Dead to rights: Altmire's terror bill subverts respect for citizenship

[SteelCityDem]

In criminal proceedings, citizens of the United States are guaranteed their rights by the Constitution. Any chipping away of this bedrock principle should invite alarm -- and never mind any high-minded excuse offered by the government, even if it involves national security.

The threat is not fanciful. In 2002 the Bush administration, with the best of intentions, declared Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen born in Brooklyn, an "enemy combatant" and, without charging him with terrorism after his arrest in Chicago, held him in isolation in a Navy brig for 3 1/2 years.

It was only when the Supreme Court appeared it might rule definitively on the flagrant unconstitutional denial of his rights as a citizen that he was charged and eventually convicted of terror-related activities. Jose Padilla was no innocent, but the suspension of due process in his case -- and the dismissal of his citizenship as an irrelevant trifle -- sent a shiver through the spine of anyone who cared about constitutional protections.

Read more: http://community.post-gazette.com/blogs/finepoint/archive/2010/05/14/dead-to-rights-altmire-s-terror-bill-subverts-respect-for-citizenship.aspx