If you’d like a legitimate grievance about civil liberties, consider those foreigners swept up in post-9-11 furor. American immigration law has always been schizophrenic, and recent (over the past two decades or so) steps to remove it further and further from judicial review has allowed hundreds of folks to be simply dumped in cells awaiting further investigation.
Government officials say that the aggressive response is warranted by the extraordinary situation, and that they are simply enforcing longstanding laws. “Sept. 11 has forced the entire government to change the way we do business,” said Mindy Tucker, a spokeswoman for the Justice Department. “Our No. 1 priority right now is to prevent any further terrorist attacks. Part of that entails identifying those who may have connections to terrorism who are here in America and making sure they’re not in a position to carry out any further terrorism.”
Over all, more than 1,200 people have been detained as part of the sweeping investigation, including men traveling the country with large amounts of cash and box cutters, and those who sought information on crop-dusters and flying lessons on large jets.
But a senior law enforcement official said for the first time last week that just 10 to 15 of the detainees are suspected as Al Qaeda sympathizers, and that the government has yet to find evidence indicating that any of them had knowledge of the Sept. 11 attacks or acted as accomplices.
The point behind removing non-citizens from judicial oversight has been, of course, to keep “bleeding-heart liberal judges” from overriding the conservative desires of Congress and/or the President (through the INS). The result, though, should be a conservative’s nightmare — a mini-police state where minor immigration law infractions or, worse, allegations of security concerns can leave you languishing for days, weeks, months in prison, where, thanks to Messrs. Ashcroft and Bush, one’s conversations with lawyers, assuming you can contact one, can be monitored, and where nobody really has to charge you with anything for (now) a year (with possible renewal).
The Constitution is mildly schizophrenic in these matters as well. Some protections apply to “people,” others to just “citizen.” These are the loopholes that have let this occur.
Is it understandable that the government might want to have a bit more latitude in rounding up folks they think might be a legitimate security threat? Even without a formal declaration of war, I’m willing to allow that. But the government then had damn well better pursue those cases vigorously, or else lose any moral (if not legal) legitimacy in such actions.
(Via 24-Hour Drive-Thru)