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.
How is that any different than Ashcroft's desire to arrest and indefinitely detain suspected "terrorists"? It's a de facto suspension of habeas corpus, is it not?
Ditto!
Of course he isn't. This is knee jerk, jump on the band wagon.
I knew Ashcroft was no threat to my rights when he came out and said he believed the Second Amendment meant just what it said. People have the right to keep and bear arms and it has nothing to to with the national guard as those who truly want to take our rights to own a gun away from us, keep saying. Of course some people have short term memory.
Anyone who thinks there won't be more terrorist attacks are living in la la land. They will try again and those who will carry out a terrorist threat are not going to come to the USA. They are already here.
This sets him aside from criminal U.S. citizens - those accused for which the trials and proccesses were written for.
I would like to find out what Padilla's connection was to Oklahoma City. That question came up and then was swept under the rug or maybe the Justice Dept hasn't swept it under the rug.
I still think he looks a lot like John Doe.
In the context of the articles, what powers did Ashcroft establish? That Lindh, captured by military action in a foreign country while bearing arms, was given any semblence of a civil trial is extraordinary.
Ditto the rationing in WW2.
Those spreading panic about "Civil Rights" in the current war situation, I'm glad they weren't around in the 40s in any significant number: we all might be marching to the Third Reich if they were successful.
THAT is one of the few valid criticisms I see levelled here.
Thank your lucky stars Bin Laden isn't Japanese. If he was, you'd be on one of Ashcroft's surveillance lists by now.
He may not be a threat. But those who come after GWB MAY be a major threat.
Better to protest now than to submit to the camps later.
Let's not forget what our grandparents learned in WW2.
FReegards
Yes.
Does that make what he's doing more, or less, despicable?
Ashcroft is even a surprise to me. I knew that Dubya was going to be a serious threat to the Constitution, but I had thought that Ashcroft would temper Dubya's treacherous ambitions. Instead, we now find that Ashcroft is just as dangerous as Dubya. Unfortunately, we have to wait two more years to get rid of Dubya (and Ashcroft). On the other hand, it gives conservatives and Constitutionalists two years to groom a replacement for Dubya (and his flunkies).
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