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This is an editorial from the Detroit Free Press:
"Arrests, Secrecy
Even suspected terrorists deserve due process
November 2, 2001
For weeks now, civil liberties organizations have been asking the Department of Justice to release the names of and evidence against the nearly 1,100 people being held by the government since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
With their requests unanswered, they have been reduced to suing the government under the Freedom of Information Act to get information about missing people that should have been made routinely available. This is a troubling development.
FBI investigations require some degree of secrecy, and the American public is giving the government wide latitude in pursuing terrorist threats. However, the government cannot keep secret whom they arrest, where they are being held, or the charges against them. Even suspected terrorists are protected by the Constitution, which says "No person shall be . . . deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law."
This week, Attorney General John Ashcroft rather dramatically stated that three Detroit-area men knew of the plans for the attack well in advance and did nothing to stop it. But because he neither elaborated nor offered evidence, the public has only his word to go on. Even the nation's top attorney has always been required to make a case, so the people can make sure the government doesn't abuse its power.
Bold statements that he'll round up anyone who so much as looks suspicious, just days after he issued dark threats that more terrorism is coming, make Ashcroft sound more like a vigilante than the chief lawyer for the world's greatest democracy.
The United States has long criticized other countries for human rights abuses, as it did when Argentine juntas made thousands of citizens simply disappear. The U.S. government cannot now afford to remain silent as it rounds up "suspects" in droves, unless it wants to hand the terrorists victory."
There are many things our government is doing to protect us because of this "War". The question is: Is it okay to trample on the rights of others to keep us safe? To keep potentially innocent people from their, families, jobs, and away from their very lives, because they look or are acting suspiciously is not what our country was built on. Some believe that just because a person looks like an Arab, they should be detained.
For example, a man who is clearly a Muslim is in line at an airport. He is nervous and sweating. Is he a terrorist or simply a person with a fear of flying. In most cases he would be detained and held for questioning. If the same person was a white man (don't get excited, I am white), would it cause the same result? Of course I don't have the answer.
An Arab-looking man was picked up and detained from a Costco store for buying $7000 worth of candy prior to Halloween. The manager and employees suspected foulplay and turned him in. The man is a distributer of candy to other stores and was buying it for his business. There is a notion that there is a terrorist behind every rock and he is exclusively Muslim or Arabic.
This is sad and there is a chance that some other group is doing the Anthrax Shuffle and hoping we will pin it on Muslims or Arabs.
This tends to make me feel like the terrorists are indeed winning this War and I'm not just talking about bin laden and his cronies.
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Still The Most Humbly Prideful (?) Member Of The Illuminati!
Mark
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