Finally, Checks and Balances

After three years without checks and balances, a federal appeals court has just reinstated them.

That's right, according to the Washington Post, "The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, in a 2-1 decision, said the administration has no inherent constitutional power to sidestep the normal procedures required to imprison a U.S. citizen seized on American soil.

"It also rejected the government's claim that it possessed legislative authority to lock up Padilla by virtue of the congressional joint resolution authorizing the war against Iraq."

But maybe there is reason to worry about Jose Padilla. Here's a bit of conspiracy theory, or at least the theory that the FBI routinely bungles investigations:

Do you see any resemblance here? On the right, we have Jose Padilla, arrested in May 2002 at O'Hare airport and held as a material witness, then as an enemy combatant. He has been incommunicado as an al-Qaeda operative since July 2002 in a Naval brig in Charleston, SC.

On the left, we have "John Doe #2", the mysteriously disappearing suspect of the 1995 bombing of the Alfred E. Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City, OK.

Padilla is thought to have been hatching plan to detonate a "dirty bomb" in the United States and to have met with al-Qaeda operatives overseas prior to his arrival at O'Hare.

Why might we think he was involved in bomb plots?

Well, all that aside, it's good news that a branch of government has begun to rein in the executive branch. I'm not prone to thinking that my rights are being systematically stripped away, but even I had begun to worry. In a nation we didn't like so much, like Iraq for instance, we would refer to someone in Jose Padilla's position as having "disappeared" and point to that government as having commited human rights abuses.

Thank you, 2nd Circuit. You've done a service to America, but let your colleagues know that the work isn't done yet. Inspector General Glenn A. Fine of the Justice Department has found hundreds of hours of videotaped footage showing prison guards beating 9/11 detainees.

I would like to see those tapes. I can't find any images through Google, but really, we just invaded a country which used brutal repression against political enemies. What does this constitute?

Here's an audiolink to an NPR program I listened to last night. Mississippi Becomes a Democracy tells the story of African Americans forcing white society to let them vote and let them take part in the political process. This is often brutal and wholly compelling, and it makes you wonder where we've found this leg that we stand on when we wag our fingers at other nations.