[Peace-discuss] Fwd: Patriot Act

[Al Kagan]

>Date: Sat, 06 Mar 2004 19:16:40 -0500
>From: freedman at wlsmail.org
>Subject: Emailing: art.html
>To: "S.Michael Malinconico" <mmalinco at slis.ua.edu>,
>         "Mitchell J. Freedman" <mitchellfreedman at yahoo.com>,
>         Mark Rosenzweig <iskra at earthlink.net>, Al Kagan <akagan at uiuc.edu>,
>         Elaine Harger <eharger at agoron.com>,
>         "Paula S. Freedman" <pmshara at yahoo.com>,
>         Patricia Glass Schuman <pgs at neal-schuman.com>,
>         "John Nichols Berry III, Editor-in-Chief, Library Journal"
>  <JBerry at reedbusiness.com>
>Reply-to: freedman at wlsmail.org
>X-Accept-Language: en
>
>Jimmy Breslin on the Patriot Act and rounding up of people.  Very tough
>column.  I love him.
>
>
>Newsday: Jimmy Breslin column - A Fate Sealed Under Secrecy
>
>A Fate Sealed Under Secrecy
>
>Jimmy Breslin
>
>June 22, 2003
>
>On Friday, I rode across the Brooklyn Bridge, whose gray netting 
>went with the sky, and as long as there was tension about the 
>bridge, I was remembering Richard Seaberg, a big cop from Emergency 
>One, who climbed to the top of the bridge so many times and pulled 
>somebody down before he jumped. Seaberg protected the Brooklyn 
>Bridge.
>
>Now there is a charge by the government that terrorists intended to 
>blow up the Brooklyn Bridge, or pull it down. Simultaneously, while 
>protecting the bridge, the government was doing frightening damage 
>to the life of the country.
>
>Because of it, I am thinking that it could be time for me to begin 
>thinking about leaving this news business. It is not mine anymore. 
>Let me tell you why.
>
>Friday, the newspapers and television reported the following matter 
>with no anger or effort to do anything other than serve as 
>stenographers for the government:
>
>On March 1, give or take a day, in Columbus, Ohio, the FBI arrested 
>an American citizen they say is Iyman Faris. There wasn't a word 
>uttered. He vanished. No lawyer was notified. He made no phone calls 
>and wrote no postcards or letters.
>
>He was a United States citizen who disappeared without a trace into 
>a secret metal world.
>
>This citizen's proper name was Mohammed Rauf. He took the Faris from 
>a street name in his neighborhood in Columbus. I don't know why he 
>did this for sure. A friend of mine in Columbus, Mike Weber, told me 
>Friday that he thought the federal agents wanted him to use Faris 
>because the real name, Rauf, purportedly would alert others that he 
>had been caught. Who knows? You believe the FBI, you belong back in 
>public school.
>
>They held him secretly in an iron world for the next six weeks. This 
>is plenty of time to hand out giant beatings. Oh, yes, don't gasp. 
>If cops are performing a Fascist act, then always suspect them of 
>acting like Fascists. They have fun beating people up.
>
>In mid-April, again in deep secrecy, the government says Faris was 
>allowed to plead guilty to plotting to pull down or blow up the 
>Brooklyn Bridge. He was in a sealed Virginia federal courtroom. If 
>he had a lawyer, that was some lawyer.
>
>After that, he was sentenced. We don't know what the sentence was 
>because it is sealed.
>
>I don't know what Faris looks like or sounds like or what he thinks 
>and what he was doing. He could be the worst. I don't know. Prove he 
>wanted to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge and let him paste a picture of 
>Osama bin Laden on the cell wall for inspiration over the next half 
>a century. But first bring him into open court and try him. Pretend 
>you live in America. Even pick a jury. I don't know. What a thing it 
>would be if he comes up not guilty.
>
>What we do know is that this is your country now.
>
>Once before this, in 1942, we detained Japanese-Americans in 
>secrecy. The nation swore never to do it again. We haven't. This 
>case is out of the old Soviet Union. He was neither booked with 
>television watching nor arraigned in front of a judge. Anybody 
>concealed by government agents and guards for more than three months 
>could have marks on him somewhere. And our newspeople write like the 
>worst of the old Pravda. I read in papers from everywhere yesterday 
>morning, "After Mr. Faris was secretly arrested three months ago... 
>" and "court papers this week said that Mr. Faris secretly pleaded 
>guilty to charges of terrorism last month." They say. They were 
>simply typed out, as if to report the guy getting a parking ticket. 
>Now, the FBI doesn't even tell you the right name of a kidnapped man 
>and makes the news reporters love it.
>
>Why would the government say he is a terrorist if he isn't guilty?
>
>The only thing that could possibly bother anybody is the thought of 
>somebody reading this 50 years from now and saying, "Look at that. 
>This is where they blew a couple of amendments."
>
>This government's kidnapping of Faris/Rauf violated the laws handed 
>down by Madison, Jefferson, Marshall. A small religious zealot, John 
>Ashcroft, takes their great laws and bravery and using our new 
>Patriot Act, turns it into Fascism.
>
>He could do this openly because news reporters go about the 
>government like gardeners, bent over, smiling and nodding when one 
>of the owners shows up. You only have to look at a White House news 
>conference to see how they aggressively pursue your right to know.
>
>The newspeople stand when the president comes into the room. They 
>really do. They don't sit until he tells them to. You tell them a 
>lie and they say, "Sir."
>
>And now you have a citizen kidnapped by agents and there is no 
>anger. The day's news is about a children's book, and a has-been 
>heavyweight, Mike Tyson, under arrest in a Brooklyn precinct at the 
>foot of the bridge. Newspeople like to be called "journalists" and 
>write of "the need to protect sources." They don't have any. Here's 
>a guy held for three months and nobody even got a phone call.
>
>The newest attribution in today's news reporting is, "senior law 
>enforcement official." That is news report for a cop. Newspeople can 
>speak French all over the place but I know of only two reporters in 
>New York who can speak Arabic, and one of them is in the Middle East 
>now and is of no help. That means you can't even quote somebody and 
>attribute it to a "senior Arab."
>
>There is not even the beginnings of anger about an American 
>kidnapped by his government, over freedom being taken from us all, 
>and bet me you won't see it back. The newspeople are comfortable 
>with being known as the "media." That is a dangerous word; all evil 
>rises around those afflicted with it.
>
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-- 


Al Kagan
African Studies Bibliographer and Professor of Library Administration
Africana Unit, Room 328
University of Illinois Library
1408 W. Gregory Drive
Urbana, IL 61801, USA

tel. 217-333-6519
fax. 217-333-2214
e-mail. akagan at uiuc.edu
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