Why our country should not have secret prisons with no oversight

A story from the Washington Post today illustrates exactly why our country should not have secret prisons with no oversight. If you are Muslim, all you have to do is talk to people a government is watching and you could end up losing years of your life whether you know if the people you are talking to are up to no good or not. The Canadian in this account has a horrific story:

Arar, now 36, was detained by U.S. authorities as he changed planes in New York on Sept. 26, 2002. He was held for questioning for 12 days, then flown by jet to Jordan and driven to Syria. He was beaten, forced to confess to having trained in Afghanistan -- where he never has been -- and then kept in a coffin-size dungeon for 10 months before he was released, the Canadian inquiry commission found.

You can find the rest of the story here.

And while many people think they can rest easy because they are not the ethnic group the government is currently targeting, keep in mind a quote from the past. Many variations have been tossed around and people argue over the original text of the poem, but it doesn't really matter what the orginal words were. No matter what groups you plug into the poem, the meaning comes through loud and clear.

They came first for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me,
and by that time no one was left to speak up.

Pastor Martin Niemoller