American Concentration Camps: Ashcrofts plan

[Orestes]

A lovely article from the LA Times, I had thought this would just remain a mere imaginary fear of mine:

Atty. Gen. 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.

Ashcroft's plan, disclosed last week but little publicized, would allow him to order the indefinite incarceration of U.S. citizens and summarily strip them of their constitutional rights and access to the courts by declaring them enemy combatants.

The proposed camp plan should trigger immediate congressional hearings and reconsideration of Ashcroft's fitness for this 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.

The camp plan was forged at an optimistic time for Ashcroft's small inner circle, which has been carefully watching two test cases to see whether this vision could become a reality. The cases of Jose Padilla and Yaser Esam Hamdi will determine whether U.S. citizens can be held without charges and subject to the arbitrary and unchecked authority of the government.

Hamdi has been held without charge even though the facts of his case are virtually identical to those in the case of John Walker Lindh. Both Hamdi and Lindh were captured in Afghanistan as foot soldiers in Taliban units. Yet Lindh was given a lawyer and a trial, while Hamdi rots in a floating Navy brig in Norfolk, Va.

This week, the government refused to comply with a federal judge who ordered that he be given the underlying evidence justifying Hamdi's treatment. The Justice Department has insisted that the judge must simply accept its declaration and cannot interfere with the president's absolute authority in "a time of war."

In Padilla's case, Ashcroft initially claimed that the arrest stopped a plan to detonate a radioactive bomb in New York or Washington, D.C. The administration later issued an embarrassing correction that there was no evidence Padilla was on such a mission. What is clear is that Padilla is an American citizen and was arrested in the United States--two facts that should trigger the full application of constitutional rights.

Ashcroft hopes to use his self-made "enemy combatant" stamp for any citizen whom he deems to be part of a wider terrorist conspiracy.

Perhaps because of his discredited claims of preventing radiological terrorism, aides 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.

Few would have imagined any attorney general seeking to reestablish such camps for citizens. 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.

We are only now getting a full vision of Ashcroft's America. Some of his predecessors dreamed of creating a great society or a nation unfettered by racism. Ashcroft seems to dream of a country secured from itself, neatly contained and controlled by his judgment of loyalty.

For more than 200 years, security and liberty have been viewed as coexistent values. Ashcroft and his aides appear to view this relationship as lineal, where security must precede liberty.

Since the nation will never be entirely safe from terrorism, liberty has become a mere rhetorical justification for increased security.

Ashcroft is a catalyst for constitutional devolution, encouraging citizens to accept autocratic rule as their only way of avoiding massive terrorist attacks.

His greatest problem has been preserving a level of panic and fear that would induce a free people to surrender the rights so dearly won by their ancestors.

In "A Man for All Seasons," Sir Thomas More was confronted by a young lawyer, Will Roper, who sought his daughter's hand. Roper proclaimed that he would cut down every law in England to get after the devil.

More's response seems almost tailored for Ashcroft: "And when the last law was down and the devil turned round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? ... This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast ... and if you cut them down--and you are just the man to do it--do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then?"

Every generation has had Ropers and Ashcrofts who view our laws and traditions as mere obstructions rather than protections in times of peril. But before we allow Ashcroft to denude our own constitutional landscape, we must take a stand and have the courage to say, "Enough."

Every generation has its test of principle in which people of good faith can no longer remain silent in the face of authoritarian ambition. If we cannot join together to fight the abomination of American camps, we have already lost what we are defending.

[Crazy_Vasey]

Christ America has one fucked up government.

[Mr Bean]

Hier Ashcroft!

Express my feelings on the matter

[Darth Wong]

What do you expect, when you put a Christian fundamentalist in that position? Need I remind people of the fascist values promoted by the fundies?

[Alyrium Denryle]

*loads sniper rifle* I think it has been too long since the last sucessful assasination.

This I will not stand for. Write your congressmen everyone. even in a time of war the president does not have absolute power, our government is not an autocracy and we as citezens do not have to stand for this kind of fucking bullshit.

[Raptor 597]

Alyrium, why write your Congressman when they probly won't respond or send you a bullshit letter saying "they're concerned", or if you're lucky they'll bullshit ya to other State Congressman and then they'll after sending it some one you'll end wrting to the same Senator in the end. Quite the Buerocracy, in my opinion.

So join and support me in my Rise to power as Emperor of Earth.

[Mr Bean]

Ahh, Alyrium Denryle your a Sniper Rifle Man? I would have though you a Cross-bow guy, What do you use? I prefer the Lower .30 Rounds for Politcal Assination work. the 7.62 are just not damaging enough and the .50's do the damndest things when they hit windows, Sure you won't get the same punch but with a nice .30 Solid Jacket you can get both nice pentration and a good chance at first shot on target hits

To the Crazy Goverment Offical out there watching us now I mearly refer to the pratical problems of killing Evil World Domination Dictators not God Fearing American Polys, Nope with Americans I can just go back five years and ask thier collage Buddies what the Bosss did after hours with the , The Marinijilla, that poor poor Intern, the smelly chicken chicken, a match and that gasoline to get them out of office

[Doomriser]

Hey, Bean, howabout cutting down on the crack cocaine, just a little bit?

[Alyrium Denryle]

Actually I would prefer a crossbow but for assasinations they area bit impracticle. I cant sit on a roof and reliably hit someone from a kilometer away with a crossbow.

[Mr Bean]

Maybe YOUR Crows-bows but not my 5 METER Bow using steel cabling as the wire but the thing is hard to aim

Then agian the two pounds of explosives in the tip help

And doom I'll cut back when I start taking the stuff

Why don't you up your dosage

[Alyrium Denryle]

That my friend is not a crossbow, that is a big fucking Ballista

[Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi]

Once again, this idea will probably be laughed out of congress, Bush's cabinet, and the Supreme Court.

[Darth Wong]

Once again, this idea will probably be laughed out of congress, Bush's cabinet, and the Supreme Court.

Don't speak too soon. It's already happening, in the sense that American citizens are already being held without due process, in defiance of constitutional guarantees.

[Wicked Pilot]

Don't speak too soon. It's already happening, in the sense that American citizens are already being held without due process, in defiance of constitutional guarantees.

There's no need to worry. They're only taking left-wing Muslim men with long and/or strange hair styles. Us down home Christian white men with proper hair cuts have nothing to fear. After all, we all know, Father Bush knows best.

[Wicked Pilot]

There's no need to worry. They're only taking left-wing Muslim men with long and/or strange hair styles. Us down home Christian white men with proper hair cuts have nothing to fear. After all, we all know, Father Bush knows best.

Holy Fuck! I forgot, I'm not a down home Christian. I change my mind. This policy is chickenshit!

[Mr Bean]

There's no need to worry. They're only taking left-wing Muslim men with long and/or strange hair styles. Us down home Christian white men with proper hair cuts have nothing to fear. After all, we all know, Father Bush knows best

Holy Fuck! I forgot, I'm not a down home Christian. I change my mind. This policy is chickenshit!

I'd laugh but instead I feel sick as its true

[Orestes]

This is double scary if its taken in conjuction with recent talks by the US that 'petty criminals' may be funding terrorism. This opens the door for Government to declare these criminals as 'enemy combatants'. I wonder how much proof they actually need to make such declarations, though with the case of Padilla, it seems like absolutely none.

[Sea Skimmer]

That my friend is not a crossbow, that is a big fucking Ballista

*Gestures to tripod mounted Hellfire*

You people think in such small terms. A mere armored limo should never be enough to thwart an assassination..

[Mr Bean]

*Gestures to tripod mounted Hellfire*

You people think in such small terms. A mere armored limo should never be enough to thwart an assassination..

*Wheels out the Trenchbukle

This is double scary if its taken in conjuction with recent talks by the US that 'petty criminals' may be funding terrorism . This opens the door for Government to declare these criminals as 'enemy combatants'. I wonder how much proof they actually need to make such declarations, though with the case of Padilla, it seems like absolutely none.

I'll think I'll quote Gabe of Penny Acarde

*Look if you punched every Idiot we ran into we'd never get out of the Mall

[Sea Skimmer]

*Gestures to tripod mounted Hellfire*

You people think in such small terms. A mere armored limo should never be enough to thwart an assassination..

*Wheels out the Trenchbukle

Trenchbukle? WTF is that?

[Durandal]

Congress seriously needs to establish the competency or lackthereof of the FBI and Ashcroft, in particular, before they hand the reigns of judge, jury and executioner to a man who lost to a dead person in the Missouri governor's race.

Also, Ashcroft and his minions recently held a man for two weeks before admitting that he had nothing to do with Al Quaeda. Do we really want this guy pulling this sort of shit on a regular basis?

Then again, I suppose that's how it works with fascism.

[RayCav of ASVS]

What do you expect, when you put a Christian fundamentalist in that position? Need I remind people of the fascist values promoted by the fundies?

I kept saying Asscroft was a wannabe dicktator.....

[Martin Blank]

What do you expect, when you put a Christian fundamentalist in that position? Need I remind people of the fascist values promoted by the fundies?

You seem to have no faith in the courts, which have been setting back the government lawyers on numerous occasions. Even the Supreme Court, with its 5-4 conservative lean, is unlikely to accept these kinds of detentions. They tend to be a little strict on the letter of the law, and Ashcroft is doing a good job of trying to sidestep both letter and spirit.

[Temjin]

Sometimes I'm glad I'm Canadian.

[Orestes]

You seem to have no faith in the courts, which have been setting back the government lawyers on numerous occasions. Even the Supreme Court, with its 5-4 conservative lean, is unlikely to accept these kinds of detentions. They tend to be a little strict on the letter of the law, and Ashcroft is doing a good job of trying to sidestep both letter and spirit.

A Federal Court has already asked for the compelling evidence for why they are illegally holding a US citizen (Hamdi), and the Ashcrofts Justice Department told the court to essentially fuck off and deal with it.