Are we a nation of laws?

For the last few years, our courts have been engaged in a titanic struggle with the president and with Congress to decide whether we are allowed to imprison people forever, without charges or trial or evidence.

It makes me heartsick that we even have a struggle over this. Our country prides itself on the fact that we aren’t run by a king or a dictator who can put us in prison on a whim, and keep us there while our bodies fall apart and our families grieve. But our leaders claim that the world is so scary now that they have to be able to lock people up forever — without saying why.

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor said the president couldn’t have a “blank check” for doing whatever he wanted. Well, last week the president’s lawyers were back in court arguing that indeed he can.

They call it “preventative detention for the duration of hostilities.” Translated: Lock you up until we decide there is no more terrorism in the world.

This is not the country I love.

Vindicated by DNA, but a Lost Man on the Outside

The New York Times has a tragic piece about what it’s like to be imprisoned for 15 years and then be exonerated based on DNA evidence. The article is unsurprisingly depressing, but it serves as an important reminder for us to think deeply about how we treat and prosecute citizens suspected or accused of committing heinous crimes.

I took particular note of these two paragraphs:

After repeated questioning over two months, Mr. Deskovic confessed during a seven-hour interrogation and polygraph test, telling the police he had hit Ms. Correa with a Gatorade bottle and grabbed her around the throat. In the lawsuit, Mr. Deskovic contends that detectives fed him these details, and promised that if he confessed he would not go to prison but would receive psychiatric treatment.

“I was tired, confused, scared, hungry — I wanted to get out of there,” he recalled recently. “I told the police what they wanted to hear, but I never got to go home. They lied to me.”

What can be said?

This piece by Christopher Hitchens is deeply moving:

I was having an oppressively normal morning a few months ago, flicking through the banality of quotidian e-mail traffic, when I idly clicked on a message from a friend headed “Seen This?” The attached item turned out to be a very well-written story by Teresa Watanabe of the Los Angeles Times. It described the death, in Mosul, Iraq, of a young soldier from Irvine, California, named Mark Jennings Daily, and the unusual degree of emotion that his community was undergoing as a consequence. The emotion derived from a very moving statement that the boy had left behind, stating his reasons for having become a volunteer and bravely facing the prospect that his words might have to be read posthumously. In a way, the story was almost too perfect: this handsome lad had been born on the Fourth of July, was a registered Democrat and self-described agnostic, a U.C.L.A. honors graduate, and during his college days had fairly decided reservations about the war in Iraq. I read on, and actually printed the story out, and was turning a page when I saw the following:

“Somewhere along the way, he changed his mind. His family says there was no epiphany. Writings by author and columnist Christopher Hitchens on the moral case for war deeply influenced him … “

(Found via Branching Between Towers)

I hope he’s right…

Jim Harper over at the Cato blog thinks the anti-immigration opinions held by many in this country are in fact only “weakly held” and will fade if presented with the correct arguments.

Having watched this issue, and having heard from lots of angry people, I know that anti-immigrant views are a classic weakly held opinion. Angry as people are about the rule of law and “coming to this country the right way,” that anger melts when they learn more. Stuff like this:

“We haven’t permitted anywhere near enough legal immigration for decades. You can sit back and talk about legal channels, but the law has only allowed a smidgen of workers into the country compared to our huge demand. Getting people through legal channels at the INS has been hell.

“America, you’re going to have to get over what amounts to paperwork violations by otherwise law-abiding, honest, hard-working people. And that’s what we’re talking about – 98% honest, hard-working people who want to follow the same path our forefathers did, and who would be a credit to this country if we made it legal for them to come. Our current immigration policies are a greater threat to the rule of law than any of the people crossing the border to come here and work.”

I sincerely hope he’s right, though I fear he’s not taking full account of the fundamentally irrational nature of xenophobia.

Meanwhile, Republicans in the House want to add a $3.1 billion tax burden for companies looking to hire high-skilled immigrants. Is there anything holding the Republican party together right now other than shared fear? It sure as hell ain’t principles, ideas, or any respect for traditional American values.

1 in 500 Americans is a terrorist supporter?

That seems ridiculously high, doesn’t it?

Well, the GAO says the Terrorist Watch List is now up to about 800,000 names. In a nation of roughly 300 million people, that would break down to 1 in 400 Americans.

But of course, some names are duplicates or aliases. Some are non-U.S. citizens. So let’s say 1 in 500 Americans. Still — that’s an awful lot of terrorist supporters. And of course, our government won’t allow us to know why our names are being put on the list, nor is there a clear process for being taken off. Needless to say, I am not confident that this list makes us safer.

Full report (pdf). I particularly like the bit on page 11, where the researchers confide that the CIA refused to talk to them. Way to work together, guys.

(Via Wired, via ACS.)

Never prouder

This afternoon, President Bollinger gave a speech that can only be called rousing and inspirational. Watch it here: part 1, part 2 (it’s unfortunate that the video doesn’t capture the response of the several thousand students who were watching out on the lawn; needless to say the atmosphere was electric).

Interestingly enough, just two hours later, Prezbo — miraculously — showed up to teach POLS 3285 Freedom of Speech & Press to thunderous applause. It was a good day to be in his class.

Today was a glorious affirmation of of the values my university and nation espouse, and I’ve never been prouder to be a part of both.

A sampling of the pictures I took throughout the day after the jump

Read the rest of this entry »

All hail Montana!

From The Missoulian:

The State Bar of Montana passed a resolution on Friday urging President George W. Bush and Congress to close the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay and restore prisoners’ right to due process.

The resolution received overwhelming support from Montana’s legal community….

[...] “This is not a political statement, but a statement about the rule of law,” said [Jim] Taylor [who drafted the resolution]. “I never thought I would be standing in front of a group of lawyers talking about whether or not it’s appropriate for someone to have a trial. But that’s where we are today.”

Under the “rule of law,” the government must exercise its authority in accordance with publicly disclosed, written laws.

For my money, it’s long past time we saw professional associations standing up for the standards of their professions. I’m thrilled to see Montana taking this step and will encourage my state’s lawyers to do the same.

Now, if only the American Psychological Association would face up to its responsibilities in the same way.

Get out and walk around

It’s a gorgeous 85 degrees and sunny here. Yesterday I had the pleasure of walking around some particularly leafy, green parts of South Philadelphia on the ActivisTour. Our guides Ann and Ennis had mapped out a charming hour-long stroll, stopping every few blocks to discuss a person or event involving social justice.

I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t all historic. We heard about the recent anti-casino movement: 13,000 Philadelphians voted in an alternative election in November 2006 to draw attention to the state’s ability to summarily place casinos in residential neighborhoods. We heard about skateboarders’ problem-solving with the city over local parks, and the low-cost art classes available through the Fleisher Art Memorial. We even got a folk etymology (hotly debated) of the word “sabotage.”

The tour will be offered three more times in the next week, Tuesdays Sept. 4 and 11 at 5:30, and Sat. Sept. 15 at 11 a.m. Tickets are just $10 — come on out!

Is it legal to purposely drive someone crazy?

Jose Padilla had no history of mental illness when President Bush ordered him detained…but he does now.

That’s it in a nutshell, folks. The smartest and best scientists we have confirm that our country’s policies are literally driving people crazy. Warren Richey has a tremendous three-part series spelling it out. (Part 2 here, Part 3 here.)

If this were a movie, we’d call it Gaslight. But in the final act, someone would come in and save the heroine.

For Jose Padilla, there is no final act. His family and friends can hardly bear to see him; his lawyers are focused on keeping him alive. And our government is busy arguing that extreme solitary confinement and other elaborate, prolonged tortures are somehow going to save us.

They’re not.

There is no right to know

Newsflash:

Without special permission, officials [at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration] are no longer allowed to provide information to reporters except on a background basis.

(Source.)

Let’s get that straight. You and I pay taxes to support one of the most important safety agencies in the world, one that spends millions of dollars studying a machine we all use every day: Cars. But to talk to one of those safety experts…whoops, no, we can’t. And reporters can’t, in any meaningful way.

The explanation? “We were finding a lot of stuff did not need to be on the record.” That’s from chief of staff for the political appointee who now runs NHTSA.

Talk about an upside-down view of the world. “We were finding a lot of stuff did not need to be on the record.” This is a democratic republic. We presume that our civil servants are working for us, so they’re obligated — indeed, honor-bound — to answer to the American people because we’re their employers.

This guy apparently believes that civil servants need a good reason to speak to Americans. Funny, in my world a civil servant needs a darned good reason not to.