micronations and other heroes
This week, the British government is trying to increase the time they can legally hold you without telling you why - Kafka style. All they need to do is think you are dangerous. Like they thought that Brazilian guy was dangerous. When they finally decide to charge you, you can be held indefinitely until the trial. Then if they decide to use a military court, they won't have all the checks and balances to ensure that the innocent go free. And when they find you guilty they can either torture you (Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, without any trial) or send you to another nation with a history of using torture.
It can't happen here? Why not? Ask the experts. Listen to the experts. What can be done? One answer is to create alternative societies with better laws than ours. Sounds like a very good idea to me.
posted by Chris Tolworthy at 7:48 AM
2 Comments:
A fellow here in Oregon got detain in connection with a bombing in Spain, they detain him in such a style as you are describing (Can we say patriot act?), they wouldn't let anyone know what was going on, never charged him and all the while Spain was telling the US that they didn't think it was him, the fingerprints really don't match.
This fellow is suing the goverment and contesting the constitutionality of the patriot act now, I hope he suceeds personnaly.
I didn't know that example. I wish him luck.
I wish that our leaders would remember why these checks and balances were first created: To catch the right people! They seem to think these checks and balances were invented in some kinder, gentler past. What the? Our ancestors had revolutions, civil wars, world wars, massively powerful crime gangs, riots on campus and the threat of nuclear war. Our ancestors knew what REAL dangers were, when the enemy was all around us, in large numbers. And they invented these checks and balances because they needed to get the right people.
It seems to me that the present rules are designed to put someone, anyone, in jail quickly. They aren't designed to get the right person. Compared with the dangers our ancestors faced, it probably doesn't matter so much to society that they don't get the right person. But it matters a lot to the innocents who are wrongly accused, and it matters to anyone who wants free speech.
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