USA Patriot Act's O'Reilly Factor

Sami Al-Arian may have won his trial, but he's not free, because the country itself is not in the clear from the witch-hunt mentality that resulted in al-Arian’s arrest in the first place, and many like it (with less just outcomes) across the country. I’ve been picking on O’Reilly, but only because his “Factor” lit the inquisition’s fires. O’Reilly’s likes from Sean Hannity to Joe Sacrborough to talk radio’s chorus of brown-shirted voices daily reduce American discourse to a wasteland. Without so much baseness and baselessness on the air, the nation’s leaders couldn’t possibly be as base and the nation’s liberty crushing laws as baseless, or as popular. Because in the popular interpretation and prosecution of this so-called war on terror, evidence has nothing to do with guilt. Perception is enough. Because We are no longer a society of evidence, fairness and due process, those qualities of law we’re supposedly trying to impose on Iraq and Afghanistan . We’re all guilty until proven innocent. Read the full article...