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And you know that he confessed openly and with no coercive tactics being used in front of two witnesses how, Derrick? Because the government said he did? Kind of like saying the Bible is the word of God because the Bible says it is the word of God.

We used to condemn these sorts of secret confessions all the time around the world. Now, under Il Duce, we do them ourselves.

Shame on us! We have been lowered to the level of an authoritarian state rather than raised up to the values we claim to hold dear.

Ever vigilant is not good enough -- when the government itself is the only source of information. How can we be vigilant when all we have are press releases and the propoganda the government allows us to have?

How many administrations need to lie to us for us to realize that lying comes easily to them when it is in their political benefit to do so and the ONLY way we know they are lies is through an open process -- one which the people themselves can judge?

Every administration in my lifetime -- from Truman on -- has lied to us because they felt it was best for us to be lied to. The Catholic Bishops have created the greatest scandal the American Catholic Church has ever known because they lied, thinking it was for the benefit of the Church.

When will we learn that politicians are simply politicians -- and their goals are seldom high minded and matching our basic values?

Il Duce is no different.

It is OUR freedom to give away if we choose to -- not his to take away. And yet -- we can sit back and be vigilant as he does so thinking that those with power will give it up some time in the future simply because it is the right thing to do.

I don't believe it.

Don't play semantics, JBryan. The declaration of war can be written in such a way to deal with this and you know it.

The US Constitution does NOT say we are at war when someone else declares it against us. It says that we are at war when the Congress declares it.

You can justify Il Duce's taking to himself all sorts of powers in any way you want and 75% of the people may even like the fact he does. And when this war goes on and on and Il Duce and future Presidents continue to use the tcatics because the war is still on, you can remain ever vigilant, watching as our freedoms are trampled, one by one, piece by piece, because we are "at war" -- a never ending war, thus a never ending assault on our freedoms.

Your constant references to "Il Duce" do not exactly enhance your image as anything other than a hidebound ideologue with a political axe to grind.

Your "declaration of war" argument is a straw man. When we are attacked from without we expect nothing other than that our government deal with it on a war footing. Anything short of that would be misfeasance. It is you who are playing at semantics. This is a war whether Congress has declared it or not. Also, declaring war against anything other than a state was never contemplated by the framers of the Constitution. Indeed, Thomas Jefferson as President went after the Barbary Pirates with no declaration of war.

And when you have no other recourse -- attack the messenger.

George,

Please step back into reality.

What exactly would you have liked to have seen happen? Padilla gets a lawyer, lawyer tells him to shut his mouth, dirty bomb explodes in some mall?

What motive does the government have for holding a completely innocent man for 1 month?

Derick

True enough, JBryan, but he did not suspend civil liberties. Il Duce has and step by step is suspending more of them -- to the point he now suspends them for American citizens when HE decides it is a good idea.

Make no mistake about it. If any US Citizen had been found among the Barbary Pirates there would have been no questions raised as to his civil liberties. He would not have been heard from again.

None of us knows if the government's handling of the Padilla case is within their legal rights or not, although it appears it may very well be. We should all be a concerned as to how this plays out. But based on what has happened and based on the information we have so far regarding Padilla, I think I'd rather err on the side of caution and detain him.

However, George, you can't have it both ways. One minute you are trying to blame the administration for not stopping 911 on the basis of the information they had (none of which anyone has shown to be sufficient to have know anything helpful). The next minute you want to condemn the administration for taking steps to stop a potentially similar attack. And as I noted before, they may well be within their legal rights.

Based on your attitude George, 911 could not have been prevented if we had all the plans and schedules in our hands months before. People like you would have accused the administration of wrong doing for arresting so many innocent Arabs before they had done anything wrong.

The hypocracy of your arguing both sides of the issue is rather amusing.

Deriick, I explained earlier in this thread what I think should happen. Think Nason and the FBI. Hanson caused more damage to this country that Padilla ever could with a dirty bomb. And ye we afforded him full rights. We can do the same here.

What motive would they have? I don't know. I know what THEY tell me their motive is. But I have no idea what their true motive is. Neither do you.

Derrick, feel free to give away all of your rights if you wish. Il Duce has, with Padilla, now informed you that as an American citizen you can be detained without an attorney if the government decides you are a threat. They need do nothing but release a press statement saying they have decided this about you.

You may be willing to let your government do this to you. But I am not. And yet, this is now the policy of the US Government. If it is allowed to stand with Padilla, they can do it again and again and again and again for as long as they want against as many American citizens as they want as long as they issue a press statement saying that citizen has been deemed to have been a threat.

This is unacceptable to me. But apparently it is just fine for you. So be it. I hope they do not go after you next.

But if they do, know that JBryan and others will be ever vigilant and watching and that many will say it is OK because the Presidents popularity is high.

I sure will George.

Not true, JC. Conspiracy to commit a crime is a crime prosecutable and punishable under our laws. Bail need not have been set if they crime was egregious enough or the plaintiffs were flight risks. Had Il Duce's government focused on what was happening and the information they had, all of these men could have been arrested for conspiracy.

Our justice system is capable of dealing with all of this. Why aren't we using it?

Sure, in this hypothetical situation we could legally have arrested and prosecuted them. And in the current situation it could be that the government is well within it's rights to persue the course it is taking. However, in both scenarios you would be (and are) the first to accuse the administration of misdeeds in handling the case(s).

It should also be pointed out that in WWII after interning (sp?) a whole race of people, the people of this country did not ultimately lose any freedoms. Holding one individual (especially with what we seem to know about him) hardly constitutes the wholesale selling out of our rights. I worry far more of the damage to our rights Hillary could do if given the power. To use a liberal term constantly bandied about here, that's scary!

Perhaps you think Bush is just arresting innocent people to take the heat off of himself. Like Clinton did when he bombed the Sudanese asprin factory to divert attention from his lying under oath. Well, George, only time will tell. But my money is on this administration having much more just cause for their current actions. But I can see how a Clinton appologist would share your views.

JC
Granted, we do not know if they could have conected the dots. What we do know is that the dots were there and no one considered this a high enough priority to even read the memos.

All I am saying here is that had they done so, the justice system could have handled the situation under the then-current policies and the then-current procedures.

The internment in WWII? We had a delcared war and thus, when the war ended, the suspension of civil liberties end. Can you tell me what the trigger event will be to stop the current suspension of liberties? Do you know? Or are we to take the government's word for it -- be it Il Duce or the next President or the next one after that or the next after that -- for however long this government decides it needs to suspend civil liberties.

As far as Clinton versus Bush2 -- why is this even an issue when discussing our fundamental constitutional rights? There is a point where the discussion is no longer a partisan one and to attempt to make it one is to minimize the import of the discussion.

I agree 100% with John C.

Derick

Why is this an issue? Because except for mainly Clinton appoligists most people aren't willing to condemn the current administration without some proof of wrong doing. It is the Clinton appologists who attempt to politicize every act or non-act of the current government. The same ones who sat silent for eight of the most corrupt years the White House has ever seen. Just pointing out the hypocracy of that group George.

And I know this thought is anathema to you, but this administrations actions may well be very legal and a very correct course of action. Then the Clinton appologists would have to work overtime to again attempt to rewrite history. After all, no good ever came from a non Democratic administration. Right George?

Let's also not forget that Bush was in the White House 9 months when 9/11 took place. Clinton was in office 8 years and never connected the dots and he had plenty of wake-up calls during those 8 years.

Derick

A few pieces of my opinion:

International terrorism is an act of war, without benefit of a declaration of war by the sponsoring soveign nation. And terrorism can never reach the heights of destruction as 9/11, without state sponsorship.

So who to declare war upon? The sponsoring nation or the terrorists? I believe both.

And if this is a war, and I believe it is, the terrorists are certainly not adhering to the rules of the Geneva Convention. In fact, they are attacking civilians _instead_ of the military. And where are the uniforms of the combatants?

No, terrorists are much more like spies and saboteurs than soldiers. And the solution of nations for hundreds of years for spies, has been immediate and swift execution.

Furthermore, terrorists do not play by the genteel rules of civilized society. Witness the events of the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993, and the subsequent trial of the defendants. The methods by which the terrorists were caught had to be revealed in court, allowing their organizations to change their modus operandi, and subsequently escape detection by those methods the next time. And there most assuredly will be a next time!

And even if the terrorist is convicted in court and sentenced to death, because of our criminal justice system and subsequent appeals, it will probably be a decade before the sentence of the court can be carried out. A decade in which kidnappings and ransom demands can be planned out and accomplished. What do you do, when a kidnapped federal justice's life is on the line vs. the freedom of a convicted terrorist?

No, better to try them as spies in a military court. Convict them by majority rule and issue the sentence. Execution by firing squad, roll them in a pig's skin (assuming they are Islamic), and bury them deep in an unmarked grave.

When Algore was pulled aside for special attention twice during a recent trip to Wisconsin, Milwaukee Sentinel article , he didn't complain. He complied completely as, he thought, all citizens should in these times.

Jolly makes a strong point here about terrorism in general. It is an act of war or insurrection that is directed aginst the civilian populace of a target nation(s). Its main purpose is to undermine the people's confidence in their government's ability to protect them by using whatever means of terror and violence available. In so doing the terrorist hopes that the terget population will rise up against the target government and change the status quo. The Terrorist rarely has any coherent ideological basis for terror and is therefore Nihilistic in his outlook.

Nation states historically have few means to combat terrorism/nihlism other than what the current Administration is doing through the justice system (both military and criminal) and the US's capability to project diplomatic and military power beyond its borders. In the case of Padillo the US government has little choice other than to do what it is presently doing. Putting him on trial in criminal court would only give him a soapbox from which he could harangue the masses with his propaganda of hatred. For him the best solution is to lock him up quietly in Maximum security, throw away the key and let the inmates dispense jailhouse justice on him. In that way he can truly learn what hatred really means.