You remember Jose Padilla.  He's the native-born U.S. citizen who's being held, without charge, without contact with any human being (not his lawyer, not his parents, not anybody), in a military brig.  We are told that he's an "enemy combatant," and that he has no rights.  None.  Big zero.  If Bush, Cheney, Ashcroft, and other assorted thugs want to hold him till he dies, they claim an absolute right to do so.  Charge him or release him?  These guys don't like those options, so have determined, on their own "authority," just to let him rot.

I've already ranted about Padilla's treatment here.  That was almost two months ago, and he's still cooling his heels.  Does anybody want to bet he'll get out, or even be granted a hearing in a court of law, any time soon?

Now, according to the Washington Post, unnamed "law enforcement officials" (unnamed because they are too cowardly to stick their necks out) acknowledge that "there is no evidence a plot was under way" to build a dirty bomb.  However, such a plot "had been thought out as a possibility."

Huhhhh???  Is this what it takes to get locked up today?  Let's try a thought experiment: I am now "thinking of the possibility" of plotting to build a dirty bomb.  Yup, right this moment.  I'm not going to build a dirty bomb, mind you, but I'm thinking.

In fact, I'm thinking of this dirty bomb going off right in the faces of the thugs who have hijacked the government, shredded the Constitution, and turned our once-great nation into just another police state in a long line of police states.  Heil Bush!!  Heil Ashcroft!  BOOOOOOOOOM!!!  You guys are toast, in my mind.

I'm not going to do that.  I'm not going to advocate that anyone do that.  A dirty bomb is an abomination worthy of thugs like Bush and Co., not real live adult human beings.  I'm not going to sully my hands on one, or get involved with people who would try.

But I'm going to THINK about it.  Does that mean I'm suddenly an "enemy combatant"?  Should I expect a knock on the door in the middle of the night?

How about if I feel curious regarding how much information on dirty bomb making is available on the web?  Suppose I run a Google search, then bring up several sites that purport to contain "how-to" recipes?  Is that going to be a crime in our Brave New World?  Something that can get you "disappeared"?  Was the alleged would-be dirty bomber ever guilty of anything more than this?

Apparently, the only thing Padilla could POSSIBLY be charged with would be a "thought crime;" in other words, no crime at all.  But that's irrelevant, isn't it?  It's very clear why he was grabbed and used: Ugly Ashcroft was under considerable heat for having been incompetent before 9-11 (poor guy, it's not his fault; he's been incompetent all his life).  As the heat turned up, he needed a diversion.  Helloooo, Padilla!  In my opinion, Ashcroft is a criminal, just as Clinton is a criminal for (among other things) bombing that aspirin factory in the Sudan to distract the world from his Monica "Weeniegate" problems.

(Padilla was actually picked up, secretly, about a month before Ashcroft's dramatic announcement, but the government didn't get all paranoid and transfer him from a civilian jail to a military brig until Ashcroft needed the diversion and there was a chance Padilla might get to tell his side of the story.  Imagine the nerve of that guy!)

So, this is the picture: Native-born U.S. citizen surfs the web, gets grabbed, gets stuffed away, while officials brag that, because of their tireless hard work, terror has been averted.  Allowing said citizen to talk to anybody might blow the lid off the plot, so this is never to be allowed to happen.  Have I missed anything, other than details?

Bush, Ashcroft, and anyone else involved in the Padilla fiasco should be arrested, tried, convicted of treason, and given a big dose of the same punishment they're now giving Padilla.

Oh, but wait.  Jose Padilla is NOT being punished.  No, Michael Chertoff, an up-and-coming Ashcroft minion and stand-in, assures the world (see the story here) he's merely being "jailed," not "punished."  It's an important distinction.  No, really.

Never mind that, according to MSNBC, he's been "placed in an isolation cell with a lamp burning 24 hours a day."

"Not being punished."  These conditions amount to a sentence of certain madness.  Human beings cannot tolerate extended periods starved of contact with other humans, much less denied reasonable sleep, without going insane.  Anyone who's ever been to college and taken Psych 1A knows this.  Even mentally-impaired Shrub Bush understands, I am certain.

Every government official has sworn a sacred oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America.  Bush and his underlings are making it clear that they don't give a damn about those solemn oaths.  They've got the big government guns under their fingers; what more do they need?  Might makes right.  Right, Bush?  Right, Ashcroft?

If, as a nation, we tolerate this without protest, we DESERVE to become a police state.