More Restore Habeas: Fear and Senators in DC
Posted by
Kevin
You know, this country survived a foreign invasion, civil war, two world wars, and a cold war with an enemy that possessed enough nuclear weapons to turn every inch of the planet inot glass a hundred times over. It survived these threats without throwing away the Constitution. But when a couple of failed goat herders got lucky once, our Congress pissed their collective pants and willingly voted away the Fourth Amendment. Senators tend to be concerned, sooner or later, with their legacy. It might help if you pointed out to them that, right now, their section of the history book is entitled “Notable Cowards of the Early 21st Century”
The cloture vote –the vote to break the GOP lead filibuster, just to be clear — is apparently sometime this morning. There are phone numbers at the link above. Please, call your Senators and remind them that we aren’t supposed to be a nation of cowards.
>our Congress pissed their collective pants and willingly voted
>away the Fourth Amendment
I think the blame has to extend beyond Congress. The American public was not a group of innocent bystanders in this; we demanded it of them.
Comment 9/19/2007
[…] Lean Left somes up our leaders reaction to 9/11 from his perspective: You know, this country survived a foreign invasion, civil war, two world wars, and a cold war with an enemy that possessed enough nuclear weapons to turn every inch of the planet inot glass a hundred times over. It survived these threats without throwing away the Constitution. But when a couple of failed goat herders got lucky once, our Congress pissed their collective pants and willingly voted away the Fourth Amendment. Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. […]
Pingback 9/19/2007
I support your cause but not your revision of history. Read up on the US internment camps during WWII.
Comment 9/19/2007
I know all about the camps, Ted; I also know that they they ended. When WWII ended, we still had the Constitution.
Yes, I can find things in each of those conflicts that went against the Constitution. But they were never permamnet, never sodl as permanent, and never did permanent damage. They are not the same thing as what we have now.
Comment 9/19/2007
Well, the order was not permanent only because it was eventually rescinded. Unless you can see the future, you can not claim the current situation to be permanent. Keep in mind the Executive order that served as the basis for the camps was not rescinded until 1976, so it stood as law (and survived a Supreme Court ruling on constitutionality) for 34 years.
The suspension of habeas by our government for a certain class of people is wrong in and of itself, and also is a step in a dangerous direction. However, it is not the first time, nor is it the last, that hysteria will provide political cover for politicians to implement bad law.
Comment 9/19/2007
WWII orders were inhernitly limited because conventional wars do not last forever. As bad as they were, they were not on the same order of magnitude as the legislative end of the 4th amendment during a conflict that traditionally has no well defined way to declare at an end.
Comment 9/19/2007
Again, recinded in 1976. In effect for 34 years.
Comment 9/19/2007
It was only used for a short period of time, and there is zero chance that if someone had tried to use it it would have withstood challenge.
Pretending that that is the same as the MCA is silly, and does nothing but further the notion that “these things are always done in war time”.
Comment 9/19/2007
My point, Chicken Little, is that this too shall pass. Probably within 3 months of the election of the next president (assuming a dem wins). Phrases like “throwing away the constitution” and “the legislative end of the 4th amendment” are, at the very best, gross exaggerations. And, as I have pointed out a million times before, your exaggeration undermines your credability. At least with me.
Comment 9/19/2007
Did or did not the legislature remove the right of habeas corpus? Did or did not a legislative attempt to reverse that fail in the face of a filibuster? So your contention is not supported by the evidence of today. And do I really ned to remind you about the FISA changes, and the rest of the MCA rules?
Your contention that this will inevitably pass is simply not true. The war against terrorists is not the same thing as a conventional war, if for nothing else it can last an indefinite time. Look at the inroads the security state made during the Cold War.
There is no magical Broder Fairy that comes along and makes everything right. There is no Law of Historical Rightness that will ensure that the country undo the damage that has been done to it.
Comment 9/19/2007
So, now that the 4th amendment is no longer the rule of law, the FBI and the local police are free to search my house and car at any time without probable cause? My cop brother-in-law has not yet been informed of this change…
Comment 9/19/2007
Yeah, it hasn’t affected me personally (yet), so why should I care?
The point is, things like this have passed in the past because people demanded it. People fought for positive change. This is no time to shrug things off and wait for things to work themselves out.
I’m sorry you don’t see a significant difference between an executive order and actual legislation, but that doesn’t mean that such a difference doesn’t exist.
Once again, we do the Right a great service by fighting amongst ourselves over irrelevant “which is worse” hypotheticals instead of doing something constructive, like presenting unified resistance.
Comment 9/19/2007
Yes, Ted: because if it isn’t being abused all the time for everyone,. its just a minor little inconvenience we shouldn’t worry our pretty little heads about.
Comment 9/19/2007
Please try and keep up. I am not defending the law; I am pointing out the absurdity of Kevin’s claim that the 4th amendment no longer exists. I am not saying we should not demand it be overturned; I am saying Kevin’s use of hysterical exaggeration detracts from his credibility.
tgirsch, you might find difficulty explaining the difference between an executive order and legislation to the 100,000s who spent several years in internment. (Unless your claim is the interment camps were opposed by the majority of Congress and the public at large.) Also, be sure to bring up that point the next time a Kevin blogs about the unchecked power of the executive.
I’m sorry, but I don’t buy into your “unified resistance” argument if it means I must implicitly endorse false claims. I believe intelligent people can differentiate between supporting a cause and not supporting a specific statement made in an attempt to further that cause. Think of this the next time you are about to blog about how so-and-so on the Right has not denounced a specific action or statement. Maybe they don’t endorse it, but rather are just supporting the greater cause by avoiding infighting.
Comment 9/20/2007
Ted
Yes, try and keep up: if a freedom doesn’t exists for all people, then it does not exist. You aren’t free, if you will pardon my o so hysterical overstatement, you just haven’t come to the attention of the government just yet.
Nor, might I add, have you come close to addressing the substantive points about the differences between the internments and today. You just keep repeating the they are the same and that I am being hysterical.
Comment 9/20/2007
Kevin, I don’t need to address the differences. You claimed we have never “thrown away the constitution” in wartime. I claim the interment camps are a clear example of when we have.
“if a freedom doesn’t exists for all people, then it does not exist.” This might play well in some circles, but in the real world it is referred to as horse shit. There are innumerable examples of specific freedoms that are restricted for particular classes of people in this country. So, by your definition, we were already not free before the restrictions on habeas. And since we were not free, this action did not curtail our freedom. Because you can’t restrict that which does not exist.
Comment 9/20/2007
I think we’ve been through this before, Ted, but my biggest problem is that you come across as being far more concerned with the nits — who’s not quite technically correct about this, who’s engaging in hyperbole about that — than with the elephant in the room. This example is no different.
In World War II, nobody could just declare me “Japanese” and toss me in an internment camp, at least not to my knowledge. Today, someone could declare me an “enemy combatant” and toss all my rights out the window. The fact that nobody has done that yet doesn’t mean that they couldn’t legally do so.
But as long as we’re on nits, you’re right: We still have a 4th Amendment. It just doesn’t mean very much any more.
For what it’s worth, Kevin might be engaging in a bit of hyperbole on some things, but he’s not exaggerating, in my estimation, when he argues that the current offenses are in many ways worse than those of the past.
Comment 9/20/2007
Tgirsch, while your concern relates to the detrimental effects of infighting, mine relates to the detrimental effects of poorly presented arguments. If that is a nit, so be it.
I curse the TV when Olbermann does it, so consider yourself lucky you don`t live with me.
(The fact that you could not be declared Japanese in 1943 would provide little solace to the US citizens of Japanese ancestry that were. Talk about “if it isn’t being abused all the time for everyone, its just a minor little inconvenience we shouldn’t worry our pretty little heads about.”)
Comment 9/20/2007
I had a particularly virulent response queued up, but then I figured that based on our history, you couldn’t have possibly meant to imply that we were calling the Japanese internment a “minor little inconvenience,” so I deleted it. Suffice it to say that the fact that internment was a horrible affront to civil liberties doesn’t mean we can’t criticize current affronts, or even argue that they’re worse.
Comment 9/21/2007
Tgrisch, I direct your attention to comment #13 for a better understanding of my comment #18.
“Suffice it to say that the fact that internment was a horrible affront to civil liberties doesn’t mean we can’t criticize current affronts, or even argue that they’re worse.” I agree 100%. Now reread Kevin’s original piece and you might be able to see my objection.
If not, here is another angle that I have ignored thus far (and I don’t expect a discussion on it, I am just offering it as ancillary support to my position. By itself it is not particularly noteworthy.) Do you see any inconistency with the following two snips from posts by the same author just eight days apart?
“But when a couple of failed goat herders got lucky once…”
preceeded in another piece by:
“It’s been six years since terrorists killed 3000 people. Bin Laden is still alive and free. Al Qaeda has regain their strength and might actually be stronger than on 9/11.”
Comment 9/21/2007
Ted
Sigh. yes, you are right: pointing out that Al qaeda is stronger than before 9/11 is EXACTLY the same thing as pointing out that Al Qeda is not a serious threat to the survival of the country justifying the trashing of Constitutional liberty.
Comment 9/21/2007
Ted:
Do you see any inconistency with the following two snips
No, actually I don’t.
Comment 9/21/2007
Tgirsch, I parrot back (in similar context) a response Kevin gave to me and you say you were about to post a particularly virulent reply. I point this out to you and… nothing. Glad to see you apply the same standards to me as to Kevin.
Kevin, I think you missed my objection to you Al Qaeda posts. There are other options besides a) Al Qaeda being a serious threat to the survival of the country justifying the trashing of Constitutional liberty, and b) Al Qaeda being a couple of failed goat herders. A fact you recognized, clearly, in your 9/11 post. But as that post was about lack of progress against terrorism, it served your purpose to represent Al Qaeda as a legitimate threat. In your more recent post, it served your purpose to represent terrorism as a less than legitimate threat, so it’s not Al Qaeda, it’s a couple of lucky, failed goat herders.
That is my point. Either terrorism is a couple of failed goat herders who got lucky - in which case it’s no big deal we have not done much about them, or they are a real threat, not just a couple of failed goat herders that got lucky, and we should be concerned about them. In neither case should we, nor need we, be so concerned as to legalize warrantless wiretapping or change our standards for locking someone up. Have a little faith in your readership; you don’t need to distort reality to make your points. By doing so, your style begins to resemble that of some of those you most loath.
Comment 9/21/2007
Ted
No, sorry — but you ar ebeing disnegnesous. First you claim I am being hysterical, despite the fact that I provided you with reasons for thinkng the way I do. You have no addressed those reasons. You are now appearing to argue that I must either think that Al Qaeda is zero threat to anything or I must “take them seriously”, and you again miss my point. Al Qaeda did kill three thousand people, but they were not then and are not a serious threat to the security of the United States. They have also not been dealt with and are therefor a threat to conduct more attacks. That last is not, by the way, the same as saying they are a serious threat to the security of the country; even now, they cannot significantly damage the infrastructure, economy, or military capacity of the UNited States. They are not remotely the threat that th Nazis, the Soviets, or evne the British in 1812 were. There is no inconstancy in those points at all.
Comment 9/21/2007
ok, you win. they are just lucky failed goat herders. And intermments were not huge violations of 4th Amendment.
Comment 9/21/2007
Ted
Are you deliberately being obtuse? Yes, they are failed gotahereders, for effect - -they cannot do serious damage to the security or existence of the country. That does not mean I cannot be upset that they haven;t been caught and punished for what they did do. An individual thief cannot bring down the city government, but that doesn’t mean I have to shrug off the cops inability to catch said thief.
And the damage done by the internments was limited in scope and time. The MCA, the FISA law and the theory of unitary executive are not limited in scope or time. Therefor, and follow me closley here, while the internments were bad, they did not do the kind of long term structural damage to the Constitution that the curent laws will if allowed to stand.
Comment 9/22/2007
OK, if I need to limit my examples of “throwing away the Constitution” to legislation, then I submit the Espionage Act of 1917 and the the Sedition Act (original), Sedition Act of 1918, the Smith Act, the Alien Enemies Act.
And of course habeas was suspended during the Civil War, but I guess since the war eventually ended, that does not count.
And you lose me when you claim that the destruction on 9/11 does not represent a serious threat to the security of the country. Perhaps if you lived in NYC you would hold a different view. After all, more Americans died on that day than during the entire War of 1812.
Comment 9/22/2007
Ted
[On edit, forget it. I’m not getting into a pisisng match over this. I knew persoanlly what 9/11 meant, and that’s the last I am saying about that]
But don’t for one moment make the mistake of thinking that Al Qaeda is a serious threat to the country. 9/11 was the best they were ever able to do, and it didn’t come close to threatening the security of our country. They are mass murderers, and that is bad enough, but that is all. Don’t believe their hype and mistake them for a threat to the existence of the country.
Comment 9/22/2007
I live in NYC; I don’t think that AQ is serious threat to the security of this nation. And, yes, I know people who died that day, and my mother was actually a first-responder. That doesn’t really influence by interpretation the threat.
AQ may represent a small threat to the personal safety of a portion of the American population, but not to America in terms being an institution. The only threat to America in that sense is itself. AQ’s greatest claim to serious threat is the hysterical, fascist overreactions implemented by our own government as a response to the one act of terrorism they managed to pull off. And, if the conspiracy theorists are right, and 9/11 was actually preventable, then again, the threat to our security was us, again.
Comment 9/22/2007
Sorry about the type-os. I actually liked it better when there was no preview function. At least then I could blame type-os on there being no preview. Now, I’m forced to confront my own carelessness…
Comment 9/22/2007
I agree AQ is not a threat to the existance of the country. Never claimed otherwise. Seems like a very high bar.
9/11 best to date does not guarantee worse not coming. Take a moment to think about missing nukes in former USSR - or Pakistan - and only 3% of containers coming into US being inspected. Not probible, but possible. Technology has inceased the damage a small group can inflict.
Re previous comment about individual thief, to be a reasonable parallel, you would be upset with lack of police progress - even though individual thief was shot dead at the scene.
(sorry, keyboard impaired.)
Comment 9/23/2007
Am I the only one who would prefer to have civil rights even at the cost of being nuked by some religious fanatics?
As I said on my individually printed bumper sticker: I’d rather have 3000 Americans killed than have 300,000,000 Americans searched.
Comment 9/23/2007
better dead than red I guess. And willing to impose it on others.
Comment 9/23/2007