We are at the point where even priests can't deliver a simple letter of protest without being jailed for months.
I haven't seen anything like this since the early 70s under J. Edgar Hoover. But I don't take comfort in precedent. Then, whatever the excesses of government, there were limits, there was a Congress that understood and valued its prerogatives enough to fight for them and to impeach a sitting President for undermining the Constitution, and a public informed and inflamed enough to demand its rights.
That's not the case today. News like this--which, I note, did not actually make the news--coupled with the knowledge that a Democrat Member of Congress and a woman, at that, introduced a bill outlawing dangerous thoughts (HR 1955), make me wonder if someone really did suck all our brains out as we lay sleeping.
This from Truthout:
Priests Jailed for Protesting Fort Huachuca Torture Training
By Bill Quigley
Wednesday 24 October 2007
Louis Vitale, 75, a Franciscan priest, and Steve Kelly, 58, a Jesuit priest, were sentenced to five months each in federal prison for attempting to deliver a letter opposing the teaching of torture at Fort Huachuca in Arizona. Both priests were taken directly into jail from the courtroom after sentencing.
Fort Huachuca is the headquarters of military intelligence in the US and the place where military and civilian interrogators are taught how to extract information from prisoners. The priests attempted to deliver their letter to Maj. Gen. Barbara Fast, commander of Fort Huachuca. Fast was previously the head of all military intelligence in Iraq during the atrocities of Abu Ghraib.
The priests were arrested while kneeling in prayer halfway up the driveway to Fort Huachuca in November 2006. Both priests were charged with trespassing on a military base and resisting orders of an officer to stop. More
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