Posted on 10/23/2001 8:48:28 AM PDT by sendtoscott
Will the War Kill the Bill of Rights?
by David Kopel, Fellow, Cato Institute
October 18, 2001
Late last week, Congress hurriedly passed massive "terrorism" bills that had never received committee hearings. Indeed, the House bill was only introduced on the morning that it passed - providing House members with no realistic opportunity to study the bill's tremendous implications. Both the House and the Senate bills grant vast powers to law enforcement that have nothing to do with counter-terrorism.
Because the House and Senate bills differ, a conference committee will be appointed, which will begin meeting very soon.
The House Judiciary Committee had unanimously passed an anti-terrorism bill, which awaited House floor action. But instead of bringing forward the bill that had received committee scrutiny, the House leadership (buckling to pressure from the administration) had a brand-new bill written and brought to the floor of the full House. The leadership moved so hastily that members were deprived of the opportunity even to read the bill before voting on it.
The House bill does include some sensible provisions to help the government fight terrorism, such as expediting the hiring of language translators for counter-terrorism work.
But there are also provisions that seriously infringe privacy, while offering little in the way of counter-terrorism. For example, the bill allows the government, without a warrant, to monitor every e-mail that a person sends and receives. Content access would, however, require a search warrant - although in practice the government would be on the honor system not to read content. Any state, local, or federal law enforcement officer could use the e-mail surveillance. And there is no requirement that this surveillance be connected to a terrorism investigation.
Currently, if the government wants to monitor a person's postal mail, the feds have to get a search warrant. Why should we lower privacy standards because the mail is sent electronically rather than by hand?
The House bill also allows surveillance of a person's Internet surfing. The government can capture the web address of every page that a person views-without a search warrant. This allows any law officer to find out intimate details about a person's politics, hobbies, and even sexual orientation. There is no requirement that this surveillance be related to counter-terrorism.
Significantly, the bill sunsets some (but not all) of the expanded government surveillance provisions after three years. This is a sensible recognition of the fact that the executive branch is asking for extraordinary wartime powers. If the war hasn't ended in three years, Congress is capable of enacting legislation to extend the powers.
The Senate bill-243 pages-is much worse than the House bill. The former's expansions of government power are permanent. Given that the bill will restrict the freedom of people born 50 years from now, it is inappropriate for the bill to be rushed through Congress only a few days after being written.
The Senate bill allows the government to conduct secret searches. This measure is not limited to terrorism cases. Rather, it would apply to federal government searches involving drugs, pornography, gambling, and everything else in the federal criminal code.
The federal government could covertly enter a person's house, copy the contents of his computer, and then break in the next month, and copy the hard disk again. To perform secret searches, the government would merely have to show that there "might" be an "adverse result" if the person found out about the search.
Of all the checks and balances in the Fourth Amendment, the most important is that the person who is searched knows that he has been searched. More so than any other person, he will have the incentive to complain (and, if necessary, to sue) if the search was in violation of the Constitution. Because judges don't come along when the police serve search warrants, judges have no practical way of knowing whether a search is conducted within the limits of the search warrant. In essence, secret searches put federal agents on the honor system.
While the solid majority of federal law enforcement agents are honorable, some are not. And the records of the FBI, the DEA, the ATF, and the rest of the federal law enforcement bureaucracy over the past decades demonstrate that when power can be used, some agents will abuse it.
Both the House and the Senate contain many laudable, and uncontroversial measures, such as providing assistance to the families of police and firefighters who died on Sept. 11. Congress would do better to quickly pass the measures that do not infringe civil liberty, and then take time to ensure that new restrictions on liberty are no broader than necessary, and that they apply only to terrorism investigations.
May I suggest "Stalin Man", "Mao Man", or "Hitler Man" instead?
As an example of why you are "mis-named", Ronald Reagan knows that the US Constitution does not grant any rights. It merely enumerates those unalienable rights that are granted by the Creator. You are not free to own a firearm because some document grants you this right. You are free to "keep and bear arms" because you possess the right to self-defense.
Please, change your screen name!
Hard to tell, at least you've kept it polite which is more than a lot do here.
you seem to indicate a significant level of fear and indignation. If I'm reading you wrong, please correct meI am deeply concerned that the federal governmnet will turn even more tyrannical than it is. I remember growing up in '50s without 95% of the federal government that we have today. We didn't have to lock our doors, you could buy firearms at the hardware store, and the overall tax burden was considerable less. Since then the government has extorted a significant fraction of my total life's work, burdened me with hundreds of thousands of pages of federal regulations that I can go to jail for, and worked very hard to make sure I'm defenseless.
My life is not any better not that it was then because of anything the government did. Any improvements came from private industry. The car I drive now has 40 hp less than the one I had in '65, and cost almost 8 times as much thanks primarily to federal regulations. I pay about half of my income to government at all levels, a figure which creeps up every year. And what do I get for it. I government that can't keep a bunch of arabs from destroying innocent civilians. Now the selfsame government that has grown fat on the backs of working Americans is whining that it needs more powers. Well no one killed 5000 American civilians in the '60s (although I did get to learn about M-16s, L shaped ambushes, grenades and all that crap at government expense during that decade) Frankly I think we'd be better off if they got rid of some of the huge bureaucracy that they have to micro-mismanage our lives and devoted some of those resources to:
I don't believe America is on the road to becoming a totalitarian state
I disagree here. Gun control, Internal passports, government carte blanche to pry into every fact about you, secret trials, asset seizure without trial, etc. is totalitarianism.
And lastly, (Ben F.)I believe his outlook on things would be much different
I disagree on this too. Human nature is exactly the same as it was in 1776. The nature of government is the same too, except King George would never dream of looting a much as government in the US loots today. If they were able to see us today, I think the founding fathers would turn from us in disgust at how we squandered the freedom that they bought with their lives their fortunes and their sacred honor.
So am I, but I can't find any 81mm :-(
You have taken issue with Franklin's warning against trading liberty for security. It seems you are willing to give up at least some liberties.
That does not mean you approve of tyranny or oppose the Constitution. In your response to zeugma, you wrote,
Having said that, it's still very important that we the people, also protect and defend our Constitutional rights. It's a serious balancing act. Surrendering our individual rights isn't acceptable. But the giving of some additional time and a little privacy in order to help fight terrorism is a very patriotic thing to do. IMHO, of course!
The problem is that the "serious balancing act" you propose is difficult -- perhaps impossible -- to pull off. Once the federal government is allowed to exceed the bounds set for it by the Constitution, it resists being pushed back. Governments are never satisfied with the citizen's sacrifice of a little time and a little privacy (which are themselves important rights); their tendency is always to demand more.
And we have a real leader, his name is President George W.Bush. If you don't like it, too bad! Work to get someone else elected POTUS in 2004. Until then, shut up.
Yep. The death of America is speeding up.
The real question is what are you babbling about?
To compare the revolutionary world of 1776 to the terrorist world of 2001, shows either sheer ignorance, or pure folly on your part. The "Tories" have little in common to 21st century terrorists. If you can't see the differences, thats your problem.
No, I'll stick with Reagan Man. Thanks anyway a-hole!
Sport, you flamed me on a thread the other day, and I ignored you, because it's my habit to ignore ignorant people.
The fact is, that if you truly believe what you spout, you're either a) on the wrong side or b) a clueless sheep. I'm supposing it's only b). I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.
I've been actively involved in the fight to keep What's Left of America free for many many years. The Bill of Rights is essentially dead, and is ignored almost totally by our "rulers." You don't think so? Then you haven't been watching. This once-great nation has become EXACTLY what the men who founded it feared and tried so hard to prevent by the Constitution they wrote and its attendant Bill of Rights. And it's only getting worse.
Sadly, most Americans, just like most Germans several decades ago, will only wake up when it's far too late.
As for it being "war time," so we "need to give up some liberties" - never forget that Evil rides in on the back of a white horse.
Ronald Reagan and Reagan Man both know that it's not called the Bill of Rights for nothing bucko.
Please, change your screen name already a-hole!
Unfortunately, you are correct. Sad, isn't it?
And Japanese pilots committed an act of war at Pearl Harbor. In response, it is Congress's constitutional duty (if you 'conservatives' can remember what that is) to declare war.
We don't need Congress to declare anything
Why does the Constitution require Congress to do so? Does the Constitution mean anything to 'conservatives' anymore?
We are at war with international terrorism. Period! Your rhetoric means nothing.
Maybe this should mean something:
Article. I., Section. 8., Clause 11: "To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water"
As you said, z., no can do here either.
The people who built this country were FAR wiser than we are today. They were educated, well-spoken, and they understood world history and human nature. Franklin and Jefferson and Sam Adams and many more were RIGHT. It's a pity that today they are thought of so lowly by ignorant people who can't hold a fraction of a candle to their intellect, understanding and reason. It'd actually be laughable, if the stakes weren't so deadly serious.
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