Padilla's criminal conviction was a stroke of luck for the Administration.
For the moment, the bet has paid off--at least until an appeal overturns it. But do we really want the Administration gambling on our national security?
If it had followed the rule of law from the outset, argues David Cole the Bush Administration could have brought many terrorists to justice by now.
By Dave Lindorff
With habeas corpus a thing of the past, with arrest and detention without charge permitted, with torture and spying without court oversight all the rage, with prosecutors free to tape conversations between lawyers and their clients, and with the judicial branch now infested by rightwing judges who would have been at home in courtrooms of the Soviet Union or Hitler's Germany, for all they seem to care about common law tradition, the only real thing holding the line against absolute tyranny in the U.S. has been the jury.
With habeas corpus a thing of the past, with arrest and detention without charge permitted, with torture and spying without court oversight all the rage, with prosecutors free to tape conversations between lawyers and their clients, and with the judicial branch now infested by rightwing judges who would have been at home in courtrooms of the Soviet Union or Hitler's Germany, for all they seem to care about common law tradition, the only real thing holding the line against absolute tyranny in the U.S. has been the jury.
posted by Kangaroo Brisbane Australia at 8:11 PM
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