Constitution-shredding in the Jose Padilla case by DOUG IRELAND
Why is the Padilla case so important? Because the right to freedom from arbitrary detention and to a jury trial is one of the fundamental rights for which the American Revolution was fought — it is enshrined in our Bill of Rights. As Thomas Jefferson wrote to Tom Paine in 1789, “I consider trial by jury as the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution.” Imprisonment without trial is one of the ways in which the U.S. (through its annual State Department reports on human rights around the world) measures a country’s degree of despotism. Bush has asserted his power to keep Padilla in jail “until hostilities are ended” — but since Bush has also proclaimed the struggle against al Qaeda as one without any end in sight, Padilla could rot in prison for 20 years or more.

- posted by SARTRE @ 6:55 AM