Posted on 06/01/2002 5:54:25 PM PDT by Alan Chapman
With one word, a federal judge has described not only John Ashcroft's handling of the Department of Justice, but also the Bush administration's policy of citing national security as the reason why it's trying to hide the Constitution from Americans.
U.S. District Judge Robert G. Doumar says Ashcroft's super-secret policies and violation of basic Constitutional guidelines sounds "idiotic."
Yaser Esam Hamdi, 21, an American citizen born in Louisiana but captured in Afghanistan, has been confined at the Norfolk (Va.) Naval Station since April 5. The Justice Department claims that since Hamdi is a captured enemy combatant not only isn't he entitled to legal representation but can be held indefinitely since he hasn't been charged with any crime. "That sounds idiotic, doesn't it?" asks Judge Doumar. Ashcroft also believes it's the government's right to record all lawyer-client communication; Judge Doumar, citing the Constitution and more than two centuries of American legal precedent, disagrees.
In a related case, U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler will decide if the government has any Constitutional basis to keep secret the names and charges against those it currently detains as terrorists. Ironically, the Justice Department admits that many of those it's hiding from the public are not terrorist suspects. In numerous actions, Ashcroft and Vice-President Dick Cheney have retreated into their bunkers, arguing that the secrecy and the shredding of Constitutional guidelines are necessary for national security. Cheney himself told the Senate leadership in February that Bush officials would probably defy all attempts to question them about what they knew before and after the Sept. 11 attacks. Both Ashcroft and Cheney have labeled dissent, even by leaders of both major political parties, to be unpatriotic, something that should cause even more fear in Americans than anything that happened Sept. 11.
The Bush administration's quest for secrecy is understandable, considering it was primarily staring at headlights prior to Sept. 11. Newsweek and numerous other publications now report that the Bush administration, probably for political reasons, discounted the Clinton administration's severe and substantial warnings about terrorist activities. Ashcroft himself opposed an FBI proposal to add more counter-terrorism agents. Numerous memos by the CIA, backed by data from foreign intelligence agencies, were shuffled into a bureaucratic limbo by the Bush administration. These are the same leaders who agreed that color-coded days was a brilliant concept are now chomping away at our civil rights.
In the first weeks after the attacks, Americans gave the government wide latitude to seek out and destroy those responsible. The people realized they may have to temporarily yield a few of their own civil rights to gain their permanent security, a reality of life but one that would have shocked and saddened the nation's founders who wrote our keystone documents under terrors we can't even imagine.
John Ashcroft saw the confusion after Sept. 11 as political convenience. Within two months, drafted in secret under a cloak of "national security," Ashcroft had bullied Congress to pass the USA Patriot Act. Most of Congress now admit they didn't read the 342-page document which butts against Constitutional protections of the First (free speech), Fourth (unreasonable searches), Fifth (right against self-incrimination), and Sixth (due process) amendments.
President Bush--in Europe telling our allies that the reason to modernize the military is to make it more modern--has cloaked himself in the fiction of national security to justify a political agenda of secrecy. His popularity rating remains over 60 percent, even though his leading political advisor joyfully proclaims that the events of Sept. 11 should help elect more Republicans in the Fall elections.
What the President and his advisors must understand, yet may not be prepared to admit, is that Americans are giving unprecedented support not because they believe the President is a brilliant war leader but because they believe in the country, and hope that solidarity and increased vigilance will be the fortress against continued attacks upon the nation.
FBI director Robert Mueller, acknowledging numerous problems in America's intelligence-gathering and analysis, and in announcing a massive reorganization of his agency, says the FBI "has been the agency to protect the rights of others."
As long as John Ashcroft, Dick Cheney, and numerous Bush officials believe the Constitution is nothing more than a scrap of paper to be used to justify a cover-up for their own problems, then anything Mueller says is nothing more than empty rhetoric.
It is important to destroy terrorism. It's just as important we don't destroy the American fabric to do so.
Yeah it would be a shame if ELF was persecuted wouldn't it?
Neal Boortz: "A primary distinguishing characteristic of the typical Liberal is that he has a tendency to view people not as individuals, but as members of groups. There are very few individiual identities to Liberals, only group identities. *Liberals view people as members of groups, with group rights."
Fee fi fo fum....
The only Americans being held are those who were members of a terrorist army, not exactly a valid comparison to the Japanese Americans interned by the Liberal Icon FDR.
Of course, the alternative to our current policy is to deport all non-citizen arabs and not to take leave any enemy soldiers alive to become prisoners .
You mean until we are all slaves...or are all dead. In the meantime, the government can ignore the Constitution for our own good, right? No, not for our own good, for our own safety, right?
Give me liberty or give me death... I guess he was at a college debate.
Tuor
Nope. What's your point? I should give up my rights because you love your kids so much you don't want your rights anymore?
Tuor
Um...the only Elves I know are in Valinor, so I'm not sure who you're referring to.
I don't understand why people are getting bent out of shape over my wanting the due process that we have a Constitutional and god-given right to expect; that's not liberal, that's constitutional.
Tuor
That's what I thought. BTW what "rights" have you lost?
Yeah a Liberal Environmentalist that doesn't know what ELF is. Riiiiiiiiight.
Good question...it's called appeasement. Feeding the beast. Unless you have a radical new device that generates energy from nothing, the Saudis sit on a grotesque amount of the world's energy supply..."He who controls the spice, controls the universe...".
"And stationing troops in countries where they're not welcome is what?"
Golly gee Beav, let's tuck tail and run home. It's called protecting our interests...tell me what our alternatives are, I'm all ears. It was western research, development, and money that built those refineries, explored and discovered all that oil, invented new methods of withdrawal, and we just handed it over without a fight to an elite few pirates in dirty nightshirts.
"And threatening other countries with military invasion if they don't capitulate to our demands it what?"
What the hell do you call 9/11 if not a military invasion to cause us to capitulate to their demands: submission to radical Islam, expulsion from the middle east which would still be dealing in camels, textiles, and hashish if not for western technology and invention, and the abandonment of Israel to the wolves. What would you call that? I know what I'd call it...
"And dropping bombs on civilians in other countries as punishment for the deeds of their governments is what?"
Name an instance where we targeted a civilian populace to punish a government....(everybody get ready for more WW2 rehashing...) I, and I'm sure several others, anxiously await your response...
The U.S. government has been ignoring/violating the Constitution for years...I and I'm sure many others can cite example after example. Why now, during a time of war, are you suddenly freaking out?
More important, there is the notion that this will make it easier for foreign nations to ignore the Geneva Convention in regard to our own troops. I know there is a legalistic difference, but it invites whomever captures our troops to use legalisms too. I don't think increasing the danger to our troops is worth it. They've really gotten very little useful information out of these low level stooges in Guantanamo anyway. Most of the big shots fled the coop.
Besides, I've already given the solution to sweat all we need to out of the captives, within Geneva convetions.
We just bring a real Jewish looking guy into their cell and say, "This is Captain Dhayan from the Isreali Mossad. He's come to take you away with him if you don't talk."
Bet they'd spill the beans pretty quick ;')
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