Posted on 09/04/2002 12:22:02 PM PDT by dead
Jonathan Turley is a professor of constitutional and public-interest law at George Washington University Law School in D.C. He is also a defense attorney in national security cases and other matters, writes for a number of publications, and is often on television. He and I occasionally exchange leads on civil liberties stories, but I learn much more from him than he does from me.
For example, a Jonathan Turley column in the national edition of the August 14 Los Angeles Times ("Camps for Citizens: Ashcroft's Hellish Vision") begins:
"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." Actually, ever since General Ashcroft pushed the U.S. Patriot Act through an overwhelmingly supine Congress soon after September 11, he has subverted more elements of the Bill of Rights than any attorney general in American history.
Under the Justice Department's new definition of "enemy combatant"which won the enthusiastic approval of the president and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeldanyone defined as an "enemy combatant," very much including American citizens, can be held indefinitely by the government, without charges, a hearing, or a lawyer. In short, incommunicado.
Two American citizensYaser Esam Hamdi and Jose Padillaare currently locked up in military brigs as "enemy combatants." (Hamdi is in solitary in a windowless room.) As Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Tribe said on ABC's Nightline (August 12):
"It bothers me that the executive branch is taking the amazing position that just on the president's say-so, any American citizen can be picked up, not just in Afghanistan, but at O'Hare Airport or on the streets of any city in this country, and locked up without access to a lawyer or court just because the government says he's connected somehow with the Taliban or Al Qaeda. That's not the American way. It's not the constitutional way. . . . And no court can even figure out whether we've got the wrong guy."
In Hamdi's case, the government claims it can hold him for interrogation in a floating navy brig off Norfolk, Virginia, as long as it needs to. When Federal District Judge Robert Doumar asked the man from the Justice Department how long Hamdi is going to be locked up without charges, the government lawyer said he couldn't answer that question. The Bush administration claims the judiciary has no right to even interfere.
Now more Americans are also going to be dispossessed of every fundamental legal right in our system of justice and put into camps. Jonathan Turley reports that Justice Department aides to General Ashcroft "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."
It should be noted that Turley, who tries hard to respect due process, even in unpalatable situations, publicly defended Ashcroft during the latter's turbulent nomination battle, which is more than I did.
Again, in his Los Angeles Times column, Turley tries to be fair: "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." (Emphasis added.)
Turley insists that "the proposed camp plan should trigger immediate Congressional hearings and reconsideration of Ashcroft's fitness for important office. Whereas Al Qaeda is a threat to the lives of our citizens, Ashcroft has become a clear and present threat to our liberties." (Emphasis added.)
On August 8, The Wall Street Journal, which much admires Ashcroft on its editorial pages, reported that "the Goose Creek, South Carolina, facility that houses [Jose] Padillamostly empty since it was designated in January to hold foreigners captured in the U.S. and facing military tribunalsnow has a special wing that could be used to jail about 20 U.S. citizens if the government were to deem them enemy combatants, a senior administration official said." The Justice Department has told Turley that it has not denied this story. And space can be found in military installations for more "enemy combatants."
But once the camps are operating, can General Ashcroft be restrained from detainingnot in these special camps, but in regular lockupsany American investigated under suspicion of domestic terrorism under the new, elastic FBI guidelines for criminal investigations? From page three of these Ashcroft terrorism FBI guidelines:
"The nature of the conduct engaged in by a [terrorist] enterprise will justify an inference that the standard [for opening a criminal justice investigation] is satisfied, even if there are no known statements by participants that advocate or indicate planning for violence or other prohibited acts." (Emphasis added.) That conduct can be simply "intimidating" the government, according to the USA Patriot Act.
The new Steven Spielberg-Tom Cruise movie, Minority Report, shows the government, some years hence, imprisoning "pre-criminals" before they engage in, or even think of, terrorism. That may not be just fiction, folks.
Returning to General Ashcroft's plans for American enemy combatants, an August 8 New York Times editorialwritten before those plans were revealedsaid: "The Bush administration seems to believe, on no good legal authority, that if it calls citizens combatants in the war on terrorism, it can imprison them indefinitely and deprive them of lawyers. This defiance of the courts repudiates two centuries of constitutional law and undermines the very freedoms that President Bush says he is defending in the struggle against terrorism."
Meanwhile, as the camps are being prepared, the braying Terry McAuliffe and the pack of Democratic presidential aspirants are campaigning on corporate crime, with no reference to the constitutional crimes being committed by Bush and Ashcroft. As Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis prophesied: "The greatest menace to freedom is an inert people." And an inert Democratic leadership. See you in a month, if I'm not an Ashcroft camper.
enough evidence stacked against them to
What evidence are you talking about? You've already agreed that the government does not need to show evidence. You are willing to take the government's word that they are "enemy combatants."
We who call for an airing of evidence and some formal charges, before incarcerating an American citizen for life, are "with the terrorists" apparently.
It's difficult to argue with somebody who changes their position constantly.
And the point remains that profiling people before you search their luggage is not IN ANY WAY comparable to locking them up forever without lawyers or evidence or even charges leveled against them.
Your attempt to equate the two is asinine in the extreme.
The Patriot Act and CFR are Constitutional abominations and diminish our freedoms. Bush and Ashcroft are behind those acts.
I'd place you in the camp (correct me if I'm wrong) that trusts the administration and its decisions simply because you don't think that the force of government can or will be used against you personally.
No matter how you shade it, taking freedoms from us doesn't make us more free or more secure.
Just remember that the American public was assured that military tribunals would NOT be used against American citizens. Didn't take long for that promise to be broken.
What is the next promise to be quickly broken?
When will it be that anyone who isn't 100% in support of Bush is "against us" and becomes labelled an enemy combatant or enemy sympathizer?
IMO, staunch Bush supporters are throwing grease on the slippery slope.
Thank you for clarifying that.
You are a little difficult to decipher at times.
Very good.
He was at least as corrupt as any of his fellow patricians, only more ruthless and lucky (his chosen cognomen was "Felix" because he knew how fortunate he'd been).
In our current leadership, Clinton was by far more in line with Sulla's personal behavior -- Billy-Jeff having all of Sulla's slime with none of his spine. It was Sulla who broke all the rules for ostensibly noble gain, who belied that intention when he retired to his countryside to wallow in his gains. That left the field open -- with a whole new path to power having been blazed and decadence been descended to -- for even more ruthless men to follow.
While Clinton was no Sulla, and neither is Bush, unless our society finds someway to ressurrect itself, reaffirmed with basic principles, our Sulla is coming and our form of government doomed. Think Roman Empire and its excesses, especially immediately following Augustus.
Don't expect the seditionists wrapped in the flag herein to respond in a matter that resembles rational thought, if they respond at all.
It is funny, but do you realize if the attitude these seditionists have were prevalent during WWII, most, if not all of us, would be here today?
To: SkyRat*************************
# To: exodus
In what way is Bush a dictator? I'm no Bush-bot, but I'd really like to know what he's done to deserve that epithet.
# 107 by paulklenk
A President who can declare war without Congressional involvement, and over Congressional objections, is a dictator.
Read this article from today's New York Times. --
Bush Promises to Seek Congressional Approval on Iraq
I'll summarize the article.
Earlier today, President Bush met with Congressional leaders to explain why he wanted to attack Saddam Hussein, and to tell them that he wouldn't attack Iraq without "seeking" their approval first.
However, he wouldn't say if he would abide by their opinion. Bush said, "One of the things, I made it very clear to the members here, is that doing nothing about that serious threat is not an option for the United States."
In other words, Bush, as President, would decide if the United States goes to war or not. If Congress wants to, they can support his decision. If Congress doesn't support his decision, too bad.
When a reporter asked Bush if Congress had the authority to "veto" an attack against Iraq, Bush changed the subject.
No. You, and sheep like you are the problem.
And when the next Clinton is President and has her crooked mad-feminista cabinet in office, and her crooked attorney general to divert any investigations, and her crooked FBI & Homeland security stooges to enforce her will on the sheeple, what will you think of the law then? Will you trust your freedom, your life, the lives of your wife and children to such creatures? What will you do when they come to confiscate your guns, or your SUV, or your property?
YMCA...
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