi interviews rest. He challenges us and Atrios to tell him what's so bad about the interviews.

Eric thinks the interviews are fine. We don't. We pretty much said all we had to say here. But in a nutshell, here's our reasons:

The program amounts to racial and ethnic profiling. It's viewing immigrants and those born in Iraq with suspicion, a guilty-until-proven-innocent approach.

It is morally offensive to us in the same way Mcarthyism was because many of those being questioned are American citizens, some who have been here for decades or who left Iraq as little children. Only by virtue of their heritage are they being asked questions like, Do you support Saddam Hussein? Do you know any Saddam sympathizers? What is your religious affiliation? What are the names and addresses of your Iraqi family members living in the United States?

It's not so different than, "Are you now or have you ever been a member of the communist party?" "Is any member of your family a member of the communist party?" Both have "witchhunt" aspects to them.

While the interviews were supposedly voluntary, many Iraqis felt threatened and intimidated. They were discouraged from seeking legal counsel.

There's also the issue of how the Government assembled its database of 50,000 people in America who were born in Iraq. Was it census records? We don't know, but we don't much like the idea of the Government pressing a computer button to single out a specific group for rounding up and questioning.