A Tale of Two Teens

If the security apparatus of the United States assists a client state in disappearing and detaining an American citizen, torturing him, and keeping him imprisoned so the FBI can aggressively interrogate him - how long does it take NPR to report on this assault on the rights of a citizen?

The horse hasn't even left the gate on that one. The story of Gulet Mohamed's detention and alleged torture was broken by the NYT on January 5, 2011, and as of the evening of January 18, 2011, NPR has yet to give ANY airtime to the case. As of tomorrow we'll be at two weeks and counting...

However, if you are an American citizen arrested on the evening of November 26, 2010 for planning to bomb a public event in Portland, Oregon, how long will it take NPR to jump on the case? The answer is four days (that does not include the immediate on-air hourly news-updates which NPR doesn't archive for searches). On November 30, 2010 there will be a full story on the case itself, and additional report featuring confrontational questioning of the mayor of Portland challenging the wisdom of his city's not fully joining a federal security "anti-terror" organization.

The complete lack of coverage of Gulet Mohamed's ordeal is no accident. It has been written about extensively since January 6, 2011 by Glenn Greenwald - and a "big follower" of Greenwald's writing is none other than NPR's go-to "Counterterrorism Correspondent," Dina Temple-Raston. Here is what Temple-Raston said to Greenwald on Nov. 5th at the NYU Constitution and National Security Conference [beginning and ending time is indicated]:

(53:16) "Hi there, I'm Dina Temple-Raston with National Public Radio, and I'm a big follower of yours Glenn and I like your stuff very much, but I'm sorry I'm going to have to correct you on a number of very basic points that clearly, uh, our representative from the FBI feels uncomfortable correcting you on..." (53:32)

The stark nature of attention and promptness NPR devotes to stories promoting the enhancement of state encroachment on individual liberties versus its complete lack of interest in reporting on the crimes of the US security apparatus is telling in this case. Both central figures in these events are about the same age, are American citizens, and were born in Somalia - and when it involves Somalia and the US "war on terror," Dina Temple-Raston is usually all over it.

The Big Yawn

Two early events in our US government's dismantling of due process and the rule of law stand out in my mind. First, the very public release by the US in January 2002 of the photos of detainees at Guantanamo. Could there have been a more brazen display of official US contempt for its international obligations for the humane treatment of prisoners? The second shocker for me occurred in June of 2002 with the seizure of an American citizen, Jose Padilla, on his arrival at O'Hare airport in Chicago and his subsequent transfer to incommunicado detention in a military brig. NPR's coverage of Padilla's kidnapping was presented by NPR with complete sympathy to the government's actions. Barbara Bradley reported the story for ATC on June 10, 2002, and pointedly noted that the "advantages" of moving Padilla's case to "military custody" included no right to a speedy trial, no need for evidence, and the fact that he could be held indefinitely.

Anyone who listens regularly to NPR news knows that - in deference to the US security state and its purposely amorphous "war on terror" - NPR has demonstrated nothing but a thinly veiled contempt for Constitutional protections required for detainees and suspects - whether US citizens or not. So when another big story recently broke regarding a significant US government assault on Constitutional guarantees, it's no surprise that NPR - by omission - again displays a disregard for our laws and basic constitutional principles. Though not a surprise, it is appalling.

I know it's quaint but the 5th Amendment seems pretty clear about the rights of any "person" (excepting members of the military in cases involving "actual service") not to be "deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." So shouldn't it be a BIG story when we find out that the previous and current US presidents have been ordering the assassinations of people - including US citizens(!)? Not on NPR; search NPR for "Dennis Blair" the US Director of National Intelligence who recently testified about "killing an American" and you will find nothing about the assassination program...absolutely nothing!

The assassination program also points toward another NPR-censored story. One of the targets of the US assassination program is apparently US citizen Anwar al-Awlaki who the US - and NPR - ties to the Christmas bombing attempt (and who apparently sympathizes with terrorist attacks on US civilian targets). The truly stunning news about the Christmas bombing attempt is the apparent role played by the US intelligence and law enforcement "community" in preventing the would-be bomber's visa from being revoked. Alex Lantier of the WSWS has an excellent write up of the story and you can watch for yourself the testimony of Patrick Kennedy before the US House here (the recording is 3 hours long, but the relevant material comes at the 34:28:00 point and also at the 2:55:25 mark). The testimony is not an airtight indictment, but its potential implications are disturbing at best, and at the worst imply that someone in the intelligence "community" wanted to have a major terrorist event occur during this period of the Obama administration. Like the rest of the mainstream media, NPR gives this story no coverage whatsoever - sticking with the original nonsense that it was a "failure to connect the dots.

One would think that given the large number of people who have been falsely seized in the fraudulent war on terror and Iraq (and even standout cases such as the Oregon lawyer arrested in the Madrid bombing case but then soon exonerated) would cause a news organization to treat all US government actions and pronouncements in the "war on terror" with great skepticism - unless that news organization is more interested in representing the viewpoint of the state, a position euphemistically known as being "mainstream."

Damn the Constitution, Full Steam Ahead

Yesterday morning, before heading out of town, I had to hear Mara Liasson weighing in on why holding US government officials and agents accountable for grave crimes is so not-looking-forward.

Montagne opened the segment with this: "Today President Obama will attempt to keep the national focus on his plans for the future." She failed to mention that NPR would also be attempting to keep the focus there, too.

Liasson - even after noting that investigations or prosecutions would not target those who ordered and provided legal cover for torture, but only "operatives who went beyond even the legal guidance they were getting from the Bush justice department" - closed with this gem:

"...however this opens up a huge can of worms and if they do start prosecuting CIA operatives it will be a big distraction from the main issues on the President's agenda - like health care and the economy."

Take a look at Glenn Greenwald's post regarding a similar situation at NBC. Greenwald describes the NBC piece "as typical a discussion as it gets among media stars as to why investigations are so very, very wrong and unfair and unwise." The same could be said of the editorializing from NPR.

Wiped

If you listened to NPR Tuesday morning you might be surprised to know that in the US there are such things as laws on torture and that those who flagrantly violate them are subject to prosecution. In Tuesday morning's coverage of the torture memo release there was no suggestion that law has anything to do with it, or that we actually have a Constitution that requires that treaties and laws be enforced.

What we do get is Mary Louise Kelly issuing a vigorous defense of the CIA's right to torture detainees. She begins her defense with some rather bold disinformation as she covers President Obama's reception by members of the CIA, a reception which was according to Montagne "a surprisingly warm welcome." After hearing the CIA employees whooping and cheering for Obama (keep in mind that he just released the torture memos) Kelly concludes

"clearly the silent warriors of the CIA needed to blow off some steam."

That's odd, because the last time I looked, blowing off steam is what people do when they're really angry at someone. In case you still don't buy Kelly's dishonest fabrication she declares - apropos of nothing -

"the roaring reception for President Obama belied the deep concern CIA officials feel for his decision to declassify the memos. On FOX News this past weekend..."

Did I say apropos of nothing? Oops, I stand corrected - Kelly picked up her facts from FOX News! Kelly's not done, either. Anyone who gives a crap about our country's Constitutional values and about the rule of law might be a tad appalled at the sickening details of torture in the released memos and might even be wondering when investigations and prosecutions will begin. But not Mary Louise Cheney Kelly; according to her

"the big question hanging over all this is what happens now if the US government finds itself holding a terrorist with knowledge of an upcoming attack on the US who won't talk."

What more can you say to this? Well, Kelly has plenty. She asserts that

"there seems to be general consensus on this point that whatever legal guidelines the task force eventually agrees on, the President must still be able to grant the CIA emergency authorization for more aggressive tactics."

To prove her point she turns to a former general counsel to the CIA and a former Deputy Director of the CIA, who - surprise - agree wholeheartedly with Kelly.

And then there was Juan.

After Kelly's assault, why not just go right to the FOX himself, Juan Williams? Montagne and Williams spend four minutes rehashing all the authoritarian protorture critiques of Obama's release of the memos.

There is never a mention of law, treaties, or the Constitution. Instead Williams cites Cheney several times, noting that Cheney "says they got critical information out of these detainees" and this whopper:

"that there's no benefit to the US in confirming these reports and Vice President Cheney's point is that those reports and the memos contain only the detainees' side of the story because they don't reveal what further terrorist acts were prevented by getting this information at that point, arguably a critical point."

According to Montagne and Williams its not about the rule of law, or the threat to all of us that torture represents - it's about attitude. And what is that attitude? Let's let Montagne sum it up in her inimitable way:
"...how much is this about extreme techniques preventing another 9-11 as many critics have claimed?"

Fortunately in the real world we still have some semblance of laws and citizens can act to pressure officials and representatives to enforce these laws. You can visit the ACLU, the Center for Constitutional Rights or Amnesty International among others to take action now.

A Lot of Awful Work Has Been Done

...or "an awful lot of work has to be done" to shut down Guantanamo - so says former Air Force lawyer and current Duke professor, Scott Silliman. It is telling that on the day after the release of a report on the "shattered lives" of released Guantanamo detainees, NPR and Jackie Northam are doing the awful work of convincing listeners that closing the prison camp will be a lot more complicated than they might have thought "during the heady days of the presidential campaign...[when as Northam reminds us] Obama spoke with easy assurance about his plans for Guantanamo Bay and the handling of terror suspects...."

Listen in vain to NPR's report for anyone mentioning torture, war crimes, violations of international law at Guantanamo. Conveniently, with such acts unmentioned, the issue of accountability and restitution never comes up. For Northam the only important issue is the difficulties that closing Guantanamo will present for the US government, "specifically what to do with the roughly 250 prisoners still held at Guantanamo."

To articulate the quandries of the poor, befuddled US government, who better to turn to than US government/military insiders such as Scott Silliman (see above), Commander Glen Sulmasy (of the Coast Guard Academy), and Matthew Waxman (of the Pentagon, State Department and Hoover Institution). One outsider, Vincent Warren with the Center for Constitutional Rights is mentioned for a very brief comment on favorable international attitudes to the new Obama administration. Here's how the cast performed:

• Silliman (who can't decide whether torture is effective) is on to argue for courts martial type proceedings as opposed to normal court proceedings that can be too "long and complicated."
• Sumasy, who is gung-ho for a more focused "war on terror" (in spite of what Juan Cole and Tony Karon think), is featured in this report for his advocacy of "hybrid courts or national security courts."
• Waxman (who to his credit fought against torture from his Pentagon posting) is on to emphasize that the only problem with sending the detainees somewhere like Bagram Air Base (Bagram!) is that it would not address the fundamental issue of what legal process detainees are "entitled" to. You have to ask why NPR wasn't covering Waxman back in October of 2007 when it mattered.

Listening to this NPR story I wondered when we will hear from about Gitmo from someone at Amnesty International, or the ACLU, or the Center for Constitutional Rights (to actually talk about their work). Maybe it will be tomorrow...or the day after that...or...

Boot Licking Good

Ever wonder how NPR might cover the emergence of a police state and the gutting of the Constitution in the United States? No need to speculate: consider how they cover federal, state and local police hiring informants to spy on legal dissent, raiding homes of law abiding citizens with frivolous search warrants, ordering preventive detentions of citizens, and illegally assaulting and arresting reporters: they don't.

Not only does NPR not cover the illegality of police behavior, but during many of the hourly news summaries I've heard in the last several days they've blamed any violence on demonstrators and linked police actions to demonstrators who've committed vandalism (without any suggestion that some of these could well be the actions of mole/provocateurs).

Community Radio - Intelligence Community That Is

(click on image for source)

Tom Gjelten is on ME today talking about the two major candidates latest turns against rule of law and Constitutional liberties. It's an odd report in that Gjelten seems not to be reporting on the relationship between the candidates and the "Intelligence Community," but to be actually speaking for that "community"....

Gjelten's statements about FISA and Obama are misleading. Of Obama Gjelten states,

"he's advised on intelligence matters by John Brennan, the former director of the National Counterterrorism Center. Like many intelligence professionals, Brennan says the FISA program is essential to the fight against terrorism - by adopting Brennan's view, Obama improves his standing with the intelligence community. For someone looking ahead to a presidential administration, that's important."

When Gjelten refers to Brennan and "many intelligence professionals" saying that "the FISA program is essential to the fight against terrorism" he is continuing to cloud the issue, implying that Obama's original stand against unconstitutional and illegal disregard for FISA (which is what the Bush administration has done) was a stand against FISA. FISA has never expired, and the government has had and continues to have the lawful means under FISA for intercepting suspected terrorist emails, phonecalls, etc. What Obama is now supporting is the Orwellian Protect America Act amendments to FISA, and as Glenn Greenwald so cogently explains,

"What Barack Obama did here was wrong and destructive. He's supporting a bill that is a full-scale assault on our Constitution and an endorsement of the premise that our laws can be broken by the political and corporate elite whenever the scary specter of The Terrorists can be invoked to justify it."

It is also worth noting that Gjelten fails to mention that Brennan is also in the intelligence profiteering business; he's the president and CEO of The Analysis Corporation - and so would have a vested interest in getting Obama to back more invasive surveillance and immunity to lawbreaking telecoms.

You Won't Even Know They're There

The best thing about losing your Constitutional liberties is if it's done right, you won't even know they're gone. On Saturday morning Dina Temple-Raston gets an inside tour of the FBI's surveillance routines.

Linda Wertheimer tells us the "the FBI has an entire army of people whose only job is to do surveillance whether tracking a terrorist suspect or mobster or potential spy....the secret is all about blending in." Golly, Linda forgot to mention a few other targets of the FBI surveillance, like say peace groups in California, Maine, and Michigan, raging grannies, and potential GOP convention protesters.

Temple-Raston adds that if the FBI surveillance "team is doing the job right, you won't even know they're there." That's comforting...Hey, but it was an exciting adventure for Temple-Raston; she got to call the agents by aliases and learn their cool tactics. As she says, the surveillance teams "have all kinds of techniques, and they all have catchy names like Picket and Web or Leapfrog." Wowzer! Groovy! Like Wertheimer, Temple-Raston also forgot to mention a few other FBI tricks, like other hip surveillance tactics that the G-Men (and women) have used for surveillance in our post 9/11 world.

Stupid or Dishonest?

I was all set to give a nod of praise to NPR on Thursday morning when they noted that they made a mistake regarding the oath that cadets and faculty take at the Air Force Academy (see my post below). But there was a little problem with their "correction." Renee Montagne said:

"...we mistakenly said cadets quote 'take an oath to support the Commander in Chief.' Members of the military wrote to point out that their oath only calls for them to obey the President not support him."

That's completely untrue. Wednesday morning's NPR report said nothing about an oath "to support" the Commander in Chief. Here's the exact segment in question (again):

"at the Air Force Academy where students and most faculty members take an oath to obey the Commander in Chief."

That's curious, don't you think. Kind of odd to misquote yourself, apologize for the misquote - and then offer a correction that restates what was actually said in the first place!

My reason for posting on this below was two-fold:

• First, cadets DO NOT take the same oath as enlisted members of the military. There is simply nothing in their oath about the Commander in Chief.
• Second, the explicit emphasis in the cadet oath - and for that matter in the enlistment and officer's oath - is to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic."

And there's the rub. The soul of all military oaths is to support and defend the Constitution (not a person) and anyone with even a bit of brain activity knows who qualifies as the Constitution's greatest enemy - foreign or domestic. One has to admit that it does put active military personnel in a bind: they are sworn to defend the Constitution against its enemies and also to obey the person who is out to gut it - a situation the founders would have found rather shocking.

That brings us back to NPR. Why in God's name would they make such a mind-numbingly stupid error? Either their staff and host are utter incompetents or the "mistake" wasn't an error at all, but a tactic for reinforcing the anti-Constitutional Commander in Chief worship/allegiance that has so run amok of late.

Cuba Calling

"President Bush today challenged the Cuban government to make good on its apparent commitment to reform," says Michele Norris on Wednesday's ATC. She's not kidding. I guess poor Mee-shill doesn't see the irony of the head coach of Team Torture calling for reform on the little island where said team has one of its most notorious little workout camps. Norris finishes her opening lines with "Bush said he would allow Americans to send cell phones to Cubans." That's pretty rich, too. I wonder if it might be some of those same phones that the Decider had tracked while he trashed our quaint little Constitution - and got away with it?

I know, I know - I'm such a fuddy-duddy when it comes to our Bill of Rights. What really matters, according to Tom Gjelten, is "The issue of how the United States can support democracy in Cuba under the changing conditions there..." Democracy...seriously...just like in Haiti, Nicaragua, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, etc.

Oaths

(Creepy image is from the National Guard)

I was listening to Adam Hochberg's report this morning about the (mainly) faculty revolt against Pres. Bush being the invited commencement speaker at Furman University. Seemed like a decent enough report with airtime given to those opposed to and in support of Bush's coming address. However at the tail end of the story came this:

"In addition to speaking at Furman, President Bush is scheduled to deliver another commencement address this month, but it's very unlikely there'll be protesters at that one. It's at the Air Force Academy where students and most faculty members take an oath to obey the Commander in Chief."

Interesting...only yesterday I read Ray McGovern's "Open Appeal to Admiral William Fallon (USN ret.)" published on Common Dreams on Tuesday. In it he notes:

"Two years ago I lectured at the Naval Academy in Annapolis. I found it highly disturbing that, when asked about the oath they took upon entering the academy, several of the “Mids” thought it was to the commander in chief. This brought to my mind the photos of German generals and admirals (as well as top church leaders and jurists) swearing personal oaths to Hitler. Not our tradition, and yet…..

I was aghast that only the third Mid I called on got it right — that the oath is to protect and defend the Constitution, not the president."

The Constitution, not the president! As he points out, the semantics carry weighty implications - especially when the Commander in Chief has shown such contempt for the Constitution. I looked at the oath at the Naval Academy and wondered if the Air Force Academy has one in which obedience is sworn to the Commander in Chief. Definitely not; here it is, right from the Air Force Academy's website:

"I, (name), having been appointed an Air Force cadet in the United States Air Force, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God."

No Commander of Chief anywhere to be seen (even West Point's Cadet Oath makes no reference to the Decider).

I'm planning to write a polite letter to NPR, urging them to issue an on the air correction. We'll see...

All Pentagon All the Time

Both this morning and this afternoon Guy Raz reports on the Pentagon's announcement that it will seek the death penalty for six detainees imprisoned at Guantanamo. Poor Guy Raz, stuck inside the maze of the Pentagon, just can't find a non-Pentagon point of view no matter which way he turns. According to Raz "the way the Pentagon is describing it, this will be an open trial relatively similar to a civilian court" and "all six men will be able to call witnesses" and "cross examine" the prosecution witnesses, "and examine all the evidence." Dang, sounds like a good show trial to me! In the afternoon Raz turned over a lot of the reporting duties to Kangaroo Court Specialist Brig. Gen. Thomas W. Hartmann from the Pentagon. Hartmann assures us that the six prisoners will get "a fair trial consistent with American standards of justice." Ah yes - and Raz will give us a fair report consistent with American standards of journalism, too.

Raz does note that the trial process will take years, and he mentions that "all of the accused men have alleged they were tortured under US military custody - in the case of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed the CIA has admitted that he was subjected to waterboarding." But he also repeats the completely unreliable "admissions" of guilt made by Mohammed as if they were acceptable testimony.

What we don't hear is one single intelligent, dissenting viewpoint. Raz apparently has never heard of the Center for Constitutional Rights, Human Rights Watch, or the American Civil Liberties Union. But who needs those wacky do-gooders when Guy Raz and Pentagon officials can cover all the angles?

You Might Think We Would Know...But We Don't

I'll try to keep this brief. This morning Ari Shapiro reports on the case against our Constitution, our liberties, and the rule of law Ali al-Marri. This piece really disturbed me and it took me awhile to figure out why. After all, Shapiro includes various viewpoints of the "enemy combatant" designation and its concurrent endless detention.

But as I listened to the report though I was struck by how it was framed and the utter lack of context regarding the case (e.g. the barbarous treatment meted out to al-Marri and what the loss of Habeas Corpus can mean for a democratic society). You might have thought Shapiro was reporting on the fees for a driver's license not on the gutting of the Constitution.

Here's how Shapiro opens his piece:

"You might think this long after 9/11 we would know whether the President can legally hold someone like Ali al-Marri indefinitely without charging him - but we don't. "

Well guess what Shapiro? I do know. I know it's blatantly illegal and always will be, because if someone is held indefinitely (i.e. forever) without charges it means there is NO FRICKING rule of law left - and the courts are then a travesty. See Ari, that's how police states work; they keep it all very "legal."

Notice how he could have said something like:

"You'd think more than four years after a legal resident of the United States was placed incommunicado under brutal confinement, the courts could decide on whether the 4th Amendment guarantee against unreasonable seizure will be upheld and the Writ of Habeas Corpus enshrined in Article 1, sec. 9 of the Constitution will be respected."

I have to scratch my head and wonder how far the arbitrary-imprisonment-and-torture advocates in the federal government would have to go, before an NPR report would offer a peep of informative dissent.

BTW, I notice that NPR has not given a lick of coverage to the horrid conditions of al-Marri's imprisonment.

Up Yours ACLU and Fourth Amendment, Too

A reader pointed out to me that I really needed to give a close listen to Dina Temple-Raston on Sunday's ATC. She's reporting on the ACLU's unmasking of the Department of Defense and FBI colluding to dismantle more of our dear old, 4th Amendment. The basic story is that the FBI can "legally" issue National Security Letters (NSLs) pretty fast and loose and this allows them to snoop on lots (and lots) of people without the bother of going through the courts. The Department of Defense (DOD) on the other hand doesn't have such easy access to our privacy...unless the FBI plays the lackey for DOD requests. It seems the ACLU has caught them doing just that. I know that given the overtly fascist nature of the current Bush administration behavior, the FBI can look pretty good (as in its agents reaction to Gitmo). But, Jeez, the FBI does have a not-so-pretty history of its own.

In this case Temple-Raston discredits herself as a reporter, and comes out fully in the corner of the FBI. Here's what she says:

"[the ACLU claims] that the Department of Defense actually used the FBI as a foil to actually get information that it shouldn't have been getting - personal information- on its employees. And we're checking into this, but it looks like what has actually happened is that - and certainly, this is what the FBI says happened - was that the FBI and the DOD were working together on joint investigations, and in connection to those joint investigations that is where the NSLs were actually issued. So it's unclear whether or not there really was an end run that DOD actually tried to get around the law or whether or not this was done on the up and up. It looks right now like it was all done on the up and up."

It's "up and and up" all right.

Stopping Short

(source of photo)

This morning NPR News covers the Padilla conviction. The story does note that Padilla was held for "over three years, incommunicado and without access to a lawyer." But "torture" never comes up - what else can you call the Soviet style treatment that was documented by Padilla's lawyers and never disputed by the judge in the case.

The most shameful aspect of this morning's report is the way NPR's FBI correspondent, Temple-Raston, frames the whole "dirty bomb" sham that the Bush Administration used to seize and torture Padilla in the first place. Here's what Temple-Raston says:

"...prosecutors in Miami stopped short of charging Padilla with the allegations he may be most famous identified with - that he met with Osama Bin Laden and was dispatched to the US to detonate a radioactive dirty bomb. Instead prosecutors built a case around a terrorism conspiracy..."

Read that carefully. She is asserting that there is substance to the "dirty bomb" charges. It's just that prosecutors "stopped short of charging Padilla" with the dirty bomb plot and "instead" built a different case. This is complete spin. The "dirty bomb" allegations were groundless, and in fact were obtained by - guess what? - torture (the word that must not be spoken). Toward the end of the report Temple-Raston does mention that "the allegations of planning a dirty bomb attack couldn't be substantiated," but notice how weak and open ended that is compared to her initial statements.

I don't expect NPR to denounce the jury's verdict, no matter how scandalously rushed their deliberations were. It was a lawful (albeit red, white and blue) jury - but the cavalier attitude to such gross government behavior is really shameful.

I Am Padilla

(source of Padilla photos)

"I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free." - Eugene V. Debs

I've been thinking a lot about NPR's coverage - or lack thereof - of the Padilla case. I can barely stand to listen to NPR's treatment of Padilla's latest sham trial as if it were a typical criminal case notable only for "the circuitous route the government took in bringing Padilla's case to trial." What NPR never takes head-on is the fundamental assault on our most cherished Constitutional protections that the Padilla 3 year and 8 month detention and torture represents.

As I listen to the latest drivel from Greg Allen and Liane Hansen and hear them consider how strong the government's current "case" against Padilla is, I keep wondering when will they ask the most crucial question: "Why aren't people being held accountable and brought to trial for the illegal detention and torture of this innocent citizen?" And yes, I assert forcefully that Mr. Padilla is innocent until proven guilty (a quaint position I'll admit).

I think what disgusts me most about NPR is their utter moral relativism and servility to the government framing of issues. Do they give a crap about our Constitutional protections against arbitrary detention and guarantees of a trial by jury? Is there any depravity they will categorically denounce, even if it is sanctioned by one or all of the branches of the US government? Will they ever just call torture torture without qualifying and minimizing it? What is clear is that NPR clearly believes in maintaining standards such as giving the Office of President undeserved deference and respect - repeatedly playing without challenge speeches by and assertions of Bush as if he hadn't already proven himself a sociopath and liar.

I remember the utter shock and horror I felt when I learned of Padilla's seizure and subsequent disappearance. As the falseness of the "dirty bomb" claims have proven, there was no reason for such draconian actions, except to establish the precedent of allowing US citizens to be detained, disappeared and abused at the whim of the President--a precedent which NPR buttresses with its silence and timidity.