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Feal the Fear: September 2002

General Ashcroft's Detention Camps
Time to Call for His Resignation
By Nat Hentoff
The Village Voice
September 4, 2002

For example, a Jonathan Turley column in the national edition of the August 14 Los Angeles Times ("Camps for Citizens: Ashcroft's Hellish Vision") begins:

"Attorney General John Ashcroft's announced desire for camps for U.S. citizens he deems to be 'enemy combatants' has moved him from merely being a political embarrassment to being a constitutional menace." Actually, ever since General Ashcroft pushed the U.S. Patriot Act through an overwhelmingly supine Congress soon after September 11, he has subverted more elements of the Bill of Rights than any attorney general in American history.

Under the Justice Department's new definition of "enemy combatant"—which won the enthusiastic approval of the president and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld—anyone defined as an "enemy combatant," very much including American citizens, can be held indefinitely by the government, without charges, a hearing, or a lawyer. In short, incommunicado.

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Europe-US terror treaty plan raises rights fears
Richard Norton-Taylor
The Guardian
September 3, 2002

European Union governments are secretly drawing up a treaty with the US on issues ranging from extradition to undercover police operations in a move which has huge implications for individual rights and liberties.

Shortly after the September 11 attacks on the US last year, the EU suggested negotiating an agreement with Washington on joint measures to combat terrorism.

The US replied that the agreement should go far beyond the fight against terrorism and cover what it called general "criminal matters".

[Read article]

 
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