In the latest outrageous Bush effort to transform this nation into a fascist land of gulags and Big Brothers, his administration has the temerity to tell a federal judge that terrorism suspects must be gagged and prevented from speaking in public or even to their attorneys about the conditions of their confinement and about the torture to which they have been subjected.

The government is asserting that its “interrogation methods” used on suspects in CIA prisons are closely guarded and “top secret”–although it must be the worst-kept government secret ever, since everyone knows what’s going on at the hands of the Bush regime. Nevertheless, because the government deems these methods “top secret,” they argue in a federal court case that this fact means that prisoners must be prohibited from talking about them. Of course they’re also arguing, in light of last month’s unconstitutional Military Commissions Act, that the prisoners in question do not even have the right to talk to a lawyer at all.

There is no limit to the nerve of this administration in its quest to implement its vision of a decidedly unconstitutional monarchy. It now claims for itself the power to declare any information it pleases “top secret” and thereby prevent people from talking about it. Can you imagine? No longer does the government stamp documents “top secret” and then grant access only to a privileged few, which is a proactive, positive way to keep state secrets. It now wants to declare a subject of conversation top secret and then get people to stop talking about it. What nerve.

Of course the real purpose here is to shield the Executive from embarrassment or from having to admit to the depravity it is endorsing against suspects without any regard for what it means to be an American.

In Bush’s America, nobody is safe from the baleful Eye and Hand of the Executive. You better watch what you say.

Tags: bush, cia, detainees, interrogation, terrorism, torture