Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Obama's raids and Obama's camps

Snatch-and-Jail Justice? by Dave Lindorff on CounterPunch.org

Now things are much worse. Lawyers who have tried to defend some of the victims of INS roundups report that many detainees are subjected to what can only be termed torture—things like having themselves slammed into walls or pushed down stairs while arms and legs are manacled, having their teeth smashed out, being left outside in cold rain or blazing sun, kept from sleeping for days at a time. Sound like Guantanamo or Bagram? In fact, there is little difference.


and ...

Not so surprisingly, an appalling one in 10 Hispanic Americans reported in 2007 that they had been stopped by law enforcement and asked to prove that they were citizens or were in this country legally.

Ahem. Those kinds of numbers are the description of a police state, folks.

There is a simple solution to this problem. It’s in the Constitution, actually. It is the Bill of Rights protection against “unreasonable searches and seizures (Fourth Amendment), and against arrest “without due process of law” (the Fifth Amendment), as well as the right to “a speedy and public trial” and to “assisstance of counsel” (The Sixth Amendment).


How long do we go into Obama's term before these actions become Obama's actions? He could stop it simply by picking up the phone and telling a cabinet secretary that it ends now.

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