[BellStar]

This is another in a series of Seditionist have rights too?

The left bleeds rivers of blood for Esam hamdi who
like me, was born in a country not of his heritage but
one of the place his parents happened to be.

I was born in Japan where my father an Army Lieutenant
was stationed along with his Army bride from Texas and
son my brother. I was moved back to Texas while I was still a toddler.
I am an American! Japan recognizes me as a Japanese citizen also!
Would I take up arms against Japan in the event it attacked the US?
You bet I would! Esam hamdi is about as much an American as I'm Japanese!
Ashcroft scheme is a Solomon like decision made with all the facts which were
conveniently left out of Turley's Op Ed !

[Allegra]

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

Pretty much says it all.

My youngest sister was also born overseas as a military brat. She would never side with Italy if it should come to that. :)

[RJCogburn]

Ashcroft remains a sanctimonious fraud and a dangerous man.

[BellStar]

This little fact was not in his article, Esam hamdi left the US when he was two.

[ECM]

Speaking of dual-citizens: I'm a citizen of the USA and Ireland (via my mother being born there) but my loyalty lay in one place.

On a related note, this article was published on another message board I frequent and, not surprisingly, there it was treated as a NEWS story by the knee-jerk liberals. When confronted, ratinoally, about the fact that it was an EDITORIAL they, of course, resorted to calling me a Nazi for taking a side opposite the one expressed in this hit piece...that makes my racist/Nazi count up somewhere around 17 on the various boards I post to...sad.

[Whilom]

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

And also a Leftist stooge determined to prevent America from defending itself from terrorists.

[El Sordo]

Will you say the same when President H Rodham starts interning gun owners, tax protesters and members of the pro-life movement?

Whatever powers this new Imperial administration decides to grant itself will carry over to the next administration. Someday, the Democrats will be back in the Whitehouse and you better be ready for how they'll use the power.

Imagine if X42 had this ability, what do you suspect he might have done with it?

[AaronAnderson]

As as symbol of democracy and liberty, we should not hold anyone, citizen or not, without due process. How can we claim that democracy is the greatest form of government when we show it in action by using taliban like tactics such as suspending all the rights of a person and arbitrarly holding them for as long as the government sees fit? If these clowns have done something wrong, then charge them and give them a fair trial. Show the world that despite horrible hardship and in difficult times, we still believe in the bill or rights and liberty. That is democracy, that is the law that ashcroft swore he would enforce, not change to his will.

[angkor]

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."

Presumably Turley put "time of war" in quotes because that's what DoJ argued.

If so, they are wrong.

There is no state of war, there has been no Congressional declaration of war, and the United States is not formally at war with anyone.

Congress can legally declare war against "al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbolla, Lakshar-al-Jihad, Islamic Jihad, Osama bin Laden, and its members" as easily as it did against Japan. Why Congress has not done this is a mystery.

[ctdonath2]

Question is how to draw the line dividing un-uniformed enemy combatants from citizens?

[Stavka2]

You look at the trees and miss the forest. Guess who else used similar arguements? Hitler against the Jews, questioning their loyalty to Germany as a whole and using the people's fear of the Bolshaviks to garner greater power. Face facts, the big US problem here is that unlike most countries it does not have a history of a brutal dictatorship and thus does not recognize the symptoms of one coming on. To bad for your kids, they just might get to experience one.

[Raymond Hendrix]

After all is said and done I must say that we are heading down a path that is not good. It can be great fun picking on the liberals but we should clean up our own house first. I wish that those who are all for this new era of security and safety would answer these questions:

1. When is this war going to end?

2. When will our liberties return?

3. Who decides when we get them back or when the war ends?

4. When Germany rose to power under Hitler some did not complain because they were not "Jews" "unionists" etc. Then they were taken to the camps. What prevents YOU from being charged and held without trial and without access to an attorney?

5. Who decides who and who does not deserve the rights guaranteed in the Bill of Rights? And who will decide when Bush and Ashcroft are out of office?

6. What precedent are we setting and how can we argue against it when someone else is in power that we do not trust?

[MissAmericanPie]

I can understand, and agree with, detaining a citizen and stripping him of his rights IF he is found armed on a battle field fighting for the enemy. It is another matter to just jerk Americans off the street, strip them of their citizenship protections and holding them forever.

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.

[hgro]

Darn! I was hoping the camps were for lawyers.

[pepsi_junkie]

I have grave reservations about Ashcroft's prosecution of his portion of the war on terrorism. He has thrown US citizens in jail indefintely with no formal charges brought, no trial held, no indication of what the evidence is. All we know is Ashcroft swears to us he's a bad guy who was about to do something bad. Well for my nickel that's not good enough. I do not want a homegrown gestapo forming in America, and when we dispense with all due process the way is clear for one to emerge. Like it or not, Ashcroft has to adhere to the rule of law as articulated in the constitution, and that stands firmly against the concept of what he's done to Padilla (IMHO) and certainly against the establishment of camps for others.

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?

[lepton]

Both Hamdi and Lindh were captured in Afghanistan as foot soldiers in Taliban units

This sets him aside from criminal U.S. citizens - those accused for which the trials and proccesses were written for.

[Byron_the_Aussie]

..I was born in Japan where my father an Army Lieutenant was stationed along with his Army bride from Texas and son my brother. I was moved back to Texas while I was still a toddler. I am an American! Japan recognizes me as a Japanese citizen also!...

Thank your lucky stars Bin Laden isn't Japanese. If he was, you'd be on one of Ashcroft's surveillance lists by now.

[Action-America]

After filtering out the Houston Comical's liberal spin, this article makes a great point.  It just proves that even a blind pig will find an ear of corn once in a while.

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).

 

[bok]

You are the exception. Esam and others shouldn't just be granted automatic citizenship when his parents are clearly foreign nationls. The law is broken and needs to be fixed in regard to citizenship.

[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!!!!!

[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?