http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=3149
by Jacob G. Hornberger
The presiding judge in the http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=3140 sentenced Padilla to 17 years in jail. Supporters of the “war on terrorism” might be tempted to smugly believe that the conviction and sentence vindicated what the government did to Padilla. They do not. What happened to Padilla continues to hang over the head of every independent-minded American like a Damocles sword.
The reason that our American ancestors added the Bill of Rights to the Constitution was twofold: (1) they didn’t trust federal officials when it came to their liberties, and (2) they understood that the greatest threat to their freedom lay with federal officials. Thus, while they believed that a federal government was necessary, they also understood the importance of enumerating express restrictions on federal power. One of the legitimate purposes of government is to punish people who inflict violence on others. But our American ancestors understood that government could not be trusted with arbitrarily making the determination as to who was guilty and who wasn’t. Drawing on centuries of jurisprudence, stretching all the way back into English history, they understood the importance of judicial process in determining the guilt or innocence of a person whom the feds were accusing of a crime.
That’s where the procedural protections enumerated in the Bill of Rights come in, protections that stretch all the way back to the http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=1883 in 1215.
http://www.fff.org/blog/jghblog2008-01-23.asp