Written by Jack Lindstrom   

Last Saturday, two accounts from former Guantanamo detainees came out in the New York Times, one after five years, the other seven. They are horrifying stories, in which these two innocent men are detained for little reason, interrogated, beaten and tortured.

This is an old story. We all know this. Yet it still continues. And we (at least most of us) go on with our lives and do nothing. Why did we not leap up in horror when the first stories like this started coming out--at least enough of us to make a dent in policy? One could say that this is because when these things first started coming to light, much of the country was held in thrall by a relatively fresher tragedy and a fear-mongering, nationalistic, authoritarian administration. If that wasn’t a valid excuse then, we certainly have no excuse now.

Not everyone is doing nothing. In protest of the 10th anniversary of the opening of Guantanamo, the prisoners are going on a hunger-strike and Amnesty International is agitating for the closure of the prison. As for the rest of us, some, of course, are actually in favor of indefinite detention and “enhanced interrogation.” But what distinguishes both them and those who object to Guantanamo yet do nothing about it appear to have one thing in common: they are not taking seriously the real possibility that it could happen to them.

With the passage of the NDAA, the government may now legally, indefinitely detain American citizens (as if indefinitely detaining non-citizens is okay; as if Americans have “God-given” rights, but non-citizens do not). “Well, that’s fine,” you might think. “That’s only for terrorists and other enemies of the state. I’m in no danger of being suspected of being a terrorist. I’m white, after all, and an upstanding pillar of the community.”

John Walker Lindh was white. So was Timothy McVeigh. Racial profiling is, of course, going on in terrorist investigations, but don’t think that just because you’re white, you get a free pass.

Moreover, the definition of terrorism is expanding. Under the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, the label of “terrorism” was expanded not just to animal activists who blow up laboratories, but even to those who merely sneak into places to videotape abused animals.

“So this is just a concern for crazy, tree-hugging lefties, then” you say. “I would never be in an animal rights group, so what do I care?” Well, how easy would it be to expand this to pro-life groups? They’ve blown up abortion clinics before; what’s to stop the government from calling any civil disobedience they may participate in terrorism, too?

It sets a dangerous precedent: now the government can declare your group a terrorist organization (or, even if they don’t use that exact word, to apply the same laws to you). Why would we want to leave the system open to that possibility?

“But I’m completely politically apathetic!” you say. “I’m sure I’ll never be involved in any political organization!” Well, that’s another problem entirely. Moreover, as those articles make clear, it takes precious little to arouse their suspicion.

Is this fear-mongering? In a way, yes, but only to the extent one would do so in negotiating a contract. You don’t draft a contract with the assumption that the other party will always do right by you. You have to take into account every possible way they could screw you over and make all the necessary precautions. The making of laws is no different. The risk of not doing so--such as your being subjected to years of pain for absolutely no reason--is too great.

What might the necessary precautions be in this case? Maybe it calls for the elimination of the Suspension Clause (which allows the writ of habeas corpus to be suspended “when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it”). Or maybe it just necessitates stricter definitions of all the terms of the Suspension Clause so that Congress cannot take advantage of it by saying that the threat of terrorism is never-ending, thereby putting habeas corpus itself into indefinite detainment.

Unfortunately, even a threat to oneself is often not enough to motivate people into action against it. That is, after all, why many people don’t save for retirement or prepare for natural disasters. It’s an unfortunate quirk of human nature; we’re primarily wired to “live in the moment.” However, luckily, we also have a certain amount of logic to supplement or, in some cases, counter our natural drives, and we have the laws and retirement funds to prove it. Since mere compassion apparently isn’t enough for so many to act against Guantanamo, I encourage that we at the very least drum up the foresight to preserve our own future liberty and happiness and take action--and I don’t mean signing an internet petition; I mean calling your representatives or protesting--to stop the abuses of Guantanamo, reverse NDAA and AETA and even write new legislation to ensure that such things can never happen again.