While millions of Americans were watching the Super Bowl, feeling patriotic listening to Kelly Clarkson's stunning performance of our National Anthem (with the 45 selected members from the Indianapolis Children's Choir singing back-up), and high-fiving ourselves with the iconic "make my day" voice of Clint Eastwood telling us America is ready to kick ass again, my dad was writing this article about the newest assault on our freedom.
We, the people...the government is WE THE PEOPLE. If you are an American, if you love liberty, democracy, and believe in The Constitution of the United States of America, take the time to read this article and then send it to everyone you know. FINALLY, if you agree that these laws jeopardize the foundation of this country, send an email to your local newspaper and to your congressional representatives. I think it was Ben Franklin who said (paraphrased), "Those who are willing to give to up liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither..."
Let Freedom Ring
by Darell J. Smith, M.D. (a.k.a. my dad)
It is a great comfort to know that we live in a country where we are protected from the power structure of our government, and that individual liberty is the foundation on which our constitution was built. Recent events should awaken us to the fact that we can ill afford to take these protections for granted any longer.
Following the shock of 911, a bill was hastily cobbled together, and passed by Congress with little debate or opposition. It was called the ‘The Patriot act”. It was 375 pages long, and some of our fearless leaders acknowledged they had never read it, but who could be against a bill so named without becoming labeled as unpatriotic. Many of the provisions in the bill were necessary in order to deal with this new threat of terrorism; however it turned out to be rife with other provisions that trampled on our traditional guarantees of freedom. It allowed for indefinite detention (a much more benign word than permanent imprisonment). It legalized listening in on our phone conversations and intercepting our email messages. It gave our government the right to secretly search our homes, offices or places of worship. That thing about going to a judge and presenting a rational reason to do that stuff was time consuming. Besides, we shouldn’t need to give those towel head jihadists any rights so who needs a warrant to root them out.
Guantanamo Bay was soon populated as people from all over were gathered up if suspected of engaging in or supporting terrorist activities. It soon became apparent that many of these “detentions” were unwarranted; although it is true that many were bad guys. Meanwhile, a few thousand miles away some families were desperately looking for their husbands, sons, and fathers who had suddenly disappeared. Well, that was sad, but it was a matter of national security. The “detainees” were labeled as “enemy combatants” rather than prisoners of war with the rationale that as such they were not subject to the rules regarding the treatment of prisoners as prescribed in the Geneva Convention of which we were signatories. With the realization that we were under attack by a group of Muslim fanatics, gathering intelligence from those thought to be terrorists became important. Our CIA had the solution, which they called “enhanced interrogation” techniques which seemed similar to what was described in the Geneva documents as torture. There were some questions raised as to the usefulness of this practice and some people even expressed some ethical concerns especially since the U S had been criticizing such behaviors by other countries for years. The CIA, always innovative, took a page from our corporations and began to outsource these interrogations to other countries who had a great deal of experience with this sort of thing and could enhance the questioning even more and they wouldn’t be forced to deal with a bunch of left wing softies. They called this process “rendition”, a term I found puzzling, but it sounded much better than exporting for torture.
The term, enemy combatant was never clearly defined, but most assumed it referred to foreign enemies. Subsequent events suggest that it may have become more inclusive for it would not be long until a whistle blower revealed the existence of a secret room in which a super computer was installed to monitor the calls of all U.S. citizens and others. There was some resistance to this program which was labeled “warrantless wiretapping” as the public finally thought this was going too far. Conversely, when our president proudly announced that he had ordered a successful execution of Anwar al- Awlaki who happened to be an American citizen there was an upswing in the polls for Mr. Obama., and only a few questioned the wisdom or legality of this act. There seems little doubt that this person was an enemy of the United States, and that he deserved to forfeit his life for all the deaths to which he had contributed.
The larger r question however should b e: Do we want to cede the power of life and death to our President? Should we no matter how dire the circumstances allow our president or anyone else to replace our judicial system, and deny anyone one of our most basic protections - the right of trial by jury? The answers should be obvious to any freedom loving citizen. I recall a time when exposure of the CIA’s plans to assassinate foreign leaders was met with scorn by our citizens, now we see it praised even when it involves a citizen of the United States. The bottom line for me is that I see nothing patriotic in the Patriot Act, and was discouraged to hear that it had recently been renewed with little fanfare or public outcry.
Little did I realize that the worse assault on our freedoms was yet to come. I had reassured myself that the patriot act would eventually be repealed, and that President Obama might yet be able to carry out his plan to try those Gitmo residents in civilian courts and close Gitmo as he had promised during his campaign, if only democrats could once again come to control congress. My hopes were dashed a few days ago when I read an article in The Nation by Alexander Cochburn titled: “The Man Who Shot Habeas Corpus”. The reasons why this subject was news to me were pointed out in the first paragraph as he explained that the National Defense Appropriations Act which contained this shocking bit of legislation had been signed into law on Friday of New Year’s weekend -- a time not likely to receive much journalistic attention. He continues with the following statement:
“…….this time snugly ensconced in the NDAA came ratification by legal statute of the exposure of U S citizens to arbitrary arrest without subsequent benefit of counsel and to possible torture and imprisonment. Goodbye Bye, Habeas Corpus.”
My sense of disappointment was complete as I read on and found that Senator Carl Levin, the kindly appearing democrat, who wore his spectacles on the tip of his nose a la Ben Franklin, was a cosponsor of this abomination. This law not only authorizes, but requires the military to arrest anyone suspected of supporting terrorists or “associated forces” (whatever that means). Note the word suspected. There needs to be no proof, and if such did exist it would be of no consequence since no hearings or sentencing would be required. It appears that one would simply be picked up and and jailed. The principle of Habeas Corpus literally translated means produce the body. In legal terms it means those charged with crimes to have a hearing in which probable cause exists to justify their incarceration. It stems from old English common law established by King James in 1679. One of the few criticisms historians have launched against Abraham Lincoln was his suspension of Habeas corpus during the civil war. He defied the Supreme Court when they declared his acts unconstitutional. But our government of the people, by the people and for the people has decided this Habeas Corpus thing is making it too difficult to catch the bad guys. I guess it would be easier to just round up a bunch of people, lock them up and sort it out later if you ever got time to do it.
The other scary part about this thing is the fact that the military (Army, Navy and Marines) are given the power to arrest citizens and to bypass the judicial system. This appears to be in direct conflict with the federal Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 which makes it a crime to use the military as a domestic police force, except in certain extreme emergencies. This makes a lot of sense to me. I don’t believe I would be comfortable to see armed soldiers policing our streets as is routine in many totalitarian nations. Can you say: military junta?
One might ask a very logical question as to how President Obama, who taught constitutional law, could bring himself to sign such a bill into law. As a matter of fact, he had initially threatened to veto it, but changed his mind after it was modified to give him the power to countermand detentions when he saw fit. This did not make sense to me as he is the commander in chief and I would think he would have already had that power. Curiously he also added a signing statement in the manner of George Bush in which he expressed reservations about the wisdom of this bill and promised that he would never use these powers against American citizens. In that case one wonders why he signed the damn thing. The signing statement does not have the force of law, and the law will be in force unless repealed long after he is gone. Was he being pressured somehow, did he just wimp out as some have accused him of doing with other issues or did his veto pen run out of ink? The paradox of this whole situation is that we are being told we must give up liberty in order to save it. The question is will there be any left to save.
If this all sounds paranoid, I guess it is, but just remember that just because you are paranoid doesn’t necessarily mean they are not out to get you. When I read George Orwell’s book many years ago, I thought it was far out, but now we see technologies developing that are more than capable of carrying out the outrageous scenarios he described in his book of science fiction. This will require a degree of vigilance never required to safeguard our freedoms. The thing that worries me even more, than the incidents I have described is the lack of apparent concern about what has happened to us since 911. There has been hardly a whimper about the passage of NDAA from our media whom we trust to keep our politicians honest, but then they don’t do much reporting on anything these days unless it doesn’t require them to leave their offices. If it is true that the “only thing that allows tyranny to triumph is for good men to do nothing”, we are in some danger for I see little evidence that much is being done. I know we still have good men and I hope they will do something.
I do plan to send this epistle via email, so if someone is out there monitoring this, please understand that I am a law abiding patriotic citizen, have nothing to do with any subversive or jihadist organizations, and Iam also a weak-kneed coward who would tell you anything you wanted to hear with even the threat of enhanced interrogation. So please don’t send me to the gulag.
