The Corpse of Habeas Corpus
The Police State is Closer Than You ThinkBy PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
Police states are easier to acquire than Americans appreciate.
The hysterical aftermath of September 11 has put into place the main components of a police state.
Habeas corpus is the greatest protection Americans have against a police state. Habeas corpus ensures that Americans can only be detained by law. They must be charged with offenses, given access to attorneys, and brought to trial. Habeas corpus prevents the despotic practice of picking up a person and holding him indefinitely.
President Bush claims the power to set aside habeas corpus and to dispense with warrants for arrest and with procedures that guarantee court appearance and trial without undue delay. Today in the US, the executive branch claims the power to arrest a citizen on its own initiative and hold the citizen indefinitely. Thus, Americans are no longer protected from arbitrary arrest and indefinite detention.
These new "seize and hold" powers strip the accused of the protective aspects of law and give rein to selectivity and arbitrariness. No warrant is required for arrest, no charges have to be presented before a judge, and no case has to be put before a jury. As the police are unaccountable, whoever is selected for arrest is at the mercy of arbitrariness.
http://www.counterpunch.com/roberts10102005.html Also check out all the links at the bottom of this article
Police State USA? by Dr. Norman Livergood.
Police State USA?SNIP
The signs are unmistakable; the Bush regime is waging a "war against dissent," rapidly moving the United States to a total police state.
American citizens had assumed that the Patriot Act and the FBI Guidelines assured that only foreign aliens could be placed in military detention centers, unprotected by the U.S. constitution. But on June 10, 2002, an American citizen was declared by Bush, without due process, to be an "enemy combatant" and to have no constitutional protections. This American citizen was thrown into a naval brig in South Carolina.
Of course, Abdullah al Muhajir, a U.S. citizen also known as Jose Padilla, has been branded a "known terrorist" with ties to al Qaeda, so almost no one is speaking out against this abrogation of constitutional procedures. A reputed "terrorist" who is said to have been building a "dirty bomb," Padilla, a New York-born man of Puerto Rican descent, is assumed to be beyond the pale, not worthy of judicial prerogatives. But what happens when Bush or the FBI brands you as a "terrorist" because you appear to be a dissenter, denying you your constitutional rights as a U.S. citizen?
Attorney General Ashcroft explicitly stated that terrorists do not deserve constitutional protections. all they deserve are "courts" of conviction, not justice. Unfortunately, in this creeping police state, who does and doesn't receive justice is determined by Bush and his underlings. Ashcroft's successor, Gonzalez, is supporting every police state action the Bush junta is perpetrating.
http://www.hermes-press.com/police_state.htm 
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