The meaning of the WTC "Freedom Tower"?

At the same moment that public officials and architects proudly
unveil the ghastly, twisted, windmill-powered 1,776-foot 'Freedom Tower"
to be plopped down at Ground Zero in New York City, we're regaled
with a steady stream of news stories about the freedoms lost since
the 9/11 attack. Is there a subliminal message here?

See the visual commentary, "Two Symbols of Freedom," by reclusive
New Hudson River School artist, Frederick Clinker.

A story from the New York Times describes the latest assault on
what's left of the Bill of Rights.

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January 8, 2004, NY Times

U.S. Reasserts Right to Declare Citizens to Be Enemy Combatants
By ERIC LICHTBLAU


WASHINGTON, Jan. 7 ? The Bush administration on Wednesday reasserted
its broad authority to declare American citizens to be enemy combatants,
and it suggested that the Supreme Court consider two prominent cases at
the same time.

The Justice Department, in a brief filed with the court, said it would seek
an expedited appeal of a federal appeals court decision last month in the
case of Jose Padilla, jailed as an enemy combatant in 2002.

The divided Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in New York, ruled on
Dec. 18 that President Bush lacked the authority to indefinitely detain an
American citizen like Mr. Padilla who was arrested on American soil simply
by declaring him an enemy combatant. Mr. Padilla has been held incommunicado
at a military brig in South Carolina. American authorities say he plotted with
operatives of Al Qaeda overseas to detonate a "dirty" radiological bomb in
the United States.

But the Justice Department said in its brief that the ruling was "fundamentally
at odds" with court precedent on presidential powers.

The decision "undermines the president's constitutional authority to protect
the nation," Solicitor General Theodore B. Olson wrote. ....