Erosion of Rights

I don't think anything illustrates the plight of the Bill of Rights during this administration like the wholesale violations of due process for detainees after 9/11. The rights denied these prisoners are basic - in the original usage - like freedom of speech, assembly and the press.

Secret trials, sealed case files, redacted filings, no representation and military tribunals. Sounds like something from the Soviet Gulag, no? And yet they all happened here, under the direction of BushCo and especially John Ashcroft. The Wall Street Journal has a good article this morning about a case that will actually reach the Supreme Court this year. Read the whole article here (subscription required), but a couple of things are worth quoting in this post:

"His appeal has reached the Supreme Court, only there is little written evidence that his case exists. Lower courts sealed all the legal filings, as well as the records of how his case was handled. The proceedings were held in secret."

[snip]

"M.K.B.'s appeal includes blank page after blank page, where the ruling would have been. The nine justices will be able to see all the information that is being withheld from the public.

"The fact that someone can be held like this, and there be no trail of the existence of the case is mind-boggling," said Michael Greenberger, a counterterrorism expert and former senior official in the Justice Department during the Clinton administration."

Knowledge about these detentions is hard to come by and what little makes it into the press is usually spun so far to the right that it is virtually meaningless anyway. The lapdog press regurgitates the administration line and so it becomes the accepted wisdom.

It's true that some of the detainees were illegal aliens, some were legally here. But don't let those facts dissuade you from wondering if citizens' rights will be the next to be abridged; can you say "Patriot Act?"