Saturday, December 20, 2003

Rights, Liberties Groups Hail Court Defeats for Bush Anti-Terror War, by Jim Lobe: "The first case involved an appeal by lawyers for Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen arrested in Chicago in May 2002 as a material witness in the government's ongoing counter-terrorism investigation and subsequently designated by Bush as an 'enemy combatant.' He was subsequently transferred to a high-security naval brig in Charleston, South Carolina, where he has been refused permission to communicate with his family, with a lawyer, or any nonmilitary personnel for 18 months."

'Habeas corpus' is fundamental to freedom and an essential barrier to tyranny. The ability of the state to arrest people and hold them in detention at the whim of the govt is the essence of dictatorship.

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