Sooner rather than later...

[Nic Name]

If any other country in the world declared an American citizen to be a "bad guy" and locked him up, would his State Department be doing everything in its power to ensure that he had a right to counsel, was not being held without charges, not being held indefinitely, and not being administered cruel and unusual punishment?

Some Americans are at greater risk from their own government because they don't have any foreign government to fight for their rights as citizens of another nation. As Americans they only have the rights the administration is prepared to extend to them in the circumstances. They may or may not have constitutional rights, it depends on the government.

If Padilla's a "prisoner of war" is he being treated in accordance with the Geneva Convention? Is he being tortured? Why not? Who decides which of his constitutional rights he's not entitled to because of what the government believes he has thought or what he has said. It seems obvious that there is no evidence that he has yet done anything illegal, or he'd still be detained in the justice system, as is Massoui and Reid.

I believe Padilla's a potentially dangerous person. Surely, there are many potentially dangerous Americans. Within the scope of the constitution, everything possible should be done to thwart any criminal intentions they might have.

Mobsters are bad guys and dangerous people. Hopefully, they too are under surveillance and will be brought to justice whenever they commit a crime, or prevented from committing crimes should they attempt a criminal act.

Surely, a lot of crime could be prevented if the FBI rounded up all the "known" mobsters and held them indefinitely. Bobby Kennedy probably would have liked to have ahd that power to break the mob, but not at the expense of abrogating the constitutional rights of American citizens. Even the bad guys. Even guys like Gotti have constitutional rights.

Maybe the government should use the miliary system to fight the War On Drugs. Noriega was picked up by the military and brought back to face American justice in Florida. Now, there's a "bad guy" for sure. He is not an American but he received American justice.

Soon, if not already, American Muslims will not be free to speak out against their government without risk of being added to a list of unpatriotic dissidents that represent a "threat" to America, or "picked up and detained indefitinely" so long as the war on terror continues.

Those of us who feel free to express any contrary views on the Internet do so with the comfort of knowing that if we are investigated by the FBI, they'll find that we're not even Muslims and therefore, presumed innocent white christians and jews who are protected by constitutional rights.

Obviously, there are many Americans who are so afraid in this war on terror that they are prepared to say that for the duration, the constitutional rights of the few can and should be abrogated for the greater security of the many. So, now we understand how it made sense at the time to "detain" innocent Japanese Americans during WWII.

There ought to be some things we aren't prepared to do to fight the war against terrorists. Because it would fundamentally change who we are as a free nation.