Americans Deserve Look at US Emergency Defense Plans: "The real threats to freedom come not from Islamic terrorists, but from the American government. They whisper that we must sacrifice freedom so that freedom will be secure. If Americans yield to the fear of fear itself, then the terrorists have already won.
... Some documents have been released, some have been leaked, some are still hidden lest Congress find them in an election year. They argue more or less explicitly that in time of war the president as commander in chief can suspend the Bill of Rights, hold men it has designated as enemy aliens indefinitely without trial or legal counsel, imprison American citizens in the same circumstances, authorize moderate or even intense torture for intelligence purposes, and suspend the treaty-authorized Geneva Conventions. Indeed, one memo seems to suggest that there is no limit to the power of what the president can order in wartime. Commander in chief has morphed into generalissimo "
- posted by geoff @ #