Feel Safe Yet? The New Inquisition

Some questions are haunting me more and more these days. How many more of our civil liberties are Americans willing to lose as long as they're told it's to “prevent terrorism”? How many thousands of people (mostly Iraqi and Afghani people, but also Canadian and American citizens) can be put under “preventive detention” for “national security” before we become horrified? Call this by an accurate rather than Orwellian name: thousands are in prisons, without charges, without trials, without conviction for any crime. Few have access to lawyers or human rights monitors. Feel safe yet? How can the outrage about Abu Ghraib torture have faded from the public consciousness so quickly? The torture continues as our attention is elsewhere and when mentioned at all is only minimized or justified. Feel safe yet? Now, your right to a strong legal defense by a lawyer has taken a huge hit. Last week, New York City civil liberties attorney and National Lawyers Guild member Lynne Stewart faced a guilty verdict on the vaguest of charges: conspiracy. It's a prosecutor’s favorite charge because so little actual evidence is required. What does Stewart now face up to 35 years in prison for? The charges read: “conspiracy to prepare to assist terrorists” and “conspiracy to give material aid to terrorists.” What did Stewart actually do? Her job. [more]