A clear and present danger: Ashcroft scheme simply chilling

HoustonChronicle.com ^ | Aug. 16, 2002, 7:49PM | Turley is a professor of constitutional law at George Washington University, in Washington, D.C.

[BellStar]

ATTORNEY General John Ashcroft's announced desire for camps for U.S. citizens he deems to be "enemy
combatants" has moved him from merely being a political embarrassment to being a constitutional menace.

Ashcroft's plan, disclosed earlier this month but
little publicized, would allow him to order the
indefinite incarceration of U.S. citizens and summarily
strip them of their constitutional rights and access
to the courts by declaring them enemy combatants.

The proposed camp plan should trigger immediate
congressional hearings and reconsideration of
Ashcroft's fitness for this important office. Whereas
al-Qaida is a threat to the lives of our citizens,
Ashcroft has become a clear and present threat to our liberties.

The camp plan was forged at an optimistic time for
Ashcroft's small inner circle, which has been carefully
watching two test cases to see whether this vision
could become a reality. The cases of Jose Padilla and
Yaser Esam Hamdi will determine whether U.S. citizens
can be held without charges and subject to the
arbitrary and unchecked authority of the government.

Hamdi has been held without charge even though the
facts of his case are virtually identical to those in
the case of John Walker Lindh. Both Hamdi and Lindh
were captured in Afghanistan as foot soldiers in
Taliban units. Yet Lindh was given a lawyer and a
trial, while Hamdi rots in a floating Navy brig in
Norfolk, Va.

Last week, the government refused to comply with a
federal judge who ordered that he be given the
underlying evidence justifying Hamdi's treatment. The
Justice Department has insisted that the judge must
simply accept its declaration and cannot interfere with
the president's absolute authority in "a time of war."

In Padilla's case, Ashcroft initially claimed that the
arrest stopped a plan to detonate a radioactive bomb in
New York or Washington, D.C. The administration later
issued an embarrassing correction that there was no
evidence Padilla was on such a mission. What is clear
is that Padilla is an American citizen and was
arrested in the United States -- two facts that should
trigger the full application of constitutional rights.

Ashcroft hopes to use his self-made "enemy combatant"
stamp for any citizen whom he deems to be part of a
wider terrorist conspiracy.

Perhaps because of his discredited claims of preventing
radiological terrorism, aides have indicated that
a "high-level committee" will recommend which citizens
are to be stripped of their constitutional rights and
sent to Ashcroft's new camps.

Few would have imagined any attorney general seeking to
re-establish such camps for citizens. Of course,
Ashcroft is not considering camps on the order of the
internment camps used to incarcerate Japanese American
citizens in World War II. But he can be credited only
with thinking smaller; we have learned from painful
experience that unchecked authority, once tasted,
easily becomes insatiable.

We are only now getting a full vision of Ashcroft's
America. Some of his predecessors dreamed of creating a
great society or a nation unfettered by racism.
Ashcroft seems to dream of a country secured from
itself, neatly contained and controlled by his
judgment of loyalty.

For more than 200 years, security and liberty have been
viewed as coexistent values. Ashcroft and his aides
appear to view this relationship as lineal, where
security must precede liberty.

Since the nation will never be entirely safe from
terrorism, liberty has become a mere rhetorical
justification for increased security.

Ashcroft is a catalyst for constitutional devolution,
encouraging citizens to accept autocratic rule as their
only way of avoiding massive terrorist attacks.

His greatest problem has been preserving a level of
panic and fear that would induce a free people to
surrender the rights so dearly won by their ancestors.

In A Man for All Seasons, Sir Thomas More was
confronted by a young lawyer, Will Roper, who sought
his daughter's hand. Roper proclaimed that he would cut
down every law in England to get after the devil.

More's response seems almost tailored for
Ashcroft: "And when the last law was down and the devil
turned round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the
laws all being flat? This country's planted thick with
laws from coast to coast and if you cut them down --
and you are just the man to do it -- do you really
think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then?"

Every generation has had Ropers and Ashcrofts who view
our laws and traditions as mere obstructions rather
than protections in times of peril. But before we allow
Ashcroft to denude our own constitutional landscape, we

must take a stand and have the courage to say, "Enough."

Every generation has its test of principle in which
people of good faith can no longer remain silent in the
face of authoritarian ambition. If we cannot join
together to fight the abomination of American camps, we
have already lost what we are defending.

Turley is a professor of constitutional law at
George Washington University, in Washington, D.C.

[Jorge]

Ashcroft remains a sanctimonious fraud and a dangerous man.

We heard the same sort of crap about Reagan. It was in fact this sort of fearmongering by the left that convinced me to leave the Democrat party and register Republican.
Go Ashcroft!

[Recovering_Democrat]

Post 52: the current AG is bending over backwards to not take the steps Abraham Lincoln...took

Post 61: Lincoln's key measure was the suspension of habeas corpus in September 1862. ... How is that any different than Ashcroft's desire to arrest and indefinitely detain suspected "terrorists"?

j271, you've got a good debating point here. Unfortunately, the ellipse in that debating point erases some important information, to wit: "and FDR". The exclusion of that conjuction isn't an accurate representation of my argument.

Having said that, I'm sorry for not being as clear as I should've been. But we can clear this up. Ashcroft, it has been demonstrated, has gone after non-citizens, whereas Abraham Lincoln went after those who'd renounced their citizenship--but old Abe didn't accept that renunciation. So there is a difference.

rd

[TJFLSTRAT]

More tears from the left for our enemies, more silly notions that the democrats, with said powers, will be a greater threat than the Islamic nutjobs here in this country {nation of Islam for instance}devoted to our extermination. BUILD THE CAMPS, BUILD THEM NOW!!!!!

[j271]

Fair enough. Please consider the Lincoln/Ashcroft matter dropped in this thread. Thanks for your polite and civil remarks.

[donozark]

How many Aussies are on this "list?" Any names? There were Australian citizens killed at WTC on Sept.11. I think Bush and Ashcroft are trying to enlist the help of others in this fight. I am aware of the Muslim "rape gangs" running rampant in Aus. although I doubt if many here are. Aus. has it's own set of problems with these people. They, as a nation have also been warned by Iraq and others not to help the US. It's getting down to brass tacks.

Regret we seem FAR apart on this issue, but I am with Ashcroft on it. In times like this, we need men like him.

[William Terrell]

They have due proccess - not that of a civilian criminal, but that of one carrying out acts of war against the U.S.. . .

Unfortunately, there is one distinguishing feature of the WWII case. "During WWII, a group of 8 Germans were dropped of in the U.S. to carry out espionage activities - except one of these Germans was actually a U.S. citizen."

The evidence was conclusive; the citizen was caught in the act in a declared war being an enemy spy. No such evidence has been presented for the citizens held now. If there is evidence, why hasn't it been presented? "Security concerns"? Then why not in camera?

This is a test of that precedent in this case. Is is by no means settled that it applies. The whole issue of holding citizens without civilian due process, when there is no conclusive proof of belligerence, as an exploration of the minimum necessary requirements to do so ought to disturb you.

[Byron_the_Aussie]

..again we have an accusation without evidence. None. Just a personal attack upon the men responsible for our military and law enforcement actions to keep us from having another 9/11....

The evidence is all around you, mate. There has been a procession of fearmongering stories planted in the media in order to justify further encroachments on your liberties and an expansion of the various bureaucracies responsible. None bigger, I might add, than the current one; that puny Iraq, and its tinpot dictator, somehow represents a threat to the awesome might of the USA. The only way I can understand the craziness currently happening in some stratas of stateside society is that perhaps those involved are as gullible as this president. He gets told some wacky doomsday scenario in morning cabinet, by someone who has a very clear personal advantage in advancing such an agenda- say, the CIA director. The president in turn disseminates that, to a public made so paranoid by the constant fearmongering that there's nothing most of them wouldn't believe. To accept this hypothesis you must assume that President Bush is not too bright, not really aware of how important chaos theory is to international politics, and easily led by his intellectual superiors.

Are those assumptions really so huge a leap of faith?

[TankGurrrl]

A precedent for holding an American citizen, no matter how odious a citizen, without due process.

Let me put it in the simplests terms possible.

If there is no hole, you can't be put in the hole. You seek out the nastiest, most reprehensible, most violent, ugliest, smelliest citizen possible and say, "This person needs to be put in a hole". You dig one and put him there.

Now, you have a hole, and you can be put in the hole.

Boy, you said a mouthful there. That's exactly how liberties erode... bit by bit. And they always start with people that it's "good" to treat badly. But power doesn't stop like that. And just like income tax, if they make little steps on these issues during this administration, they won't "turn them all off" when they leave.

Is anyone here really silly enough to believe that we're going to just WIN this "war on terror?" This is equivalent to the cold war that went on for years. And it's even more like fighting in Vietnam... guerillas everywhere and our bombs really aren't going to be that big a help.

This country is a republic... if we can keep it. And we're well on our way to giving it away. It's not like WWII was in America... It will end up more like WWII in Germany... with our own little nazis called by different names. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Those who are willing to sacrifice essential liberties for a little order, will lose both and deserve neither. -- Benjamin Franklin

Sadly, the fight this country had to get those liberties again will be wiped out by people who believe the government can actually protect them from "such as this." It's beyond that already people. We live in a new and ugly world... Big brother can't save you now. Sad but true. Don't "give it away" this easily... if you do, the terrorists win. Pure and simple.

[jwalsh07]

Don't "give it away" this easily... if you do, the terrorists win

Yeah you're right. lets set all the terrorists free , a la Clintons pardons, that will assure liberty for all Americans.

[William Terrell]

Yeah you're right. lets set all the terrorists free , a la Clintons pardons, that will assure liberty for all Americans.

The men in question haven't been charged, convicted and sentenced, so no pardon is possible. The skin of Constitutional protections is thin and easily broken, and, once broken is more easily rebroken, until it's fragile and no protection at all.

The point the poster makes are valid. If the terrorists hate our liberty then its removal will be their victory.

[j271]

Some really good civil discussion going on here.

Here's a proposition and some questions that everyone should feel free to weigh in on.

In the Ashcroft justice system, suspected terrorists are deemed "unlawful combatants" and can be tried, sentenced and convicted outside of the civil court system.

This raises the following questions:

1. Who designates someone as a suspected terrorist? The arresting officer, a district attorney or someone else?
2. What specific criteria will be used to establish this designation?
3. Is there an appeal of one's status as a suspected terrorist? To whom?
4. What is to prevent Ashcroft's successor from abusing this power?

[Stavka2]

Really? So if there is a reason he wants you locked up, then to hell with the US Constitution too? MURDER shmerder, he served his time, you can't lock some one right back up like that....it's called double jeapardy.

Why is it that foreigners can see the worst coming but Americans themselves are so naive and ready to throw away all their protections and embrace totalitarianism?

If you want him on drug charges, then bring Padilla up, areane him and try him...there is a system already worked out...or did you forget about it in your authoritarian flush.

[Stavka2]

Actually, war was declared quite a few times more. Even in dealing with the Barbary Pirates, war was declared. Only in some of the Indian actions was war not declared. War was declared in both Mexican Wars. A better statement would have been, since WW2, Congress has declared war only once: Gulf 1.

[Stavka2]

Padilla, on the other hand, is a convicted murderer. A drug-dealer and a gang member.

Yes he is and what make the US constitution great is that it gives equal protection to Saints and Sinners. By the way, ever heard of double jeapardy? Guess not.

[nopardons]

Most probably, because foreigners don't know what they're talking about. A good case in point, is in you claiming that war was declared against the Barabary Pirates; which it was NOT, by Congress. As to " naive ", some Americans are; some aren't. It's the same the world over. LOL

[Stavka2]

Except that in both cases there was a DECLARED WAR and that there was an obvious enemy with the obvious point that once the enemy was defeated, there would be a return to normality....who is the DECLARED enemy in this NON DECLARED war? What is the threshold for this to end?

[ALASKA]

Where as al-Qaida is a threat to the lives of our citizens, Ashcroft has become a clear and present threat to our liberties.

Ascroft's planning is being done in an effort to fight terrorism and protect the lives of US citizens. Without our lives, what good are our liberties?

[Texasforever]

What will constitute cessation of hostilities in the War On Terror?

When we make it plain to those nations that either turn a blind eye to the terrorist cells in their country or actively support them that they have more to fear from us than their Mullahs. That means that one; by one we topple those regimes until the rest get the message. We will NOT kill all the terrorists but we CAN insure that GOVERNMENTS are not aiding them.

[Byron_the_Aussie]

..I think Bush and Ashcroft are trying to enlist the help of others in this fight. I am aware of the Muslim "rape gangs" running rampant in Aus. although I doubt if many here are. Aus. has it's own set of problems with these people...

Donozark, I can't believe what I'm hearing from such a usually cool head. What 'fight'? The terrorists who carried out the attacks are dead. The country they came from is rubble. There's been no more terrorist attacks. There's no connection between Saddam and 911. Iraq is militarily puny. These are facts, yet you and so many Americans seem to be in a state of hysteria and paranoia over nothing. Damn this president, who has milked that factor for every poll point he can get. If only he had the character to do what should be done, this September 11- to bring closure to the country over this, say the grieving is over, and stop the sabre rattling in Iraq's direction. Get the country back doing what it does best, making money. In the long run America's extraordinary talent in that direction can defeat any enemy; by example.