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The First Thing to Do Is, Control
the Past
According to the LA
Times (2001 Nov 18), the Federal government
has begun asking libraries (and other repositories of knowledge) to
destroy previously-released and still-legal data, reports, government
records, etc. In the name of homeland security, those entrusted with
our national memory have, in effect, been asked to lobotomize public
discourse. The ultimate source? John Ashcroft.
Orwell would be proud.
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| The American Disappeared |
| Several hundred people -- perhaps a thousand or
more -- have been detained by the Justice Department. That same Justice
Department has keep secret the dates, locations, charges and even the
names of these people. The nation that so roundly and so rightly condemned
the Soviet Union for its secret trials, kangaroo courts, and classified
gulags has adopted essentially the same conduct. Some examples: |
"According to news reports and testimony before the Senate
Judiciary Committee, some detainees have been held for days or weeks
without access to counsel, and in certain cases have suffered death
or serious injury. Muhammed Butt, a Pakistani national whom the
FBI did not even suspect of involvement with terrorism, died Oct.
23 after being held for 33 days. Osama Awadallah, a Jordanian-born
permanent resident of the United States, was held in detention for
three months until his release on bond. He was kicked and beaten
while in detention, according to his lawyer.
At one of the recent Senate Judiciary Committee hearings, we heard
testimony from Gerald Goldstein, an attorney for Dr. Al-Badr Al-Hazmi,
a Saudi national detained for nearly two weeks. Goldstein told the
committee that the department denied Dr. Al-Hazmi access to counsel
for seven days. Another witness at our hearing, Ali Maqtari, a Yemeni
national, was detained for nearly two months on a technical immigration
violation that would normally be resolved with some additional paperwork.
He testified that he was allowed only one phone call per week of
no more than 15 minutes."
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-- From an Op-Ed
appearing in the Washington Post, written by Senator Russ
Feingold (D-Wisconsin).
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