Do we really want to return to this type of thinking?
By speakeasy
@speakeasy (4171)
United States
December 23, 2007 3:35pm CST
In the 1950's Edgar J Hoover had a list compiled of 12,000 American citizens that he want to "scoop up" and lock up indefinately on military bases simply because someone in the FBI felt they MIGHT be "potentially dangerous” to national security.
Fortunately, he was never given the authorization to act on this list.
Here is a link to the full story - http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/23/washington/23habeas.html?em&ex=1198558800&en=4eae300b9fba9c53&ei=5087%0A
Today we have a similar problem with the CIA, Homeland security, etc. and the authority that hte Bush administration wants these departments to have - the right to snatch ordinary citizens off the street and detain them for unlimited periods of time on the suspicion that they MIGHT be a security threat.
Do we really want to do things like this? Should we stand against this and try to prevent it? If we do, could we findOUR names on a similar list as a POSSIBLE security threat? What do you think?
2 people like this
2 responses
@GardenGerty (157665)
• United States
24 Dec 07
I think things need much more due process than they typically get. Some of the things we have done in the past in the name of "security" have been shameful--think of the internment of the Japanese, many of whom were already second generation. You would think we would learn our lesson. One of the things that make the US such a free place is also what makes it so vulnerable. We do have rights, and they need to be safeguarded, not by random mass arrests but by reason as well as vigilance.
1 person likes this
@speakeasy (4171)
• United States
24 Dec 07
I agree with you. I can understand the need to be vigilant; but, you can't just lock up a bunch of people because a few of them MIGHT at some future time become a "threat" like some people want to do.
That would be the same as saying that in a high crime neighborhood, the chances are that the people living there MAY commit a crime sometime in their lives - so let's just lock them all up now nad prevent them from committing crimes with no evidence, trials, etc.
I know I would rather not give up any of our freedoms and have to stay vigilant - instead of taking away freedoms and being "safe"?
I think that the people who want to do things like this are using people's fears in order to gain power over other people AND they are assuming that this action would Never be used against them or their own family members.
1 person likes this
@bobmnu (8157)
• United States
24 Dec 07
It is interesting that when examples of our Constitutional Rights being violated they point to a Democratic Administration and then accuse the Republicans of trying to take our rights away. One difference between what President Roosevelt did during WWII and what is happening today is the American Citizens being detained are ones that were captured on the battlefield fighting against US Soldiers. The non citizens have no rights under any treaty or the US Consitution. The Geneva Convention protects only soldiers in uniform foghting for a sovergin government with a formal declaration of war against the United States.
1 person likes this
@speakeasy (4171)
• United States
24 Dec 07
Not ALL of the American citizens who have been "detained" were "captured on the battlefield fighting against US Soldiers."
Some of them went to visit relatives in countries like Pakistan and were "detained" when they got off the plane here in the US. All that friends and relatives knew was that they did not make their connecting flights and make it home. They had investigators out looking for them as "missing persons" and only found out many months (15 - 24 and some are still "missing") that these people had been "detained".
1 person likes this
