Posted on 12/02/2001 5:26:59 PM PST by Pokey78
THE Bush Administration sought the power to suspend all suspects’ rights in the most extreme example of its squeeze on civil liberties since September 11. According to a draft of the anti-terrorism Bill which was published yesterday, John Ashcroft, the Attorney-General, initially wanted to do away with the fundamental legal tenet of habeas corpus for terrorist suspects. Such a move would have allowed the authorities to hold suspects in secret and indefinitely without charging them or producing them before a judge. A secret first draft of Mr Ashcroft’s Bill included a section titled “Suspension of the Writ of Habeas Corpus”. Its inclusion has astounded some members of Congress. James Sensenbrenner, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, told Newsweek magazine: “That stuck out like a sore thumb. It was the first thing I crossed out.” Habeas corpus establishes the requirement on authorities to produce a suspect before a judge at regular intervals so that the court, and therefore the public, is satisfied that the detention is lawful. The suspension of the writ did not make it into the final draft of Mr Ashcroft’s Bill but it was seized on as another example of how far the Administration is prepared to go. Mr Ashcroft faces a grilling on Capitol Hill this week for other measures in his postSeptember 11 crackdown, in which thousands of young Muslim men have faced questioning and detention. It was also revealed over the weekend that he wanted to renounce the restrictions on the FBI from carrying out covert surveillance of religious and political organisations. The proposal would override protections put in place in the 1970s after the death of J. Edgar Hoover, the notoriously hardline FBI Director, after the agency admitted that it had spent much of the 1960s and early 1970s spying on Martin Luther King, the Black Panthers, the Ku Klux Klan and other groups that it considered dangerous. Latest polls show that the average American is broadly supportive of the restrictions on civil liberties: 86 per cent believe that the Government has not overstepped the mark.
Not like ther last Barf Alert AG.
These left wing wackos are just that, left wing wackos. They think just because they write it down it is fact. Sorry.
snooker
"Abraham Lincoln didn't go this far."
No. But Harry Truman did. See "Communist Party, USA".
And if your terrorist enemy is hiding behind the mosque's front door and using nominally religious charities to raise funds, why should they be safe from surveillance?
A terrorist in a cassock is no less a terrorist than one in mufti.
We already know how to stop the terrorist threat cold (i.e. respect the 2nd Amendment), but some socialist-conservative Republicans never tire of using every opportunity they can to eat away at our liberties. But you can't say I didn't warn you about John "I'll vigorously enforce all gun laws" Ashcroft.
Republicrats, Democans, NO DIFFERENCE.
Could you tell me please, although it's not too important to most people from the polling numbers, exactly when did Congress issue a declaration of war? What happens when the EMPIRE(and that's what it is, don't fool yourself, we haven't been a Federal Republic for years) decides you're a terrorist? Or me? Personally I like habeas corpus. It's a nice kind of defining principle of law
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