FIRST THEY CAME FOR JOSE PADILLA

Jose Padilla, who has adopted the name Abdullah al-Muhajir, supposedly plotted to build and detonate a radiological "dirty bomb." He was arrested at an American airport. He is a U.S. citizen who has been declared an enemy combatant. When he was arrested, Gen. Ashcrot said, "We have disrupted an unfolding terrorist plot to attack the United States." But the government has presented little evidence to back that charge. Yet he's being detained by the military -- indefinitely, without seeing his attorney, even though he hasn't been charged with any crime. The administration says Padilla’s status as an enemy combatant means that, as long as the war on terrorism continues, that’s the way it goes. And since the war on terrorism could go on forever, well, tough luck Mr. Padilla.

Now Padilla is not the most savory of characters and is not the kind of guy who garners much support. He is a former gang member and has been involved in numerous violent crimes. However, none of that has anything to do with the seriousness of the fact that this guy has been held for months and months in a military brig without access to an attorney and with no charges having ever been filed. Or maybe, more likely it has everything to do with it. Why not, after all pick an unsympathetic, non white American villain, allegedly reborn as an "international terrorist," as an excuse to open the door on police state tactics. The fact that few Americans seem to care what is happening to him proves the cleverness of the strategy.

In January the government fought in court against any attempt to change his status. In filings, the government disclosed that Padilla has been under interrogation by military personnel for months. The government said letting a lawyer into the process "would threaten permanently to undermine the military's efforts to develop a relationship of trust and dependency that is essential to effective interrogation." Thus, constitutional rights apparently have no bearing.

Padilla has an attorney even though he can’t talk to her and has no idea what she might be doing on his behalf. Donna R. Newman’s involvement in the Padilla case began May 8 of last year. That day a New York grand jury investigating the Sept. 11 attacks handed down a material witness warrant for Padilla’s arrest. As the on-call public defender, Newman was tapped to defend him. She met the suspect in court a week later. When the military seized her client, Newman retaliated with a hastily drafted habeas corpus suit. The government, in turn, told her that in order to file the suit she needed Padilla’s signature -- knowing that was impossible because the military was keeping him in solitary confinement in South Carolina and that she was not allowed to see him.

"As a citizen, it frightens me," Newman said of the precedent set by Padilla’s detention. "I’m frightened that the rest of America doesn’t see it. If it can happen based on somebody’s suspicions, it means you can pluck people off the street and nobody will know. That’s a totalitarian regime. That’s what they had in Argentina."

This is not without precedence. In our nation's history there have been numerous times in which civil liberties and civil rights were sacrificed; the Alien and Sedition Act of 1798, the suspension of Habeas Corpus during the Civil War, the World War I Red Scare and Palmer Raids, the World War II Japanese Internment camps, and most recently McCarthyism and the House of Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). Apparently, Bush, Ashcroft and Company look back on those times as the "good old days."

Since the illegal detention of Padilla began another American, Yasser Hamdi, has been similarly taken off the street.

If Jose Padilla or Yasser Hamdi can be held without criminal charges, strictly on the say-so of the President, then so can you and I.

Sources: Cornell Daily Sun, National Catholic Reporter, Billings Gazette, Charge Jose Padilla Web Site, New York Times

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