So, we have come to this? To adopting the same standards of interrogation described by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in the Soviet Gulag, where he noted the very same prerogatives applied to badly injured prisoners? If the Supremes tilt for this abomination, they really have rubber-stamped tyranny, Soviet-style repression and overt use of force. For some time now, I have believed that the Solicitor General should recuse himself from any opinions or motions having to do with the “war on terrorism.” After all, his wife Barbara died on the plane that hit the Pentagon and it seems to me that he has an inherent conflict of interest when it comes to issues of crime and punishment of “terrorists.” – as his first instinct will be to come down hard against a person's Constitutional rights. Now the Justice Department asserts that it is constitutionally permissible to continue to interrogate a critically wounded man, whom the police shot through the eye and spine. In his brief to the Supreme Court, U.S. Solicitor General Theodore Olson argues that police can hold people in custody and force them to talk, so long as their incriminating statements are not used to prosecute them. Such a perversely reasoned and immoral legal argument should chill every thinking person to his or her very marrow. Apparently, Mr. Olsen leans against constitutional rights for us all. Peace.
