This week I wish to draw your attention to something I find very disturbing, and that is the loss of certain Constitutional rights. Now we’re all familiar with the idea that some of our rights were marginalized as a result of the Patriot Act, but I’m not so sure that everyone knows just how far some of this has gone. For example, there is a facility in Chicago known as Homan Square where more than 7,000 people are questionably detained. According to a transparency lawsuit filed by the Guardian, “Police allowed lawyers access to Homan Square for only .094% of the 7,185 arrests logged over nearly 11 years.” 1 That’s less than 1% of those arrested who were allowed attorneys.
Between August of 2004 and June of 2015, the black population accounted for almost 6,000 of those imprisoned. Booking records are virtually non-existent according to a sworn deposition made by a police researcher. Quoting Spence Ackerman, writing for the Guardian, “Chicago attorneys say they are not routinely turned away from police precinct houses, as they are at Homan Square. The [human] warehouse is also unique in not generating public records of someone’s detention there, permitting police to effectively hide detainees from their attorneys.” 2
“They’re dissappeared at this point.”
According to Craig Futterman, a professor at the University of Chicago Law School, and quoted by Ackerman in his article, “The reality is, no one knows where that person is at Homan Square. They’re disappeared at that point.” 3
Is that sort of thing going on elsewhere and if so, is this too in the name of national security? In an article titled, “The secret US prisons you’ve never heard of before,” author Will Potter informs us that government calls these secretive and experimental prison units, “Communications Management Units or CMUs.” That said, guards at these facilities refer to them as “Little Guantanamo.”
There are two of these units and they are embedded within larger prisons, one in Indiana and one in Illinois. According to Potter, the government will not say who is imprisoned in these special units. Potter has gained access to some information and has interviewed the environmental activist, Daniel McGowan, who when first released wrote an article for the Huffington Post headlined, “Court Documents Prove I was Sent to a CMU for my Political Speech.” Potter notes that “the next day he was thrown back in jail. His attorneys quickly secured his release, but the message was very clear: Don’t talk about this place.” 4
“Retaliating against them for their protected political and religious speech.”
Attorneys from the Center of Constitutional Rights are currently challenging CMUs for “depriving prisoners of their due process rights and for retaliating against them for their protected political and religious speech.” 5
You should find this sort of thing disturbing, for as another’s rights are deprived, so are yours if by nothing more than the established precedent. Although this sort of thing is not new, as you already know if you have read, “Gotcha! The Subordination of Free Will,” it is becoming more commonplace and less secretive. We, as a people, seem to have decided at some level that it must be okay, because after all, it’s for our own protection—our own best good. Well is it? Is it really?
“Deserved to be punished so the evidence illegally gathered was not suppressed.”
One of this show’s listeners, Bryan Wedemeyer, recently sent me a court ruling that tends to suggest the current direction of our freedoms. His note put the issue this way, and I quote, “Citizen privacy took a hit today from the 9th Circuit. Basically a military person utilizing government provided software that a number of laws and Navy policies forbid the use of on civilian computers, cast a net that was supposed to find child porn file sharing on military personnel’s computers. Personal and work computers. The investigator ‘mistakenly’ searched all computers in the state of Washington, found a perpetrator, realized the person was outside of Navy jurisdiction so shared the information with local authorities. An arrest was made. The 9th Cir. reheard this case and has decided that the way the information was gathered was wrong, but the criminal deserved to be punished so the evidence illegally gathered was not suppressed. I am by no means sympathetic to the Defendant, but time and again these breaches of privacy occur through justification of delivering justice to heinous crimes and become precedence to lesser and lesser crimes. I am wondering if this one makes it to the US Supreme Court.” 6
Where is all this headed? What’s next? In view of the recent terrorist attacks in Paris, do we need more or less of this sort of thing? Are you okay with it, and if not, why not? Again, I strongly urge you to become aware for this sort of thing is but the proverbial tip of the iceberg. Please read “Gotcha! The Subordination of Free Will.”
Thanks for the read,
Eldon Taylor
Provocative Enlightenment
NY Time Bestselling Author of Choices and Illusions
www.eldontaylor.com
Sources:
1 Homan Square revealed: how Chicago police ‘disappeared’ 7,000 people
2 Ibid
3 Ibid
4 The secret US prisons you’ve never heard of before
5 Ibid
6 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT, USA vs. MICHAEL ALLAN DREYER