Will Grigg's Liberty Minute

August 21, 2007

After being designated an ?unlawful enemy combatant,? US citizen Jose Padilla was held for more than three years in military custody. During that period he was subjected to prolonged torture through sensory deprivation.

Padilla was accused of plotting a terrorist strike within the US. The evidence backing that charge came in the form of testimony obtained through the torture of three other men abroad, one of whom suffered sexual mutilation at the hands of Moroccan interrogators.

Fearing a potential Supreme Court challenge, Bush administration released Padilla from military custody. It then charged him with a different set of crimes, none of which had anything to do with the original charges. Last week a jury convicted Padilla, on scanty and dubious evidence, of supporting terrorism overseas.

Whatever one thinks of Padilla and the verdict, the precedent set in his treatment is terrifying: A US citizen can be placed outside the protections of the law by presidential decree, and treated any way his captors see fit.

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.