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Tuesday, June 01, 2004

Uh Oh! The Supreme Court May Require Us to Follow the Constitution!

So thinks the Justice Department. So they release a bunch of allegations about two-year "enemy combatant" Jose Padilla to poison any chance for a fair trial once the Supremes order that he finally get one.
"Padilla and the accomplice were to locate as many as three high-rise apartment buildings which had natural gas supplied to the floors," the government summary of interrogations revealed.

"They would rent two apartments in each building, seal all the openings, turn on the gas, and set timers to detonate the buildings simultaneously at a later time," the papers alleged.
So, after two years of secret interrogations without access to a lawyer, Padilla the "dirty bomber" apparently confesses to being a "clean" bomber (natural gas--can't get much cleaner than that!). Since he was denied a lawyer, it seems as though any such confession would be inadmissable in any court except the kangaroo variety. And given the length of time he has been held and the possibility that he may have been tortured, any such confession, even if he actually made it, would be suspect.

Leaving John Ashcroft to protect American Justice is like leaving George W. Bush to guard the beer.

[Update 4:13 PM] From the updated CNN article:
At a Tuesday news conference, Deputy Attorney General James Comey called the chronicle of Padilla's plotting "remarkable for its scope, its clarity and its candor.

"We have decided to release this information to help people understand why we are doing what we are doing in the war on terror and to help people understand the nature of the threat we face," he said.

Comey asserted that if Padilla had been handled by the more conventional criminal justice system, he could have stayed silent and "would likely have ended up a free man."
I understand the nature of the threat we face from a "Justice" department that doesn't believe in "innocent until proven guilty" and that fears that someone might remain silent and end up a free man. That threat is called "Fascism."

Ashcroft, Ted Olsen and lackeys like Comey are American fascists. We need them out of our government NOW.