Sen. Feingold says that preventive detention is unconstitutional
Brian Beutler, in a May 25th post points out that Senator Feingold has written to President Obama saying that he feels preventive detention is unconstitutional. Beutler comments:
"Obama now seeks, as Feingold describes it, a statutory basis for indefinite preventive detention, but as Glenn Greenwald reminds us, his own counsel, Greg Craig, said 'It's possible but hard to imagine Barack Obama as the first President of the United States to introduce a preventive-detention law,' just three months ago."
Isn't this dangerously close to what Bush/Cheney did when they had the lawyers draw up the torture memos so it could later be claimed that "enhanced interrogation techniques" were legal. This is a bit different in that the object is a new law not a convoluted memo that tries to justify the unjustifiable. However, it seems like a slide down the same slippery slope to me.
Sliding? Free falling into totalitarianism might be a better description Tom...but totalitarianism all for the noble cause of keeping us safe. So it is for all the 'right' reasons, wouldn't you say?
May 25, 2009 12:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm really, really sick of being told (by persons who support Obama no matter what he does) that I'm a radical, a leftist, a kook for insisting that even terror suspects deserve the protections of our Bill of Rights.
I'm sick to death of being reminded of our not-all-that-distant past wherein our government attempted to strip others of rights that were pronounced in other untouchable castes: Communist, anarchist, socialist...once a person had that label, he or she was person non grata in extremis, and lucky to be granted the status of a human being.
What is wrong with these people? What is wrong with them? Why are we even having this debate? Are there so many scared shitless Americans out there that they're confident they can toss the Constitution out the window, on the backs of their political majority? It's not just Obama or the present military that want to 'protect' us by throwing out our civil liberties; it's a whole lot of the mothers.
Fuck ALL.
May 25, 2009 1:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Our government structure is "supposed" to allow debate on legal changes. This is exactly what Obama's speech and Feingold's letter do.
Are you saying you don't want the open debate?
May 25, 2009 4:19 PM | Reply | Permalink