PulpLit.net

Let Me Beat on this Drum Some More

As of this writing, it's been 473 days since Jose Padilla was detained by the U.S. government. You may recall I complained about his detention in a prior quotes. It's been a while since then, and the only news that I've heard is that on March 25 the government said that they would appeal the ruling requiring them to allow Padilla to see an attorney.

I don't think I muster the words to do justice to how I feel. I know that we are talking about one man, a single U.S. citizen who is alleged to have been quite a piece of trash. It goes without saying that I'm not defending his actions. I don't want to end up sounding bombastic.

I just feel like something is dying. The 6th Amendment of the bill of rights states that no person shall "be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." We can argue about what due process of law means; okay. We can say that terrorism is a new kind of crime; fine.

But it seems to me that there is no crime for which you should be imprisoned without charges, no offense which can justify holding someone without a fair trial.

For 473 days a man has been deprived of liberty without a trial, without access to a laywer, without even being charged.

This is America for God's sake. The White House once issued a press release criticizing Iraq's "absence of a due process of the law." Do we really want to join the ranks of countries where enemies of the state just disappear, countries which usually are our enemies?

I feel like my conception of America is dying. And the worst thing is, nobody cares. Nobody has gotten up on a soapbox for this man, for the principal of due process, for our very concept of justice. Where are the strident letters to the editor, the protest marches, the angry liberals with paint?

Well, I'm going to start writing. Maybe not here always, I know that's not what we're normally about. But I'm going to start sending letters tomorrow. And I think I'm going to keep writing, until somebody does something about this, or explains to me how I'm utterly wrong. Other people are sending letters too, I'm not totally alone; there is a website, chargepadilla.org, dedicated to this cause. And of course there is also the ACLU.
Who knows, maybe in another 400 days Jose Padilla will be in a nice federal prison, charged and convicted of treason, and I'll be happy that the Constitution of the United States still means something.