Imagine you are studying here at UW-Madison on a student visa and one day, you get a phone call. It's the local police department. The officers'at federal request'would like to speak with you. You've done nothing wrong; you just have a different skin color and hail from a foreign land. But you decide to go anyway.
The authorities' questions scare you a bit and you get the impression they will be watching your activities. You are lucky, though, because you could have been detained for an indeterminate amount of time.
You may not realize it, but you have just been given a firsthand glimpse into the blurry realm of criminal justice in the post-Sept. 11 world.
This style of justice has hit home in Madison. A Wednesday Capital Times report tells us that \two or three"" UW-Madison students of Middle Eastern descent have already been questioned, and federal officials here have kept their doings in this process shrouded in secrecy.
Since the terrorist attacks in Washington, D.C., and New York, more than 600 people have been detained on vaguely defined ""immigration violations."" In addition, thousands of men with Middle Eastern backgrounds are being questioned by federal and local authorities about their histories, as well as any possible ties to terrorist organizations, both foreign and domestic.
Federal officials have instituted a shadow system of criminal justice'a structure lacking many of the checks and balances we brag about when we speak of the freedoms the United States affords us. These changes, taken cumulatively, paint a scary picture of the way alleged criminals may be tried and convicted.
Of particular note, President Bush signed an executive order Nov. 13 allowing for the creation of secret military-style tribunals to try suspected terrorists outside of the public eye. One legal scholar has said that, as worded, Bush's order could put anyone in front of a secret tribunal, stripped of many of his or her legal rights. These tribunals would have the power to hand down a death sentence.
Administration officials encourage us to trust them. The full rights of due process will not be thrown out the window, they say. Officials tell us that President Franklin D. Roosevelt used secret military tribunals to try German agents during WWII. But history tells us that their arguments are intellectually lazy.
It is difficult to know what to do here in Madison, far removed from the circles of influence in Washington. You can get to know your rights as a citizen or as a foreign student, or express your concerns to the local U.S. Attorney's Office or the federal Department of Justice. But most importantly, watch out for your friends. That person who always sits next to you in class could be the next casualty of the shadow justice system.
