It's Not the American Way

"I am obligated as a journalist to use the word 'alleged' when writing about Jose Padilla, the former Chicago gangbanger the government says turned terrorist. He allegedly received terrorist training in Afghanistan. He returned to the United States as an alleged al Qaeda operative. He allegedly planned to detonate a dirty bomb and also allegedly hoped to use natural gas to bring down some apartment buildings in New York or another city. There, I have done my journalistic duty.

The government, on the other hand, is not similarly constrained. Although it has locked up Padilla for two years, although for a long time he was held in isolation and not allowed to see a lawyer or anyone else, he has never been charged with a crime or found guilty in a court of law. The worst I can do is libel the man. The government, though, has cast him into the contemporary version of a dungeon. "