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
None taken. I misinterpreted your reply, for which I apologize. I was just explaining my reply to the fellow who unloaded on me, and I’m sorry if I was a mite testy.
This is EXACTLY what you would expect a Muslim working for RADICAL MUSLIMS intent on destroying America to do. If you are surprised by this, you don't have a clue who Obama really is, who he works for and who is supplying $Hundreds of Millions to re-elect this clown.
If you were going to destroy America, you could stage a Pearl Harbor style attack and get your A$$ kicked.
OR
You could buy a B Grade Reality show host, fake his background and then convince the liberal press he is the ONE.
Now that you know who Obama is, you can go back to sheeple land and do nothing about it.
As he explained it yesterday, the bottom line is this bill gives the US Military the ability to literally seize an American Citizen, ON AMERICAN SOIL, under suspicion of terrorism and ship them off to Guantanamo Bay indeifnitely and stripping an AMERICAN CITIZEN of their Constitutional Rights.
Period.
This is scary. No wonder Obama wants this power. We're all going to be declared TERRORISTS and shipped away.
(And yes, I have on average 4 months supply of food in my pantry. Guess I'm a "terrorist.")
Has there ever been anyone give them their real number? Give them the number to the local massage parlor.
“They have the ability to view your spending in real time”
That is one reason I do almost all of my spending with cash...and I have never been asked for my phone number. I have been asked for a zip code a few times...I know several from the surrounding area.
“Wonder if they will accept a bucket of chicken scratch?”
They probably would not know the difference.
Nice set up...but it looks like you could use some more shelves. That is my project today...to build two more shelf systems.
“No, not one gun. (Parse it like Clinton, and it’s the truth.)”
I was telling my husband that Clinton didn’t lie. When he said he “did not have sex with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky, NOT A SINGLE TIME”, that was true. It wasn’t a single time; it was multiple times. He pulled that crap so often. An artist at lying, for sure.
When you’re done with your DIY...come on over!
I would find it odd to have less than seven days of food in the house. Then again, I have kids and I shop at Costco.
i didn’t used to give my real number, but one time I was using my debit card and the purchase was denied because the number was wrong. Never mind I entered my pin and showed my ID.
Actually, 'not a single time' was true.
If one can debate the use of the word 'is', he can claim he didn't lie, but misled with the truth.
The media are masters of the art, forming appearances by omission, partial information, and incomplete timelines without actually uttering falsehoods, even though the impressions they give are commonly on a reciprocal heading from reality.
Me, too. Even a full freezer is more than 7 days worth. Anyone who shops sales and loss leaders can be over the limit. Besides, in winter here, you might not go anywhere for a week if the weather gets really foul. It makes sense to stock the pantry.
The shelves are now done...and one is full already. I am now planning my next project...always something to build or fix around the home or farm.
Come over anyway...we’re having pizza tonight! In honor of Herman Cain. ;(
Declaration of Martial Law is a very, very large political step that is subject to extreme scrutiny by the opposing party. As it should be.
Doing it as an adminsitrative, normal step is not Constitutional and it should not be. The President should have his heart in his mouth when he chooses to declare it.
The choice will not be his - but his handlers, who have plotted and schemed for decades to get the power they now have. All that has to happen is one 'emergency' to declare Martial Law - and the Congress is shut down and helpless for 6 months...plenty of time to complete the take over.
Americans have been buying guns/ammo/storage supplies etc in record numbers in anticipation of the real dangers this regime presents.
But people are naive if they don't realize that these people have been systematically supplying local law enforcement agencies across the county with weapons and vehicles that individuals have no access too...and training up SWAT Teams, using totally bogus and unlawful raids on innocent people as training exercises and - ? - to desensitize the officers in regards to attacking their fellow citizens?
People will fight, yes...but the groups/areas will quickly be separated from one another. If we don't stop this traitorous gang NOW - things may get very bloody.
Later
Yup. You and the Mormons. See ya in camp.
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