Is the President a "Dictator"?

Weekly Standard ^ | 23 Nov 2001 | David Tell

[america-rules]

Is the President a "Dictator"?
by David Tell, for the Editors

IT IS NOW a virtually unquestioned assumption of American elite conversation that the law enforcement measures George W. Bush has adopted in the aftermath of September 11 make him, as the New York Times matter-of-factly reports, "only the latest of many presidents to restrict civil liberties in wartime."

There is apocalyptic indignation about this development at the Times editorial page, which excoriates Bush for a "travesty of justice" and a "breathtaking departure" from legal tradition. There is bipartisan grumbling over executive branch unilateralism among legislators on Capitol Hill. On the other hand, leading constitutional lawyers--Laurence Tribe on the "left" and Kenneth Starr on the "right," for example--have generally voiced approval of the administration's moves, citing certain real-world exigencies. And then there is Judge Richard A. Posner of the Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, eager as ever to pee on the shoes of civics-class pietism. "It stands to reason that our civil liberties will be curtailed" during national emergencies, Posner snorts in the December Atlantic. "They should be curtailed." Except, the judge adds, with respect to the private enjoyment of heroin and cocaine, which should be decriminalized posthaste (the better, perhaps, to subdue domestic dissent).

So in one sense, reaction is obviously mixed. But at the same time there is something strikingly consistent about most of the commentary so far: its near-total unconcern for substantive detail. Practically everyone is weighing in on the question whether we should be alarmed or relieved that the president has suspended legal protections ordinarily taken for granted in the United States. But hardly a one of them bothers to demonstrate with any precision that the president has, in fact, done anything of the kind. Bush's most splenetic critics, in particular, apparently deem a mere recitation of recent Department of Justice initiatives sufficient to establish that those initiatives have emasculated the Bill of Rights.

This is quite weird, really. Anyone with an average IQ and an Internet connection can perform the kind of legal research necessary to reach a minimally creditable judgment about the constitutional character of the Bush administration's anti-terrorism campaign. But a job like this takes more time and mental effort than most of us prefer to expend. So we have come to depend on professional journalists and politicians to do the bulk of it for us. Which is fine--as long as they're actually doing it. Say, in the ordinary course of events, that the punditburo reports the president of the United States has lately "assumed...dictatorial powers" (syndicated columnist William Safire, November 15). We would like to think that any such conclusion was based on a more than passing familiarity with the relevant statutes and regulations and Supreme Court precedents, wouldn't we? And we should therefore expect to find some evidence to that effect in the work of our designated opinionmakers, shouldn't we?

But we don't. Instead we find this, and it is altogether bizarre: George W. Bush is nowadays everywhere and constantly criticized for anti-terrorism "decrees" that allegedly disdain the standard procedural guarantees of American law--by people who themselves disdain to explain, or simply don't know, exactly what those guarantees might be.

For instance. Just this past June, the Supreme Court decided a case called Zadvydas v. Davis involving, among other things, the extent to which the Fifth Amendment limits the federal government's authority to incarcerate aliens it is attempting to deport. Here the Court was sharply divided, and its narrow holding was logically problematic, to say the least: In certain limited circumstances, the majority appeared to rule, a criminal alien whose presence in the United States is otherwise and completely illegal still enjoys a constitutional right to be set free on our streets. Nevertheless, despite the peculiarity of its bottom-line reasoning, much of the Zadvydas decision remains directly applicable to the current controversy over whether the Bush presidency has become a tyranny.

Over the past two and a half months, since the World Trade Center and Pentagon atrocities, John Ashcroft's Justice Department has "subjected" more than 1,000 foreign nationals temporarily resident in the United States, most all of them of Arab descent or Muslim faith, to "summary," "secret," and "indefinite" detention--"beyond review" by the federal courts. The program so characterized has been widely and bitterly condemned as unconstitutional. Richard Cohen of the Washington Post informs us that the detentions are so outlandishly unconstitutional, in fact, as to constitute an "American gulag."

Yes, well. How can he be so sure, one wonders? As a jurisprudential matter, any respectable pronouncement on the constitutionality of the Bush/Ashcroft "gulag" must take extensive account of the Supreme Court's most recent refinement of the due process rights implicated by alien detentions, you would think. And yet never in his column has Richard Cohen so much as alluded to the existence of the ruling in Zadvydas. Nor can he have learned about Zadvydas's suddenly renewed relevance from the work of his colleagues, for not once since September 11 has the Washington Post--or any other major American newspaper, such is modern journalism's chronic, shocking ignorance of the law--mentioned a single word about that case.

In other words, dear reader, your morning daily has proved a useless guide to precisely that awful question it has helped make current: Have the president and his attorney general violated their oaths of office by mounting a clear and powerful assault on our founding document?

For a start toward the real answer, perhaps we should provide a little update on Sami Al-Arian, the University of South Florida computer engineering professor whom we have met before in these pages. Al-Arian is a piece of work: a man who in the past has played host or even employer--right there in the Tampa/St. Pete metropolitan area--to a number of notorious international terrorists and their equally notorious propagandists and sympathizers. Al-Arian appears ill-disposed towards Jewish people; in February 1995, ten days after two young Arab zombies had blown themselves up at an Israeli bus stop, killing 22 people and injuring 59 others, Al-Arian wrote a fund-raising letter exulting in the deed and requesting "support to the jihad effort in Palestine so that operations such as these can continue." Al-Arian appears similarly ill-disposed toward Americans, even those who aren't Jewish. "Let us damn America" and its allies "until death" he has been heard to proclaim, at one of the many jihadist pep rallies he has sponsored since arriving in the states more than a decade ago.

Federal authorities have been keenly aware of Sami Al-Arian since the mid 1990s. The FBI and INS, in particular, seem soon thereafter to have concluded that he was the Palestinian Islamic Jihad's principal representative in North America. But so habitually cautious about the law is our Justice Department that Al-Arian has never been charged with a crime. Nor has he ever been targeted for deportation. Nor--even now, while the government is said to be rounding up every Arab or Muslim fellow it can get its hands on--has Al-Arian even been detained. Quite the contrary; he is currently free as a bird, and the subject of an incredibly stupid profile in the Los Angeles Times, which thinks we should know that Sami Al-Arian "wears Hush Puppies and resembles Mahatma Gandhi."

Some "gulag."

Interestingly enough, it is none other than Al-Arian's brother-in-law and full partner in the promotion of political violence, one Mazen Al-Najjar, whom critics of the Justice Department's "anti-Arab witchhunt" are quickest to cite as a sympathetic victim. Sympathy for Al-Najjar seems less appropriate the more you know about him, however. And properly understood, the extensive litigation his case has spawned tends to rebut, rather than reinforce, the "civil libertarian" complaint routinely made on behalf of Arab and Muslim aliens detained by the INS in conjunction with past and current terrorism investigations. The notion that the Justice Department has subjected Mazen Al-Najjar to arbitrary, harsh, and constitutionally irregular treatment is preposterous. For the moment, at least, pending his latest appeal, Al-Najjar, too, like his brother-in-law, walks the streets of Tampa, Florida, a free man. But for the government's determination that he is a very dangerous man--were he an "ordinary" subject of American immigration law, that is--Al-Najjar would almost certainly have been expelled from our shores, without the slightest fuss, a very long time ago.

Al-Najjar, a Palestinian native of Gaza, arrived in the United States from the United Arab Emirates in 1981. Having entered the country with "refugee" status, he then secured permission from the INS to attend a graduate school program in North Carolina. But by the spring of 1985, having failed to secure a green card by virtue of a quickie, abortive marriage to an American citizen and no longer carrying a valid student visa, Al-Najjar was "noted" by the INS for thus-obligatory deportation proceedings. Which he has been fighting ever since, though he has all along acknowledged that his presence within our borders is unlawful.

His lawyers' arguments are a small masterpiece of Kafkaesque black comedy. Al-Najjar moved to Tampa in 1986, where he began a lengthy and intimate professional collaboration with Sami Al-Arian in the development of a hate-spewing "Islamic think tank" and affiliated "charity." By virtue of his participation in these apparent terrorist front groups, Al-Najjar was arrested in 1997 by FBI and INS agents who had collected what more than one reviewing court has since called "pertinent and reliable" evidence that he is an active associate of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad--and so represents an ongoing threat to the people, property, and national security of the United States. And?

And precisely because the federal government has adjudged him a terrorist, Al-Najjar's attorneys contend, it must now grant him political asylum here; few foreign countries would even consider accepting extradition of such a character, and any that might would very likely persecute him. We can't have that. Nor, the argument continues, can we keep him in detention. The Justice Department's conclusion that Al-Najjar is a fanatic is based on highly sensitive foreign intelligence information that it dare not reveal in open court, so he is unable effectively to defend himself against the charge--which he claims an inviolable Fifth Amendment right to do.

Mazen Al-Najjar's asylum demand is transparently ridiculous. And Mazen Al-Najjar's Fifth Amendment argument, though it appears to strike an emotional chord among constitutional naifs, is ridiculous, as well. There is Supreme Court precedent that is directly on point here. In February 1999, deciding a case called Reno v. Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee, an 8-1 majority of the Court ruled that "when an alien's continuing presence in this country is in violation of the immigration laws, the government does not offend the Constitution by deporting [or detaining] him for the additional reason that it believes him to be a member of an organization that supports terrorist activity." Moreover, "[t]he Executive should not have to disclose its 'real' reasons" for reaching that conclusion, since "a court would be ill equipped to determine their authenticity and utterly unable to assess their adequacy."

This was the law for more than two years before George W. Bush became president. And it is the same law, unamended, that he is both enforcing and obeying in connection with the Justice Department's post-September 11 detentions of certain Arab and Muslim aliens holding non-immigrant student, tourist, or employment visas. All the detainees have enjoyed the right to counsel, as has Mazen Al-Najjar. All have been guaranteed habeas corpus review in the federal courts, as has Mazen Al-Najjar. And most have already been released from detention, as has Mazen Al-Najjar. A small number are being held on material witness warrants, their case records sealed--by a U.S. District Court judge, as federal grand jury rules require. And the few hundred remaining detainees are being held for immigration or other criminal violations. They are thus presumptively deportable. And during the pendancy of deportation proceedings--back to Zadvydas again--the government may detain any illegal alien at its discretion.

How, then, with respect to these detentions, is it fair to say that President Bush has restricted previously existing civil liberties? It is not fair to say so. It is false. In fact, the entire parade of constitutional horribles alleged against the administration is a groundless slander, as we will no doubt have occasion to explain in exhaustive detail over the coming weeks. Put simply, the people currently accusing the president of "dictatorship" do not know what they're talking about. That they are eager to talk anyway; that they are prepared to entertain a dystopian fantasy about their democratic government; that they are willing to "spell it with a K," as we used to say back in the 1960s . . . well, that is a question we would prefer to leave to the psychiatrists.


--David Tell, for the Editors


December 3, 2001 - Volume 7, Number 12

[Ms. AntiFeminazi]

I especially look at them when passed in hast because they useually get twisted around and 99% used for something else.

And people like you come on here and twist their true definitions around to suit your purpose. If you want to convince me this Act is unconstitutional, show me the proof. Let's talk specifics involving real life situations, not just a bunch of hysterical generalizations that may or may not come to pass. If your fears become reality, it will not be because of this bill. It will be because people like you are more concerned with protecting the non-citizens of this country from a loss of freedom that was never guaranteed to them in the first place. You do it at MY expense.

[Ms. AntiFeminazi]

I would also like to add,there seems to be an awfull lot of EO's these days.Seems like the wave of the future.Have you compared the amount of Shrubs to previous prezes?

I prefer quality to quantity. There are not enough EO's from the current President as far as I'm concerned. I would like to see most of his predecessor's EO's revoked. That requires a new EO.

[ladyinred]

Yes he is, and I follow him gladly. :-0

Seriously, no he is not a dictator, and as the article points out, he is the latest in a long line of Presidents who made these decisions in wartime.
Keyword: WARTIME!

[Slyfox]

as the New York Times matter-of-factly reports, "only the latest of many presidents to restrict civil liberties in wartime."

Funny, the NYT never said a word while Clinton was resident in the White House.

[redrock]

Not yet........

But all those who would surrender their Freedom's for supposed security.....will help make him,or his succesor, one.

redrock

BILL OF RIGHTS BUMP!!!!!!

[Ms. AntiFeminazi]

Im still reading it.Just trying to get around all the "Related" stuff.

Isn't that the worst?! If I could write laws, the first one I would write would be that each new bill is completely contained within itself. If an adjustment has to be made to prior bills text or if any reference is made to a prior bill, that entire bill must be stated within the text of the new bill and the old bill removed from the records, not a "in paragraph (18), by striking the period and inserting ';and'; sheesh!!!

[DAGO]

OK,I ride with a Motor Cycle club.Already We are being Systematically reclassified as "Domestic Terrorists".
I TAKE OFFENCE TO THAT!!!I LOVE THIS COUNTRY!!!!!Under RICO I have seen MANY BROTHERS Go to prison with the use of GESTAPO TACTICS.
This new Legislation makes it WORSE.According to the flier going around I should be right next to Bin Ladin.
I understand this is "WAR TIME" stuff,that's fine as long as it ENDS WITH THE WAR.And is directed at THOSE WE are at war with.
How can you trust the government when the DOJ blocks probes into the Obviously CORRUPT Rino Admin.?
If you look closely you would see it contains the "Know Your Customer"legislation,you remember that?
It has been rammed through congress now because it couldn't pass under NORMAL circumstances.
I HATE CLINTON,AND HILDABEAST,your right I would LOVE to see his EO'S gone.The only problem is EO'S are UNCONSTITUTIONAL.Or maybe border line.
They ain't right and that is no way to get laws on the books. He might as well be a dictator.
People like you are falling for the oldest conn on the books.These "Globalists"Get a Guy like Clintoon in there,he gets everyone so wore out they are Elated to have there guy in and the people who Loth him are too wore out to express their feelings.
Before Clintoon got elected,I NEVER payed attension to politics,I was one of those who Knew My vote didnt matter.I could not believe that $%#$#@$@$# Beat Bush,The Elder.Even though he is a "GLOBALIST"and stands for most everything I dont,I still Like him,and would probably vote for him (Bush that is). I could go on and on but Im sick.
I am not going to pick out EVERY Line in the Law I think is wrong.It is wrong legislation,It is Gestapo,anyone who reads it CAREFULLY can see that.I am involved in politics at a local level now and am starting to see exactly how it works.As far as the "RELATED" parts of legislation,you are exactly right,the Amended versions SHOULD BE IN THEIR ENTIRETY.The only reason I can come up with for NOT doing that is because they know MOST people will not spend the time to meander through all the aganizing *&^$%^$&$#.I dont even know what to call it.
What do you say we try to get legislation that would require Law makers to write them in "PLain English?

COMRADE DAGOSAVITCH
COMMUNIST AGENT
OCCUPIED USSA

[Ms. AntiFeminazi]

What do you say we try to get legislation that would require Law makers to write them in "PLain English?

Actually, Clinton issued a PDD or an EO, can't remember which, stating exactly that while he was in office. He ordered that all laws and text relating to government issues be written in plain english for all Americans to understand/read and that they be posted on the internet with easy access for anyone computer able, with exceptions for items regarding National Security. If I had the time today, I would post a link to his order, but I don't have the time to dig it up. sorry.

OK,I ride with a Motor Cycle club.Already We are being Systematically reclassified as "Domestic Terrorists".

Okay, now we're getting a little more specific. Have you ever been arrested because you ride with a Motor Cycle club?

BTW, you made a couple of other points yesterday that I would like to dig into deeper, but it will not be worth my time unless we can get some real dialogue going here.

[Ms. AntiFeminazi]

These "Globalists"Get a Guy like Clintoon in there,he gets everyone so wore out they are Elated to have there guy in and the people who Loth him are too wore out to express their feelings.

On this we agree. That is why it is so important that we read the law and pay attention to our current administration.

I disagree with you on President GHW Bush. I'm not a fan of his and only voted for him because he was the obvious lesser of two evils. Don't get me wrong, I think he is a nice guy and all, but my views are not all that similar to his and neither are his son's views if you pay close attention.

Okay, I will try not to throw too much of my personal opinion in here. What I'm really interested in is the specifics of this law that has everyone (but me apparently) so worked up. I do have some specific issues with it, but I'm not going to provide you any ammo. Overall, I think it is a good document.

[DAGO]

You dont give a SICK guy a chance.My head is VERY cloged right now,HOPE IT AINT ANTHRAX.I know it aint funny.If you dont hear from me tomarrow or the next day,it was.I will give specifics.

[ctdonath2]

Is the President a "Dictator"?

No. Next stupid question?

[Ms. AntiFeminazi]

I'm very sorry you're not feeling well. This obviously can wait until you're feeling better. I need to be doing other things myself. Just give me a bump when you're ready to continue.

[DAGO]

"Okay, now we're getting a little more specific. Have you ever been arrested because you ride with a Motor Cycle club?

While living in OCCUPIED Florida I was detained for hours under RICO,before I rode with a Motor Cycle Club,THE REASON......3 of us had some sort of Harley tee shirts on!!!The owner of the Establishment was worried.Also in North Carolina while on my way to a Party,Still was an Independent rider,I was Frisked,Finger printed and photographed on the side of the road with 1 other guy.ALL BECAUSE WE WERE GOING TO A PARTY.I later found out I had an FBI PROFILE that stated I had "KNOWN GANG TIES"I know FIRST HAND Of Gestapo tactics.My Friend one night about 4 o'clock in the morning after pulling up in his driveway a carload of guys emptied and beat him bloody,The license plate was a government plate.They left him there and laughed at him.
I remember the days when if you rode a Foreign bike the cops didn't even give you a second look,but if you were on a Davidson they would turn around to frisk you.That was the 80's,I was there and made the change from foreign to domestic(Bike,that is,not Terrorist).There are PLENTY OF THESE STORIES.FACT NOT FICTION.THIS IS ALL BEFORE THE EXPANDED LEGISLATION.
Most of the clubs had to band together and form COALITIONS OR CONFEDERATIONS just to fight the FEDS.I joined a club to be part of a Confederation.
Another thing,we all know how the JD And the FBI/KGB has botched things in the past with NO RECOURSE,do you really want these people to have even MORE POWER?
When I am forced or Inticed to rat my fellow Americans out.....There is a problem.The founders know that there was a intoxication associated with power,we are now seeing it.

COMRADE DAGOSAVITCH
COMMUNIST AGENT
OCCUPIED USSA

[Ms. AntiFeminazi]

That was the 80's,I was there and made the change from foreign to domestic(Bike,that is,not Terrorist).

LOL! I'm glad you cleared that up! ;)

I later found out I had an FBI PROFILE that stated I had "KNOWN GANG TIES"

Do you have known gang ties?

There are PLENTY OF THESE STORIES.FACT NOT FICTION.THIS IS ALL BEFORE THE EXPANDED LEGISLATION.

Okay, perhaps I was careless in the wording of my original question. I'll try again...Have you been arrested as a result of current law because you ride with a Motor Cycle club?

It is against the law for government officials to randomly meet you in your driveway and beat you up. I'm not saying they don't do it, but if the law says they're not allowed to do it, why the fear of the law? The law is not the problem. Those who break it are.

[DAGO]

"Okay, perhaps I was careless in the wording of my original question. I'll try again...Have you been arrested as a result of current law because you ride with a Motor Cycle club?

Please don't get ridiculous.
I believe they are busy at the moment.Who's next? Yes it is the Fringe of your"SOCIETY" that has to worry.I am NOT a MODEL CITIZEN,according to some of these "SOCIALIST" laws.Now ,even worse.

"Do you have known gang ties?"

It depends on what the meaning of is....is.

Notice the differing opinion on the definition,I say club,they say Gang.
That is very important.Because Actually,Freerepublic is a "right-wing" Forum.What would some say if instead of forum they reclassified it to be a gang because I'm a member.GUILT BY ASSOCIATION!!!!Or added "EXTREME"I guess it wont matter until they don't like what YOUR about.I have to go,you have forced me to mull through the legislation and pull out certain articles.That ought to take DAYYYYYYYYYSSSSSSSS.
Be back soon.and look forward to the dialog.

[Ms. AntiFeminazi]

I have to go,you have forced me to mull through the legislation and pull out certain articles.That ought to take DAYYYYYYYYYSSSSSSSS. Be back soon.and look forward to the dialog.

Ahhhhh. My job here is done for the moment. ;)

Hey DAGO, in case it literally does take you days, make sure you spell my name right. I think the new system will insist you get it right to bump me, but if you forget the space after the decimal or miss a letter, I will not get your bump.

I also look forward to discussing whatever you come up with. :)

[DAGO]

Ok,for the 2nd time going through this STINKING BILL.For starters,
203=iffy
212=basically gives the provider of a RCS the authority to evesdrop and report you to the KGB,At their descression.
213=whats wrong with that?
223=pretty scarry
314=Got serious problems with this.Clearly aimed at DRUGS,NOT TERRORISM!
title Vlll,sec 802 just about fingers anything
811=still under review.

I give up for now my sinuses are about to blow!!!

I must admit there are a few things I overlooked the first time I actually think MAKE SENCE.
I also found a few things while looking for related things that are of intrest. I will make available upon further investigation.
Looks asthough I'll be in the gov. sites for a while,THANKS!:o(

COMRADE DAGOSAVITCH
COMMUNIST AGENT
OCCUPIED USSA

[Ms. AntiFeminazi]

DAGO, you have no idea how much I appreciate this even if we're way on opposite ends of the earth in our opinions of it. I've been waiting for someone to at least be willing to discuss the details of this bill, especially if it's going to be blasted all over the place as the work of the anti-Christ! lol.

I will look at the sections you highlighted again, and I'll make note of what I think is right or wrong with them also. I may not be able to devote a lot of time to this tonight, but hopefully will have something for you tomorrow or whenever you get your stuff to me.

Don't knock yourself out over this. You're sick. Get some rest, get well, then we'll hash this thing out.

Wouldn't it be nice if others were doing some research on this too and could toss in their opinions as to why they do or don't think it's constitutional? Maybe I'm dreaming.

[DAGO]

hehehehe.I dont believe its the work of the anti christ,just some over zellous politicians.I played hooky from work today,gotta go in tomarrow.Im having a hard time finding 2331 title 18 us code.

COMRADE DAGOSAVITCH
COMMUNIST AGENT
OCCUPIED USSA

[Ms. AntiFeminazi]

An I haven't forgotten you bump. I will reply to post #99 as soon as I can. Hope you're feeling better. :)