Posted on 06/20/2002 12:29:39 PM PDT by DoctorMichael
GEORGE W. KAFKA: Bush's Police State Kicks Into Gear
Knock knock at your front door."
-Dead Kennedys
NEW YORK-It can happen to you.
The jackbooted thugs can arrest you without bothering to accuse you of a crime. They can deprive you of the right to make a phone call, to receive a visit from your family, or even to see a lawyer. It doesn't matter if you're innocent or not; our state-sanctioned terrorists can keep you locked up in prison for the rest of your life without ever granting you your day in court.
But you're an American citizen, you protest. It makes no difference whatsoever-you have no rights.
After cynically using the September 11th attacks as a pretext to eradicate one civil liberty after another, the Bush Administration has finally taken away the single most essential freedom of an American citizen: the right to due process before a jury of his peers. Classifying 31-year-old Chicagoan Jose Padilla as an Al Qaeda associate and enemy combatant, Attorney General John Ashcroft authorized his transfer from a federal courthouse in New York City, where he had been held as a "material witness" on a customs violation since May 8th, to indefinite military detention at the Charleston Naval Weapons Station in South Carolina.
Though not legally charged, Padilla, who changed his name to Abdullah al-Mujahir after converting to Islam, is accused of planning to build and detonate a non-nuclear "dirty" radioactive bomb, possibly in Washington, D.C. Government officials concede that they have no physical evidence against Padilla-bomb components, manuals, etc.-. Their case, they admit, relies primarily on information from star canary Abu Zubaydah, an unsavory Al Qaeda operative whose Guantánamo debriefing sparked last month's flurry of warnings from Tom Ridge. Justice Department officials, an anonymous official told The New York Times on June 12th, "concluded that they could not bring a winnable court prosecution, largely because the evidence against [Padilla] was derived from intelligence sources and other witnesses the government cannot or will not produce in court."
So much for the right to face your accuser.
Padilla theoretically faces prosecution under a military tribunal. (Back in November, Bush had promised that tribunals would only be used against foreigners.) But Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says that even such kangaroo court justice is probably a long way off: "We're not interested in trying him at this moment." Some officials say that detainees like Padilla and those being held in the Guantánamo dog pens need not be tried until the end of the "war on terror"-which could, according to Bush himself, go on forever.
America may well be a safer place because Jose Padilla has been "disappeared," in the lexicon of Latin American death squads. But the manner in which this American has been stripped of his citizenship rights-to a lawyer, to a speedy trial, to apply for bail-is reminiscent of such totalitarian states as Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. What the Bushies are doing to Padilla is an outrage-and it could happen to any of us.
The legal basis for this action is a twisted joke. "Citizens who associate themselves with the military arm of the enemy government, and with its aid, guidance and direction enter this country bent on hostile acts, are enemy belligerents," ruled the Supreme Court in a precedent-setting case in 1942. The United States, however, is not at war. Congress has not declared war against the Taliban or anyone else. And while Padilla may indeed have plotted hostile acts at the behest of Al Qaeda, no one accuses him of belonging to the Taliban army. How could they? The Bushies denied P.O.W. status under the Geneva conventions to Guantánamo inmates by arguing that the Taliban never had an army.
The war on terror, like the war on drugs, isn't a state of combat. It's an advertising slogan. The bombing campaign against Afghanistan is, at most, a police action. And while there are undoubtedly organizations like Al Qaeda that hate the U.S. and mean harm to Americans, there is no legal basis for denaturalizing Americans merely because they're accused of belonging to such groups.
Ironically, this vile assault on essential American rights comes on the heels of what seems to be a previous Bush Administration abuse of Padilla's rights-he was jailed in New York for a month without being charged with a crime. Ruling in a different case, New York federal judge Shira Scheindlin recently wrote that "Relying on the material witness statute to detain people who are presumed innocent under our Constitution in order to prevent potential crimes is an illegitimate use of the statute." That ruling may have inspired Padilla's transfer to the South Carolina military lock-up.
You're probably not all that troubled about what happened to Padilla. You haven't hung out with Islamic extremists, boned up on your bomb-making skills or fantasized about Chernobylizing the Washington Mall. But don't forget: a court of law hasn't proved that Jose Padilla did either. And if George W. Bush has his way, it never will.
(Ted Rall's new book, a graphic travelogue about his recent coverage of the Afghan war titled "To Afghanistan and Back," is out now. Ordering and review-copy information are available at nbmpub.com.)
COPYRIGHT 2002 TED RALL
RALL 6/11/02
Originally Published on June-11-2002
June 2002
You can contact him at..............tedrall@aol.com
Can't this guy stick to something he is even passably mediocre at, like, say, cartooning?
Silly git.
Be Seeing You,
Chris
In Rall's case, hardly necessary.
Watch out Comrade Ted, we're coming for you next.
Why does this guy remind me of the character in the movie BOB ROBERTS who was chasing the right-wing Bob with all these conspiracy theories and language EXACTLY like used in this article?
One, he's a citizen, and
two, this is the first time the "Constitutional rights" sky is falling crowd has ever given an issue I've seen that indicates somethng new might have happened. Usually one just hears complaints about WoT laws, which, however, are not much different than the WoD powers. From the left we get the "I'm being censored" stuff because they have nothing to say, and know it.
Say goodnight, Gracie - America is no more.
According to reports I've read, Jose Jihad had a hearing in front of a judge who said Jose had relinquished his citizenship by joining an enemy military. Actions do have consequences, and it was all spelled out in his passport. He can still try to claim that he's an American citizen, and wants his habeus corpus rights.
I'm more concerned that a mere government bureaucrat can take away one's rights, and proclaim a new legal doctrine at the same time. Witness Larry Potts ordering "shoot on sight" killing of Randy Weaver from the comfort of his FBI executive jet. There's already lots of nasty stuff out there that has been around for years, usually cheered by the liberals.
Only if congress declares war against them by authorizing the use of the military against them.
That is what has happened in this case.
Padilla is subject to congress's war powers.
Congress has authorized the President to treat these people as combatants.
The congress has authorized treating these people as combatants.
That is an extremely Constitutional act.
The judge says one thing, the Constitution says quite another:
Article III, Section 3: "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them (GET THAT? TREASON IS LEVYING WAR AGAINST US), or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted (CONVICTED, AS IN TRIAL) of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court."
"The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted."
Amendment V: "No person shall be...deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law..."
Amendment VI : "In ALL criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence."
As for our country being at war, or public danger, only the 5th Amendment provides different treatment under those conditions. And that exception only applies to being "...held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger..."
The right to Due Process is not invalidated by the 5th Amendment's 'war and public danger' exception.
Please note that those who ratified the Bill of Rights saw to explicitly enumerate conditions where war powers change the rights of a defendant. And where these exceptions are not explicit, they are non-existent. This includes, especially, charges of Treason.
Now before you all get hot and bothered and yell at me, let me say I don't favor this scumbag or his cause in the least. The punishment for Treason is Death, and once he's had his due process and found guilty, that's exactly what I'd like to see happen.
What a load of hooey.
I'm sure it is common for people to invent stories about the Constitution on liberal web sites, and frankly it no longer amazes me when it happens here on free Republic!
The courts were not given the power to try war crimes by the Constitution- therefore they do not have that power.
"As this Court has often recognized, it was not the purpose or effect of 2 of Article III, read in the light of the common law, to enlarge the then existing right to a jury trial. The object was to preserve unimpaired trial by jury in all those cases in which it had been recognized by the common law and in all cases of a like nature as they might arise in the future...
All these are instances of offenses committed against the United States, for which a penalty is imposed, but they are not deemed to be within Article III, 2 or the provisions of the Fifth and Sixth Amendments relating to 'crimes' and 'criminal prosecutions'. In the light of this long-continued and consistent interpretation we must concluded that 2 of Article III and the Fifth and Sixth Amendments cannot be taken to have extended the right to demand a jury to trials by military commission, or to have required that offenses against the law of war not triable by jury at common law be tried only in the civil courts. "
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