Administration officials are preparing long-range plans for indefinitely imprisoning suspected terrorists whom they do not want to set free or turn over to courts in the United States or other countries, according to intelligence, defense and diplomatic officials.
The Pentagon and the CIA have asked the White House to decide on a more permanent approach for potentially lifetime detentions, including for hundreds of people now in military and CIA custody whom the government does not have enough evidence to charge in courts. The outcome of the review, which also involves the State Department, would also affect those expected to be captured in the course of future counterterrorism operations.[...] The administration considers its toughest detention problem to involve the prisoners held by the CIA. The CIA has been scurrying since Sept. 11, 2001, to find secure locations abroad where it could detain and interrogate captives without risk of discovery, and without having to give them access to legal proceedings.
Little is known about the CIA's captives, the conditions under which they are kept -- or the procedures used to decide how long they are held or when they may be freed. That has prompted criticism from human rights groups, and from some in Congress and the administration, who say the lack of scrutiny or oversight creates an unacceptable risk of abuse.
So, let me see if I understand this: in order to defend our democracy and our constitution, we will freely and enthusiastically violate the rights of those whom we do not have enough evidence to charge under our constitution by keeping them prisoner forever! Or paying other countries to do it, which amounts to the same thing.
Really, given the express train to hell this administration has put us on, one wonders what will be left of our system worth saving when they're done with it.
Of course, most Americans aren't thinking that there are too many problems with this. Most are sitting back, comfortable in the thought that, since they're not those awful foreigners, things like this won't happen to them.
Ahmed Abu Ali, a twenty-three-year-old Northern Virginia man, is being held without charges in Saudi Arabia. Arrested in June 2003, he has spent eighteen months in custody but has yet to see a lawyer. [...] As the weeks went by, Abu Ali's parents received worrying reports that their son was indeed being tortured. They claim that an eyewitness informed them that Ahmed's hands were in such pain that he was unable to pick up a pen.
But perhaps more shocking than what Abu Ali's parents learned about their son's treatment, was what they discovered about its causes. A U.S. district court ruling issued last week cites evidence suggesting that U.S. officials initiated their son's arrest, that the U.S. government is behind their son's continued detention, and that the reason the U.S. is keeping their son in Saudi Arabia is to avoid the scrutiny of the federal courts.
In short, far from trying to protect Abu Ali, the American government may have simply outsourced his abuse.
...Saudi officials have reportedly described the detention as an American concern and have said that they would release Abu Ali if the U.S. requested it. According to Abu Ali's parents, U.S. State Department and embassy officials have said that their son would be freed as soon as the U.S. Justice Department's investigation was done. [...] Abu Ali's situation may not be unique, or even so unusual. The United States has developed a whole host of practices since the September 11 terrorist attacks that appear to be designed to evade judicial scrutiny of the detention and interrogation of suspected terrorists.
So, for all you people sitting there, tsking about the government shredding the constitutional rights of foreigners and thinking, "Well, but this couldn't happen to me, after all" ... think again.
Posted by iain at January 03, 2005 11:57 AM
