In an op-ed piece in the Sunday New York Times (January 13, 2008), John Farmer, former Attorney General for New Jersey and senior council to the 9/11 Commission, suggested that because our justice system has struggled with the (few) terror cases it's faced (Jose Padilla, etc.) it is not really capable of handling the issue of 21st century terror.
Consequently he recommends that, “The Bush administration should propose and Congress should pass legislation allowing for preventive detention in future terrorism cases like that of Mr. Padilla. It is the best way to ensure both the integrity of our criminal law and safety of our nation.” Not simply does he suggest this “preventive detention” but a wholly separate legal system to deal with “terrorists”.
Farmer offers weak examples of the supposed intractable problems facing the current system. He mentions a joke of a case – U.S. v. Lakhani. Lakhani, an idiotic braggart who claimed he could get his hands on “any weapons system,” had been mouthing off to an FBI informant. Of course this guy couldn't do what he claimed. The FBI got tired of waiting for him to show up with a nuclear submarine in his backpack so it eventually set up an undercover sting and then arrested him. This isn't an inherent weakness of the criminal justice system. This is the FBI being typically idiotic with their Draconian procedures and desperation for any kind of conviction no matter how ridiculous. He's now serving 47 years in New Jersey. Not the state, which would be a violation of the 8th Amendment, but a prison located in the New Jersey.
Farmer continues to mew how it was too bad for Padilla having been incarcerated for years without being charged. He insists that if the Bush administration sets up this wholly separate “legal” system this problem would be solved.
“Preventive detention”. Really Mr. Farmer? Odd that your suggestion comes on the heels of a little piece of legislation that has escaped the notice of virtually all citizens.
HR 1955, The Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act passed with little or no debate back in October of last year. On the surface it almost sounds rational. One can go to GovTrack and read the language. What is disturbing is that this “commission” will be – via the Department of Homeland Security - investigating “ideologically” based violence. Actually this is repeated throughout the document.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Pablo
This is an excellent article in my opinion. We as a nation are in a whole lot of trouble, when this sort of totalitarian ideology is being touted by a columnist for a main stream American Newspaper. Unfortunately it does not suprise me, as I have been aware of this draconian unconstitutional proposed legislation for months.
I imagine however that Bubba, is reaching for his six pack of Coors Lite, turned on the football playoffs and ready for an exciting evening.
It also does not suprise me that said columnist was also senior counsel for the 9-11 commission, I suspect that Mr. Farmer is doing his internship so that he might soon be allowed into the CFR, as former Fla. Secretary of State Katherine Harris, was allowed into this esteemed globalist cabal soon after she orchestrated Bush's selection as Prez. Welcome to thought crime USA. I can't wait to see how some of the neo-con other blogcritic authors hop on the bandwagon. Stay tuned. :)
2 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Paul,
I was going to write that if I still lived in the United States, we'd have a lot in common in our outlooks, but then I realized that if I still lived in the United States, I'd be worried about my kids getting drunk at high school keggers and kicking myself for exposing them to assimilation and intermarriage in the U.S. and kicking myself daily for having failed my father in not raising kids who gave a damn about being Jews.
It is only the fact that I live here that gives me the ability to understand so much of what you write, and find myself, unwillingly, agreeing with much of it.
3 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Marlow,
Your country is going the way of Ghana. A "democracy" is being turned into a dictatorship, one law at a time. Before long, the Bill of Rights will apply only to the Tooth Fairy....
4 - P.Marlowe
I think what is even more frightening is that this siphoning away of our rights will not end should a Demo take office.
American's are wholly ignorant of how this happens. They've been asleep for a generation or more as the American Dream has been systematically stripped away from them and as to their rights.
We don't seem to realize that it ISN'T JUST the ability to hold a protest on the steps of the capitol steps that is threatened...
Indeed, that will actually be the LAST piece taken away from us.
Before that (in the work of these evil forces) will have been all the "hard" work:
The consolidation of virtually all MEDIA into the hands of half a dozen major international corporations.
The putrid pablum fed to us BY these corporations that dull the minds of us all - but esp., our children
The CONSTANT drumbeat of THREAT(!) of TERROR(!) of LOSS(!) of OUR WAY OF LIFE(!)
Combined, with other actions which then allows these forces to reach over and casually take these Rights from our hands...
This has been going on at full speed in Corporate America for some time (read DOUGLAS FRANTZ' Jan 07 article at PORTFOLIO.COM, entitled SPY vs. SPY. There he details how corporations are snapping up CIA, NSA and FBI agents at an alarming rate to spy on their workers and potential employees - going so far as to buy out the contracts of existing agents from the US Government due to a shortage of these "talented" people)
I am no fan of conspiracy theories, much less paranoia. But it doesn't take a Scully or Mulder to piece these things together... The Smoking MEN are all around us...
Marlowe
5 - troll
...what me worry - ?
6 - Clavos
heh...
7 - Dave Nalle
I think what is even more frightening is that this siphoning away of our rights will not end should a Demo take office.
IMO the most dangerous thing about this sort of legislation and the USA PATRIOT and REAL ID acts is that they will go through a period of not really being enforced by Republicans and then some Democrat will eventually get hold of them and see the possibility of a power grab and actually use them. Republicans are strongly divided on this sort of stuff, party democrats and democrats in office often lack those scruples.
Dave
8 - Pablo
Dave Nalle's comments
BIG YAWN
9 - P.Marlowe
Dave... I think you would agree that ANY person(s) doing what you've described would be neither a Demo or Rep... They'd be a TYRANT.
When will we move beyond the pettiness of partisan politics as Madison begged us to do in Federalist #10.
P. Marlowe
10 - STM
Geez, how quickly we forget.
Just remember the sight of those airliners full of Americans being flown into sktscrapers full of Americans, and the American heroes who tried to save lives losing theitr own when those towers came down.
Woodrow Wilson thought there'd never be a WWII as well, and the result: America stuck its head back in the sand for another 20 years, leading to a generation of young Americans killed, maimed or screwed up for life.
WWII was entirely preventable, and shifting the blame onto the terms of the armistice is bollocks.
So remember here also: the price of peace is eternal vigilance.
And they will be out to get you, no matter you do.
11 - P.Marlowe
Geez how quickly we gave up looking for a point in this last post STM!
If you are somehow equating the horror of 9/11 with the absence at that time of a Star Chamber I'm afraid I can't agree. It wasn't because we didn't have the twisted legal structure in place to hold people in perpetuity but rather intelligence superiors who had their collective heads up their ass...
And I sure hope you aren't suggesting that Pearl Harbor had anything to do with some Japanese family living in Idaho, or Portland, OR, or Arizona? Next you'll be suggesting the Holocaust never happened...
Our legal system - as it stands - is more than able to deal with terrorists (caught) on our soil and probably could be (with some adjustments) perfectly able to deal with extradited terrorists.
It WOULD require and Congress with some balls to make some changes. There would be some debate. But it can be done...
No one's forgotten anything STM... Unless it was perhaps internment camps, a certain Senator from Wisconsin who terrorized so many Americans and HUAC (House UnAmerican Activities Committee) that came before... Or the recently released report that Hoover wanted to round up and jail 12,000 "suspects" at the outbreak of the Korean War with the ability to hold them indefinitely... (Sound like what Farmer wants hmmmm?)
These are things we best NEVER forget. It's always easiest to see the enemy when he doesn't look like you STM... Much harder to spot the one standing next to you..
Marlowe
12 - Dr Dreadful
I gotta side with Mr Marlowe on this one, Stan. I'm sorry, because I know you've been personally affected by terrorism.
Vigilance is fine. Draconian and unconstitutional measures are not. There's too much potential for abuse, and plenty of evidence that abuses, in the case of the 21st century United States, have already occurred.
Due process of law has worked just fine for eight hundred years... ever since a hapless English king was dragged to the bargaining table on a little island in the Thames and told in no uncertain terms that he would govern with respect to his people, or not at all.
13 - STM
Marlowe: "Geez how quickly we gave up looking for a point in this last post STM!"
Well, maybe you could try to move onto a second level of thinking for a change.
You know exactly what the point is.
You (Americans) are going through tough times. Tough times require tough measures. Whatever president you get next of whatever political persuasion hopefully will know and understand this.
I'd say that in these times (and the one thing I don't agree with is Guantanamo Bay amd so-called military commissions), Americans need to get used to the idea that terrorists use the freedoms on offer in the West, and not just in America, to do what they do. Whether they choose to do this stuff in Britain or America, or Spain, or elsewhere, it's the freedoms they have been given that allow them to plot and carry out mass murder.
In getting used to that concept, Americans might also get their heads around the idea that some freedoms need to be lost (hopefully temporarily) to prevent more loss of life.
The fact that you still have 99.99 per cent of those freedoms should be a cause for celebration, not a reason for more navel gazing about legislation like the Patriot Act.
'Cause the truth is, if you're not a would-be terrorists, you don't have a lot to worry about.
Same as it is in relation to any other crime.
And this from Marlowe ...
"And I sure hope you aren't suggesting that Pearl Harbor had anything to do with some Japanese family living in Idaho, or Portland, OR, or Arizona? Next you'll be suggesting the Holocaust never happened..."
How on Earth do you manage to draw such an inference from my post, particularly the last bit?
What I'm suggesting simply is that you need to be vigilant or face the consequences. And you need laws to do it.
14 - STM
Come on Doc, you know as well as I do that temporary preventative detention is a good way of dealing with terrorists, as long as it is accompanied by due process.
I'm not suggesting people be locked up indefinitely. A week at a time, for a specified period, like three-to-four weeks, in the case of a terror suspect that might enable investigators to gather the required evidence.
What about the lunatics who planted the Mercedes nail bomb in London's clubland. What were the poms supposed to do? Just let them wander off and do their thing?
You can't just say with these people, Oh, we don't have QUITE enough evidence to present to a court so we're letting you go now, and please, while you're off, go and do anything youn like.
You've got to think about this as if America is on a war-footing - which indeed it is.
15 - P.Marlowe
STM... It isn't that we SHOULDN'T do something... The problem is that we have forces at work in this country far more concerned with grabbing an increasingly greater share of power to themselves... Indeed, they are a part of the problem that drives on the poor fools half way across the world to embrace the insanity coming out of the mouths of these supposed holy men...
Yes, there needs to be some accommodation to deal with terrorists caught.
But I'm not thrilled about ANYONE who gets to determine WHO is a threat... With the way 1.) the Patriot Act reads, coupled with 2.) John Farmer's suggestions coming on the heals of, 3.) HR1955 we're looking at a real threat - HERE - of the powers that be deciding, e.g., that speaking out against the corruption of Corporate America constitutes an "ideological threat" to America...
Ridiculous you say? Well, while you CONTINUE to say this they can come arrest ME and hold me for God knows how long... Deny me access to adequate (or any) legal assistance, etc., etc.
All under the specter of "terrorism threat".
That's the point STM... We know the enemy coming out of the madrases... But who's watching our back here?
P. Marlowe
16 - STM
My simple suggestion here is that in any discussion of this stuff, it's always good to defer to someone with greater knowledge of the issues you raise - so I will.
Folks like Doc and Rosey have been living for years under the spectre of terrorism (the IRA, and in Rosey's case, as he lives in Spain too, possibly ETA).
Perhaps they can enlighten us further.
Sadly, if you don't want to get the sh.t blown out of you, you have to enact the odd onerous law that doesn't fit with everything you know and love about the justice system.
I'd suggest Habeas Corpus is one you don't need to lose (and the closure of that stupid camp in Cuba would be a plus), but temporary indefinite detention (sounds like an oxymoron, I know) with a time limit attached to it is a good idea.
I have to say too that other people's experience with home-grown terrorism proves how real a threat it really is.
In the case of the London bombings, I'd say my right to catch a bus or train to work in the mornings without getting blown overrides the rights of others who might want to do it to me. I don't live in the UK, as you know, but I'd sure as hell want the pommy cops or MI5 on the case if I did and if that meant locking people up for a time without charge, so be it.
No one should be taking any of this lightly. Fine, argue for some of your collective freedoms, as you are netitled to do, but in the process make sure you aren't handing all the cards back to the nutcases.
They are out there, and they are plotting to get you. You'd probably be surprised if you knew how many law-enforcement agencies/security organisations around the world have united to track these buggers and stop them, and how active the terrorist cells really are - even in the US.
Sadly, to do that, governments really do need to do some stuff we'd rather they didn't.
I can live with it here, even though I don't like it.
I don't suppose most Americans will find it too hard to live with either.
Just remember Marlowe that you might in future be dealing with something really shocking like the smuggling of a nuclear weapon into the US so that it can be used against Americans.
Sound far-fetched? So would have the idea of a bunch of lunatics flying jets into skyscrapers ... but it happened.
17 - STM
Bad typo there .... Err, make that "blown up" ...
18 - Dr Dreadful
Just remember Marlowe that you might in future be dealing with something really shocking like the smuggling of a nuclear weapon into the US so that it can be used against Americans.
Unfortunately, in my opinion, such an event is just a matter of time. It could be thirty years from now or it could be tomorrow, but somehow or other some idiot is going to find a way to do just that.
When it happens, the reaction from government and law enforcement is going to make the Patriot Act and its mutant children look like a day out at Disney World.
And it'll happen in spite of all the more or less draconian anti-terror tactics you care to think of. Will they be worth it then?
I'm fine with extra-stringent measures, Stan, as long as they're administered responsibly - as they have been, for the most part, with the Prevention of Terrorism Act in Britain. The problem is that the Bush administration is very demonstrably irresponsible and I wouldn't trust them with a parking ticket, never mind a Patriot Act.
19 - STM
Well, hopefully, Doc, you'll have a new administration soon that will be able to see the wood AND the trees.
20 - Pablo
STM
I have a better idea, why not go whole hog into the brave new world that you seem to be asserting STM. For the good of all of us, and to ferret out the terrorists, all homes should have microphones and cameras installed so that law enforcement can protect us. In fact every activity that we engage in, should be monitored to protect us. Forget the ninth amendment as well as all those other frivolous antiquated rights that in the modern world, with dirty bombs, and the internet make us so vulnerable. We should bow down to the "authorities" who are trying to 'protect' you and me from the evildoers.
If as you have inferred STM, human beings have "rights" I wonder how you come to your conclusions. I might point out to you that rights are fundamentally different than privileges. Rights do not come from government (at least here in the USA) whereas privileges do. If government is to deny rights, which they did not create, this in my definition is tyranny.
I find your arguments in this area to be not well thought out, given your previous assertions, and quite frankly at least if not more dangerous than the terrorists that you are trying to prevent.
The notion of preventative detention is repugnant and belongs to despots, shahs, and others of that ilk. You suggest that government has the ability morally to do anything that it wants, all in the name of safety. My rights do not come from government, apparently you think yours do. I besides being a coinspiracy theorist, suggest that this is what is fundamentally different between you and me STM. You are the frog in that slowly boiling pot, not realizing that you are gradually being boiled alive, and assume that the government is really out to protect you, nothing could be further from the truth.
21 - Dave Nalle
Stop posting things I agree with, Pablo, it creeps me out. Thank god you threw in that tedious boiling frog analogy to remind us which side you're on. It's a favorite of the irrationalist extreme.
dave
22 - Pablo
I sure don't mean to creep you out Dave.
23 - Pablo
Dave,
And what perchance side am I on?
24 - Dave Nalle
My comment is TWO lines long. How could you miss that?
Dave
25 - Pablo
You are soooooooooo boring Dave