Judge: "Ashcroft's Policies Idiotic"

CounterPunch.com ^ | May 31, 2002 | Walt Brasch

[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.

[swarthyguy]

Exactly even if only a couple of jihadis was busted, it's worth it and it's obvious to anyone who even casually had glanced at some of the websites, chatrooms/forum that there's any lack of primal loathing for the infidels. Which means that some of the detainees have good info and releasing them would be nutty.

[Tuor]

Yeah a Liberal Environmentalist that doesn't know what ELF is. Riiiiiiiiight.

Jesus, man, get a hold of yourself. I've been posting here for *way* longer than you have. You obviously haven't read many of them.

You are so determined to arrest -- excuse me, detain -- every single Arab that you don't stop and consider the precident you are supporting: that of stripping a person of their rights for no reason besides suspicion of a crime. Do you *really* think that the government wont expand beyond Arabs when they expand every power given to them way beyond the original intent? Do you think *you* will be spared if the government does something you don't like and you speak out about it? Your only safety will be in agreeing with whatever the government does, no matter what it may be.

I don't consider Ashcroft's policies to be idiotic, but un-Constitutional. When you say that one group no longer has their God given rights (yes, I said *God* given, not given by Man), then you set up a situation when the government can pick and choose who is to be the recipient of those 'rights'. This, in turn, opens the door to the charge that if a right isn't universal, it's not a right at all. This finally leads to the idea that it isn't a right, but a privilage, and the government can take or give it at will.

But no, you don't want to debate me. You'd rather throw around insults (calling me a (modern) liberal is insulting) than addresss issues.

The cold truth is 3,000 dead is *nothing* compared to what would happen if the government turned into a truly tyrannical government. If this sparks us to turn into a police state, into a sort of government that our founding fathers would abhor with every fiber of their being, then those who died in the WTC would have died, not for nothing, but for all the wrong things... all the worst things.

If they died because they were free, then we should become more determined to be free than before, not more determined to be afraid and cowardly, doing away with our freedoms because they don't make us feel safe enough. If I had been one of the 3,000, it's not the way I'd want to be remembered. Three thousand dead and three hundred million shorn of their rights and protections under the Constitution.

But you just keep glibly supporting whatever the government does. You keep on supporting them holding people without charging them, restraining people while they check their homes for evidence, stopping people who have broken no law and demanding to see their identification, prohibiting people from publically supporting a candidate too close to an election, tapping their phones without a court order, monitoring people's on-line activities without any warrant: the list goes on and on.

Just make sure you obey at all times, and be a good slave.

Tuor

[elephantlips]

It would seem from the logic of your response that we should continue to "spread" the pain by frisking all people instead of racial profiling which is frowned upon. Also, to be fair, we should haul the thousands of captured combatants before our court system where they can have their years of exposure to the media before anything could even remotely happen to them, after all, this is America and we must do everything as PC as possible to maintain our image. There are other examples however, if you truly believe that we can continue to function as we did before, then there is nothing I can say to change your mind. We are at war. It may not look like a Hollywood version with John Wayne et al but we are at war. Even in the Hollywood version of war, there wasn't what we would call "normal justice" on the battlefield and there won't be on the new battlefield. Because I have a viewpoint on this particular aspect does not mean I want to give up firearms, free speech or any other of the basics. I simply mean that there are new rules and we need to deal with the issues just to survive.

[swarthyguy]

Correction:
there's any lack of primal loathing

there's no lack of

Infinite Justice. Now just why did we change that name anyway? Silliest thing we did.

[Tuor]

Why now, during a time of war, are you suddenly freaking out?

First of all, we are not at war, not unless the Senate has declared it recently and no one told me.

Secondly, because it is growing worse. Before, they were tramping on the fringes, so to speak. Now, they're encroaching on the more basic principles.

When the inner walls show signs of cracks and the sounds of battering rams grow increasingly more loud, I begin to grow more concerned.

I don't think the government caused 9/11, as some do. But I do think they couldn't have hoped for a more golden opportunity to advance totalitarian issues than the terrorists provided them.

Tuor

[lasereye]

the Clinton administration's severe and substantial warnings about terrorist activities.

Say what?

[Tuor]

It would seem from the logic of your response that we should continue to "spread" the pain by frisking all people instead of racial profiling which is frowned upon. Also, to be fair, we should haul the thousands of captured combatants before our court system where they can have their years of exposure to the media before anything could even remotely happen to them, after all, this is America and we must do everything as PC as possible to maintain our image.

I think Congress should declare war. I think the prisoners we've captured should be treated as POWs. I think we should quick screwing around and *really* attack whomever was responsible for the WTC bombing, provided those responsible did that at the beheist of some government. This would be Constitutional and decisive, IMO.

I have been talking idealisticly, because it is important that we remember and hold on to, as much as possible, our ideals. It is *very* easy to forget them and, in doing so, lose them. That must not be allowed to happen.

That said, I *do* support racial profiling. We have *evidence* that people of a particular race and background are likely to commit certain acts. That isn't unfair, but prudent. Lacking such evidence, I would not support such acts. But these are wartime issues and we should be *at war*. We should have a clear enemy, we should declare war against him, we should eliminate said enemy, we should return to peace.

What we should *not* do is enter a state of perpetual and interminal war: a war with no fixed enemy and no real ending. A war where the government can keep us on our toes, afraid to question it over any detail lest our patriotism is called into question. The government must have the power to fight the war, but not the power to destroy our protections and rights, and this is done by having a declared and proven enemy.

Right now, we're like a giant fighting gnats: we're stumbling around, doing damage to ourselves and those around us while hardly damaging the gnats at all. Sure we kill a few of them, but they keep buzzing around and, in our preoccupation, more dangerous foes may appear unnoticed.

I wish I could come up with some elegant and practical solution that would work and uphold the Constitution. But if I had to chose between safety and the Constitution, I would pick the Constitution. We're a strong country... or should be. We can endure whatever the terrorists may do to us. What we cannot endure is what we might do to ourselves. Terrorist can destroy buildings and lives. We can destroy our very culture and way of life.

Tuor

[Texasforever]

First of all, we are not at war, not unless the Senate has declared it recently and no one told me.

You stated you want a debate and then you post that straw man? Give me a break.

[Tuor]

You stated you want a debate and then you post that straw man? Give me a break.

You've already made it evident that you don't have much respect for the Constitution. I shouldn't be surprised that you dislike the reminder that Constitutional procedures haven't been followed in this 'war' either.

But don't worry. Soon, the Constitution will cease to mean anything anyway. It'll just be trotted out with pious words to placate the masses while those in power continue to do whatever they want.

Tuor

[boris]

"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."

Wouldn't it be nice if these whackos cared as much for the other amendments in the Bill of Rights?...such as the Second, Ninth, and Tenth ones?...But the BoR is a Chinese restaurant menu to these creeps; they pick the amendments they like and ignore the rest.

There is a word (several, actually) for such persons: Hypocrite...

--Boris

[Texasforever]

You've already made it evident that you don't have much respect for the Constitution. I shouldn't be surprised that you dislike the reminder that Constitutional procedures haven't been followed in this 'war' either.

Show me the clause in the constitution that both dictates the format for a DOW or the requirement that congress do so.

[Sabertooth]

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.

Prehaps Judge Doumar (wonder whose appointment he was) would feel better if we tried Hamdi for treason, a capital crime.

OTH, when he took up arms against our country, his citizenship was gone, so isn't Hamdi eligible for a military tribunal?

I believe the President made real mistake when he didn't put Moussaoui (20th hijacker) and John Walker before the tribunals.

If not them, who?

[Texasforever]

Agreed.

[america76]

"I'm worried about the arabs starting a jihad..."

I'm worried about THE AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE, and losing it. If it is going to be lost in the process of protecting the country than we might as well just adopt Islamic law and get it over with. It won't be any worse than any other brand of tyranny we'll end up with. Have a little courage, we can beat them and still survive as a Free Republic.

[Frances_Marion]

"First of all, we are not at war, not unless the Senate has declared it recently and no one told me."

First off, this is the same Senate that tramples all over the Constitution more and more....so, now you need a declaration from the same enemies of constitutional rights that we are at war?

Not that your skepticism itself bothers me at all...I think it's quite healthy.

[america76]

"It's for the children"

Is their living as slaves under the thumb of a government not constrained by law or a constitution any better?

[JMJ333]

I am worried about the American way of life also, but I am not going to get worked up when a few rabid socialists start screaming that the sky is falling.

My concern for our culture is based more around the rejection of Christian principles and the broad acceptance of hedonism/relativism/atheism/materialism--and a slew of other Godless mentalities that champion the destruction of societal norms in favor of becoming a slave to personal caprices.

I also have great concern for the homegrown terrorists and infiltrators that Islam has inculcated for who knows how long. They are the enemy--not the Bush administration.

[Poohbah]

Is their living as slaves under the thumb of a government not constrained by law or a constitution any better?

Name me one right that you've lost since 9/11/2001.

[Blake#1]

With your attitude in war, my hope is that we can keep track of you. That man is coming at me with a bayonete and you want me to give him "civil rights". You represent defeat and misery for me and my countrymen. If you are not with us you are the enemy. Lock him up and through away the key!

[Tuor]

First off, this is the same Senate that tramples all over the Constitution more and more....so, now you need a declaration from the same enemies of constitutional rights that we are at war?

To be perfectly honest, I don't expect them to do their jobs in this matter, even though it was set up that way by the Founding Fathers as yet another check and balance within government. I know, and they know, they are supposed to do it, but that would involve acting responsibly.

I just wish more people would wonder why the Senate hasn't voted on this issue. They may then proceed to reflect on the government's general lack of adherence to the restrictions placed on it by the Constitution, which will come back to haunt us later, or maybe sooner.

Tuor