Washington
By TIM WEINER
Published: December 23, 2007
A declassified document shows J. Edgar Hoover had a plan to imprison 12,000 Americans he suspected of disloyalty.
A newly declassified document shows that J. Edgar Hoover, the longtime director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, had a plan to suspend habeas corpus and imprison some 12,000 Americans he suspected of disloyalty.
The Constitution says habeas corpus shall not be suspended “unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require it.” The plan proposed by Hoover, the head of the F.B.I. from 1924 to 1972, stretched that clause to include “threatened invasion” or “attack upon United States troops in legally occupied territory.”
After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, President Bush issued an order that effectively allowed the United States to hold suspects indefinitely without a hearing, a lawyer, or formal charges. In September 2006, Congress passed a law suspending habeas corpus for anyone deemed an “unlawful enemy combatant.”
This one comes from the "holy-shit batman" department. Is it just me or is the rule of law run a muck at the hands of narrow minded politicians with tyrannical tendencies more frightening than terrorists?