The Eye of NOI

Yesterday, Mark (South Puget Sound Libertarian) and I had a brief exchange on his blog about Jose Padilla and the role the Supreme Court was to play in hearing his writ of habeas corpus. The NOIs have decided to turn a blind eye when they could have just as easily done the job they were constituted for. They should have reviewed his writ. By not doing so, the NOIs have sent a clear message to the Bush administration--and any future administrations--that they can violate your rights right up to the very moment the NOI casts it's gaze upon them. They may as well have publicly stated, "You can abuse your prisoners as long as it doesn't come to our attention. Don't make us make you stop." Justice? She has been all but raped by the Executive.

"What strong words," you say? Not when you consider these actions were intended all along. I was doing a little background research on this topic when I ran across a news conference held by James Comey, deputy attorney general for the U.S. Department of Justice. During this conference, James Comey outlined the events that led to the capture of Jose Padilla. At the end they opened the floor to questions from the audience. He was asked, "So at this point, you have no plans to present any of this to a grand jury?" Comey replied:

No, we do not have any plans to present this, the information I've given you today, to a grand jury. I don't believe that we could use this information in a criminal case, because we deprived him of access to his counsel and questioned him in the absence of counsel.

This was done not to make -- the questioning of Jose Padilla, something else I should point out, was not undertaken to try and make a criminal case against Jose Padilla. It was done to find out the truth about what he knew about al Qaeda and threats to the United States.

We could care less about a criminal case when right before us is the need to protect American citizens and to save lives.

We'll figure out down the road what we do with Jose Padilla. What the president wanted to do and what was done was find out what he knows, figure out how it links up with other things that we know and give us a picture of what the enemy's planning.

Motive? It doesn't get any clearer than this. They knew all along that if a case were ever brought against Jose Padilla it would be thrown out. Padilla would have to be let go because the Justice Department broke every conceivable rule in the book. Now, we're "down the road" and we can see what the Justice Department has "figured out". Mark was absolutely correct when he stated, "This is a monstrous decision by the NOI. They are indirectly sanctioning indefinite detention without charges and, in doing so, they have declared habeas corpus dead as far as terrorism cases are concerned. The US Supreme Court has dealt liberty a near fatal blow." By it's silence on this matter, the Supreme Court is just as guilty of violating our rights as the Executive. A dark day for liberty, indeed!