11 July 2005 - Monday
Dude, where's my passport?
"U.S. officials told him his passport was destroyed in the course of testing its authenticity."
Quite a feat.
Anyway, this is yet another contradiction of the myth that the liberty only of non-citizens is in jeopardy. (His extremely fragile US passport aside, this man served three years in the US Navy.) According to the lawsuit filed by the ACLU (PDF), he was held for nearly a month after the FBI cleared him. I wonder what would have happened if we didn't have all these pinkos running around, whining about due process.
| Posted by Wilson at 8:54 Central | TrackBack| Report submitted to the Power Desk
That's what typically happens, actually. Bad people are the ones who get held. But this is an obvious mistake, and a case of incompetence. Unless we're gonna blame that on the whole government.
Then again, our government does tend to take the cake for incompetence. No matter which party is at the helm.
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The problem is not the individual case. The individual case, as I see it, illustrates the problem, which is systematic.
This administration denies nearly all legal protections to people seized in the war on terror. US citizens arrested in US airports can be held indefinitely as "enemy combatants."*
In thise case, the military convened a "review board" on 4 July to see whether Kar should be held. According to his family, that was weeks after the FBI cleared him of any wrongdoing. Meanwhile, the military destroyed the only protection he had: his American passport.
The Bush administration often speaks as if this sort of review board, which does not resemble actual trial at all, is a courtesy offered by the government.
The thoughts of Wilson on 11 July 2005 - 20:58 Central+ + + + +
Thats why I say get two passports - if they take one, you'll always have a backup :-)
The thoughts of Dan on 11 July 2005 - 23:31 Central+ + + + +
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Silly Wilson. If we don't do anything wrong, we have nothing to worry about. It's only the bad people that the government investigates and holds.
The thoughts of Randy on 11 July 2005 - 15:00 Central+ + + + +