Are we in a Police State? Is it too early to be sounding the alarm? How would we know and what are the defining characteristics of a police state?
Below is an excerpt from a speech given by Michael Ratner at the Bush Crimes Commission this past January, where he wrestles with these questions and provides his views on this debate. Ratner is the President of the Center for Constitutional Rights and author of books ranging from Guantanamo to Impeachment.
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excerpt
I want to say a few words about one aspect of the current period that is extremely frightening– Probably the most frightening development, although it does have roots in prior administrations. The short hand for the expression of this period and the scare and fear that I feel is, “The king can do no wrong” or the word might be tyranny, police state or dictatorship.
I recall that after 9/11, within a few months afterwards, I wrote an article. It was entitled, “Moving toward a police state – or have we arrived?” And I remember being nervous about it because this was pretty aggressive to be saying a few months after 9/11. Was I going to get trashed for it? Did it really reflect reality? I wasn’t sure. I had some evidence in front of me. I had the Patriot Act. I had internal detentions. I had the President’s military order that allows him to pick up people anywhere in the world and detain them in Guantánamo or elsewhere. But I still was only willing to say ‘moving toward a police state’, not have ‘we arrived’. And a police state to me is one where authority is not under law, where the legislature is overridden, and where our courts are ignored. It is a state where one can be jailed without a court proceeding or trial and where the president, king or what have you, can do as he pleases – wire tap, torture, and disappear people. Unfortunately, and dangerously that is the situation we are in today.