-Caveat Lector-
http://villagevoice.com/issues/0236/hentoff.php
General Ashcroft's Detention Camps
Time to Call for His Resignation
Nat Hentoff
VillageVoice.com
September 4 - September 10, 2002
Jonathan Turley is a professor of constitutional and public-interest law at
George Washington University Law School in D.C. He is also a defense
attorney in national security cases and other matters, writes for a number
of publications, and is often on television. He and I occasionally exchange
leads on civil liberties stories, but I learn much more from him than he
does from me.
For example, a Jonathan Turley column in the national edition of the August
14 Los Angeles Times ("Camps for Citizens: Ashcroft's Hellish Vision")
begins:
"Attorney General John Ashcroft's announced desire for camps for U.S.
citizens he deems to be 'enemy combatants' has moved him from merely being a
political embarrassment to being a constitutional menace." Actually, ever
since General Ashcroft pushed the U.S. Patriot Act through an overwhelmingly
supine Congress soon after September 11, he has subverted more elements of
the Bill of Rights than any attorney general in American history.
Under the Justice Department's new definition of "enemy combatant"--which
won the enthusiastic approval of the president and Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld--anyone defined as an "enemy combatant," very much including
American citizens, can be held indefinitely by the government, without
charges, a hearing, or a lawyer. In short, incommunicado.
Two American citizens--Yaser Esam Hamdi and Jose Padilla--are currently
locked up in military brigs as "enemy combatants." (Hamdi is in solitary in
a windowless room.) As Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Tribe said on ABC's
Nightline (August 12):
"It bothers me that the executive branch is taking the amazing position that
just on the president's say-so, any American citizen can be picked up, not
just in Afghanistan, but at O'Hare Airport or on the streets of any city in
this country, and locked up without access to a lawyer or court just because
the government says he's connected somehow with the Taliban or Al Qaeda.
That's not the American way. It's not the constitutional way. . . . And no
court can even figure out whether we've got the wrong guy."
In Hamdi's case, the government claims it can hold him for interrogation in
a floating navy brig off Norfolk, Virginia, as long as it needs to. When
Federal District Judge Robert Doumar asked the man from the Justice
Department how long Hamdi is going to be locked up without charges, the
government lawyer said he couldn't answer that question. The Bush
administration claims the judiciary has no right to even interfere.
Now more Americans are also going to be dispossessed of every fundamental
legal right in our system of justice and put into camps. Jonathan Turley
reports that Justice Department aides to General Ashcroft "have indicated
that a 'high-level committee' will recommend which citizens are to be
stripped of their constitutional rights and sent to Ashcroft's new camps."
It should be noted that Turley, who tries hard to respect due process, even
in unpalatable situations, publicly defended Ashcroft during the latter's
turbulent nomination battle, which is more than I did.
Again, in his Los Angeles Times column, Turley tries to be fair: "Of course
Ashcroft is not considering camps on the order of the internment camps used
to incarcerate Japanese American citizens in World War II. But he can be
credited only with thinking smaller; we have learned from painful experience
that unchecked authority, once tasted, easily becomes insatiable." (Emphasis
added.)
Turley insists that "the proposed camp plan should trigger immediate
Congressional hearings and reconsideration of Ashcroft's fitness for
important office. Whereas Al Qaeda is a threat to the lives of our citizens,
Ashcroft has become a clear and present threat to our liberties." (Emphasis
added.)
On August 8, The Wall Street Journal, which much admires Ashcroft on its
editorial pages, reported that "the Goose Creek, South Carolina, facility
that houses [Jose] Padilla--mostly empty since it was designated in January
to hold foreigners captured in the U.S. and facing military tribunals--now
has a special wing that could be used to jail about 20 U.S. citizens if the
government were to deem them enemy combatants, a senior administration
official said." The Justice Department has told Turley that it has not
denied this story. And space can be found in military installations for more
"enemy combatants."
But once the camps are operating, can General Ashcroft be restrained from
detaining--not in these special camps, but in regular lockups--any American
investigated under suspicion of domestic terrorism under the new, elastic
FBI guidelines for criminal investigations? From page three of these
Ashcroft terrorism FBI guidelines:
"The nature of the conduct engaged in by a [terrorist] enterprise will
justify an inference that the standard [for opening a criminal justice
investigation] is satisfied, even if there are no known statements by
participants that advocate or indicate planning for violence or other
prohibited acts." (Emphasis added.) That conduct can be simply
"intimidating" the government, according to the USA Patriot Act.
The new Steven Spielberg-Tom Cruise movie, Minority Report, shows the
government, some years hence, imprisoning "pre-criminals" before they engage
in, or even think of, terrorism. That may not be just fiction, folks.
Returning to General Ashcroft's plans for American enemy combatants, an
August 8 New York Times editorial--written before those plans were
revealed--said: "The Bush administration seems to believe, on no good legal
authority, that if it calls citizens combatants in the war on terrorism, it
can imprison them indefinitely and deprive them of lawyers. This defiance of
the courts repudiates two centuries of constitutional law and undermines the
very freedoms that President Bush says he is defending in the struggle
against terrorism."
Meanwhile, as the camps are being prepared, the braying Terry McAuliffe and
the pack of Democratic presidential aspirants are campaigning on corporate
crime, with no reference to the constitutional crimes being committed by
Bush and Ashcroft. As Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis prophesied: "The
greatest menace to freedom is an inert people." And an inert Democratic
leadership. See you in a month, if I'm not an Ashcroft camper.
<A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A>
DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
==========
CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis-
directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with
major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
========================================================================
Archives Available at:
http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html
<A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html";>Archives of
[EMAIL PROTECTED]</A>
http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
<A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/";>ctrl</A>
========================================================================
To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Om
