Due Process

Some people argue that the liberal-leaning-left is using due process as a political tool. Those who think due process is being abused seem to believe that--by calling our attention to the fact that the current administration is holding U.S. citizens without charge, without trial, and without access to legal counsel--we are making an unpatriotic attack on the United States. They point to attempts to give Jose Padilla, the accused Al Queda sympathizer, access to due process; they say efforts to grant Padilla due process under the Constitution are purely political, motivated not by true concern about due process but, instead, out of concern for political gain.

Perhaps so. It depends on how one defines politics and how one defines inalienable rights.

If Padilla is, indeed, an Al Queda sympathizer and if, indeed, he intends to cause physical harm to the United States and its citizens, then he should be restrained and detained. The thing is, no one knows whether Padilla is guilty of a crime. Padilla has not had the opportunity to argue his innocence. True, he's a U.S. citizen. True, U.S. citizens are protected against unreasonable search and seizure.

But this is different. This is an attack on the homeland. Due process was never intended to apply to such situations.

It's not different. Whether an attack on the homeland or an attack on the President's wife, the person accused of the attack is guaranteed due process. Due process does apply to such situations; at least, it should.

The reason we are so protective of due process is that people and governments are fallible. Individuals and governments make mistakes. Sometimes, they lie. The government cannot be trusted with unchecked absolute power over our lives and our liberties; that is why the framers of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, in their extraordinary foresight, provided the citizens of this country with protections...such as due process.

Admittedly, it's scary to consider the possibility that a terrorist could be freed, thanks to due process, and could then launch an attack on American soil. It's frightening to think that our system of government would ever let such a person free to attack us.

It's more frightening to me, though, to think that our system of government would be compromised to such an extent as to eradicate a key component of freedom that might protect us in the short term, but could destroy us in the long term.

If the President is permitted to call Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen, an enemy combatant who is not eligible for the protections of due process, what is to stop the President from claiming his political opponent is an enemy combatant? What is to stop the President from claiming I am an enemy combatant simply because I am writing to protest the treatment of the "enemy?"

Excuse me, there's someone at the door...oh, well, I'll finish this piece if they release me from the U.S. Naval brig...