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01/29/2005: Homemade Porridge
Has the Bush Administration missed the mark on dampening US dissidents by using its vast bought-and-paid-for attack media & press conglomerates?
Ben McIntyre (Sunday Times) has this peach of an article about "home detention" (as used by the Brits) called: Guilty Until Proven Guiltier
Ben writes:
OF THE draconian measures unveiled by the Home Secretary in the name of national security, none casts the shadow of a police state more ominously than the newly brandished weapon of house arrest. The practice of shuttering suspects and enemies in their own homes has a long and dishonourable history: it is usually the last resort of a regime without the evidence or stomach for a trial. House arrest not only breaches the European Convention on Human Rights, but is also impractical, often counter-productive and historically naive. The very term is itself freighted with connotations of overweening state control.
For the term “house arrest” is, in the end, a sly political euphemism intended to imply leniency while ensuring imprisonment, rendering a suspect guilty until proven guiltier. Given this Government’s mania for euphemism, it is surprising its spin-doctors have not come up with a new PR term for this method of incarceration: “domestic detention”, “community-based custody”, or perhaps “homemade porridge."
Karen on 01.29.05 @ 02:11 PM CST
