STATE SECRETS REVISITED....A couple of days ago I mentioned the "state secrets privilege" that allowed the Bush administration to throw out Khaled El-Masri's suit against the government for mistakenly kidnapping and torturing him. In Slate today, Henry Lanman provides more detail. The problem, he says, isn't just that the privilege is being used far more often than it used to be, it's that it's being used more broadly. In the past, it was used to exclude specific pieces of evidence that might have compromised national security, but today it's being used to keep cases from even coming to trial
Here it is in nice and simple langauge that even Rethuglicans might understand. If the government commits a crime against you, then prevents that crime from being investigated because they claim it might do them harm by being investigated, and the court says "OK", you are living in a dictatorship. The administration dictates the terms of its rule to the nation, and you have grounds on which to reject their pronouncements, even if it means they can take you out and shoot you.
And that is a problem.
The bigger problem is the 30+% of Americans who don't consider it a problem that their government arbitrarily totures and murders people. I really don't want to understand how you became to be such sick little fucktards. Especially those of you who support Bush because he's such a "Christian" man.
Anglachel
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