MEDIA CRITICISM:

“Indefinite Detentions” on the Fourth

This is not law enforcement. This is not national security. This is not counter-terrorism. Being held for months on end without counsel, without even hearing what one is charged with, is torture.

The founders of this nation knew such dangers so clearly that the Constitutional Convention refused to pass its own constitution, prepared by some of its most esteemed members, without the additional guarantee and protection of ten key amendments, known as the Bill of Rights:

Amendment IV: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Amendment V: No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Amendment VI: In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.

Then there are the arguments that these people are not really prisoners but “detainees,” or that these are not prosecutions since (after all) the prisoners are not being charged with anything. The constitutional creators were wise to that kind of game, too:

Amendment IX: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

I am well aware of not being an attorney (in the interest of full disclosure, I have taken only one law course, in Constitutional Law, and I took it only out of interest, when I was already a faculty member at the time, from a friend of mine). I am also well aware that I am not one of the swelled heads pontificating on television, paid huge sums of money by interest groups. But it would be unwise to exaggerate the differences between an ordinary citizen, like me, and some individuals with more heavily subsidized access to major media outlets.

The policy of indefinite detention pursued by the current administration is humiliating to all Americans. It is not somehow less of a humiliation for George F. Will (formerly designated a “constitutional scholar” and a “constitutional expert”) or for Charles Krauthammer than for me, just because Will and Krauthammer go along with it and I don’t. Their powerlessness or lack of ability or will to stand for fundamentals of American justice is being exposed daily, for the world to see.

Holding prisoners without even charging them with anything is a form of humiliation extending beyond the prisoners themselves to the general public, and even to our largest media outlets. Never in the history of this country have the noses of top management at the biggest newspapers, television networks, etc., been so thoroughly rubbed in it as by a White House apparently complacent in its assurance that no media personnel dare report adequately even the grossest invasion of cherished liberties. This very week, key figures from large media outlets—from the heads of the parent companies of television networks to Warren Buffett, major investor behind the Washington Post—are to gather for an annual meeting at the Sun Valley mountain resort in Idaho. They’re being humiliated, too, for all the world to see.

Speaking of deficiencies—Perhaps it is beside the point that the violation of habeas corpus is instituted by a Vice President, Cheney, formerly CEO of the company that saw no problem in beefing up Saddam’s oil fields after not one war but two wars; a Secretary of Defense, Rumsfeld, photographed in the 1980s smiling and shaking hands with Saddam Hussein as Washington’s emissary in bringing US assistance to Iraq; and a president, Bush, whose own father played a major role in the future blowback being prepared by the Reagan and senior Bush administrations.

Perhaps those large blind spots are not beside the point. Either way, either charge these individuals, or let them go.

To do neither, after all, strongly implies that there was something about the process itself that will not stand up to public scrutiny. Some of these prisoners may be genuinely bad people; in any dragnet where locals were paid a bounty for turning over other people, maybe not every call would be wrong. Wouldn’t any of us be tempted to turn in our friendly neighborhood rapist as a “terrorist,” especially if offered inducements to do so? But there is always the probability of abuse with vigilante justice, especially with paid vigilante justice. Meanwhile, that our news media aren’t getting a good handle on this kind of thing is taking its own toll. Even setting aside the effect of this odd policy on prisoners, if one could, the effect on our news media is ongoing. Media conferences or no media conferences, in general, people quit reading the newspaper (or even watching television news) when they can no longer find out what’s going on by reading the paper.