Holding people endlessly on flimsy suspicions and torturing them is completely un-American, and the frightening thing is that so many of us don't get it. The propaganda of the Bush/Rove/Cheney junta was really very effective and perhaps we are morally and intellectually a bit lazy.
The theory has been that suspected terrorists don't have rights and the debate has been whether the government should confer any rights to them. But that thinking misses the whole point. Governments and officials don't confer rights. They are God-given. How could we forget? Thomas Jefferson said it very clearly in the Declaration of Independence: There are certain unalienable rights that all people possess. Unalienable is a legal term that means they are fixed and cannot be taken away. They are eternal and God-given and apply to everyone - even suspected terrorists.
I am not saying we should let all bad guys go or that we shouldn't interrogate legitimate suspects. What I am saying is that if we forget our founding principles, I am not sure we are much better than the terrorists.
There is a very real political system where the government decides it can give and take away rights. It the kind of system we had a revolution to throw off. Back then they called it tyranny. Now we call it a police state. It is always lurking at the door of any culture and the only defense to it is vigilance.
