Homeland Insecurity in the US Dividing Refugee Families
Steve Lannen of the Lexington Herald-Leader reports on the unintended consequences of so-called ‘material support’ provisions contained within the Patriot Act:
Losi Grodya works two jobs, has a driver’s license, is working on a community college degree and is readying to take her U.S. citizenship exam.
Despite all she has accomplished since settling in Lexington as a refugee from her native Democratic Republic of Congo nearly six years ago, she feels helpless when she talks on the phone with her daughters. Their home has been a Rwandan refugee camp for the past four years.
”They ask me when they are coming. Why is it taking so long? They tell me since I am in America, I must be able to do something to get them to come, but I’ve tried everything I can,“ Grodya said. ”I just want them to come here so we can all be together again. … But I can’t even do that.“
Her daughters, who as of late January were approved by U.S. officials to join her in Lexington as refugees, have seen their cases caught up in a post-9/11 provision in the Patriot Act that bars people from entering the United States if suspected of aiding a terrorist group.
[...]
After months of delay, Grodya learned last week that her daughters are suspected of providing material support to a terrorist group. But she doesn’t know precisely what they are suspected of doing.
Grodya’s five daughters have shared stories not of complicity, but of kidnapping and rape in a country torn apart by decadelong conflict, she said. She fears they have not told her the worst, but that what they have said ”is now being turned against them.“
Unfortunately, because it wasn’t published in the New York Times or the Washington Post, the story of Losi Grodya–and the broader issue underlying her plight–likely won’t get the attention it deserves. But hopefully a little blogospheric momentum will help broaden its impact. So, please, read the whole thing, blog about it, pass it along to your friends, your colleagues, and your Congresscritters.
Sphere: Related Content“Constraint is Intolerable”
Andrew Bacevich, reviewing Jane Mayer’s new book The Dark Side:
That fear should trump concern for due process and indeed justice qualifies as a recurring phenomenon in American history. In 1919, government-stoked paranoia about radicalism produced the Red Scare. After Pearl Harbor, hysteria mixed with racism led to the confinement of some 110,000 Japanese Americans in internment camps. The onset of the Cold War triggered another panic, anxieties about a new communist threat giving rise to McCarthyism. In this sense, the response evoked by 9/11 looks a bit like déjà vu all over again: Frightened Americans, more worried about their own safety than someone else’s civil liberties, allowed senior government officials to exploit a climate of fear.
Although Mayer does not dwell on this historical context, her account suggests implicitly that the present period differs in at least one crucial respect. Whereas the earlier departures from the rule of law represented momentary if egregious lapses in democratic practice, the abuses orchestrated from within the Bush administration suggest that democracy itself is fast becoming something of a sham. From Mayer, we learn that in George W. Bush’s Washington, the decisions that matter are made in secret by a handful of presidential appointees committed to the proposition that nothing should inhibit the exercise of executive power. The Congress, the judiciary, the bureaucracy, the “interagency process” — all of these constitute impediments that threaten to constrain the president. In a national security crisis, constraint is intolerable. Much the same applies to the media and, by extension, to the American people: The public’s right to know extends no further than whatever the White House wishes to make known.
h/t Laura Rozen
Sphere: Related ContentJesse Helms Departs This Mortal Coil (Finally)
(click the image for a restrained-but-unsentimental obit from ThinkProgress)
Hey, sing ‘Dixie’ to Strom Thurmond for me once you finally get down there, you racist, homophobic assbag.
Oh, and happy 4th of July (indeed).
Sphere: Related Content21st Century Law Enforcement at its Finest
Because the presumption of innocence is, like, so September 10th, dude:
The Justice Department is considering letting the FBI investigate Americans without any evidence of wrongdoing, relying instead on a terrorist profile that could single out Muslims, Arabs or other racial and ethnic groups.Law enforcement officials say the proposed policy would help them do exactly what Congress demanded after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks: Root out terrorists before they strike.
Yes, we all know just how successful the doctrine of prevention has worked out so far–hey, how is that crusade to forcefully spread democracy across the Middle East going?
Currently, FBI agents need specific reasons — like evidence or allegations that a law probably has been violated — to investigate U.S. citizens and legal residents. The new policy, law enforcement officials told The Associated Press, would let agents open preliminary terrorism investigations after mining public records and intelligence to build a profile of traits that, taken together, were deemed suspicious.Among the factors that could make someone subject of an investigation is travel to regions of the world known for terrorist activity, access to weapons or military training, along with the person’s race or ethnicity.[...]
Critics say the presumption of innocence is lost in the proposal. The FBI will be allowed to begin investigations simply “by assuming that everyone’s a suspect, and then you weed out the innocent,” said Caroline Fredrickson of the American Civil Liberties Union.
Oh, come on. Who needs actual, y’know, specific ‘evidence‘ that illegal activity is occurring, when everybody knows that those swarthy Arabmuslimdarkies (especially the ones who dare to rack up frequent flyer mileage) have pure, undistilled terror flowing through their steely veins 24/7? (What? ‘IRA’ stands for ‘Indo-Republican Army’. Srsly.)
Also see I Need To Calm Down, Threat Level, and, representing the silly side of Blogtopia’s *cough* main street, Tammy “everybody knows” Bruce and Allahpundit, who wonders if we should “[b]e on the lookout for English-speaking caucasians with light-colored eyes“.
Sphere: Related Content“Independent Democrats” for McCain
Following on the heels of the shocking (SHOCKING!) news that Holy Joe has been advising an anti-Obama swiftboat 527, the Washington Independent brings us word of more independent Joementum for McCain:
Sphere: Related ContentThrowing darts at a board
As the countdown to the clinch continues, the Village Idiots are growing ever more idiotic at the prospect of talking gibberish when Senator Barack Obama becomes the first black nominee for president of the USA. David Gergen, charter member of The Best Political Team on Television™, just gave a preview of what’s to come by noting that Obama’s now-all-but-inevitable nomination comes “exactly” 200 years after the end of the slave trade.
Got that, folks? We can now officially start talking about racism in the past tense.
With that–and, as this “historic” campaign goes to the next level, the promise of even more hoary, overinflated rhetoric from a punditocracy addicted to soundbite significance–in mind, this refreshingly grounded LRB essay from David Runciman couldn’t be more timely.
Sphere: Related ContentYou Keep Using That Word…
The NY Times reports today that, after some delay while US officials tried to, as reported this past January in the NYT, ““transition out” of the Bagram detention center”, the US will be building a new all-but-permanent detention facility in Afghanistan:
Sphere: Related ContentPost Race Era? Once Again, My Black Ass.
Contra Barack Obama and Frank Rich, the reaction to the Sean Bell verdict shows that Americans still have a long way to go to “[transcend] the racial and cultural rifts that [have] divided them for centuries”, says Max Blumenthal.
Sphere: Related ContentThe End is Nigh?
Dan Conley, who served as an aide to former Virginia Gov. L. Douglas Wilder, posted a must-read article at Salon this past Thursday (h/t jrootham @ BnR) detailing how any future concessions by the Clinton campaign might play out. Using Wilder’s departure from the 1994 Virginia senate race as an example, Conley calmly outlines what could potentially be involved in any backroom negotiations between the two prospective Democratic presidential nominees:
Sphere: Related ContentRight Wing Watch: Phony ‘National Day of Prayer’ Pushes Right-Wing Judges
Sphere: Related ContentThe Rules: Coda
Well, we all knew this was coming the moment Rev. Wright dropped the state terrorism bomb and dared to say something positive about Farrakhan [insert sputtering, self-righteous indignation here].
Sphere: Related ContentQuote of the Day: Redefining What’s Possible
Sphere: Related ContentQuote of the Day: Make Their Ears Bleed
Enough of this bullshit and enough of keeping the eye off the prize. Worrying about the election is shit at the moment; it will happen regardless, and even if a Democrat wins, we’re going to have to worry about restoring credibility in government. This utter bullshit about democracy and freedom in the middle east has got to fucking stop until we address the sheer blasphemy that was done in the name of our supposedly moral country.
Keep screaming it until their damn ears bleed: Bush and his cabinet approved torture.
- Space Cowboy, Scream It from the Highest Mountain: “DO SOMETHING!“
Sphere: Related Content‘A green light from the very top.’
Sphere: Related ContentBefore the Memos
Sphere: Related ContentNightmares & Dreamscapes
Sphere: Related ContentWhat’s the Matter With America’s Progressive Intellectual Backbone?
Joining in on the dead horse flogging previously initiated by my esteemed co-bloggers Kyle, tas and Dustin, Chet Scoville examines how the reaction in some quarters to, in the words of Joe Gandelman, Senator Obama’s “politically flat-footed” comments re: small town voters exposes the failure of the American liberal intelligentsia to adequately build the intellectual foundations that progressive politicians can later safely expand upon without fear of blowback like what Obama is currently facing (quote after the fold):
Sphere: Related ContentDonate to CFLF
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