Wednesday, September 22, 2004
Well, that about wraps it up for your rights as a citizen
Three years ago, the Bush administration picked up a man named Yaser Hamzi in Afghanistan, and accused him of helping the Taliban. They shipped him to Guantanamo, then learned he was an American citizen, and moved him to a navy brig, where they held him incommunicado as an "enemy combatant". Hamzi was not allowed to talk to an attorney, and would likely have been left to rot, except that a public defender sued to restore Hamzi's rights to a trial and counsel, and recently won an 9-1 SC decision. It turns out that the government had little or no evidence against Hamzi, can't connect him to terrorism (or even the Taliban, for that matter). But instead of releasing him, they have continued to keep him in solitary confinement, and have offered him a devil's bargain: he can be released into Saudi custody (and who knows what they will do to him), but only if he relinquishes his American citizenship.
I am stupified by an administration with so little regard for national security that it essentially gives up the chase for Osama bin Laden while it trumps up people like Hamzi as dangerous terrrorist and high value captives, when it turns out they know nothing, and may have done nothing illegal. (Ashcroft is still batting .000 in the terror trial game; these guys can't even run a show trial).
I am horrified that any American government would seek to strip citizenship from someone as an alternative to trying them for crimes. Hamzi appears to think the US will keep him locked up forever, no matter what the SC says, and he's taking the deal. It is just another step in the path the Bush administration has laid out, leading away from freedom protected by law, and to God knows what abuses of civil rights.
Al Qaeda hates us, but I don't think they care one way or the other whether we are "free". Bush and Ashcroft, on the other hand, clearly hate our freedom.
I am stupified by an administration with so little regard for national security that it essentially gives up the chase for Osama bin Laden while it trumps up people like Hamzi as dangerous terrrorist and high value captives, when it turns out they know nothing, and may have done nothing illegal. (Ashcroft is still batting .000 in the terror trial game; these guys can't even run a show trial).
I am horrified that any American government would seek to strip citizenship from someone as an alternative to trying them for crimes. Hamzi appears to think the US will keep him locked up forever, no matter what the SC says, and he's taking the deal. It is just another step in the path the Bush administration has laid out, leading away from freedom protected by law, and to God knows what abuses of civil rights.
Al Qaeda hates us, but I don't think they care one way or the other whether we are "free". Bush and Ashcroft, on the other hand, clearly hate our freedom.
