Unalienable Rights

President Obama has ordered the Justice Department to immediately make a new review of the detention case involving a Qatari national, Ali Saleh Kahlah Al-Marri, who, on June 23, 2003, was seized by the FBI inside the U.S. where he was living legally, and has been held in military custody in this country for more than five years.   Based on unspecified information President Bush designated al-Marri an "enemy combatant." That same day, the military took custody of al-Marri and incarcerated him in the Navy brig in South Carolina, where he has been detained without charge ever since.   For the first sixteen months of his military detention, the government held al-Marri incommunicado and subjected him to a brutal interrogation regime. Al-Marri was held in total isolation, exposed to painful stress positions, shackled in a freezing cell for hours at a time, and threatened with violence and death.   You may or may not consider that torture but regardless, are you willing to let our presidents issue orders that result in our being incarcerated by the military for life without being charged?   General Tommy Franks said another serious terrorist attack on the United States would "begin to unravel the fabric of our Constitution." Franks said that under such circumstances, "the Constitution could be scrapped in favor of a military form of government."    With the Patriot Act it will not be difficult for the military to do precisely that.    Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall said, "History teaches that grave threats to liberty often come in times of urgency, when constitutional rights seem too extravagant to endure. The World War II relocation cases, and the Red Scare and McCarthy–era internal subversion cases are only the most extreme reminders that when we allow fundamental freedoms to be sacrificed in the name of real or perceived exigency, we invariably come to regret it."   Many Americans have forgotten what it means to be American. Since our country's inception, America has been synonymous with the concept that there are certain individual rights and freedoms that no one, not even government agents, can violate. The foundational idea that individuals have an inherent right to "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness" served as a springboard for the Bill of Rights as they were appended to the Constitution; absolute rights so precious that no government can violate them? The early American colonists believed these particular principles were not only worth fighting for, they were worth dying for.   Remember the 1976 film, Network? Remember the famous line "I'm as mad as hell, and I am not going to take this anymore?   How about it? Stand up, go to the window and yell…………or write our senators and representatives…