ABSTRACT
This chapter recounts four seemingly unrelated stories of confinement, coercion, and displacement, demonstrating how seemingly different policy spheres are related to others. The first story analyzes the torture of two African American prisoners in New York. Both men were mentally ill and did not commit any infractions meriting a slow, painful execution. Their torture, however, is legal as standards of “cruel” and “unusual” no longer refer to prisoners’ conditions but the state of mind of prison personnel determining what each term means. Cases justifying these lowered standards have also justified torture at Guantánamo. The second story, which discusses a raid of a kosher meatpacking plant, demonstrates how the criminal justice, anti-terror, and immigration systems were merged to form a legal hybrid that could not be competently challenged. As the exploited workers, victims of rape, assault, and wage-theft, were arrested under the PATRIOT Act, they became the perpetrators. The third story similarly demonstrates how a victim of domestic abuse who was subsequently enslaved by a sex ring was detained under anti-terror policy, despite passing her credible fear interview. The fourth story of the Tipton Three demonstrates how the arrest and confinement of these three men at Guantánamo were characterized by low standards of criminal investigation and harsh and injurious conditions of confinement. In the conclusion, the Magen Tzedek program is briefly discussed as an example of how rights are contingent on consumer preference – thus challenging linear notions of having the right to rights. The chapter concludes that these stories and the ostensible solution – to marketize rights – are part of myths of disposability.
