Our Secret Detentions: Look Who Defends Them
The federal government exercises “unprecedented” levels of secrecy, an expert on constitutional law told an audience at the University of Colorado this week. Even casual newspaper readers know this.In making that point, Supreme Court expert Erwin Chemerinsky highlighted a key casualty of the “war on terror,” namely government transparency in certain court proceedings.
Chemerinsky, an attorney for outed CIA agent Valerie Plame, noted that reporters have been jailed for refusing to reveal their sources. He also noted that the government has refused to release clearly public information such as the number of people detained by U.S. forces since December 2001 and why they are in custody, he said.
“I don’t understand how it would hurt national security to find out the aggregate number of people detained as a result of the war on terrorism,” Wednesday’s Camera quoted him as saying.
Secret detentions and surreptitious court proceedings are a minuscule portion of the Bush administration’s expansive use of secrecy. But Chemerinsky’s remarks bring to mind the secret detentions on American soil in the fall of 2001, and the administration’s vigorous defense of its censorial tactics.
In December of that year, for instance, then-U.S. Attorney John Suthers joined a CU panel discussion on civil liberties. Clay Evans, a former Camera senior editor, was also on the panel and mentioned that he found the “secret arrests” disturbing.
Suthers bristled at the comment and wrongly suggested that the journalist was wrong. Suthers said: “There’s been a suggestion that because the government is not giving the media a list of 600 people being detained in the United States that nobody knows who these people are. In the individual districts, the media knows who these people are, because they monitor the courthouses and monitor all the proceedings.”
Suthers called Evans’ comment “a slap in the face of the capabilities of the press.”
But the press did not, in fact, know who those 600 detainees were, much less why they had been detained, usually without being charged. The government kept that information under tight wraps. That fact was underscored in August 2002, when a federal judge ruled that the government “had no right to conceal the (detainees’) identities.”
Further, the judge wrote, “As of this moment, the public does not know how many persons the government has arrested and detained as part of its Sept. 11 investigation, nor does it know who most of them are, where they are and whether they are represented by counsel.”
This was eight months after Suthers insisted that the press knew the identities of the detainees. In August 2002, when Evans pressed Suthers for an explanation, Suthers’ office issued a statement noting that Suthers “stands by his assertion that the media has the capability of identifying those that have been detained.”
Suthers’ response was wily. Instead of admitting that, indeed, his boss was secretly detaining people, and offering a rationale, Suthers framed it as an issue of press competence. That may play well in Poughkeepsie, but it’s both evasive and misleading.
This newspaper endorsed Suthers for state attorney general, a post he now holds. But his equivocation showed that Suthers had more fidelity to the administration than to a fair discussion of its policies.
The Suthers incident encapsulates Chemerinsky’s point about government secrecy. And it yields more data about the partisan posturing of some U.S. Attorneys.
Clint Talbott, for the editorial board
© 2006 Daily Camera and Boulder Publishing, LLC.
Current events would have given Eugene Ionesco much more fodder for his plays listed under “theater of the absurd.” Imagine a “nation of law” having these activities on its marquis? It’s breathless hubris, but Bush does see himself as some kind of Divine ambassador; too bad he doesn’t (?) realize he serves the dark god(s), and his LOVE of torture, his working with hit man expert, himself, Gonzales to create a hardly legal (but perhaps with twisting of letter of the law, some might grant it as much) basis for torturing persons. A war promoted on fixed cause, rather than a true basis (in terms of US security, as opposed to oil/war profits) that leads to rounding up citizens who apparently KNOW secrets is itself insane. What is there to know when the entire thing is smoke and mirrors? It’s all for show… and the heinous disregard for the lives massacred in this masquerade? Indeed. There are some things money can’t buy, like a free pass from the lords of karma. These people who so abuse Law, justice, decency, basic empathy for their fellow mankind… they may have power now, but they are setting up LIFETIMES of pay back.
Their Karma may get them, but they will trash and burn the rest of us before that happens. He (Bush), thinks he is GOD and that GOD talks just to him. Sounds like a terrorists to me! He has stacked the courts, law offices of each state and has the Supreme Court in his back pocket and Saudi Arabia will give him a place to sleep, what more do you think he needs, in or out of power? If we elect a republican for president in 2008 all of Bush’s hard work will pay off, his party will keep the rat race going as is. New names, different day all else remains the same. It is one party rule straight to hell!
SiouxRose:
It really is spooky how actual events are starting to resemble what was considered in its day bizarre art. Uncomfortably prophetic..like the perverted minds of the 3rd. Reich have metamorphized into the current ruling class in the US.
Our Secret Detentions: Look Who Defends Them
Where are the EU economic sanctions against the USA?
Dear Poet, the lady doth so appreciate a champion!
Steve: I always felt the “war on drugs” was a ruse to usurp civil liberties. Now with 2.2 million incarcerated, there are plenty of beds should THEY come after the intellectuals. The powerbrokers have obviously studied the models of authoritarian control used by both the Soviets and the nazis. It’s always the ones who can think outside the system, especially those with the voice and charisma to influence “the masses” that they fear most. They may not burn books, but as the publishing industry is also being taken over by the same corporations that own most media outlets, the availability of titles (apart from Amazon, used books) may lessen. It’s that gradual thing… you know, the frog not realizing he’s being burned to death while IN the water. Point being, no Avian flu is necessary… though I don’t rule out ANY motivational device on the part of this group. It’s already proven (and this goes back 20 years given who’s in the Bush circle and what their covert resumes would say) they care little for human life, or ecosystems for that matter.
Chicago April 26th, 2007 5:38 pm-
Watch out! The almighty voice of Grand Inquisitor, Pat Robertson, in Bush’s ear will be burning us at the stake next.
Maat, Best Wishes and Hope
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tk1vEuhBuEU