Our battered Constitution (AJC)

[struggle4progress]

ONLY about half of America's high school students think newspapers should be allowed to publish freely, without government approval of their stories. And a third say the free speech guarantees of the First Amendment go "too far." <snip>

But maybe we shouldn't be so hard on the youngsters. After all, they've been set a terrible example by a presidential administration that has left no doubt about its contempt for a number of our most cherished constitutional guarantees. <snip>

The administration is fighting for nothing less than the death of due process for anyone it rounds up in its enemy combatant sweeps. Such tyrannical powers should offend anyone who cares about such old-fashioned notions as the rule of law. <snip>

The fundamental right in the case of the Guantanamo detainees is the right not to be deprived of liberty without due process of law. A government with the power to spirit people away and declare that's the end of the matter is exactly the kind of government the United States has always claimed to oppose, and has sometimes fought. For the United States itself to become that kind of government is spectacularly scary. <snip>

http://www.insidebayarea.com/timesstar/ci_2555458