Posted on 11/28/2001 6:33:06 AM PST by Registered
To: wideawake
But I hope her successful convalescence gives her time to rethink her assaults on American freedom. (Registered note: Regardng Sarah Brady's lung cancer)
When W and Ashcroft face death I wonder if they will rethink their assaults on American freedom?
33 posted on 11/27/01 7:08 PM Eastern by sakic
To: sakic
When W and Ashcroft face death I wonder if they will rethink their assaults on American freedom
Be specific. Name all of these assaults on freedom that the citizens of the United States are being subjected to by Bush and Ashcroft.
94 posted on 11/27/01 8:26 PM Eastern by Registered
To: Registered
Here you go
101 posted on 11/27/01 8:42 PM Eastern by sakic
To: sakic
The Village Voice!?!?!? Bwaaaahahahahaha! You are a work of art!
147 posted on 11/27/01 9:53 PM Eastern by Registered
To: Registered
Nat Hentoff remains the strongest defender of the Constitution in this country. The fact that you don't know this comes as no surprise.
156 posted on 11/28/01 7:13 AM Eastern by sakic
To: sakic
I know who the man is, however your apparent lemming-like approach to every word that proceedeth out of his mouth draws a shadow on your ability to defend what you said earlier. I just checked and Nat's article apparently hasn't been posted yet in the FR forum. Why don't you post it and let's start discussing the specifics of what Nat's concerns are with the USA PATRIOT Act. Of course, the brunt of his analysis came with the assistance of the beloved ACLU, so this could be a fun exercise.
In my mind your little link to his article in no way justifies the idiotic statement you made at the start of this thread. I'm not immune to making the same type of stupid statement you did, but at least when I make them I apologize and move on.
161 posted on 11/28/01 10:16 AM Eastern by Registered
...and now
| Nat Hentoff Giving the FBI a ‘Blank Warrant’ John Ashcroft v. the Constitution We're going to protect and honor the Constitution, and I don't have the authority to set it aside. If I had the authority to set it aside, this would be a dangerous government, and I wouldn't respect it. We'll not be driven to abandon our freedoms by those who would seek to destroy them. —Attorney General John Ashcroft, Legal Times, October 22 It is a good bill . . . that allows us to preserve our security . . . but also protect our liberties. —Patrick Leahy, Democrat, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, National Public Radio, October 26 George W. Bush, with great satisfaction, signed the USA PATRIOT Act on Friday, October 26, after both the House and Senate overwhelmingly approved most of what John Ashcroft had urgently sent them, demanding that they move immediately to show the nation and the terrorists that we would surely prevail in this war for freedom. A few hours later, presidential press secretary Ari Fleischer held his regular televised press conference, attended by Washington's elite cadre of journalists, who asked no substantial questions about the new antiterrorism legislation. The subject was disposed of quickly. On the following Sunday morning's commentary and analysis programs, there were also no probing questions about what the bristling new law was doing to the Constitution. Not even Tim Russert, the most careful researcher among the Sunday hosts, paid it much mind. And in the weeks since, in most newspapers, and as usual, on both broadcast and cable television as well as radio, Americans who cared at all were not able to find news of how a good many of their fundamental liberties had been diminished. As George Melloan had said in the October 23 Wall Street Journal, "one of the most insidious things about terrorist attacks" is that "they engender an 'anything goes' mentality within the nation under attack. . . . Yet as both President Bush and Mr. Ashcroft have observed, if the attacks force a general curtailment of civil liberties, the terrorists have won." Well, we've begun to lose that part of the battle. For the following guide to what's actually in the USA PATRIOT Act, I am indebted to the ACLU's extensively detailed fact sheets—which were sent to Congress and the press as the bill was being steamrollered through—along with the analyses by the Center for Democracy and Technology in Washington. Also included are interviews with staff members of both organizations and workers at other civil liberties bunkers. To begin with, because of the limited technology in his time, George Orwell could not have conceived of how pervasively we are now going to be surveilled. I have differed with the ACLU on some issues, but the work by its persistent Washington staff was extraordinarily comprehensive. Congress, however, was panicked; and the press, by and large, works hard to understand anthrax—but not the Constitution. I saw hardly any mention, by the way, of the fact that Congress was in such a rush to yield to most of John Ashcroft's demands that although there were some differences between the House and Senate bills, the time-honored practice of holding a conference between the two bodies to resolve the disagreements was abandoned. Instead, behind closed doors, the leaders worked out a "preconference" arrangement. Therefore, when this law is challenged in the courts—by the ACLU and others—the judges, without a formal conference report in front of them, will not have a clear understanding of the legislative intent of this law. Maybe that's what our leaders wanted. To begin with, because of the limited technology in his time, George Orwell could not have conceived of how pervasively we are now going to be surveilled. St. Petersburg Times syndicated columnist Robyn Blumner has noted that we are already changing from being citizens to being dossiers. But you ain't seen nothing yet. The USA PATRIOT Act has markedly loosened the standards for government electronic surveillance—of our computers, e-mail, Internet searches, and telephones. This means all kinds of telephones, including, for example, not only the pay phones that the suspect may be using, but any pay phones in the area of his or her travels. This vast expansion of eavesdropping is due to the law's extension of roving wiretaps, and to the one-stop national warrant that will cover a suspect anywhere he or she goes. That wouldn't have surprised Orwell. This peripatetic surveillance applies not only to terrorist investigations, but under some provisions of the law, to routine criminal investigations. As the ACLU emphasizes, this law "limits judicial oversight of electronic surveillance by: (i) subjecting private Internet communications to a minimal standard of [judicial] review; (ii) permitting law enforcement to obtain what would be the equivalent of a 'blank warrant' in the physical world; (iii) authorizing scattershot intelligence wiretap orders that need not specify the place to be searched or require that only the target's conversations be eavesdropped on; and (iv) allowing the FBI to use its 'intelligence' authority to circumvent the judicial review of the probable cause requirement of the Fourth Amendment." (Probable cause means demonstrating that a crime has occurred, is occurring, or will occur.) So say goodbye to the Fourth Amendment: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, household papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, will not be violated; and no warrants will issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the person or things to be seized." Keep in mind that the new law's definition of "domestic terrorism" is so broad, as we shall see in future columns, that entirely innocent people can be swept into this surveillance dragnet. You are not immune. As law professor and privacy expert Jeffrey Rosen points out in the October 15 New Republic, "If [unbeknownst to you] your colleague is a target of [the already in-place] Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Investigation [with its very low privacy standards], the government could tap all your [own] communications on a shared phone, work computer, or public library terminal." Furthermore, all this vast "intelligence" data can now be shared with the CIA, which is again allowed—despite its charter forbidding it to engage in internal security functions—to spy again on Americans in this country, and without a court order. People of a certain age may remember when the CIA did spy here on law-abiding dissenters, mostly on the left, in total contempt of the Constitution. Next week: The breaking in of your doors when you're not there for FBI secret searches ("black bag jobs") under the authority of the USA PATRIOT Act. Related Stories: "Military Justice Is to Justice as Military Music Is to Music" by Alan Dershowitz "No to Military Tribunals: They Are Not Fair" by Norman Siegel "Abandoning the Constitution to Military Tribunals" by Nat Hentoff "Technology and Its Discontents: Cyber-libertarians, Technologists, and Congress Wrangle Over Electronic Privacy Issues During Wartime" by Brendan I. Koerner |
If you have a specific definition of what comprises a military case, feel free to post it and use it.
You seem to have an issue with military cases being handled by military tribunals such as courts-martial or Nuremburg-style trials. For some reason you think that I am wrong to hold that such military cases fall underneath the jurisdiction of the Executive Branch, and in some bizarre twist of logic, you even manage to claim that the Judicial Branch should have authority over such military matters.
I find those particular positions of yours to be unsupportable, and certainly you've provided NOTHING of substance to support such positions.
In contrast, I've provided the specific clause in the U.S. Constitution which assigns the commander-in-chief power over our military to the Executive Branch. Further, I've cited historical examples such as the trials by military tribunal of NAZI sabotuers on the American coast during WW2, citizen and non-citizen trials of those in Hawaii who collaborated with the Japanese prior to Pearl Harbor, as well as the trial and reprimand by the commander-in-chief of Benedict Arnold by our Founding Fathers.
And the best that you can manage is to opine that I'm just wrong?! Oh please. Next you'll be listing excuses for why you need to flee this debate...
I said that Article II, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution gives the President authority over our military, yet you say that I'm wrong.
I said that our Executive Branch, via our President/VP, has authority over such military matters as military trials by various flavors of military tribunals such as Nuremburg-style cases as well as courts-martial, yet you claim that "everything" I say is wrong.
I said that Benedict Arnold received a military courts-martial trial along with a reprimand from our commander-in-chief, yet you claim that what I say is wrong.
Frankly, your track record is so abismal that one must wonder just where you derive any credibility to make such wild-eyed claims.
What I have said above is verifiable, not wrong. The same can't be said for your own conspiratorial rants...
Once you get past cases of people in actual military service, and in war zones like Afghanistan, there is no definition, which is why your claims that some class of cases you haven't and probably can't define belong to the executive are baseless.
For some reason you think that I am wrong to hold that such military cases fall underneath the jurisdiction of the Executive Branch, and in some bizarre twist of logic, you even manage to claim that the Judicial Branch should have authority over such military matters.
You can't even say what the military cases are.
Sure I can, but it's a poor debating tactic for you to ask me to phrase the definition for those military cases since it is you who:
1. has a problem with my use of the term "military cases" and
2. left his argument to depend upon how the term "military cases" is defined.
Nevertheless, when someone throws me a softball, it's still my option to knock it out of the park (regardless of how much pity I feel for the pitcher).
So I'll say that "military cases" can be any or all of the group of cases steming from deliberate, premeditated, violations of American sovereignty, the security of American lives en masse, and/or American territory or assets (hey, you asked).
Now, you might feel that my definition is flawed, but it's not like you had the acumen to post your own definition and insist upon its use, so go blame yourself if you don't like my version.
And I'll give you another hint, no matter how you define "military cases", you aren't going to be able to phrase it to encompass existing historical uses of American military tribunals - without contradicting your ridiculous anti-Constitutional, chicken-little, sky-is-falling-on-the-Bill-of-Rights nonsense that you've been posting as if you actually had a clue about what was going and what legal precedents were in play (outside Alan Dershowitcz's office, anyway).
And your comments that I should just understand that I'm wrong: priceless. I'll bookmark them so that I can show them to you when you grow up one day (one hopes).
You failed to quote anything from me in that post (#159). You also failed to qualify your broad-based remarks. That you made yourself appear silly by making easily refutable comments is your burden, not mine.
FReegards, amigo!
I and Websters define "power" as 2. the possession of control or command over others; authority; ascendency.
So what powers do the government have over it's citizens that it did not prior to the passage of the "Patriot Act?"
Among the worst seven provisions of the bill are the following.
1. The FBI can secretly enter someone's home or office, search the premises, and leave without notifying the owner. In theory, this would be supervised by a court. However, the notification of the secret search "may be delayed" indefinitely (Section 213). This is, of course, a complete violation of the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits "fishing expeditions" and guarantees the right of the people to be "secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures." All the federal government must do to suspend your Fourth Amendment rights is accuse you of terrorism.
2. Any U.S. attorney or state attorney general can order the installation of the FBI's Carnivore surveillance system. As reported before, this system records all e-mail correspondence and the addresses of Web pages visited by a specific target. Previously, there were legal restrictions on Carnivore and other Internet surveillance techniques (Section 216). Even more troubling, Fox News has reported that the FBI plans to go beyond the authorization of the new bill and change the very architecture of the Internet. The FBI wants to route all net traffic through central servers for monitoring. While this will require the voluntary compliance of the major ISPs, most experts agree that they will quickly cave into these demands for fear of appearing uncooperative or unpatriotic.
3. An accused terrorist who is a foreign citizen can be held for an unspecified series of "periods of up to six months" with the attorney general's approval. He doesn't have to be charged and he may be denied access to an attorney (Section 412). In effect, this provision suspends any due process provisions of the Constitution, especially the Fifth Amendment which states that "no person … [shall] be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law." While the provision of this bill only applies to foreigners, it sets a dangerous precedent and could easily be used in the future against U.S. citizens accused of domestic terrorism.
4. Foreigners who enter the U.S. on a visa will be subjected to biometric technology, such as fingerprint readers or iris scanners. This will become part of an "integrated entry and exit data system" (Section 414). My fear is that eventually all Americans will be forced to submit to this technology. This bill will put the infrastructure in place. In will then be a simple step to require all citizens to participate in this system. Failure to do so may result in the inability to travel or even to buy and sell merchandise or property.
5. Without a court order, the FBI can require telephone companies and Internet service providers to turn over customer records. All they have to do is claim that the "records sought are relevant to an authorized investigation to protect against international terrorism." Worse, the company contacted may not "disclose to any person" that the FBI is doing an investigation (Section 505). The bill of rights was written to protect citizens from exactly this kind of abuse. This provision of the new law completely throws out the presumption of innocence doctrine that is central to our system of justice. Now anyone can be treated as a criminal if they are merely accused of a crime.
6. Without a court order, credit reporting agencies must disclose to the FBI any information that agents request in connection with a terrorist investigation. The agencies may not disclose to the subject that the FBI is snooping in their file (Section 505). Again, there is no presumption of innocence and the suspect is denied his due process rights. This gives government agents the authority to spy on anyone's financial activities. All they have to do is make the accusation of terrorism and the door swings wide open.
7. The current definition of terrorism is expanded to include biochemical attacks and computer hacking. Some current computer crimes — such as hacking a U.S. government system or breaking into and damaging any Internet-connected computer — are also covered (Section 808). While these are no doubt crimes and should be prosecuted, by classifying them as "terrorist activities," suspects are subject to having their rights radically curtailed, as I have outlined above. If convicted, they are subjected to extremely stiff penalties. Prison terms range between five and 20 years (Section 814.
Southack, this country was great at one time because it's people stood up for principal. Our principals were written into the Bill of Rights and the U.S. Constitution. Principles do count. If we destroy the principles by which we live through cowardice, expediency, fear, or any other reason, we will destroy the basis of our existence. But long before that happens, what we know as freedom...will no longer exist.
You're the one who was using the term, so you're the one who has to define it. You're right I have a problem with you definition, chief of which, it isn't in the Constitution. This is a good thing, however, because your definition would add confusion. More below.
So I'll say that "military cases" can be any or all of the group of cases steming from deliberate, premeditated, violations of American sovereignty, the security of American lives en masse, and/or American territory or assets (hey, you asked).
Violations of American sovereignty? What does that mean? I assume you have in mind the sovereignty of the American government (it doesn't have any, just a few delegated powers, but that's another topic). Well, if the government in all its sovereign majesty declares that I may not spray paint on the walls of a building I don't own (a perfectly reasonable law), and I decide to flip the bird to the law and do so anyway, am I not violating American sovereignty? Should I then be in a military tribunal? You'll object that they wouldn't try to put me there, but that's the result of moderation on the part of the authorities, not your principle. And what is a mass of American lives? At what point does your everyday serial killer become a terrorist? And what, pray tell, do you have in mind by American territory or assets?
Actually, your answers don't matter. Not only is your definition not in the Constitution, it's not being used by Bush. It has absolutely nothing to do with the real world.
And I'll give you another hint, no matter how you define "military cases", you aren't going to be able to phrase it to encompass existing historical uses of American military tribunals
And however you define free speech, it won't encompass laws signed by John Adams. So much the worse for Adams.
What was that common law principle again?
I have a picture in my mind of a very young, immature, arrogant child making that level of comment. The type of child who hasn't learned the mature art of admitting when he's mistaken, as you are when you claim that everything I say is wrong and that my answers don't matter.
The truth appears to be that no matter how many times you are factually and logically refuted, you simply aren't going to have the integrity to admit that you've ever been wrong.
Definitions don't have to be in the Constitution, child. When you have a problem with a word or phrase, it is incumbent upon you to suggest a more agreeable term or useage.
Running around wild-eyed claiming that what your opponent says doesn't matter and that everything that your opponent says is wrong merely amounts to a glaring exhibition of immaturity and an open admission that you have been soundly defeated in the realm of ideas and debate, which you have.
You've made BIZARRE claims on this thread, such as that military tribunals are not granted the authority to try military cases. The plain truth is that our Executive Branch is empowered by Article II, Section 2 of our Constitution over military affairs. Military affairs can, will, and have encompassed numerous forms of military tribunals such as courts-martial and Nuremburg-style trials. Both Americans and foreign warriors (many out of uniform when they commited their trespasses) have been tried in these military tribunals.
You've even advocated VIOLATING our Constitution by shifting military cases into Judicial Branch civilian courts (to be more "fair" to the terrorists, one presumes).
You are no debator. At best you are an agitator with an agenda. You clearly can't comprehend logic or historical facts which soundly refute your preconceived notions, and you've displayed no ability to grasp or accept any point made by anyone who wastes their precious time pointing out such facts and logic to you.
You would never survive in the intellectual realm of backwoods Alabama, so I suggest that you remain in whatever tiny, close-minded swamp that you've managed to slither into. You would simply be swallowed alive in any more competitive environment.
Carnivore works by watching the traffic on the open internet backbone between the major internet gateways (to which ISPs in turn provide local dial-up, cable, or DSL access). This internet backbone was originally formed with the use of taxpayer (read: public) funds via a large DARPANET project in the 1960's. Companies who engage with such backbone endeavors have all voluntarily signed contracts which permit the viewing of data traffic and generally declare such data to be public domain.
Thus, Carnivore no more infringes or "grabs" American rights than do police officers who watch automobile traffic on a freeway.
The IRS has been getting such information from banks and credit agencies for decades, thus the Patriot Act "grabs" no new power.
How specificly does your argument against military tribunals hinge upon that, or is this merely another of your many distractions and digressions?
Clearly such measures do not infringe upon U.S. citizens, as you claimed of the Patriot Act.
And yet, contrary to your claim about the Patriot Act, expanding that definition does NOT infringe upon the right of U.S. citizens.
I'll go one better: prior to the Patriot Act, foreign citizens could be summarily shot on sight by U.S. soldiers for violating orders in any war zone or taking up arms against said soldiers or American civilians. That's called "war".
Holding foreign citizens does not violate the rights of U.S. citizens, and the Patriot Act certainly didn't "grab" this right from U.S. citizens as was erroneously claimed in this thread (above).
Using unconstitutional measures to expand already unconstitutional law is a weak defense of this provision, on your part.(I doubt the government will limit it inquiry to what your credit rating is. Access to more than that used to require a court order.)
Read THIS. to answer your response to #6.
A weak attempt to justify #'s 2 and 6.
I'm interested in seeing your justification and defense of #1, and the other 5 unconstitutional power grabs by the Federal government.
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