2003 PADILLA CASE: Bush's Tactics In Terror Case Called Illegal

[L. Coyote]

Bush's Tactics In Terror Case Called Illegal
by Greg Sargent Published: August 10, 2003
http://www.observer.com/node/47916


A bipartisan group of prominent New York lawyers, former federal judges and former government officials has launched a fierce attack on the Bush administration's conduct in the war on terror, charging that the detention of suspected terrorist Jose Padilla is unconstitutional.
The group, which includes a number of former high-ranking officials in Republican and Democratic Presidential administrations, made the accusation in an amicus brief filed in federal court in New York on July 30. The brief concerns the legal plight of Mr. Padilla, whose case has attracted international attention since he was arrested in Chicago for his alleged role in an Al Qaeda plot to detonate a radioactive "dirty bomb" on U.S. soil.

Mr. Padilla, who has been held incommunicado in a naval brig since June, hasn't been formally charged with a crime and has been denied access to a lawyer. The Bush administration's conduct poses an urgent threat to the Constitution and to the rule of law, the brief's signers say.

"This is an extraordinary case," Harold R. Tyler Jr., a former federal judge and longtime Republican who was brought in by President Gerald Ford to clean up the Justice Department after Watergate, told The Observer . "We have in this country something called habeas corpus, which guarantees that a person who is held incommunicado has to be produced in a court. The people in the government seem to have forgotten that. They should charge this man if they've got something against him. And they should give him right to counsel. These are all constitutional rights."

Mr. Tyler, who as deputy attorney general under Mr. Ford was also an important mentor to a young prosecutor named Rudolph Giuliani in the mid-1970's, continued: "I have been a longtime Republican, but I'm a disenchanted Republican in this case."

The brief assails the Bush administration's handling of the Padilla case in blunt terms, .............

[L. Coyote]

1. June 2002: White House Discovers The Power of Fear Itself

The election is coming, the election is coming......

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White House Discovers The Power of Fear Itself
by Joe Conason Published: June 16, 2002
http://www.observer.com/node/46145


The authoritarian impulse of the White House Republicans is showing. In their ongoing campaign to discourage dissent and squelch investigation, they've employed not only distraction but also, increasingly, the manipulation of public fear. The crescendo of alerts from Washington-which have included solemn warnings to watch out for enemy scuba-divers in the Puget Sound-culminated in a remarkable terror-mongering exercise earlier this week on the subject of "dirty bombs."
The June 10 announcement that the government had captured an alleged American-born terrorist who was conspiring to detonate a radiation-spewing bomb among us was as frightening as any summer-movie plot. The advertising message, articulated from Moscow by Attorney General John Ashcroft himself, is to be very, very afraid. The national media cooperated magnificently in this effort.

On closer examination, however, the dirty-bomb plot turned out to be less terrifying than advertised. Although Jose Padilla, a.k.a. Abdullah al Muhajir, may well have intended some awful harm to this country, he appears to have had little if any means to inflict real damage. Although Mr. Ashcroft hyped the arrest of the former Chicago gang member and hotel banquet-waiter, and praised the F.B.I. and the C.I.A. for "capturing Abdullah al Muhajir before he could act on his deadly plan," it turned out that this petty criminal didn't really have much of a plan, deadly or otherwise. According to Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and F.B.I. director Robert Mueller, in fact, it isn't clear that there was any "plan" for a radiological attack at all.

[L. Coyote]

2. BREAKING NEWS SOURCES: Verdict Reached in Padilla Terror Case = GUILTY

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1600425