Dirty bomber? Dirty Justice

TM note: Jose Padilla went on trial this week on conspiracy charges. This article, from the Jan/Feb 2004 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, describes the unprecedented violation of Padilla's civil rights by the U.S. Dept of Justice and the Bush Administration.

According to John Ashcroft’s Justice Department, even U.S. citizens are not entitled to their constitutional right to legal representation

by Lewis Z. Koch

ON MAY 8, 2002, 31-YEAR old Brooklyn-born Jose Padilla was arrested by FBI agents at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport and held as a witness in connection with the September 11, 2001, attacks.

Speaking at a special news conference in Moscow a month later, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft accused Padilla of being a new kind of terrorist bomber. Ashcroft professed no doubts and offered no equivocation—just a flat out accusation: “We have captured a known terrorist who was exploring a plan to build and explode a radiological dispersion device, or ‘dirty bomb,’ in the United States.” Ashcroft said the arrest of Padilla “disrupted an unfolding terrorist plot,” one that could have caused “mass death and injury.” President George W. Bush accused Padilla of “conduct in preparation for acts of international terrorism” and declared him an “enemy combatant.” Using the little understood USA Patriot Act, Padilla was denied access to an attorney.

The article is here in PDF.