Let us not lose sight of the Jose Padilla and Judith Miller cases. It is probably that both infringe dangerously on the constitutional rights of all American citizens.
Jose Padilla, an American citizen has been detained for three years without proper access to litigation and without being officially charged. Last week the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the Bush Administration, keeping Padilla unlawfully locked away, and setting a dangerous precedent.
San Franciso Bay View examines this verdict in “Jose Padilla and the death to personal liberty.”
FindLaw.com finds the detention unjust, and compares it to the recent Hamdi v. Rumsfeld ruling.
A recent Washington Post editorial asks for the U.S. Government to at least apply some criminal charge to Padilla to make his containment appear lawful, however the recent decision changes nothing in the way the U.S. government has dealth with potential terrorist of American citizenry.
Whatever Became of Judith Miller? asks Patt Morrisson in the Huffington Post. She’s been in jail since JULY in the case of the Valerie Plame name-dropping. Meanwhile, it appears that the media has forgotten that the leak may have originated with Karl Rove via Robert Novak.
Editor and Publisher reports that a visitor’s list has been released and John Bolton, the new US Ambassador to the UN’s name appears on it. In addition to a hundred or so other guests, Tom Brokaw, film director Irwin Winkler, Richard Clarke and two of his former aides, Iraqi weapons hunter Charles Duelfer, Bob Dole, publisher Mort Zuckerman, and Sen. Arlen Spector all paid a visit to the imprisoned New York Times reporter.
Miller’s imprisonment is comparable to Chinese government sanctions on journalists, according to a September 19 editorial in the New York Times.
The September 15 Christian Science Monitor asks for the U.S. to set a global example in regards to protection and freedom of the press by passing a federal shield law.
It is important that these stories continue to be covered while the media has gathered the impetus to bring a variety of social and cultural concerns to the forefront in light of the Hurricane Katrina disaster.
Meanwhile, Novak was last scene filing new stories from “unconfirmed White House sources” detailing President Bush’s desire to fill Sandra Day O’Connor’s Supreme Court seat with an ultra-conservative federal appellate judge from Austin, TX named Priscilla Owen.
In a more recent report filed Saturday, Novak reports that Sen. Harry Reid will filibuster an appointment of Judge Owen
