CNN.com - Bush defends tribunals, saying 'we're at war' -November 29, 2001

[Adam Shostack]

On Fri, Nov 30, 2001 at 08:21:32AM -0800, Tim May wrote:
| On Friday, November 30, 2001, at 07:55 AM, Harmon Seaver wrote:
| 
| >       Dubbya should be impeached, and both he and Asscruft arrested for
| > treason.
|
| Quite interesting the language they keep using: "Terrorists don't have 
| rights."
| 
| The 1200 persons detained without due process, without habeas corpus, 
| for close to three months, are presumed to be "terrorists" and thus are 
| denied the rights guaranteed by the Constitution.

No, they're not.  See this article in yesterday's Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/28/national/28LEGA.html?ex=1007614800&en=ec5ced02619720c8&ei=5040&partner=MOREOVER 

> "After two months of conducting the domestic war on terrorism
> largely in private, the prospect of stiff public scrutiny of his
> Justice Department apparently moved Mr. Ashcroft to provide many
> more details about 548 people, mostly from Mideastern countries, in
> custody and charged with violations of immigration law, and to
> release the names and more details of about 100 people charged with
> other crimes."

What grounds Ashcroft is using to deny them their civil rights is not
clear.

Who will rid me of this meddlesome Constitution, indeed.

| The police state measures rushed into law by Congress will be used to 
| suppress dissidents long after this war is over.

Quite sad.  There was an article in IP last night about Canada doing
the same thing; defining protesters as terrorists.  (There's a history
here; the RCMP was quite vicious in its post-arrest treatment of
protesters against some Indonesian dictator a few years ago.)

http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/200111/msg00373.html

The irony of my longstanding sig may soon be more than I can stand.


Adam

-- 
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once."
					               -Hume