Posted on 11/29/2011 9:29:32 PM PST by Kartographer
James Madison, father of the Constitution, warned, "The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become instruments of tyranny at home."
Abraham Lincoln had similar thoughts, saying "America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter, and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
During war there has always been a struggle to preserve Constitutional liberties. During the Civil War the right of habeas corpus was suspended. Newspapers were closed down. Fortunately, these rights were restored after the war.
The discussion now to suspend certain rights to due process is especially worrisome given that we are engaged in a war that appears to have no end. Rights given up now cannot be expected to be returned. So, we do well to contemplate the diminishment of due process, knowing that the rights we lose now may never be restored.
My well-intentioned colleagues ignore these admonitions in defending provisions of the Defense bill pertaining to detaining suspected terrorists.
Their legislation would arm the military with the authority to detain indefinitely - without due process or trial - SUSPECTED al-Qaida sympathizers, including American citizens apprehended on American soil.
I want to repeat that. We are talking about people who are merely SUSPECTED of a crime. And we are talking about American citizens.
If these provisions pass, we could see American citizens being sent to Guantanamo Bay.
This should be alarming to everyone watching this proceeding today. Because it puts every single American citizen at risk.
There is one thing and one thing only protecting innocent Americans from being detained at will at the hands of a too-powerful state - our constitution, and the checks we put on government power. Should we err today and remove some of the most important checks on state power in the name of fighting terrorism, well, then the terrorists have won.
Detaining citizens without a court trial is not American. In fact, this alarming arbitrary power is reminiscent of Egypt's "permanent" Emergency Law authorizing preventive indefinite detention, a law that provoked ordinary Egyptians to tear their country apart last spring and risk their lives to fight.
Recently, Justice Scalia affirmed this idea in his dissent in the Hamdi case, saying:
"Where the Government accuses a citizen of waging war against it, our constitutional tradition has been to prosecute him in federal court for treason or some other crime."
He concluded: "The very core of liberty secured by our Anglo-Saxon system of separated powers has been freedom from indefinite imprisonment at the will of the Executive
Justice Scalia was, as he often does, following the wisdom of our founding fathers.
As Franklin wisely warned against, we should not attempt to trade liberty for security, if we do we may end up with neither. And really, what security does this indefinite detention of Americans give us?
The first and flawed premise, both here and in the badly misname patriot act, is that our pre-911 police powers were insufficient to combat international terrorism.
This is simply not borne out by the facts.
Congress long ago made it a crime to provide, or to conspire to provide, material assistance to al-Qaida or other listed foreign terrorist organizations. Material assistance includes virtually anything of value - including legal or political advice, education, books, newspapers, lodging or otherwise. The Supreme Court sustained the constitutionality of the sweeping prohibition.
And this is not simply about catching terrorists after the fact, as others may insinuate. The material assistance law is in fact forward-looking and preventive, not backward-looking and reactive.
Al-Qaida adherents may be detained, prosecuted and convicted for conspiring to violate the material assistance prohibition before any injury to an American. Jose Padilla, for instance, was convicted and sentenced to 17 years in prison for conspiring to provide material assistance to al-Qaida. The criminal law does not require dead bodies on the sidewalk before it strikes at international terrorism.
Indeed, conspiracy law and prosecutions in civilian courts have been routinely invoked after 9/11, to thwart embryonic international terrorism.
Michael Chertoff, then head of the Justice Department's Criminal Division and later Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, testified shortly after 9/11 to the Senate Judiciary Committee. He underscored that, "the history of this government in prosecuting terrorists in domestic courts has been one of unmitigated success and one in which the judges have done a superb job of managing the courtroom and not compromising our concerns about security and our concerns about classified information."
Moreover, there is no evidence that criminal justice procedures have frustrated intelligence collection about international terrorism. Suspected terrorists have repeatedly waived both the right to an attorney and the right to silence. Additionally, Miranda warnings are not required at all when the purpose of interrogation is public safety.
The authors of this bill errantly maintain that the bill would not enlarge the universe of detainees eligible for indefinite detention in military custody. This is simply not the case.
The current Authorization for Use of Military Force confines the universe to persons implicated in the 9/11 attacks or who harbored those who were.
The detainee provision would expand the universe to include any person said to be "part of" or "substantially" supportive of al-Qaida or Taliban.
These terms are dangerously vague. More than a decade after 9/11, the military has been unable to define the earmarks of membership in or affiliation to either organization.
Some say that to prevent another 9/11 attack we must fight terrorism with a war mentality and not treat potential attackers as criminals. For combatants captured on the battlefield, I tend to agree.
But 9/11 didn't succeed because we granted the terrorists due process. 9/11 attacks did not succeed because al-Qaida was so formidable, but because of human error. The Defense Department withheld intelligence from the FBI. No warrants were denied. The warrants weren't requested. The FBI failed to act on repeated pleas from its field agents, agents who were in possession of laptop with information that might have prevented 9/11.
These are not failures of laws. They are not failures of procedures. They are failures of imperfect men and women in bloated bureaucracies. No amount of liberty sacrificed on the altar of the state will ever change that.
A full accounting of our human failures by 9/11 Commission would have proven that enhanced cooperation between law enforcement and the intelligence community, not military action or vandalizing liberty at home, is the key to thwarting international terrorism.
We should not have to sacrifice our Liberty to be safe. We cannot allow the rules to change to fit the whims of those in power. The rules, the binding chains of our constitution were written so that it didn't MATTER who was in power. In fact, they were written to protect us and our rights, from those who hold power without good intentions. We are not governed by saints or angels. Our constitution allows for that. This bill does not.
Finally, the detainee provisions of the defense authorization bill do another grave harm to freedom: they imply perpetual war for the first time in the history of the United States.
No benchmarks are established that would ever terminate the conflict with al-Qaida, Taliban, or other foreign terrorist organizations. In fact, this bill explicitly states that no part of this bill is to imply any restriction on the authorization to use force. No congressional review is allowed or imagined. No victory is defined. No peace is possible if victory is made impossible by definition.
To disavow the idea that the exclusive congressional power to declare war somehow allows the President to continue war forever at whim, I will also be offering an amendment this week to de-authorize the Iraq War.
Use of military force must begin in congress with its authorization. And it should end in congress with its termination. Congress should not be ignored or an afterthought in these matters, and must reclaim its constitutional duties.
The detainee provisions ask us to give up consist rights as an emergency or exigency but make no room for expiration. Perhaps the Emergency Law in Egypt began with good intentions in 1958 but somehow it came to be hated, to be despised with such vigor that protesters chose to burn themselves alive rather allow continuation of indefinite detention.
Today, someone must stand up for the rights of the American people to be free. We must stand up to tyranny disguised as security. I urge my colleagues to reject the language on detainees in this bill, and to support amendments to strip these provisions from the defense bill.
http://paul.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=390
More nonsense.
Homemade, frozen, or carryout...
Correct me if I'm wrong; I Googled it and I am pulling it from:
http://uscode.house.gov/download/pls/10C47A.txt:
(3) In making exceptions in the applicability in trials by military commission under this chapter from the procedures and rules otherwise applicable in general courts-martial, the Secretary of Defense may provide the following: (A) Evidence seized outside the United States shall not be excluded from trial by military commission on the grounds that the evidence was not seized pursuant to a search warrant or authorization. (B) A statement of the accused that is otherwise admissible shall not be excluded from trial by military commission on grounds of alleged coercion or compulsory self-incrimination so long as the evidence complies with the provisions of section 948r of this title. (C) Evidence shall be admitted as authentic so long as - (i) the military judge of the military commission determines that there is sufficient evidence that the evidence is what it is claimed to be; and (ii) the military judge instructs the members that they may consider any issue as to authentication or identification of evidence in determining the weight, if any, to be given to the evidence. (D) Hearsay evidence not otherwise admissible under the rules of evidence applicable in trial by general courts-martial may be admitted in a trial by military commission only if - (i) the proponent of the evidence makes known to the adverse party, sufficiently in advance to provide the adverse party with a fair opportunity to meet the evidence, the proponent's intention to offer the evidence, and the particulars of the evidence (including information on the circumstances under which the evidence was obtained); and (ii) the military judge, after taking into account all of the circumstances surrounding the taking of the statement, including the degree to which the statement is corroborated, the indicia of reliability within the statement itself, and whether the will of the declarant was overborne, determines that - (I) the statement is offered as evidence of a material fact; (II) the statement is probative on the point for which it is offered; (III) direct testimony from the witness is not available as a practical matter, taking into consideration the physical location of the witness, the unique circumstances of military and intelligence operations during hostilities, and the adverse impacts on military or intelligence operations that would likely result from the production of the witness; and (IV) the general purposes of the rules of evidence and the interests of justice will best be served by admission of the statement into evidence.
As far as I can tell, the above applies to underprivileged aliens or somesuch, not citizens.
But it's a nice slippery slope.
And in your quoted Section, what does the following mean?
(4) WAIVER FOR NATIONAL SECURITY- The Secretary of Defense may, in consultation with the Secretary of State and the Director of National Intelligence, waive the requirement of paragraph (1) if the Secretary submits to Congress a certification in writing that such a waiver is in the national security interests of the United States.
Cheers!
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