padilla jury is in: torture and ill-treatment is bad, constitutional protections are good...

the conclusion of the padilla criminal trial in a federal court on thursday shows that waging the "war on terror" does not require giving up our constitutional values or substituting military rule for the rule of law...the jury's guilty verdict should be appealed, but the verdict on the constitution is in: we should keep it...

for nearly two years, jose padilla was denied all access to his lawyers, his family and the court system...psychologists, and those who have visited with jose padilla over the past three plus years of his incarceration say that they see profound emotional wreckage as a result of his detention...as court filings indicate, padilla was allegedly subjected to sleep deprivation, stress positions and extreme temperatures...worse, he was held without human contact, without a clock or even natural light -- with no way to know how quickly or slowly time was passing...when he was removed from his cell to visit a dentist, goggles and earmuffs were placed on him...

psychologists have long reported that extreme sensory deprivation is one of the quickest ways to drive people mad -- and make them willing to confess to anything...therefore his "conviction" leaves me less than comforted and my feeling of "safety" has changed -- i feel less safe under the fascist-leaning hands of this administration than i would under one which understood the value and values of our long history of constitutional protections...

amnesty international usa executive director larry cox issued this observation:

"The trial, part of which an Amnesty International observer attended, failed to address a key issue which poses a great threat to all Americans - detention of a U.S. citizen without charge, as well as alleged torture and ill-treatment during detention. The timing of the U.S. government's addition of Mr. Padilla to the existing conspiracy charge in the south Florida case raises questions. Mr. Padilla's indictment in a U.S. federal court ensured that the circumstances of Mr. Padilla's incommunicado military detention without charge would not be reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court."

"This verdict, if it stands, cannot be seen as an endorsement of a regime of unreviewable executive detention. President Bush should not take today's ruling as permission to continue to hold Americans outside the law at his whim."

this trial showed that our federal courts are perfectly capable of dealing with "terrorism" cases...the bush administration has continually argued that we should scrap our centuries-old constitutional protections and replace our system of checks and balances with one awarding the executive complete discretion to lock up whomever he wants, for however long he deems appropriate...the founders of this country rejected that kind of arbitrary and oppressive power...the federal court in florida has shown how weak the administration's case for abandoning the constitution really is...

peace out <3