Paranoia ✓

XXI: Salvador - A Crumbling Democracy

Pardon the interruption, but I think it would be proper to fill in some of the gaps that an outside reader may not immediately grasp when reading this paper. As already mentioned throughout the previous sections, a movement to relocate Muslims into specific zones was actualized by Congress in 2024. By summer, over 15 states had approved the legalization of these "Watch Zones," also known as Terror Towns (TT's) and Muslimvilles. Watch Zones was the more official name. The other two were street names.

Anyhow, some people found the state laws to be unconstitutional, and challenged them in the local court system. It was in New York where the challenge was heeded and brought up all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court in Muhammad V. New York. The challenge was based on the grounds that the forcible relocation of Muslims into specified locations could be viewed as unlawful imprisonment of U.S. citizens without due process. Furthermore, their privileges with regards to the Writ of Habeas Corpus had been suspended without a proper cause for doing so. However, the main argument was centered on the clause in section nine, article one of the U.S. Constitution stating that no "bills of attainders" could be passed.

However, the Supreme Court ruled in an 7-2 vote that the usage of Watch Zones did not violate: (a) the Fourteenth Amendment's due process clause because the fact that this hearing was going on (i.e. the case was being heard in the nation's highest court) meant that the argument was voided; (b) Article One, Section Nine of the U.S. Constitution allows for the suspension of the Writ of Habeas Corpus in the case of "invasion" where public safety is required. Since terrorists had been coming into the country and harming civilians, they categorized that as an invasion deemed worthy of suspending one's privileges with regards to the Writ of Habeas Corpus; (c) the relocation of Muslims to Watch Zones was not a form of imprisonment—rather the United States held a right to forcibly remove citizens from an area by its rights to eminent domain, with the compensation unnecessary in times of war.

This case validated the fact that we were at war with terrorism, and that all Muslim citizens were to be suspected of being in conspiracy with the enemy—meaning we should keep a close eye on them.

If that wasn't enough, Congress eventually passed legislation that allowed for the usage of Watch Zones to provide necessary surveillance and safety for both the American people and Islamic Muslims residing within the country. The law was now federal legislation instead of relying on individual states. The law separated Muslim citizens from U.S. citizens. Many may argue that the law, deemed the Watch Zone Creation Act, was a resurgence of a nation-wide, and legalized, Jim Crow laws; however that is not the extent of this paper. The main theme to take away from these facts is that the United States was (and still is) forcibly taking away the freedom of U.S. citizens in return for what they labeled as "public safety."

The quest for safety was so aggressive that the President initially did not wish to sign the bill into law. However, he was pressured both by the public, and eventually threatened with impeachment by congress, to do so. The grounds for impeachment would have been that the President was not doing his job in defending the country, and the Constitution, by evidence of his impeding the passage of this bill in a time of war. It is important to note that, at this point, no declaration of war had been declared or voted on by Congress.

However, the President was signing his death warrant when he signed the Watch Zone Creation Act into law. The president, commonly confused to be Muslim because of his brown complexion and thick beard, was accused of being a member of the Kabish. Some accusations were made to the point that they accused him of supplying the Kabish with weapons, bomb-making material, and getting them through airport security to conduct attacks such as the Baby Bomb Plot.

The President, a Democrat, was facing impeachment soon enough by a Republican controlled Congress on the grounds that he had committed treason by aligning himself with the enemy and putting the nation at risk of utter annihilation. As the reader will see from Conner's perspective, these actions are linked to the paranoia that has spread about, induced by the fear of terrorism. With actions like these, it only shows that the terrorists have won—they have terrorized us into turning on our own people, including our very own leader.