Greenwald on the al-Marri case--"Does that even sound remotely like the United States?"

[BurtWorm]

Unfortunately, it sounds exactly like the United States in the last six year.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/06/13/al_marri/index.html?source=rss

Wednesday June 13, 2007 09:58 EST
The al-Marri decision

Having now carefully reviewed the Al-Marri decision (.pdf), as well as ample commentary from those defending and criticizing the opinion, there are several points worth making. But the overarching point is how extraordinary it is -- specifically, how extraordinarily disturbing it is -- that we are even debating these issues at all.

Although its ultimate resolution is complicated, the question raised by Al-Marri is a clear and simple one: Does the President have the power -- and/or should he have it -- to arrest individuals on U.S. soil and keep them imprisoned for years and years, indefinitely, without charging them with a crime, allowing them access to lawyers or the outside world, and/or providing a meaningful opportunity to contest the validity of the charges?

How can that question not answer itself? Who would possibly believe that an American President has such powers, and more to the point, what kind of a person would want a President to have such powers? That is one of a handful of powers which this country was founded to prevent.

Al-Marri was in the U.S. legally, studying at Bradley University, living with his wife and 5 children, and sitting at home in Peoria, Illinois when he was detained and then ultimately charged, in a court of law, with committing various crimes. He was set to have a trial in July 2003 when the President suddenly and unilaterally decreed him to be an "enemy combatant," ordered him put into military custody, had his trial cancelled, and then proceeded to imprison him for the next four years -- including many months where he was denied any contact at all with the outside world, including lawyers -- all without charging him with any crime.

If the President has the power to do that to al-Marri -- to arrest him from his home inside the U.S. and keep him locked up forever without due process -- then, by definition, the President can detain anyone in exactly the same way. And all of the high-minded and oh-so-civil lawyerly rhetoric in the world cannot mask the radicalism and profoundly un-American vision which proponents of such powers embrace.

...

[hootinholler]

1. K&R, Indeed, any one of us can experience the same fate. n/t