Have you read the Constitution? One wears a tinfoil hat for believing 1) Ashcroft will not hold his office for life, and 2) any policies he instigates will not be rescinded when he leaves that office?
Posted on 08/18/2002 12:31:24 PM PDT by 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.
Have you read the Constitution? One wears a tinfoil hat for believing 1) Ashcroft will not hold his office for life, and 2) any policies he instigates will not be rescinded when he leaves that office?
If there is a charge against them, with evidence to back it up, press charges and let the legal system deal with it. Maybe even pass a law that they can't get bail period until they have their day in court. But a day in court they are entitled to.
If they are so terribly worried about the kind of people they have allowed into the country, and granted citizenship to, then stop importing more of the same. No one in America will hold still for government endangering all our rights in the name of holding those that are dangerous against all our constitutional laws. They made this mess, now let them work within our system to clean it up.
Padilla, on the other hand, is a convicted murderer. A drug-dealer and a gang member. Screw him.
The Ashcroft justice department is claiming that they get to decide who is an enemy combatant and the courts have no juristiction. Put this tool in the hands of Janet Reno and what do you have? The tin foil crowd would be right. Militia members would be put in camps.
So simple, so clear, so obvious. Why don't some people get it?
me smells alot of nastiness here, said JarJar Binks.
Get the DU out.
That said, one question. The article is premised on the idea that Ashcroft has a plan in the works to create concentration camps "as revealed last month". Excuse me, I dont recall any such revelation. Perhaps I'm missing something. Either I missed a big story (could happen, I readily admit) or this article is constructed around a faulty premise and represents a transparent attempt to smear Ashcroft as a nazi using a lie as evidence. Which is it?
You/I/we only know what the media and gov tells us about this character. Perhaps they have more on him than we know. Perhaps as more of his "buddies" are rounded up, they will gather more intel that can be released to the public. Time will tell. In the mean time? My $ is on Ashcroft.
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