Camps for Citizens: Ashcroft's Hellish Vision
Mood:  incredulous
Topic: Bill of Rights
Attorney general shows himself as a menace to liberty

LA Times 08/14/02: Jonathon Turley

Original Link: http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oe-turley14aug14.story (members only)

Atty. Gen. 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.

Ashcroft's plan, disclosed last week but little publicized, would allow him to order the indefinite incarceration of U.S. citizens and summarily strip them of their constitutional rights and access to the courts by declaring them enemy combatants.

The proposed camp plan should trigger immediate congressional hearings and reconsideration of Ashcroft's fitness for this 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.

The camp plan was forged at an optimistic time for Ashcroft's small inner circle, which has been carefully watching two test cases to see whether this vision could become a reality. The cases of Jose Padilla and Yaser Esam Hamdi will determine whether U.S. citizens can be held without charges and subject to the arbitrary and unchecked authority of the government.

Hamdi has been held without charge even though the facts of his case are virtually identical to those in the case of John Walker Lindh. Both Hamdi and Lindh were captured in Afghanistan as foot soldiers in Taliban units. Yet Lindh was given a lawyer and a trial, while Hamdi rots in a floating Navy brig in Norfolk, Va.

This week, the government refused to comply with a federal judge who ordered that he be given the underlying evidence justifying Hamdi's treatment. 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."

In Padilla's case, Ashcroft initially claimed that the arrest stopped a plan to detonate a radioactive bomb in New York or Washington, D.C. The administration later issued an embarrassing correction that there was no evidence Padilla was on such a mission. What is clear is that Padilla is an American citizen and was arrested in the United States--two facts that should trigger the full application of constitutional rights.

Ashcroft hopes to use his self-made "enemy combatant" stamp for any citizen whom he deems to be part of a wider terrorist conspiracy.

Perhaps because of his discredited claims of preventing radiological terrorism, aides 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.

Few would have imagined any attorney general seeking to reestablish such camps for citizens. 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.

We are only now getting a full vision of Ashcroft's America. Some of his predecessors dreamed of creating a great society or a nation unfettered by racism. Ashcroft seems to dream of a country secured from itself, neatly contained and controlled by his judgment of loyalty.

For more than 200 years, security and liberty have been viewed as coexistent values. Ashcroft and his aides appear to view this relationship as lineal, where security must precede liberty.

Since the nation will never be entirely safe from terrorism, liberty has become a mere rhetorical justification for increased security.

Ashcroft is a catalyst for constitutional devolution, encouraging citizens to accept autocratic rule as their only way of avoiding massive terrorist attacks.

His greatest problem has been preserving a level of panic and fear that would induce a free people to surrender the rights so dearly won by their ancestors.

In "A Man for All Seasons," Sir Thomas More was confronted by a young lawyer, Will Roper, who sought his daughter's hand. Roper proclaimed that he would cut down every law in England to get after the devil.

More's response seems almost tailored for Ashcroft: "And when the last law was down and the devil turned round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? ... This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast ... and if you cut them down--and you are just the man to do it--do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then?"

Every generation has had Ropers and Ashcrofts who view our laws and traditions as mere obstructions rather than protections in times of peril. But before we allow Ashcroft to denude our own constitutional landscape, we must take a stand and have the courage to say, "Enough."

Every generation has its test of principle in which people of good faith can no longer remain silent in the face of authoritarian ambition. If we cannot join together to fight the abomination of American camps, we have already lost what we are defending.

Freedom Of Speech: Use It or Lose It
Mood:  sharp
Topic: Bill of Rights
Charley Reese | November 29, 2004

Years ago, when I was in the Army, I got stuck in a typing pool. I typed a memo for a captain that contained several erasures. When I gave it to him, he said: "That's pretty (expletive) typing, Private. I hope you don't have to make a living at it."

I said nothing, but I watched him, and when he put another handwritten memo into the box, I grabbed it. I typed it perfectly and then walked over to his desk with the typed copy and his original.

"That's pretty (same expletive) handwriting, sir. I hope your livelihood doesn't depend on anybody being able to read it."

His jaw dropped, but he didn't say anything. Captains are not used to being talked to that way by privates. The beauty of being a private, however, is that there is very little the Army can do to you that it is not already doing.

I recount that anecdote from my checkered past to tell you that free speech is meaningless if you don't use it. If being an American means anything, it means that you don't have to tolerate personal insults from anybody under any circumstances. At least that's the way we are taught in the South.

When Lithuania was still part of the Soviet Union, a little girl came home crying. She told her mother that her teacher had stood her up in front of the class and ridiculed her Christian beliefs. Now, this mother was in a totally powerless position. She lived in a dictatorship. The government could do anything it wanted to do with her, and she would be defenseless.

Nevertheless, this brave lady marched down to the local Communist Party headquarters and gave the people there verbal hell. Many, many men and women who live under tyranny nevertheless demonstrate great courage.

Some Russians believe that Alexander Solzhenitsyn did as much as anyone to bring down the Soviet Union. His books about the gulag ripped the facade off the Soviet Union so that not even American liberals could deny anymore what an evil tyranny it was.

After being released from prison, Solzhenitsyn was ordered not to attend the funeral of another Soviet dissident. The great man not only attended the funeral, but he marched up to the casket and kissed the forehead of the dead man. Even though he lived in the one of the world's worst tyrannies, Solzhenitsyn always acted like a free man.

There are good Americans who show the same kind of courage. In one Central Florida elementary school, the children were told they could bring holiday cards to exchange with their classmates. One little girl affixed stickers to her cards that said "Jesus loves you." When the teacher saw this, she ordered the little girl to take back all of her cards. The child was humiliated.

An attorney friend of mine heard about this, contacted the parents and then informed the school board that it owed the little girl a public apology. The school-board attorney said: "You'll never get it. I can tie you up in court, and it will cost you $30,000."

"Well," my friend said, "I just happen to have $30,000, and if that's what it takes, so be it, but the board is going to give this child a public apology." And that's exactly what happened, because one man decided he would not tolerate an injustice. He didn't charge the girl's family a penny.

The government would like us all to spy on our neighbors to detect terrorists. What we really should do is keep our eyes open for injustices, and when we find them, we should speak out.

Many people in this country are powerless. They don't have much money. They don't have influential friends. And quite often, because they are powerless, they suffer injustice. What a wonderful country this would be if the powerless knew they were not alone, if they knew that there are other Americans willing to use their voices and their resources to protect them from injustice.

Freedom is a wonderful thing if used properly, but wasting freedom on selfish pursuits is probably a sin God will have a hard time forgiving.

Original

Help Us Get 100,000 People to Take the Pledge by Inauguration Day ? January 20th
Mood:  energetic
Topic: Bill of Rights
Today our most fundamental freedoms are in jeopardy. Only a bold, spirited movement of people like you who refuse to surrender your freedoms can protect our civil liberties.

On January 20th, George Bush will pledge to uphold the Constitution. Our goal is to recruit 100,000 new ACLU supporters by that day to proclaim "I REFUSE TO SURRENDER MY FREEDOM" by taking this simple pledge:

"I pledge to join with over 400,000 ACLU members and supporters to help ensure that the President, his administration, and our leaders in Congress fulfill their duty to preserve, protect, and defend our Constitution.

By reaffirming my commitment to the American values of justice and liberty for all, I am enlisting in a powerful movement to defend our freedoms against assaults on our civil liberties."

Let's make it clear to those who seek to take away our freedoms that they are on the wrong side of the law . . . the wrong side of core American values . . . and the wrong side of history. Take the pledge now and stand strong in support of freedom.

Take the pledge