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I told you he is worse than Bush!

President Obama has claimed a new executive power, that of "Prolonged Detention," for those who may commit future crimes, just like in the film Minority Report.

Watch Rachel Maddow's report.

One civil liberties advocate commented

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Obama Out-Bushes Bush on Preventive Detention

Submitted by Glen Ford on Wed, 05/27/2009 - 07:19

Constitutionality aside, Barack Obama's preventive detention proposal is "damn near criminally irresponsible" and "like lighting a match in a room full of gasoline." The United States was founded on the principle that "lesser" or "dangerous" peoples should be "detained" for the good of the nation - on reservations or in slavery. Were it not for "rampant race hatred directed against Arabs and spilling over to all Muslims...there would be no serious discussion of preventive detention in the United States, today." The nation's first Black president is provoking a racial whirlwind.

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

�Calling for preventive detention in the United States is like lighting a match in a room full of gasoline.�

If George Bush had had the gall to propose changing the laws of the United States to allow people to be detained for long periods without even the intention of putting them on trial, progressives across the nation would be howling that the fascist hordes were at the gates. And they would be right. Even the do-nothing, scared-of-nearly-everything Congressional Black Caucus would be up in arms. George Bush and Dick Cheney empowered to imprison people without trial? Progressives everywhere would be justified in crying out against the threat to civilization as we know it. But when Barack Obama last week proposed the very same thing, preventive detention without trial, there was relative silence. People pretended it was just another Wednesday.

The best thing that can be said about President Obama�s preventive detention remarks is that they are damn near criminally irresponsible. Calling for preventive detention in the United States is like lighting a match in a room full of gasoline. No nation in the industrial world has a history more entwined with detention of whole classes of people, than the U.S. More Americans are incarcerated than any other inhabitants of the planet � in raw numbers, and as a percentage of population. African Americans alone make up one out of every eight prisoners on Earth, as a direct result of decades of deliberate public policy. Japanese Americans were detained for no crime but their ethnicity. Native Americans � those that were not killed outright � were forcibly �detained� on reservations that were in fact open-air prisons. Slavery was the greatest detention of all � a lifetime of house or field arrest, at hard labor, with no prospect of escape for oneself or one�s children � detention without trial for centuries.
�Slavery was the greatest detention of all.�

It was the deeply ingrained belief among whites in the necessity of lifetime Black detention under slavery that conditioned Americans to tolerating � or demanding � the harshest criminal justice system in the developed world. Race saturates the American criminal justice conversation � so much so, that one�s race has more impact than one�s crime on whether or not one is ultimately detained in a U.S. prison. Were it not for rampant race hatred directed against Arabs and spilling over to all Muslims, and to those who are mistaken for Muslims, there would be no serious discussion of preventive detention in the United States, today. We would not have witnessed the spectacle of almost the entire U.S. Senate figuratively jumping on top of tables, screaming in terror at the prospect of a few Guantanamo Bay inmates being transferred to maximum security prisons in their states. These senators were exhibiting a kind of primal fear that is both irrational and racist in nature � and a lot scarier than any combination of detainees pacing in a cell. This is America, land of everlasting detention, and preventive execution � where evidence has never been necessary.

Is President Obama aware of the racial whirlwind that he is unleashing with his talk of preventive detention? Or does he care? On thing is certain: on this issue, Obama has proven himself to be worse than George Bush.

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White House mulling indefinite detention


By JOSH GERSTEIN | 2/15/10

The White House is considering endorsing a law that would allow the indefinite detention of some alleged terrorists without trial as part of efforts to break a logjam with Congress over President Barack Obama�s plans to close the Guantanamo Bay prison, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Monday.

Last summer, White House officials said they had ruled out seeking a �preventive detention� statute as a way to deal with anti-terror detainees, saying the administration would hold any Guantanamo prisoners brought to the U.S. in criminal courts or under the general �law of war� principles permitting detention of enemy combatants.

However, speaking at a news conference in Greenville, S.C., Monday, Graham said the White House now seems open to a new law to lay out the standards for open-ended imprisonment of those alleged to be members of or fighters for Al Qaeda or the Taliban.

�We�re beginning to look at the idea we need to change our laws, come up with better guidance� for judges handling cases of enemy combatants, Graham said. �I�ve been talking to the administration for the last couple of days. I�m encouraged that we�re going to sit down and do some of the hard things we haven�t done as a nation after Sept. 11.�

�I think we need to change our laws to give our judges better guidance � rules of the road,� Graham said. �We need a statute to deal with that.�

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0210/32998.html#ixzz0ftnWVFzS

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