GUN OWNERS OF AMERICA
8001 Forbes Place / Suite 102 / Springfield, VA 22151 / (703) 321-8585 / FAX (703) 321-8408
For Immediate Release
Contact: Kathleen Gennaro
December 6, 1995
(703)321-8585
GOA Opposes Government Terror Bills
(Washington, D.C.) -- Gun Owners of America today joined several organizations in opposing the existing terror bills in the Congress. The groups included such diverse organizations as the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the National Rifle Association.
"Representative Henry Hyde, sponsor of the House terrorism bill, has become the Mad Bomber of the Bill of Rights," said GOA Executive Director Larry Pratt. "His bill will give the Mark Fuhrman's of the world greater power and will ignore Constitutional safeguards.
"Fuhrman displayed his contempt for the Constitution during the O.J. Simpson trial. We don't need to give his kind more power in the name of fighting terrorism," Pratt said.
The House of Representatives is expected to vote on H.R. 1710 next week. The coalition to reform law enforcement is sending a letter to House Speaker Newt Gingrich today, expressing the group's opposition to any bill containing the following six points:
* Defining terrorism so broadly that even a person like Bernie Goetz, who used a gun in self-defense, could be prosecuted as a "terrorist";
* Involvement of the military in law enforcement;
* Depriving people of liberty based on secret evidence;
* Designating disfavored groups as "terrorist" organizations;
* FBI investigating individuals without evidence of criminality; and,
* Government wiretapping and ignoring the exclusionary rule.
We should think always that every new law may be enforced by our worst enemies. Think about maybe a Hillary Clinton enforcing these laws to 'investigate' conservatives.
This was National Reviews stance on Clinton's anti terror bill....
However, the measures designed to combat domestic terrorism are dangerous.
All of them are terribly useful as weapons against domestic political enemies. The requirement for government access keys to private computer cryptography, the loosened guidelines for wiretapping individuals, the increased access to hotel, travel, and even bank records -- all this portends trouble.
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And if the Administration gets its way, the issuance of warrants for wiretapping, infiltration, search of bank and travel records, and physical searches will follow the precedent of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 and be lodged in a court that holds secret, ex parte proceedings.
Have we seen this sort of thing before? Not quite. Until the 1960s the attorney general publicly listed Communist and other subversive organizations allied with foreign enemies. The U.S. Government excluded the members of these organizations from public employment, maintained surveillance on them, and warned other Americans away from them. Occasionally the FBI sowed discord among them. During this period the reasonable answer to civil libertarians' reasonable objections was that Communists had stepped outside the full protection of the laws by allying themselves with a foreign enemy. The existence of the Soviet Union imposed on us the necessity of criminalizing domestic Communism. After the Soviet Union's disappearance, however, it would be well-nigh impossible to square official discrimination against Communists with the American legal tradition. Recall that Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus and violated property rights only when enemy armies were in control of 11 states.
President Clinton, however, is making a clean break with the American tradition. He is effectively re-establishing the attorney general's list. Moreover, the reach of law enforcement is so much broader and harsher than it was in the 1950s that what it can now do to people amounts to war. Today government makes so many rules with so many details (202 volumes, 132,000 pages) that almost anybody can be accused of some violation. ``We can indict a ham sandwich'' is the proud saying among some federal prosecutors. Add the words of informants, and it is possible to fabricate the basis of a warrant against anyone at any time.
Furthermore, the Supreme Court's general caution to the contrary notwithstanding, a search warrant today permits armed, masked agents to burst in with guns drawn, and to fire at the discretion of whoever is making the rules that day. And the practice of ``civil forfeiture'' allows officials to seize your computer, your cash, your house, or your farm's tractor without ever filing a charge. These are not ``paranoid fantasies.'' This is the legacy of almost thirty years of the federalization and militarization of American law enforcement.
What will happen if this panoply of weapons is put to the service of political passions and bureaucratic self-interest? President Clinton has brushed aside such considerations as impediments to the ``war on terrorism.'' But he is terribly mistaken. The first objective in any battle against domestic terrorism must be to seal it off from domestic politics as completely as possible. Whether or not those who set bombs or fires are connected to the great issues of the day, they are mere criminals and should be treated as such.
To move away from the principle that the only people responsible for a crime are the ones who committed it -- and to involve whole political parties and social categories as enemies in blood quarrels with the state -- is the first step down a well-worn path to civil war.